While Thai food is one of the most popular cuisines in Bangladesh, most of us are still unfamiliar with the spicier (can you believe it?) dishes from northern Thailand.
Laughing Buddha serves your traditional Thai fare along with lesser known but equally delicious northern Thai food. Having opened with a Thai chef, the restaurant bore the brunt of the pandemic lockdowns since it opened early 2020.
But they survived, because you can throw a good marketing blitz online but if the food is not good, people will not come back. Their food is that good, that people ordered in, and the restaurant took advantage of the empty streets of Dhaka during the lockdown to deliver all over the city and built their reputation. Three years on, the quality still holds up.
Food
No Thai food experience is complete without a Tom Yum soup. The incredibly flavorful soup, chock full of fillings from succulent prawns to chicken at Laughing Buddha will keep you coming back for more. The soup is perfectly balanced with lemongrass, chilli peppers, and kaffir lime leaves.
The stock's subtle mastery of consistently between thickness and thinness, with each element contributing its own zest and tang on the tongue, is remarkable.
However, a spicy kick from tom yum would have been the icing on the cake of a near-perfect soup.
An unconventional spin, the Larb Gai comes with minced chicken and chicken balls. There is however the conventional mix of mint, basil, red onions, and ground red chillies.
The larb was appealing and the flavour was authentic. The chicken balls are unique and add some meaty heft to the salad. This is a fantastic alternative to just a green salad.
Their Namtok, a spicy beef salad, here done with sliced premium sirloin steak is delectable, and you can tell they used high-quality beef cuts by how nicely the steak kept its rendered juices.
The slightly nuanced sweetness of the meat is evident, and the outcome is a dish that lets the meat shine.
The morning glory that was deep-fried and served with a house-special sauce is what really won us over.
While the original dish is traditionally prepared with water spinach, and seasoned with garlic, red chillies, and oyster sauce, the deep-fried version adds a new dimension to the plate as it crackles when you munch on it.
For an appetizer that's as pleasing to the eyes as it is to the taste buds, try their stir fry seafood young coconut, which has squid, chicken, and prawn cooked in coconut base. The best part about this dish is that you can taste each seafood in its purest form. The coconut flavour does not overwhelm the palate.
The chicken and prawn pad Thai is another of their successful Thai homages. A sweet, sour, and salty sauce is gradually blended with the dry rice noodles. Close your eyes and imagine you're in Thailand while you consume this dish, which comes with crushed peanuts, red pepper, and a squeeze of lime.
We really like their Thai-style ultimate ribs, which were coated in a sweet-spicy sauce that tingled our tongues in the right way. The sauce is made with apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, and brown sugar, and the resulting glaze on the ribs is stunning.
A meal at Laughing Buddha costs between Tk1,500 and Tk2,200 per person, which is a bit pricey but worth it for a special occasion.
Ambience
The golden round "laughing Buddha" door handles stand out against the cerulean blue doors as you enter the premises.
The space feels calm with jewel-toned furniture and large windows looking over the street. The few artworks that adorn the otherwise black walls are a welcome addition.
Challenges
Opened in 2020, 19 days before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, the restaurant had a flood of guests with a positive response until it was suddenly confronted with covid lockdowns.
The first 19 days were completely booked. People were arriving on a daily basis, but the largest hurdle we faced came right after that," said managing partner Farazi Ghani.
For that reason, this family-style restaurant's delivery option did not elicit the same enthusiasm during the pandemic.
He added saying Laughing Buddha is a high-end restaurant that requires dine-in to survive.
The restaurant is now located in Gulshan, but the rise in rent did not make problems any easier and resulted in the restaurant's relocation from Banani, which also resulted in the restaurant being rebuilt.
"We salvaged whatever we could and rebuilt everything else from scratch," said managing partner Nayeemun Navi Azad.
Despite financial difficulties during the pandemic, the restaurant kept its employees while paying full compensation, allowing it to keep a dedicated workforce that has remained the same since its inception.
"We retained 100% of our workforce, paid full salaries, and they quarantined the restaurant at the time," Azad continued.
When asked about the steep pricing, they said, they continue to incur substantial costs due to inflation, and they have yet to raise pricing.
“We also understand that the prices have to be viable for the customers,” concluded Ghani.
Verdict
You must visit Laughing Buddha for their delicious ribs and Pad Thai, and you will return for more.
Furthermore, the ambience is excellent and something I have yet to discover anywhere else. It genuinely provides a sense of the restaurant being high-end and is sure to gratify every member of your family.