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Red Jasmine has a decade of serving up delicious Thai cuisine.
John Park
Along Pollard Street in downtown Vinton, a block from the new shining glass and orange public library, a small brick restaurant sits quiet and unassuming, nestled among other brick buildings of similar size and stature. The restaurant is named after a petite but abundant and powerfully fragrant flower with tropical Asian roots. Its owner—not surprisingly—is a woman much like her restaurant: small and unassuming until you spend time in her presence, eating the foods of her homeland.
Phasook “Noot” Lenoel grew up in Southeast Thailand about an hour and a half from Bangkok. When she was 26 and newly married, she immigrated to America—to Boston—for her husband’s (a Frenchman) work. Lenoel found a job at a local Thai restaurant, working the front of the house. After years as an employee and finding herself single again, Lenoel decided to open her own restaurant. She worked closely with her sister and brother-in-law—long-time Thai restaurant owners in Northampton, Massachusetts—on a location in Baltimore, Maryland. Lenoel even moved to Baltimore for a time. But red tape and legal negotiations dragged on. Eventually, Lenoel gave up the venture and moved back to Boston.
But the threesome didn’t give up. They kept scouring real estate across the country and happened upon an ad for a restaurant for sale in Roanoke. Lenoel’s siblings flew to Roanoke with only one requirement from Lenoel.
“Does it have a dishwasher?” she asked her brother-in-law. “If it does, I will take it.”
Besides the dishwasher, Lenoel found the restaurant charming with its long, curving brick bar and soda-shop stools. But the building seemed cursed. It had a string of owners—none lasting more than a year. She puts her head in her hands and laughs. “It made me nervous to think what might be wrong with this place!”
Opening Red Jasmine became a family affair. Lenoel’s mother came for six months, sitting in the corner, waving happily to customers when they’d walk in. Her sister and brother-in-law stayed eight years. Lenoel says she relied heavily on their decades of restaurant experience, especially when it came to the menu and ingredient sources. For cooking style, Lenoel hearkened back to the influences of her Chinese father and traditional Thai cooking.
“I grew up with good food. My father was very particular about eating good food—fresh food,” Lenoel says when describing her philosophy on using the best ingredients and fresh cooking for her restaurant.
Besides her ingredients and particular cooking style, Lenoel believes it is her secret sauces (especially her pad thai sauce) that sets her restaurant apart from other local Asian restaurants.
“Thai cooking is very complicated,” explains Lenoel. “Especially curry. There are different kinds of curry; each type takes different spices in different amounts to make it taste right.” Again, Lenoel attributes her traditional Thai upbringing for helping her understand the nuanced flavors of Thai curry.
But let’s face it. For most Americans, it’s all about the pad thai. “If you want to know how good a [Thai] restaurant is, first try their pad thai,” says Lenoel, describing the difficult process of creating yummy pad thai. “The sauce is delicate. It needs to be a little bit sweet, a little bit sour, a little bit salty, to come out just right.” The time frame for cooking pad thai is also critical, says Lenoel, fractions of a minute can ruin its flavor.
Ironically, pad thai isn’t considered food in Thailand.
“Wait a minute,” I say to Lenoel, confused. “What do you mean, pad thai isn’t food?”
“No. Not food,” she laughs at my dumbstruck expression. “It’s street food. It’s more like a snack. We get pad thai from street vendors and it’s only like three bites! But here, pad thai is famous. American people love it. I don’t understand why!” She laughs again, shaking her head.
Food or no food, Red Jasmine’s pad thai is famous in the valley, winning platinum for Best Pad Thai in last year’s Roanoker Magazine Dining Awards. My husband, a self-proclaimed pad thai connoisseur, proclaims Red Jasmine’s pad thai some of the best he’s eaten since his days as a medical student living in St. Louis, where we dined weekly at The King and I, an epic Thai restaurant on Grand Street.
While Lenoel is proud of her pad thai, she loves when customers branch out and experience the breadth of her homeland’s offerings. I personally enjoy the creamy, tropics-inspired Masaman Curry with chicken—one of Red Jasmine’s mild curry options, and Excited Chicken—a bounty of fresh vegetables (grown and given by local customers when in season) with tender chicken in a well-balanced, mildly-spiced sauce.
One of my spice-loving foodie friends says his favorites include Chicken Satay, Amazing Duck, Green Curry and Thai Silk noodles. He cites with each dish similar sentiments to mine about Red Jasmine’s dishes: food cooked to perfection, sauces that delight, with ingredients chosen and prepared perfectly for soaking up flavors. He calls it “Thai comfort food.” I agree.
Red Jasmine celebrated its 10-year anniversary this spring. Lenoel says she’s feeling established, citing her loyal customers who have made Red Jasmine the success it is.
“I think I broke the curse,” she says and smiles.
Sun - Thur: Lunch 11:30 - 4pm; Dinner 4 - 9pm
Fri - Sat: Lunch 11:30 - 4pm; Dinner 4 - 10pm
210 S. Pollard Street, Vinton, VA 24179
540-345-1165; redjasmine.net
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