Baan Tawan: Authentic Thai Food (Finally, Jasmine Rice in Japan!)

I've found that it is difficult to find places that serve different kinds of rice than Japanese rice. I do like the stickiness and sweetness of short-grained rice, but sometimes I would like basmati with my Indian food, jasmine with my Chinese food, or arborio rice in my risotto.

I finally came across a Thai restaurant that does serve jasmine rice with their meals! Baan Tawan, located not far from Honjin Station, is quite a popular little restaurant with 5 or 6 tables and a few counter seats. The lunch menu consists of green curry, massaman curry, Thai fried chicken, tom yum noodle soup and dorias (baked rice dishes). They also have a plate lunch option where you choose 1 main and 2 sides (880 yen plus tax). All come with jasmine rice except for the noodle dish and the dorias (which use Japanese short-grained rice because they are more suited to this type of dish).

I ordered the plate lunch with green curry as the main. The nice thing is the curries can also be chosen as a side, so I chose massaman curry and a tsubasa (yellowtail) carpaccio. The carpaccio was on a list that changes daily. The green curry main had chicken red pepper, fried kabocha (Japanese squash), bamboo shoots and thai basil. It was mildly spicy and went REALLY well with the jasmine rice. Perhaps it's the combination with the curry but the vegetables were incredibly sweet. The massaman curry had a more peanut flavour with chicken, potato and carrot. I could taste the lemongrass, coconut milk and cardamon in it. The chicken wasn't as soft as that in the green curry, it was kind of a dry chicken breast. I found that the green curry was a bit saltier than the massaman, but wasn't overly done. The tsubasa carpaccio was topped with an Italian dressing flavour. The plate also comes with a salad of purple cabbage, regular cabbage, mizuna and a Japanese style sesame dressing.

Although a packed shop during lunch hours, I was still able to eat my lunch at a relaxing pace. There was American pop music playing in the background but it's not too noisy.

Area: about a 2-min. walk from exit 2 of Honjin Station (Higashiyama line), 本陣駅（東山線）
Restaurant: Baan Tawan バーンタワン
Website and Map: https://www.baantawan.info/shop-info-access
Hours: Lunch 11:30am-2pm (LO 1:30pm), Dinner 6-11pm (LO 10pm), closed Sundays