SF Eats: Lapisara
I was excited to eat at Lapisara, a new family-run Thai restaurant in San Francisco mostly because their Instagram photos looked so good 😂 It's always surprising the stories you learn once you get to a place and talk to the people that own it though! A little background: Lapisara's owners are 2 sisters and their long-time friends (like have known each other for 15-20 years kind of friends). Their family owns House of Thai, a restaurant down the street, and they wanted a brunch place for a while so Lapisara was born! Here we are with the owners and their mom:
Their super adorable elephant logo is 4 elephants walking in a line, and these elephants represent the 4 owners. The sisters' mom was also there and was so adorable—they called her their financial backer and the "elephant driver" 😂 They try to make everything from Lapisara from scratch if they can, and want to use as little canned or manufactured products possible. That's why everything tastes fresh and delicious!
Like I said, these guys were super sweet and really wanted us to try EVERYTHING 😵 so we ended up staying there for basically 2 meals! Their brunch/lunch menu has a lot of American dishes basically, and then the dinner is all Thai food. For the full meal in all its glory...keep scrolling!
Brunch
For brunch, we all started off with Thai ice teas, coffee, juices, and, in one case, a mint mojito (wild, I know). We picked out the Perfect Pancakes with bananas and blueberries added on, Steak & Eggs, Avocado Toast with poached egg added on, Pulled Pork Benedict, the Perfect Burger, and their Queen B Bacon.
They also ended up sending out an order of Chicken & Waffles because they said it was one of their more popular brunch items. Look how pretty it was:
We thought the order of pancakes was kind of small, but it was perfect for the amount of food that we got 😂 This would be a nice side dish to share with friends if you go, and it had a nice amount of blueberries running throughout each cake. You have to pay $2 extra for blueberries and another $2 for banana, and sadly the blueberries on this were a little sour but overall it was still tasty. I also really loved their version of candied bacon, the Queen B Bacon. The coating was syrupy and thick with honey, and sriracha salt was sprinkled on top so there was a nice kick to it!
I loved the avocado toast because it came on buttery brioche bread that had been lightly toasted. So good! Their Perfect Burger also came out on some kind of brioche bun and had some of my favorite toppings: mushrooms, caramelized onions, arugula, etc. Yum! Look how thick it was too:
The Pulled Pork Benedict was tasty too and tasted a little citrusy, making us wonder if there was any orange in the marinade for the pork. The eggs were perfectly cooked and still nice and runny even by the time we finished taking our photos of the food! I also liked that both the eggs benedict and the steak and eggs came with potatoes and peppers that were nicely seasoned. We forgot to ask for the steak to be cooked medium rare so it came out a little overdone, but they topped it with miso butter that really made it delicious!
Dinner
Alright, we were full AF after this enormous, delicious brunch, but we still had to try stuff from their Thai dinner menu 😂 Luckily for us, we didn't have to look through the menu again because they prepared everything while we were eating the brunch! Check out the beautiful spread we got from these kind folks:
The Lemongrass Chicken Wings were nice and crispy with a tasty caramelized sauce on top. They had good flavor, but I think the Lemongrass Wings at Yummy Yummy in the Sunset might still be my favorite! The tuna in the Tuna Tower was seriously fresh, and the combination with avocado and mango was so good that I wish I could get it again right now 😂 Seriously though, look at how beautiful it was with the edible flowers:
For entrees, the Lapisara team gave us salmon in banana leaf with pandan sticky rice, green curry with roti, and this AMAZING, giant pork knuckle. According to the chef (one of the 2 sisters), this pork knuckle takes a very, very long time to come together. It's marinated overnight before getting stewed and then fried twice in order to have that super crispy, crackling exterior. Their mom said that one pork knuckle was enough to feed 4 people, and I can believe it! It came with a cute little basket set containing lettuce, spicy sauce, and pickled veggies. You're supposed to make little lettuce wraps with the meat basically. You could go with my route and just go whole hog 😂 GET IT?!
Finally, DESSERT. We were seriously about to burst—like pant seams about to explode kind of burst 😂 But how can you end a meal without dessert? Like the other dishes, these sweet treats were beautifully presented, and they had JUST been added to the menu the day before we came. One was an ice cream (they said it came from Thailand but I'm not sure how this shipping works 😂), and you topped it with jackfruit, red bean, and some other things. Ta-da!
The mango sticky rice was so pretty and came with more pandan sticky rice and a sweet, salty coconut cream sauce. Overall, both were delicious but my heart forever belongs to mango sticky rice.
This is probably the longest post I've ever written in a SUPER long time, but the people at this restaurant deserve the love! I'd definitely go back for brunch and dinner, and, at some point, I want to check out their happy hour. If you want to support a family-run, local, small business, give Lapisara a shot!
