Rimtang

Rimtang at 1039 33rd Street NW is a Southeast Asian restaurant on the 33rd Street residential block in Georgetown, in the section of the neighborhood between the M Street commercial corridor and the Georgetown University campus. The 33rd Street address has a quieter character than the main commercial avenues, which makes the restaurant at this address a neighborhood dining destination rather than a tourist-facing commercial establishment.

Southeast Asian cuisine, which encompasses the culinary traditions of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the other countries of the peninsula and archipelago, is among the most varied and flavorful in the world. The herb-forward cooking of Vietnam, which uses the fresh herbs, the fish sauce, and the lime that define the Vietnamese flavor system; the aromatic curry culture of Thailand, with the fresh curry paste and the coconut milk that produce the green, red, and yellow curries; and the shared grilling and noodle traditions that the region’s food cultures developed in parallel are all represented within the Southeast Asian culinary category.

The Thai preparations that a Southeast Asian restaurant in the American market typically includes cover the most recognized dishes from the Thai canon: the pad thai, the green and red curries, the tom yum soup, and the larb salad. The Vietnamese preparations add the pho, the banh mi, and the fresh roll preparations that Vietnamese cooking has made internationally familiar. Together, the two national cuisines provide the range that a Southeast Asian restaurant can serve with a single kitchen that understands the shared techniques.

The 33rd Street Georgetown address is accessible from the M Street end and from the Georgetown University campus direction. Hours run Tuesday through Sunday with weekend lunch service. The 33rd Street residential block that Rimtang occupies is one of the quieter dining addresses in Georgetown, removed from the tourist-facing commercial strips and serving primarily the Georgetown residential community and the Georgetown University student population who live in the off-campus houses and apartments of the surrounding blocks. Southeast Asian cooking’s skill with vegetable preparations is among the qualities that have made the cuisine attractive to the American vegetarian and vegan dining market. The tofu preparations in Thai cooking, the vegetarian spring roll and rice paper roll tradition in Vietnamese cooking, and the vegetable-forward stir-fries that the Southeast Asian kitchen has always produced alongside the meat and seafood preparations provide a vegetarian-friendly menu that does not require compromise on flavor. The fresh herb component of Southeast Asian cooking is the element that the American equivalent has most difficulty replicating: the fresh Thai basil, the Vietnamese coriander, the rau ram, and the saw-tooth herb that the Southeast Asian kitchen uses in quantity are not widely available in the American grocery market and are most reliably found in the Southeast Asian restaurant that sources them specifically. Rimtang’s access to the fresh herb supply that the Washington area’s Southeast Asian grocery market provides is essential to the quality of the food. Hours run Tuesday through Sunday with weekend lunch service.