News · · By The WTF Editors
Arlington's most anticipated Lao snack window opens at Khao Nom
Chef Seng Luangrath, who runs several Lao restaurants in D.C., has opened a takeout-focused snack window called Khao Nom at the Arlington Ridge location of Padaek. The concept serves affordable small bites, rice bowls, sandwiches and milk tea on Saturdays and Sundays.
Chef Seng Luangrath has turned the takeout window at Padaek, her Southeast Asian restaurant in Arlington Ridge, into Khao Nom, a Lao phrase meaning sweets and snacks. After a soft opening in September, the pop-up planned its grand opening for the first weekend of October 2026.
Luangrath, who also runs the Lao restaurants Thip Khao and Baan Mae in D.C., says rising food prices pushed her to create an affordable place to grab a snack. Prices run from $5.99 for snacks to $12.99 for sandwiches and rice or noodle bowls.
The best first order is the chef's own favorite, a breakfast sandwich of eggs, Swiss cheese, Lao chicken sausage and fish-sauce maple syrup between two patongos, the Lao fried dough adapted from Chinese youtiao. She says the patongo recipe took her decades to get right. Other snacks include pork jerky strips, Thai chive cakes with soy-garlic sauce and house-cut fries with tamarind salt. Rice bowls, including grilled pork with spicy oyster sauce, have been early sellers, and the Fi'Lao O'Fish stacks fried cod with a sauce of jeow bong (Lao chili paste) and mayonnaise.
There are seven sweet milk teas, each with optional boba. Luangrath's pick is the Strawberry Shortcake, made with strawberry milk tea, strawberry jam and a syrup from the Thai milk drink nom yen; the plant-based Mango Sticky Rice is the other most popular drink.
Khao Nom is open Saturdays and Sundays at lunchtime for takeout and patio seating at Padaek, 2931 S. Glebe Road. A burger and a Lao take on banh mi with pâté, jeow bong and Thai sriracha may join the menu.
First reported by Arlington Magazine.