Restaurant Review: Mawn in South Philadelphia

It took me eight months to get a reservation at Mawn in Philadelphia, one of the toughest places to book in town. The chef, Phila Lorn, grew up in the South Philadelphia neighborhood unofficially known as Cambodia town. It hits all the notes. There’s a sour beat of tamarind coffee, fermented shrimp paste for funk, Thai bird chilies that don’t play. The strands of young papaya are squeezed and softened by hand until fluffy. The salad is best paired with saht koh — meat skewers, which here are juicy rib-eye. The galangal and the lemongrass make the meat almost confoundingly tender. There are nods to different corners of Philadelphia. A half-curry, half-Mexican mole is a shoutout to South Philly barbacoa, a quarter-mile down the street. A plate of soft-shell shrimp pays tribute to Zama, the Japanese restaurant on Rittenhouse Square where Mr. Lorn met his wife, Rachel, who runs the restaurant with him. Khao soi here is not like khao soi anywhere because Mr. Lorn has not actually eaten the Thai dish. His version is, perversely, one of the most vivid I’ve ever had. One of my favorite things to eat at Mawn was the funnel cake. Carnival-style squiggles of batter dropped and swirled in hot oil in a wok. Mr. Lorn gives it a gloss of salty, sweet miso caramel. In the larger dishes, some nuance is lost. A mountain of fried rice, golden with crab fat butter and studded with bay scallops, shrimp, lump crab and trout roe that glitters like the counter at Tiffany’s. I understand the mission, but at times I tasted only richness. You can read my full review on The New York Times.