Feast to your heart's content

The famous Thai chef and founder of the Blue Elephant Bangkok restaurant is using Thai and foreign ingredients to create a special one-off menu called “Spice up Your Love” to celebrate the month of love. She’s keen on tapping the aphrodisiac properties of black ginger, garlic, dills, basil and mimosa leaves and ginseng from the Royal Project to create this extraordinary menu.

The aphrodisiac powers of these herbs and spices, Nooror believes, can make love everlasting, as evident in the inspiration behind the menu, the classic Thai love story “Phlae Kao”, which tells of the eternal love between Khwan and Riam, a Thai-style Romeo and Juliet. 

The menu features very spicy dishes that will please Thais, but foreigners are also encouraged to try because they will discover authentic Thai flavours. 

At a recent demonstration of the new menu, Chef Nooror gave a twist to hor mok, or steamed spicy fishcake, by preparing it Northeastern style – just add a greater amount of black ginger (for its aphrodisiac powers) to the red chilli paste. She used mussels, not fish. The whirling aroma had everyone’s mouth watering. This is one of the energising starters.

 “My hor mok is spicier than usual and thus more aromatic. Black ginger is known for its aphrodisiac properties. Your love gets a boost with this starter,” she explained while loading freshly prepared hor mok into the steamer.

The six-course menu draws on the abundance of fresh Thai ingredients to create rare dishes. We were served a plate of three different starters: mussels with wild black ginger (“My Heart Is Yours”), roast chilli mousse with tom yum prawn jelly (“Fulfill My Love”), and grilled chicken & humming bird flower salad (“Exotic Love”). 

The first two were quite spicy. The mussels were flavoured with chillies, garlic, wild black ginger, dill and lime basil leaves. Meanwhile the roast chilli mousse had the intense flavours of tom yum koong. Roast garlic, chilli and shallot paste seasoned the grilled chicken. 

More starters were still to come. “Red Romance” or steamed egg custard with foie gras arrived alongside steamed flower-shaped pink dumplings stuffed with minced black chicken and aromatic herbs, which looked too beautiful to eat.

Next came the zakouski, which is a trio of dong quai & black chicken consomme; “ma jai dam” Thai spirit (made from coconut flower) accompanied with Thai preserved fruits); and oyster salad flavoured with lime, chilli, garlic and mimosa leaves and wrapped in iceberg lettuce. The spirit went well with the sourness of the preserved fruit and oyster. Suddenly my palate was “turned on”.

The next course was “Torn between Two Lovers”, which consisted of bird nest & ginkgo soup, with crab meat and tiny taro, and a refreshing herbal soup from beef and sweet potatoes flavoured with bird’s eye chillies, shallots and Thai basil leaves.

For me this was truly an elixir of life, thanks to a lot of healthy ingredients from Thailand’s good earth. 

The main course isn’t complete without rice. Here you’re served baked soft jasmine rice with celery and lingshi mushrooms, one of the best rice dishes I’d ever tasted. But the rice functions as a good accompaniment to the curries still to come.

You’ll like “Energising Love”, or mutton curry with herbs, which is rich and spicy. Then, more rice is needed to go with grilled snowfish marinated with ginseng wrapped with ginger leaves accompanied with tamarind sauce. The dish kept my mouth constantly watering.

“Love Drunken Prawn”, the spiciest on the menu, is stir-fried giant prawn with homemade paste from bird’s eye chillies, shrimp paste, black wild ginger, seasoned with kaffir lime, sweet basil leaves and a hint of rice whisky. The prawn felts heavy, but you’ll like the aromas of Thai herbs. For a lighter touch, there’s sauteed spinach in oyster sauce and light soya sauce flavoured with garlic and chillies.

There are four kinds of dessert: chocolate mousse & royal jelly; steamed sticky rice with caramelised pandanus custard sauce; rose petal & young coconut jelly; and black sesame dumplings and fresh coconut milk with quail eggs served in young coconut shell.

To go native, you have to finish it all on your own. And I emptied the bowls very quickly and cleansed the palate with a warm cup of tea. Bliss. 

 

LOVE IT UP

<< The “Spice up Your Love” menu costing Bt4,400-plus per couple is available Wednesday to Friday amid the romantic decor at the Blue Elephant restaurants in Bangkok and Phuket. 

<< Couples who visit the Bangkok branch on Thursday – Valentine’s Day itself – will get a chance to win prizes including a romantic getaway to the Tongsai Bay on Koh Samui. 

<< Find out more at |(02) 673 9353-8 or [email protected].