The magnificence of the mango

If you’ve been feeling down and out because the mango season is at an end, fret no more. Khun Nai Amra on the seventh floor of Central World has the delicious fruit on tap all the year round and, better still, serves it raw and ripe accompanied by coconut milk sticky rice and spicy dips 

You won’t meet Khun Nai Amra at the shop though, as he or she doesn’t actually exist. Amra is a Sanskrit term that refers to mango while the Khun Nai reflects a skill that has been mastered.

Tanuphat Sunanta and his two friends opened their mango house late last year and are confident that their dips to go with the raw fruit are second to none and that their ripe mango is truly sweet.

“We offer four kinds of dips for raw mango. The highlight is an Isaan-style dip made from fermented small fish called jom simmered with palm sugar and hot chilli. The taste is a lighter version of the traditional pla ra or fermented fish dip and it’s best matched with the raw nam dok mai mango, which has a sour taste. Surprisingly, this dip is popular with customers from Hong Kong,” says Tanuphat.

Equally tempting is the secret recipe of sweet shrimp paste mixed with pounded shrimps and ground chilli giving a combination of hot and salty tastes. Two kinds of mangoes – kaew kamin and duen kaow, neither of which are too sour, pair well with the shrimp paste as does another dip that is a dried mixture of salt, hot chilli and dried shrimps. The familiar sweet dip using fish sauce, palm sugar and hot chilli is also available. Each dip sells for Bt50 a carton while a mango is priced at Bt40 (three mangoes are approximately one kilogram). 

To prepare its coconut milk sticky rice, the mango house uses the glutinous rice known as kiew ngu, which is long-grained, fragrant and holds its long shape even when cooked. It’s best enjoyed with the sweet ripe nam dok mai mango and is priced at Bt100 a set. Tanuphat guarantees that the ripe mangoes he sells are never damaged nor sport black marks on the flesh.

“Most of our customers are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The sweet sticky rice can be kept for three days in a refrigerator and customers who are buying should tell us when they expect to eat the ripe mango. We will be sure to select the right fruit,” he says.

Khun Nai Amra also offers a range of other mango creations, among them Mango Sticky Rice Sushi (Bt100), which features five bite-sized coconut milk sticky rice slabs smeared with coconut cream and topped with ripe mango, and the Amra Aloha (also Bt100), ripe mango and sticky rice with coconut ice cream.

Perfect for people on the go is the Amra Parfait (Bt100), a layered concoction of ripe mango and sweet sticky rice and coconut cream served in a glass. Other options are Mango Snow (Bt59), which has coconut ice cream on top of ripe mango and the soft and sweet Mango Pudding (Bt89).

Pack in the vitamins with a mango smoothie, each glass using a whole mango to make the taste more authentic. Yellow Paradise (Bt89) made from ripe mango nam dok mai is sweet and sensuous while Go Go Green (also Bt89) made from raw nam dok mai has a refreshing slightly sour kick.

   

 

>>FRUITY FLAVOURS

Khun Nai Amra on the seventh floor of Central World is open daily from 10 to 10. Call (089) 763 3339 or visit “khunnaiamra” at Facebook.