Treats with a Teochew flavour

THERE MAY BE nothing more delicious than mum’s home cooking but with Mother’s Day coming up tomorrow, it’s time to give the lady of the house a break and treat her to a meal prepared in someone else’s kitchen.

Ping’s Group of Restaurants recently introduced two new outlets under the Pathumwan Princess Hote’s roof and both are ideal spots to enjoy a family gathering. 

At Ping’s Hotpot, you savour and share sliced meats and vegetables cooked in a simmering pot while Ping’s Thai Teochew Seafood restaurant offers the chance to relax in a fine-dining ambience. Even better, the menus of the two restaurants are interchangeble so you can choose a table in the space you prefer and order from the other.

Occupying a generous 900 square metres, Ping’s Hotpot can accommodate 97 and also features four private rooms while Thai Teochew holds about 115 diners and boasts five private rooms. Each room takes its name from a flower that has a good meaning in Chinese and is decorated with a painting of that flower by a Chinese painter. Choose between the jasmine room (love and modesty), lotus (wisdom and strength), lily (devotion and friendship) and peony (beauty and honour) depending on which you think best matches mum’s character.

Owned by Singaporean Jacqueline Sim, the restaurant takes its name from chef Saetia Hung Ping, who spent more than half a century exploring the perfect combination of tastes and aroma before opening Ping’s Shark Fin on Soi Asoke 15 years ago. 

“We have a special broth with chicken stock that we use for the shark fin soup served at our first outlet. It has natural taste and is clear, mild and free of monosodium glutamate, making it perfect for the hot pot’s broth. We offer Hong Kong and Taiwan-styles of hot pot with different broths and dipping sauces. We don’t serve an all-you-can-eat option because we know from experience that the hot pot set is filling by itself,” says Sim.

Diners have the choice between original clear soup, Teochew herbal, Mongolian and spicy tom yum. The herbal soup comes with pleasant aroma and contains such health-giving ingredients as goji berry, ginseng, Chinese jujube, peppercorn, taung siem, pukkee and huay sua. The Mongolian broth is oily and tastes strongly of such herbs and spices as Sichuan pepper, camphor seed, cinnamon, liquorice, dried ginger, nutmeg and star anise. It’s best enjoyed with lamb. The tom yum soup is a bit sour and not too spicy but of the four, I preferred the mild and naturally sweet original broth, which also pairs perfectly with any dipping sauce.

There are also four choices of dipping sauces. The XO sauce is made of dried scallop, anchovy and dried shrimp and mixed Chinese herbs while the Taiwan-style shacha sauce combines peanut, dried fish and shrimp, garlic and shrimp paste. Both taste better with the addition of soy sauce and rice vinegar. The other two sauces – suki and seafood – are slightly spicy. As condiments, the restaurant offers chopped garlic, green onion, coriander, and dried chilli.

“The XO sauce is great with chicken or pork and the spicy seafood sauce, as you’d expect, is designed to pair with seafood. The shacha is recommended for orders of beef and lamb,” Sim says.

As in any hot pot eatery, tables come equipped with a cast-iron pan on an electric stove. A variety of sets are an offer, among them the premium emperor set for Bt4,000, which comprises a platter of abalone, scallop, fish maw, prawn and sea cucumber with a vegetable bucket. The mixed seafood set for Bt990 has cuttlefish, dolly fish, snow fish, Alaskan scallop, salmon, jellyfish and an assortment of vegetables. Carnivores can opt for Australian special rib eye with vegetables for Bt400 or Australian lamb also with vegetables for Bt420. 

You can also order a la carte from a menu that includes baby abalone (Bt1,500), jumbo crab (Bt180-Bt240 per 100 gram), black grouper (Bt900 per kilogram) and river prawn (Bt240 per 100 gram). The fish, pork and shrimp balls, priced at between Bt80 and Bt120, are also delectable. The large assorted vegetable set is Bt250 while the small size goes for Bt150. Green pea sprouts, Chinese spinach, wakame seaweed and shitake, shimeji, enoki and black fungi mushrooms also feature on the menu.

Diners opting for Thai-Teochew delicacies should order the stir-fried fish maw with tiger prawn (Bt1,000 for large size and Bt500 for small). The braised goose leg and egg noodle in clay pot (Bt600 for large and Bt400 for small) is also well cooked. Other pleasing dishes are braised abalone and crabmeat with rice (Bt400-Bt600) and fried Thai curry crab (Bt180-Bt240 per 100 gram).

I am not a dessert lover but I did enjoy the Orh Nee (yam paste with gingko) so much that I asked for more. Taro, red bean and Chinese jujube are mashed together in a soft paste that is more savoury than sweet and topped with pumpkin sauce, mashed pumpkin and gingko. 

 

 

SPECIAL TREAT FOR MUM!

>>To celebrate the Mother’s Day, a 20-per-cent discount on food is offered until tomorrow.

>>Ping’s Hotpot and Ping’s Thai Teochew Seafood restaurants are on the second floor of Pathumwan Princess Hotel, adjacent to MBK Centre on Phya Thai Road. 

>>Both are open daily from 11am to 11pm. Call (02) 611 4744 or Facebook/pingsrestaurant.