Chef Prajuab Shoosridam at Thai Pavilion has planned a surprise for his guests to offer them a different experience on each visit. Whatever one orders will be recreated as per his liking and mood on a particular day. By Divya Kaushik
There was nothing really to guess about what will be served to us after we had chosen our dishes from the list of selected Thai delicacies. But our host at Private Dining Room, Thai Pavilion, Vivanta By Taj, chef Prajuab Shoosridam, had promised that we were in for a unique experience. So the hope was lingering. “We try to serve you the best as per you taste, liking and mood. Often when you walk into a restaurant you just have an option to select dishes from the menu. Here, in case you are up for trying something different other than what is listed in the menu, you can tell the chef about your preferences and the chef will come up with something just as per your liking. Also you can choose something from the existing menu and the dish can be customised if in case you want to try that as more spicy or with some additions. The idea is to offer our guests a different experience on each visit. A person may choose his old favourites but we are also giving him an option where the same favourite can be recreated, after knowing his choice,” the chef told us and informed that this feature now will be a part of Private Dining Room, Thai Pavilion. So the surprise was that whatever we would order, the chef would recreate that after knowing our liking and food preferences.
The chef created a special menu to take us through his idea. The menu was well crafted with a list of starters, salads, soups, main course and desserts. We could choose any two starters among chicken mee grob, fish cakes, pan grilled prawns, yellow tofu betel leaf, vegetarian mee grob and corn cakes. There was raw mango and water chestnut salad, raw papaya salad, spicy seafood salad and lab kai salad. The soup section listed tom kha, tom yum and gaeng jeud. The main course has popular Thai delicacies like prawn pepper garlic sauce, steamed John dory lemon garlic, chicken with chilli and cashew nuts and red, yellow and green curry. Also there was jackfruit and water chestnut with ginger, garlic light soya, fresh greens tossed with chillies and basil, stir fried vegetables, silky bean curd glazed with celery and herb sauce. One could either go for a steamed jasmine rice cake or pad Thai noodles, rice vermicelli noodles or handmade noodles with vegetables with curries.
The attendants taking the order were well trained to make sure that they ask the guests about their liking, if they would want their dish extra spicy or with some additions, as the dish would be prepared accordingly. “What you choose and the remarks you make while placing your order will give an idea to the chef about your liking, so it will be ensured that what you will be served on the table is just like you want it,” the chef told us, who through his years of experience knows well that the kind of food that we want to have is directly proportional to our mood. “For example, one may be a hard core non-vegetarian but there can be days when he would want to try some vegetarian dish, but prepared in a certain way. Also today the guests are well read and travelled. They understand food better now, courtesy the education through many culinary shows and online food channels, so they have a fair idea about preparation style of dishes. We get a lot of people who want to try a certain dish only because they had it while they were travelling or they got to know about it through someone. Sometimes they can just describe the dish without telling us its name, so we are here to cater to anything that they want,” ended the chef.