Fruit Carving in Hua-Hin, Thailand
The Dusit Resort Hotel, Hua Hin, Thailand, teaches visitors and a restauranteur from Eindhoven in The Netherlands, how to carve fruit to enhance Thai food.
The Dusit Resort Hotel, Hua Hin, Thailand, holds free lessons in the art of fruit carving, and a restauranteur from The Netherlands was there to learn the skill.
Sutee Tripin and I sat together at the fruit carving class in the Dusit Resort Hotel, Hua Hin, Thailand. I’d met him on New Year’s Eve as he was questioning the house-carvers who had produced a magnificent display of fruit carved into flowers and plants, and today we were pupils at the Wednesday open-air class.
“I want to learn how to do this properly” he said, “so that I can go back to my restaurant, the Sala Thai in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and train my staff to do it“.
(The Dusit employs some of the most creative artists to carve the fruit - in fact they have an artist-in-residence who takes care of all artistic endeavours in the hotel).
I found the task rather daunting, unlike Sutee who managed to carve beautiful white roses from a chunky piece of turnip, crimson tipped rose buds from radishes, and green leaves from the skin of a water melon.
Despite 17 years in Holland and before that 4 years in Germany, Sutee returns to his native Thailand every year to recharge his batteries. “I want to have an authentic Thai ambiance in my restaurant”, he went on, “and to do that I must keep pace with things. That is why I come here to learn new recipes every year, to absorb the new style of cooking that is developing here, and to find new ways to ensure that Sala Thai is truly The Real Thing. I don’t “westernise” the recipes, but I do adapt them to western tastes. Definitely not fusion though. My customers all like authentic Thai food”.
An example he gave me was that whereas the Thais like to keep the heads on the fish when they serve them, in Europe they do not. More a matter of custom than taste.
His favourite dish at the moment is a combination of hot starters: deep fried shrimps in spicy chilli sauce,Thai spring rolls with his special filling of crabmeat, shrimps, bamboo shoots, glass noodles, carrots, and spring onions, served with sweet plum sauce. He would follow this with chicken cooked in pandanus leaf, or chicken satay with a good peanut sauce made from scratch. His new menu includes a sunny-side-up fried egg salad which he assures me is delicious.
This former graduate of social studies worked in the mainstream business world before finding his gift for cooking was taking him in other directions, i.e. into the restaurant trade. Trusting the customer to appreciate authentic tastes can work and returning to his roots every year makes sure that what he produces is truly Thai. The celebrity customers of Sala Thai (including many members of the PSV Eindhoven team) will vouch for that.
The décor must also be authentic. Sutee’s purchases from Bangkok include ceramics, silks, lamps and pictures, to back up the fruit carving which he will teach his staff on his return.
I wished him luck as I bit into the carrot I‘d tried to make look like a swan.
