Master Taste Session at MD Thai Cuisine

In the past decade, Thai food has become, like, part of Danish cuisine. If you live in Copenhagen, Thai food is easily available no matter your location. If you’ve grown tired with you local Thai restaurant, you can always try the one further down the street for a new experience. Finding a restaurant that suites your individual taste, whether that means spicier, sweeter or more sour, or Northern, Southern or something else, should be easy. Each restaurant tries hard to create its own signature dish in the hope that customers it will ultimately choose their restaurant over the competition.

We were pleased and honoured to have been invited by MD Thai Cuisine, previously known as MD Cafe & Restaurant, for a Master Taste Session. The session was conducted by renowned connoisseur, Chef Pipat Boonma, who has been brought in as executive head chef with the aim of upgrading the restaurant to a five-star level as well as creating more outstanding signature dishes for the restaurant.

Khun Dor, the restaurant’s owner, had informed us in advance that Chef Boonma was going to serve a set menu for us. Also, before to the session, Chef Boonma had shown us the recipes to scrutinize as a further testament to his level of professionalism.

Chef Boonma has worked for many years in many five-star Thai restaurants both at home and abroad, including Australia, Germany, Great Britain, South Africa and United Arab Emirates. He was born into a family that runs a famous restaurant in the province of Prachin Buri, two hours drive east of Bangkok. At the age of eleven, he was already helping his father and his uncle with various tasks in the kitchen, and he realised early on that to be a chef can indeed be an international career.

For others who would like to follow in his footsteps he suggests:

Accumulate a lot of experience by working at restaurants both in Thailand and abroad.
Be sincere and honest to everyone, including yourself.
Make sure to get no more than 4-5% complains from customers.
Educate yourself about hospitality, hygiene, HACCP, laws and regulations in the country you are working.
For those in Thailand, the Department of Skill Development has a number of training programmes that you should follow requirements you should fulfil in order to work abroad.

Chef Boonma believes that a key role for a chef working in a five-stars Thai restaurant abroad is to provide an authentic experience for their customers. The chef must have deep knowledge of basic Thai cooking techniques and always ask his customers how spicy they prefer the dish to be.

We spent an entire afternoon enjoying Chef Boonma’s signature dishes and talked about his work experience for the past forty years. One thing I personally noticed was that Chef Boonma paid incredible attention to every single detail and aspect of the dishes he served, treating us with warm and generous hospitality and making us feel very much at home.

Verdict

Set Menu For Master Taste 2 Persons

Appetizer

Spicy fried green Papaya salad

Soup

Spicy fried scallops with Mushroom soup

Main course

Baked Alaska Crab with Glass Noodles

Roasted Duck red curry

Stir-fried mixed vegetables with shrimps

Steamed Jasmine Rice

The Spicy Fried Green Papaya Salad is composed of harmoniously balanced sensations. Once you have tasted it, you will not forget it. Especially not the freshness and crispiness of the fried green papaya, which is at the heart of this dish and what makes it stand out from the crowd. We both agreed that this dish, in all its unique splendour, was the best we had all day. The Spicy Fried Scallops with Mushrooms Soup is quite similar to the famous Tom Yum soup. It is given a twist, though, of grilled herbs and spice, which intensifies the delicate aromas. This soup is guaranteed to awaken your taste buds and make you crave the delectable main course. The main course was served with steamed jasmine rice and three shared dishes: Roasted Duck in Red Curry, Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetables with Shrimps, and Baked Alaska Crab with Rice Noodles. The Roasted Duck in Red Curry is so very special because of the diversity of ingredients and exotic tastes. It truly has all the mellow and fragrant flavours of an authentic Thai curry dish. The Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetables with Shrimps sounds like a simple dish. It’s not. Uncharacteristically, there is no thick oyster sauce to create flavours. Instead, the tastes come from the freshness of mixed vegetables and fried garlic. The Baked Alaska Crab with Rice Noodles is a favourite of mine. The flavours of the herbs and the seasoning sauces are absorbed into the meat without dominating the taste and juiciness of the crab. If I wasn’t so well-mannered, I would have eaten it with my hands. In conclusion, we were very satisfied with all the dishes, the food styling and the service. With a minor improvement of dinnerware and interior design, I believe MD Thai Cuisine can easily achieve five-star status and attract both locals and tourists who love the taste of authentic Thai food.