Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa has turned the heat up a notch with their Northern Thai Food Promotions.
I thought I knew my way around some seriously excellent Thai cuisine from my many trips to the Kingdom.
I have had dinners in some predominately Thai local restaurants where the taste is not modified for tourists.
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Thai Buffet Dinner
I was pleasantly surprised when I was invited to dine at the resort featuring guest Chef Pratthung Taka and Chef Damrongsak Khammongkhon from Shangri-La Hotel, Chiang Mai, their specialties of northern-style food.
Thailand’s cuisine evolves every time it crosses a provincial border.
The north’s dishes are abounding with the people’s love for fresh veggies, all sorts of fried food, bitter or other dried spice flavors, and the lesser use of coconut milk.
I know that the chefs are tasked with showcasing dishes on three rotational menus, and rightly so.
There are so many beautiful dishes that they will be cooking.
Robust Tom Yam Goong
My top pick would be the rich and spicy Tom Yam Goong on the night of our food tasting.
I love Tom Yam Goong – made with the perfect balance of spiciness and sourness of fresh ingredients.
- fresh fragrant lemongrass
- coriander roots galangal
- tamarind
- red chilis
- full of juicy king prawns
Chef Pratthung Taka and Chef Damrongsak Khammongkhon work so well together.
Their movements in the kitchen were almost choreographed as each instinctively knew what to do next.
Fluid as in a dance.
This makes the best Penang Hokkien Mee soup pale in comparison. Seriously.
The Chefs gamely fried up some Phad Thai Goong, stir-fried noodles with tamarind sauce.
This is not at the top of my must-eat list, but I must confess I had two servings.
I kid you not.
Well, take in the images from appetizers, mains, and desserts.
Salads for a Thai Buffet Dinner
Thai salads, aka Kerabu, are fragrant morsels of crunchy raw vegetables and even fruit like unripened papaya.
Tossed in the zingiest dressing of fish sauce, palm sugar, fragrant limes, minced garlic pips, toasted crushed peanuts, and cilantro, with the heat of birds-eye chilis.
Exotic, sweet, and tangy, these summer salads are the perfect pick-me-up to awaken your taste buds with flavor and textures. They are fresh, crunchy, tasty, and deliciously sweet, sour, zingy, and tangy.
Thai salad is always a hit with a kick.
The ingredients are so simple that you may pass them and head for a more complicated dish.
A blogger colleague insisted that I tried his favorite delish dish, and he’s right, of course.
Yam Woonsen Gai Sab (spicy minced chicken salad) Don’t be fooled. The verdict is in the taste test.
To start your journey, something tart and sourish. Goong Takrai (poached prawn salad with lemongrass and shallots)
Chicken fried with bean curd and cashew nuts.
Everyone’s favorite, Tod Man Pla (Spicy Fried Fish Cakes)
If you’re a lover of basil leaves, this fragrant creamy chicken dish is made for you!
Chicken in Oyster sauce with bell peppers. Mind you, these may look like something you can whip up at home, but can you match the taste that is Chinese yet decidedly Thai.
Deep-fried prawn in Red Curry Sauce
The gravy is heart-warming, creamy, and spicy and goes so well with heaping mounds of warm, fragrant white rice.
I’ll be happy with this one dish and rice for lunch.
When my craving kicks in, I get a poor man’s version of this with an egg knocked in at a local café.
Deep-fried prawn in Red Curry Sauce.
Coyly Sweet Desserts at Thai Buffet Dinner
Thai desserts are exciting and are made in a coyly sweet manner and luxuriously rich and doused in coconut crème.
These make their appearance on a weekly rotation on the menu.
I had this bland-looking dessert: stewed tapioca topped with “gravy” of coconut crème. It was so good that I had to limit my intake to just two and move on to the dessert line.
I have a chocolate and sugar addiction, and my best friend, the chocolate mousse, was beckoning that night!
Please don’t talk to me about diet. It just means DARE-I-EAT-THAT!
And if you’re like me, you’ll want to check out the seafood on the buffet line, on top of the fantastic Northern Thai food promotion.
Beautifully carved flowers from watermelons!
Relish
Capers are lovely in salads. Unpalatably bitter when eaten raw, but once cured in a vinegar brine or even salt, these become intensely salty, sour, and herbal with a hint of medicinal taste.
Fish Fun Fact: These odd-looking little spheres are the flower buds of a prickly shrub that grows all over the Mediterranean.
When fried in hot oil, these buds open up like tiny flowers, releasing a beautiful aroma.
Well, if you’re like me, when the seafood is fresh, it’s hard to resist not packing in some shellfish with a squeeze of lemon and dipping in my all-time favorite: good old garlic mayo dip.
Green-lipped mussels
Prawns
Spanner Crabs with a fat white morsel of sweet flesh!
A handsome baked fish.
Where & When to Have a Thai Buffet Dinner
If you can’t get to these Thai specialties in George Town, head on down to the all-star buffet from June 1st until June 30th, 2016.
Treats are available every Sunday through Thursday from 6.30 pm to 10.30 pm.
Priced at RM173 net per adult and RM87 net per child, the buffet spread includes the free flow of the beautifully spiced thirst quencher, the lemongrass lemonade beverage.
Fun Fish Munny Savers: Diners pay only 60 percent of the standard buffet price under the “P60 Promotion,” which happens every Monday and Tuesday except on the eve of the public holidays and public holidays.
Review: A buffet dinner at the Spice Market is worth your money with the beautiful spread laid out.
Spice Market Cafe at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort and Spa – Penang
Beach Garden Wing, Lobby Level, Batu Feringgi, 11100 George Town, Penang
Call: +60 4-888 8888
Website: Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa
