The Shangri-La Hotel's traditional Thai restaurant Salathip has invited a guest chef into its kitchen this month, and she's an expert on royal Thai cuisine. ML Kwantip Devakula has designed a special menu featuring Thai specialities, some of which are very rare.

For an appetiser, Kwantip has created mieng kana - savoury fillings wrapped in Chinese kale served with moo krob (crispy pork with chilli paste dip). Beginning the feast with the pork and the dip's mix of roasted chilli paste, palm sugar and lemon juice, leaves our palates singing.

Then comes a highlight of the night - the traditional Thai dish yam tawai, or shredded chicken and vegetables in a red curry-like sauce.

"Yam tawai is a rare dish. Although it's not too difficult, it takes time and care to prepare it," the guest chef explains. "I hardly see restaurants selling it nowadays."

The dish features bamboo shoots, aubergines, green beans, banana flowers, morning glory and cabbage, all shredded into thin and long pieces. The vegetables are boiled in coconut milk, before adding chicken or pork.

The sauce is close in flavour to red curry, but it's given a unique twist by smoked fish, dried shrimp, roasted sesame seeds and deep-fried chopped shallots.

"I know very few people who would recognise the dish. But if you try it, you'll find it familiar because it has very traditional Thai flavours," says Kwantip.

And he's right - though I'd never heard of the dish before, I loved it from the first bite. The different textures and flavours of each vegetable are drawn out by the mild curry.

Kwantip acquired her culinary talents at a young age.

"Cooking is my passion," she says, "I've never attended a cookery class, but I spent my days as a youngster in the kitchen with my grandmother who loved cooking - she regularly cooked for my grandfather in Devaves Palace. Over time I absorbed the flavour and recipes of royal cuisine.

"It was boring at first. I wanted to go play with my friends instead of sitting in the kitchen and the shaping small balls of kapi for khao chae.

"But as I got older, I realised that all the cooking skills I had came from the old days."

The fruit of Kwantip's unique upbringing was evident in the feast of authentic Thai cuisine that we tucked in to. We had tom som pla krabok (mullet fish in ginger and tamarind soup), gung tord kra tiem prik (stir-fried river prawns with garlic and pepper sauce), pra ram long song (boiled Chinese water spinach and beef with peanut sauce) and gaeng nua prik keenu (beef in fresh chilli pepper curry). It all goes down well with steamed jasmine rice.

None of the dishes disappointed, but it was the stir-fried river prawns that had our taste buds doing cartwheels.

"I slowly stir-fry coriander root, garlic and pepper, then pound them 'til they become a fragrant mild sauce," she explains. "Then I fry the prawns and add them to the sauce."

The meal is wrapped up with bua loy (sticky rice flour dumplings in coconut milk).

Kwantip's royal Thai cuisine is available nightly until December 30 at the Shangri-La Hotel's Salathip restaurant.

A set dinner costs Bt1,300 per person (Bt1,800 with Monsoon Valley 2005 Malaga Blanc and 2004 Shiraz). Call (02) 236 9952, (02) 236 7777.

Juthamas Cholthavornpong

The Nation