Some like it hot

It has often been said that the easiest way to enjoy one’s food without gaining weight or fretting over whether that last dollop of cream is just what we need to make us keel over into the grave is to eat the Asian way.

The increased appeal of Asian cuisine is due primarily to the fact that people today are more attuned to their bodies and, therefore, more health-conscious. They realize that contemporary diets of denatured and processed food can be harmful because of excessive amounts of fat and cholesterol and they feel a need to change their eating habits and look for healthier alternatives.

Asian food is lighter. Moreover, the herbs and spices commonly used have long been valued for their medicinal properties. Chili has been used as a remedy for colds, flu and other respiratory ailments. Recent scientific evidence shows that mung bean sprouts lower lipid and fat levels in the blood. But best of all, Asian cuisine in all its glorious variety, textures and flavors is truly delicious and can easily stand up to the best that Western tables have to offer.

If you cannot travel the region to sample excellent Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine in situ, don’t despair: The Peninsula Manila’s Spices restaurant is a good place for your tastebuds to discover Asia’s culinary treasures.

Your "tour guides" at Spices restaurant are Thai Specialty Chef Boonlert Boonchuay, 41, and Indian Specialty Chef, Bairagi Sahani, 40, who have taken on the task to please, tease and impress adventurous palates who refuse to miss out on the wide gamut of flavors that Asia offers the world in a bid to show that theirs is the older, richer and deeper culture.

The teasing of the palate in Spices’ incense- and spice-perfumed rooms begins with cocktails like the exotically named Coromandel Cooler with a mixture of guava juice, mango nectar, passion fruit juice and soda or Moluccan Mint Tea with orange pekoe, fresh mint leaves and sugar syrup poured over crushed ice.

Chef Boonchuay’s Khoong Salond (spring rolls stuffed with deep-fried prawns) evokes the central region of Thailand where the cuisine is, as he describes it, "medium spicy". His Tom Yam Goong (spicy prawn soup with lemongrass and coriander), arguably Thailand’s most famous hot-sour soup, is the chef’s way of announcing to all and sundry that in his homeland, there has been a great change in who minds the kitchen. "Before only the women in the house would cook. Then 20 years ago, Thailand began to be promoted as a tourist destination," he explains. "Suddenly, there was a higher demand for Thai people to cook for these visitors." He studied at the Hotel and Tourism Training Institute in Chonburi before moving on to food hygiene and earning a "serve-safe certification" from the National Restaurants Association of Thailand.

Although he admits that his facility in English is a spotty, his eloquence in the kitchen more than makes up for it. Gai Hor Bai Toey, known the world over as chicken wrapped in the leaves of the pandanus rush, has slightly charred skin and is moist and tender in the center. And his Kaeng Phed Pedyang (roast duck curry with pineapple, tomato, eggplant and basil) and Pla Sam Rod (prized Chilean seabass with a topping of spicy sweet and sour sauce ) sinfully melt in the mouth. To douse the fire is a cold Thai dessert, Raum Mid, with jackfruit, plum seed, sweet corn, sago and coconut cream.

Chef Boonchuay has had plenty of kitchen practice. As a child, his mother started him off steaming that most important staple of the Thai diet, rice, before graduating to the more difficult curries, all the while under her careful and watchful eye. "To appreciate Thai food you have to understand how we eat. Westerners eat their food with starches like bread and potatoes. We Thais eat our food with rice. So, for my mother to entrust to me the task of steaming the rice for our meals, she had to have the utmost trust in me."

He can whip up a mean pasta and bouillabaisse as well but he feels most at home in a Thai kitchen and reminds himself always to "keep the culinary standards of my country" at a high level.

Chef Boonchuay stresses that what gives Thai food its distinctive character is a harmony in its tastes. They have soups that look plain in color but the taste is sour, salty, sweet, hot and spicy. And very aromatic. The use of peanuts and coconut in curries are character-istically Thai as well. "We use herbs such as lemongrass, kaffir lime, both the leaf and the fruit, and galangal (a member of the ginger family) and mix this with the pungent sourness of fresh lime or the pleasurable sweetness of palm sugar."

He and Indian Specialty Chef Bairagi Sahani have planted a few of these aromatic herbs and spices in their very own spice garden within the hotel’s premises. It’s a walk through Asian culinary history with Thai ginger, kalamansi (Chinese orange), lemongrass, mint leaves, siling labuyo (bird’s eye chili), basil, Kaffir lime, Thai basil and hot basil growing in a spot just behind the kitchen.

But Chef Bairagi Sahani has his own bag of spices and tales to tell and waxes eloquently about the sensual spices that enliven the cuisine of the Indian sub-continent: mace, garlic, cardamom, cinnamon and chili, fenugreek, coriander and bay leaves, turmeric, cumin and coriander seeds, and mixed and black masala.

Many of these spices insinuate themselves into his Kaju Ki roll of fried potatoes and homemade cottage cheese with a cashew nut crust and served with minted yoghurt. The La Zeez Paslian (roasted lamb chops served with yoghurt and gravy), garlicky Lasuni Naan flatbread and pastry pyramids of Gosht Samosa filled with minced lamb, peas and Punjabi spices remind one of the characters created and landscapes shaped by the likes of South Asian writers Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Arundathi Roy, Romesh Gunesekera, Vikram Seth, Michael Ondatjee and the Anon. of Kama Sutra fame.

To aid the discerning diner in reaching the heights of nirvana by way of the tongue, Chef Sahani can cap a splendid meal with Keshar and Pistachio Kulfi, a traditional Indian ice cream that comes with a dash of saffron and pieces of pistachio.

It is unfortunate, Chef Sahani bemoans, that the world thinks Indian food is all about curry and rich thick sauces that leaves one lethargic and incapable of any physical activity. Though Indian food is not bland, most Indian dishes are spiced only enough to make them interesting.

"India has approximately 25 different spices used regularly, giving the cook an opportunity to use his imagination while designing exotic dishes. What passes off as curry powder in most households is certain to be ridiculed by the Indian chef, to whom fresh ground spices are the order of the day which he will vary according to the nature of the dish," he says. The secret of the masterly art of Indian cooking, adds Chef Sahani, requires a thorough knowledge of the properties of each spice and its blend with other spices. Therefore the characteristic of each curry relies entirely on the balance of herbs and spices that go into its creation.

The role of spices and herbs goes beyond the precinct of satisfying the palate. Ayurvedic scripts dating back to 3,000 years list the preventive and curative properties of various spices.

For producing such a one as Chef Bairagi Sahani, we have his mother Manink to thank for feeding him good fish curry, goat meat with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and what he calls "hot herbs." And to think his first name means "just pray to God."