After honing his skills at NYC hot spots like Eleven Madison Park and Jean-Georges, chef Thitid "Ton" Tassanakajohn brought his culinary expertise back to Thailand with the launch of Le Du. This modern Thai-inspired restaurant has proudly held onto its Michelin star for six years running. A six-course tasting menu showcases the best of local flavors, including grilled river prawn with black sticky rice and grouper with seablite, and Thai wagyu served with sweet chile sauce.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00So every day we will go to the market and get the fresh ingredients, whatever is available on that day, and of course, especially the seafood.
00:09So this one, we're going to buy the liver prawn. The one that we use comes from Songkhla Lake in the south of Thailand.
00:17My signature dish at Ladoo is the liver prawn. We change the menu quite often, but then only liver prawn will stay on the menu.
00:24We used to take it off one time and then people get upset, so we have to put it back on.
00:30We cut all this, and you see this one is sharp, so we cut this off also.
00:51So every day it depends, maybe 20 prawns to 30 prawns.
00:56When you get this and you clean it already, so this is the fat, so this is the best thing in the prawn.
01:02In here, it's like the head fat, which is something very special.
01:06In the lobster, you will never see this kind of fat, so this is what you're looking for.
01:12And after this, we will go and grill it.
01:14So you can see now the fat starts bubbling, so we know that the fat is already cooked.
01:21We will finish up the meat in the oven.
01:24One thing we do every day is to prepare the rice for our signature liver prawn.
01:29This one, back-sticky rice, it will make a different texture.
01:34And this one, crispy a little, it will have a combination that's good.
01:39For this one, 700 grams, and this one, one kilo.
01:43This rice, we do for 60 portions for one day.
01:47For the next one, we will put the chicken stock.
01:50We will use it until the stock is dry, and then we will put the shrimp paste to make the saltiest flavor.
01:58And then we will put the cream, it's a heavy cream.
02:05What you're looking for first is the texture, and you can see that it's not broken.
02:11So this one, it has to be slightly undercooked, it's like 70 percent.
02:17And this is about 70 percent.
02:19And of course, we finish with butter.
02:22So see, in a way, it's almost like a risotto.
02:27On top of the rice, we put different kinds of condiments, which is the green mangoes,
02:32and also shallots, chilies, and the pork belly jam and kaffir lime leaves.
02:37Just to make sure that they get some smokiness, and then the fat is fully cooked.
02:43On top of the prawn fat, we put the crispy eggs to create more textures for the dish.
02:49This sauce is basically the prawn fat that we mix it with some cream,
02:54and then like the herbs that are in the tom yum.
02:57So lemongrass and galangal.
03:06So I graduated in economics in the university in Thailand,
03:10and after that I worked in the bank for one month.
03:12And then I absolutely hated it, so I quit.
03:15And then I flew to New York and went to the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America.
03:21When I work in New York, I see so many restaurants doing their own thing,
03:26the local produce, and people appreciate it.
03:29And back then, 10 years ago, in Thailand, people, you know, not value Thai food that much,
03:34and especially the Thai ingredients.
03:36So I feel like I want to do something to change this perception.
03:41Noosala is the restaurant that is named after my grandmom.
03:45So now we're going to make the curry paste of the signature Noosala crab curry.
03:50The trick is you start with the hardest ingredient first.
03:54So this is the galangal.
03:56If you know the famous Thai soup, we call tom kha.
04:00This in Thailand, we call kha.
04:02This one is the fresh turmeric.
04:04And this will give the yellow color to the curry that you see at the end.
04:10So we start pounding.
04:14And the Thai garlic.
04:17So we make this one the curry paste, fresh, every day.
04:23White peppercorn and dried chilies.
04:26And this one is the skin of the kaffir lime.
04:30So this one to give the aroma to the curry.
04:33And this one will be very, very pronounced in the curry when we make it.
04:38And the last one we put in is the shrimp paste.
04:41Most of the curry paste in Thailand have the shrimp paste.
04:44That's our secret.
04:46This is the main, you know, flavor of the dish.
04:48It might be only one paste, but they have like 10 different ingredients inside of it.
04:55Coconut milk, you know, heat it up until, you know, the fat of the coconut milk, you know, separate it out.
05:02And then you add the curry to cook in that, you know, basically the coconut milk and the coconut oil together.
05:08So when they get heat up, they release the aromatic oil.
05:14So my grandmom always say, when you start to sneeze, that's when your curry paste is ready.
05:24This one is the palm sugar.
05:27So this one is the fish sauce.
05:29This one from the east of Thailand.
05:30Fish sauce will give the saltiness and also the umami as well.
05:34This one is the crab from the market.
05:40Okay, it smells very fresh.
05:42And this one will be added into the curry.
05:45We just low heat and then we gently incorporate.
05:48So we don't want to break the beautiful piece of the crab.
05:52Now the curry is ready.
05:56So this is the roll of the crab.
05:58So in the horseshoe crab, there's no meat inside.
06:01And we just take out the roll or the caviar of this horseshoe crab.
06:05At Nutsala, the concept of the food is the combination between modern and tradition.
06:11But at the end of the day, when the main course comes, we still eat like a, you know, family style with different dishes with the rice.
06:17So it reminds us of we eating with grandmom at home.
06:22So you can see this first station is the meat station.
06:26So this one is the local Wagyu, A5.
06:29Like the highest grade for the Thai Wagyu that we have available from the northeast of Thailand.
06:34So this one is the trimming of the beef that we chop down.
06:38We mix with spices and fresh herbs.
06:40And we stuff into the chilies, almost like a northern style beef sausage.
06:44And then that we go with the beef dish as well.
06:47And then that we go with the beef dish as well.
06:49We want the fish stock.
06:51So we roasted all the bone and everything and we mix into the concentrate.
06:56For the fish dish, we make with the sauce, with the coconut milk and shrimp paste.
07:01At Ledoo, we have the tasting menu.
07:04So it's a six course menu that is a modern Thai-inspired cuisine.
07:09So we sit around one round.
07:11We can do around 35 people, maybe just about 50 people a day.
07:17So this one will be the first two bites.
07:19The first one is our take on the Khanom Kok, which is the coconut pancake.
07:23And inside we have the coconut cake filling that infused with lemongrass.
07:28And the aspic, the gelatin of the grouper and the shrimp that we serve on top.
07:35And this one will be the Tata.
07:38In the golden cup is the live shrimp that we get every day.
07:42We serve with the cow's lip, the local vegetable and also the edible flowers and the fermented pork.
07:48So this one is fish salad.
07:50Organic tomatoes from the north of Thailand and the cucumbers that we dress in the palm sugar and fish sauce.
07:57It looks like the rice paper, but it's actually the squid paper.
08:04Ledoo actually comes from the word season in Thai.
08:07Some of these edible flowers is from local, nothing imported.
08:12And it's all from our farmer in Larchaburi and also in Chiang Mai.
08:26The first course will be the banana prawn, which we serve with three different kinds of algae.
08:33And we serve with the sorbet that's made from beetroot, chilies, fish sauce and lime juice.
08:39So the second one is our local king mackerel that we age for about three, four days.
08:44And then we cook very gently.
08:46And then we serve with the puree of the spicy avocado.
08:50So now they're plating.
08:51So our third course, which is the grouper that we congee in butter.
08:55And we serve with the sea bite, the leaves that grow by the sea that have their own saltiness.
09:00We don't have to put any salt in it.
09:02We also infuse in this the sauce with the coconut milk and shrimp paste.
09:08And then the next one will be the rice.
09:10We serve with the crab.
09:12Then you have the crab, the crab roll that we make with the curry flowers.
09:16And also the house-made chilies and local Chinese olives.
09:21The main course will be the local Wagyu beef that we serve with the northern-style beef sausage.
09:27And the sauce is the sweet chili sauce that we make in-house.
09:30And then we serve with the organic kale.
09:35So this one is the chocolate, the local chocolate.
09:38And you have the pandan custard and also the caramelized bananas.
09:42And the ice cream will be the liver aljo that actually tastes like green tea.
09:49I want people, when they come to Ledoux, they experience not only the taste of the Thai cuisine,
09:54but also the taste of the different places of where the produce comes from.
09:59We have a lot of local customers that still support us since day one,
10:03which I'm very proud of because we're not only cooking for visitors or tourists,
10:07but we're actually cooking for Thai people.
10:09And Thai people accept what we do.
10:11Ten years ago, when we opened the restaurant,
10:13we were the first one to do the modern Thai food, 100% local ingredients.
10:17And now we see what I started ten years ago now become the trend of the Thai food scene.
10:22For me, that is success also.
10:24I'm very glad that that happened.
10:29www.ledoux.com