Le Du

Eater

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.

Transcript

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

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