True Thai curry demands time, conviction and technical understanding—of galangal in hot oil, kaffir lime leaves, and coconut as medium, not mere flavour. But could we recreate such integrity at home?
Of course he should be able to produce a Thai curry that means something. Not the paste-from-a-jar kind, not the approximation you throw together on a Wednesday night with whatever coconut milk has been sitting in the pantry since December. A real one. The kind that takes time, attention and a genuine understanding of what galangal actually does when it hits hot oil, why kaffir lime leaf is non-negotiable, what the difference is between a curry that merely tastes of coconut and one that uses coconut as a vehicle for something more… considered.
And this is not a complicated position to hold. It sits right alongside knowing how to drive a manual, being able to read a balance sheet, understanding that a good whisky deserves more than two seconds of your attention. It is simply part of the furniture of a life lived with some competence and intention.
I was reminded of this recently at Erawaan, where the Thai curry I ate—and I mean this without any of the breathlessness that restaurant writing tends to reach for—was something that had clearly been thought about by someone who understood it from the inside. The Kaeng Penag, a creamy curry built around broccoli, asparagus and mushroom, was dense but not heavy, the paste achieving what only a paste made with conviction can achieve (conviction is key to Thai curry). The coconut made its presence felt as medium instead of as flavour. There is a difference.
The rest of the menu rewarded the same quality of attention. The Tom Kha was the version of that soup that makes you slightly resentful of every previous version you’ve paid for. The galangal is doing actual work here, the silken tofu holds its form, and the whole thing is sour in the way that it should be—persistent, not aggressive—in the back of the throat, reminding you that it’s there. The salads were serious. The som tum, sharp and tart, wouldn’t flatter you. The pomelo version—roasted coconut, crushed peanut, a red chilli dressing that builds—was the kind of dish you keep returning to between other things because it keeps resetting your palate without making a performance of it.
The lotus stem appeared in several places across the Erawaan menu, in salad and main both, and this is the kitchen making an argument about an ingredient they clearly believe in. They are right to believe in it. The dumplings—flower-shaped water chestnut, the steamed chicken jeeb gai—were precise without being fussy. The Lab Gai, if you eat meat, tastes like something learned over years rather than put together for a menu. The Kee Mao hits with a low sustained heat that stays with you.
Which is why I return to the argument of the great Thai curry—just like everything else here, it is a dish that doesn’t try to be liked. It waits for you to catch up and once you have, it’s a world of wonder thereon. Nailing it is rare for a restaurant in our part of the world, and rarer still is the case of a Thai one operating in a city where the cuisine has been so thoroughly domesticated into something agreeable and safe that most people have forgotten what it was supposed to taste like.
Which brings you back, at the end of the meal, to the curry. To the question of whether you could produce this at home. Whether you have ever stood over a wok with a paste you made yourself and understood, in real time, what was happening in that pan and why. There's also something to be said for what it does to a kitchen—the smell of that paste hitting hot coconut fat is one of the more commanding things you can produce.