Now on its third iteration, the Benjarong Thai Tasting Experience brings Chefs Bo and Dylan of the acclaimed Bangkok restaurants Bo.Lan and Err Urban Rustic Thai to collaborate with Benjarong’s Chef Ja on a Thai culinary expedition—and it's really quite unique. If you recall, Tasting Experience II was Chef Ja bringing us dishes that exemplified Northern Thai cuisine and Chefs Bo and Dylan are known for improvising on Southern Thai recipes. So Tasting Experience III will offer the added pleasure of giving us the best from both culinary traditions.
Chefs Bo and Dylan of Bo.Lan and Err Urban Rustic Thai.
Chef Ja and Shariza Relova of the Dusit Thani Manila.
Chefs Bo and Dylan are a wife-husband team who first met while working together in London. She’s Thai and he’s Australian. Together, they’ve carved up an enviable reputation and following since they banded together, and set up the Michelin-starred Bo.Lan in Bangkok. Their Err Urban Rustic Thai is situated a stone’s throw from Bo.Lan, and within the month of May 2023, there’ll be a second location at the boutique hotel Asai Sathorn.
Creating our own curry for lunch.
First order of the morning was to create our own curry paste from scratch. Chefs Bo and Dylan had flown in from Bangkok a slew of ingredients, as they’ve established a culinary tradition that speaks of circularity, sustainability, and highlighting locally-sourced ingredients. I had not anticipated this interactive element, but it was fun.
Dylan is the chatty one. While we were working on the curry paste with a mortar and pestle, he recounted how, in the rural areas, farmers would work in the field. And by listening to the sounds the women were making as they mixed the paste, the folk wisdom said that the sound made could let the men know which woman was going to be the ideal and desired wife-to-be. I then asked Dylan if the Bo.Lan kitchen had such a gender specific division of labor, and he quickly quipped that he did all the heavy work.
Beef with green curry
The curry paste we were working on was to be part of the Beef with Green Curry that would be part of the Bo.Lan dishes that special lunch. As we usually get chicken with green curry in Thai restaurants here in Manila, this was a welcome twist. I loved how the tender beef morsels were suffused with the green curry.
Our ‘green army’ salad.
Our starter was a Bo.Lan specialty that was colorful and pretty to look at. Grated coconut was added to an assortment of greens and peppers, and it was spicy but with subtlety. Along with the Beef Curry, the other Bo.Lan dish was a salad that included clams, sea ferns, nuts, and again, the grated coconut.
Chef Ja’s Pork dish.
The bountiful lunch was then made up by dishes cooked up by Chef Ja. There was her Pork Slices with a toasted cracker, and a smart bevy of greens underneath the pork. And we had servings of her famous shrimp dish with roe sauce that has a consistency best described as a soufflé or fluffy scrambled eggs. This was an immediate lunch crowd favorite. Her pomfret stuffed with vegetables was the last main course offered, and it was good that this was on the light side as we were ourselves stuffed to the gills.
The famous Shrimp Soufflé of Chef Ja.
Chef Ja then offered a sweet ending that ingeniously mixed coconut milk with a scoop of ice cream and passion fruit jelly, festooned with fruits and flowers—so pretty and delicious is a deadly combination. I know many were making the comment that they’d be back just for this dessert.
The rich and pretty-as-a-picture dessert.
Chefs Bo and Dylan fly back to Bangkok after a couple of days, but the dishes they leave behind, along with those of Chef Ja will make up the Tasting Experience III that runs the whole month of May. As the first weekend is already fully booked, call the Dusit Thani to book your seats from May 9 onwards.
A photo for posterity—the ones who cooked with the one who ate.
Trust me, it’s a journey of discovery that’s well worth taking as it’ll wonderfully expand our concept of Thai cuisine. It’s healthy, it’s delicious, and oh so spicy! It was our pleasure to meet and have our lunch prepared by Chefs Bo and Dylan.