The appeal of Thai cuisine has increased as Thailand’s reputation as a popular tourist destination becomes increasingly robust The appeal of Thai cuisine has increased as Thailand’s reputation as a popular tourist destination becomes increasingly robust

What challenges do you face, if any, when it comes to Thai cuisine?

Poolkuan: With the sprawling rise of Thai restaurants in a multicultural city, it is a challenge to educate diners in differentiating authentic, proper royal Thai cuisine from fusion and modern approaches.

Asmitha: The biggest challenge we are facing when it comes to Thai cuisine is the supply of fresh Thai products and especially their short shelf life.

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Deconinck: The challenge facing modern-day Thai food is to stay as authentic as possible — this is the attraction of the cuisine. However, the drive towards moving away from authentic and attempting to apply something non-traditional presents itself as an obstacle.

Pang: The general crowd of people who might not travel or who do not have a background in gastronomy have a completely different idea of what Thai food is. So, the perception is still different from the reality in many ways. People apply the same rules to all restaurants, and if we label ourselves as a fine-dining restaurant, then people have a certain perception and use Western standards to apply it to our food, which does not work — like people ask for table salt to season their food, but that’s not really needed in Thai cuisine.

Do you rely on importing ingredients or are local products used?

Poolkuan: Benjarong believes in ensuring the use of high quality ingredients and takes its commitment seriously by importing these ingredients from Thailand on a weekly basis.

Asmitha: Most of the essential ingredients are imported from Thailand such as curry paste, coconut milk, Thai mango and Thai fresh herbs like lemon grass, galangal, Thai sweet basils and betel leaves.

Deconinck: Given the difference in weather and climate between Dubai and Thailand, we have to import particular Thai products to ensure that we match the expectations of our customers.

Pang: A cuisine’s success depends on the quality of its ingredients. Once you have the right quality ingredients, there is no limit to what you can achieve. We source locally when we can, however, it’s simply not going to get the right balance of taste and texture if we miss even one ingredient, which is why we have to rely on importing many of our ingredients. Ingredients like duck egg, fresh jasmine flower, pure palm sugar and fresh coconut cream are very difficult to source locally.