3 minute read
Hail To The Chef
I’m sitting in the sexy, cavernous entrance to Long Chim Perth on a Wednesday afternoon. The lunchtime crowd, just out of sight in the main room, is noisy, appreciative, hungry for spice. There’s a buzz about the place (which isn’t unusual in my experience), but there’s an extra frisson today because somebody special’s behind the pots and pans. The restaurant chain’s creator and driving force David Thompson is in town, introducing a newly refreshed menu and hosting a special evening for his many devotees later that day.
He comes up to me, resplendent in his chef whites and slightly seen-better-days jeans, friendly and immediately garrulous. We’re getting stuck into a recent national headline grabbing trial (rhymes with Cardinal Bell) when a departing diner with friends hanging back a little approaches our table. He wouldn’t look out of place on the front line of the Wallabies and yet he is hesitant, nervous, his hand extended towards David.
“I just wanted to come up and say that I love your food David. I’ve got all your cookbooks.” David graciously accepts this unexpected endorsement from Mr Scrum Half and turns to smile at me as the happy group of fanboys leaves.
“Now where were we?” he asks me, twinkling.
To be honest, I’m not sure. We’d already covered in the first 15 minutes of our interview the Catholic Church (including a discursive journey into Purgatory and its associated pleasures and pains), the follies of Brexit, venal politicians, amusing religious head gear – and that’s before I’ve even asked a single question about food. For my part, I can understand the sincere desire to shake David’s hand, just as that diner did. I first ate his food back in 2002 in London at Nahm, and have never forgotten the experience of tasting Thai food so blisteringly hot, tasty, kaleidoscopic that I can still picture the exact moment I first put that forkful in my mouth.
I’ve loved watching him pop up on TV, his unpolished, distinctive telly persona so charming and different to the chlorine-washed rent-a-celeb chefs which tend to befoul our screens mostly. He’s an award-winning author and generally considered to be the world’s leading authority on Thai cuisine - even among Thais themselves.
Happily married to his cocollaborator Tanongsak Yordwai and living in Bangkok with his noisy cat (of which more later), I get the impression he’s something of a victim of his own success. OK victim may be too strong a word. He says he’s happier than ever and still loves what he does, but he’s also almost continually travelling between his Long Chims and other venues around the world. I suspect he’d rather be waking up more often in his apartment on the sixth floor in the Thai capital, getting up as his cat yowls and raps on the door to be let in.
“I’m incapable of travelling lightly despite at the moment travelling three weeks out of five,” he says slightly wearily as we tuck into an extraordinary cube of one of his new menu’s desserts.
Flavoured with coconut and pandan, the green gelatinous steamed and layered cake (for wont of a better word) is like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. I’m trying to concentrate on what he’s saying, but can’t stop eating the green beauty before me.
David’s endlessly adventurous mind probably drove those tasked with teaching him in his early years mad. He’s the definition of restless intelligence. It’s also the reason he hasn’t stopped discovering the incredible intricacies of Asian cuisine, and in his vibrant new menu (which tbh was already pretty damn vibrant), there are additions which will once again adjust the way you think about Thai food.
Inspired by 12 months travelling and delving deep into all aspects of south east Asian cookery, going down the metaphorical culinary dark alleyways that others might fear to tread, David emerges with a new menu that plucks the market food bashed out in Bangkok night after night and gives them a generous flash-bang of Thompson magic.
There are boat noodles paired with pork and garlic to indecently delicious deep-fried larb dumplings. You’ll find prawns wrapped in delicate beancurd skin, and a hot and sour soup with smoky grilled tomatoes and shallots and a fiery homemade chilli jam. And then there’s that pandan and coconutlayered pudding which defies description by mere mortals like me.
Determined not to bestow the honour of which is his favourite upon any one venue, David instead says each Long Chim has its own eccentricities.
“The joy of cooking is a timeless pleasure,” he says. “It’s still as satisfying to me as when I started despite now having more work than I’ve ever had in my life.”
For this man with the supernatural palate, his go-to comfort foods are pleasingly average.
“Kit-Kats and fine chocolate,” he says. “I love Sue Lewis’ chocolate here in the Treasury Building.”
His itchy feet show no sign of letting him relax either. Trips to Iran, Jordan, Israel have recently been completed, enjoyed and their cuisines stored away in his food memories. Cuba looks a likely destination in the future, as long as he can avoid one thing.
“I can’t bear queuing and I think I’ve managed to refine the art of checking in for a flight down to four minutes.”
I don’t doubt him for a minute.
