My lovely friend Kavey gets invited to a fair few things and, I’m very happy to say, sometimes I get to go along too! Recently we were lucky to be able to attend a Mango Masterclass at Suda Thai, a chic – but not too chi-chi – restaurant in Slingsby Place, just off St Martin’s Lane. I will say now that I will most definitely return.

To quote the very nice PR person, Alix:

“In honour of Mango Month 2012, we would like to invite you to an intimate mango masterclass and dinner at Suda Thai restaurant (www.suda-thai.com) 

We will start with mango cocktails and, whilst dining on delicious Thai food, will be shown a demonstration of how to make savoury and sweet mango Thai dishes, including a mango salad and mango rice dessert. Interspersed with our dining on non-mango foods such as Thai curries, noodles etc., it should make for a really fun and informative evening!”

I do like a nice bit of mango, but it’s quite hard to find the pale Asian/Indian ones in the supermarkets. They all sell the big, round red and green ones, which I’ve always found to be either underripe, or quite fibrous, even when ripe, so an evening of hopefully Asian mangoes was absolutely my thing.

On a very warm night, Suda was an oasis of cool breezes and zingy drinks.

We started off with a mango, mint and chilli shot, which was very sweet, perfectly cut by the mint and which then left just a tiny frisson on heat when you finished it. As most people know, I am a total chilli wuss, but this was perfect. I think I had a few of those, and then a Mango Colada arrived. I don’t drink alcohol, so the Pimms was out of the question sadly but this drink was just right.

Mango pulp, coconut milk, lemon juice and ice. It was excellent.

We were served some delicious appetisers of summer rolls, with avocado, prawn and mango, and they came in little boat shaped dishes.

   

Our flotilla, after we’d finished.

Oh, and our charming table companion!

Once everyone had gathered, we headed to the much more spacious upstairs and took our places at table.

There was a talk from a very quiet lady, but sadly my hearing failed me and I honestly could not hear what she was saying, or make out who she was!

We crowded around the head of the table, and I will say it is very difficult to watch a cooking demonstration when there are foodies with cameras right in front of the chef so I listened happily, and then photographed the food at the table. Much easier that way.

Crispy fish with green mango salad.

I loved this. The dressing had roasted chilli paste, fish sauce and palm sugar, and the salad also had roasted cashews, crispy shallots and onions in it. The fish just added more crunch and I could have eaten much more of it. Our end of the table made very short work of that.

Off we went again to another demo. Kavey fed me a spoonful of warm, sticky coconut rice to try and Oh My God it was good.

This is the table laid out with all the samples of what would be cooked for us.

         

Back to our seats we went and then the dishes came flooding out.

Chargrilled skewer of fish in Thai spices; mussel, squid and prawn, with another  version of a green mango salad.

This was utterly gorgeous. The salad was crunchy and fresh, both tart and sweet at the same time, and the fish was amazingly flavourful. I do not like mussels, but I tried one cooked this way and liked it. This doesn’t mean I’ll be eating any more of them though…

 

Fried fish, salad and a mango salsa.

Duck breast in Thai red curry sauce – utterly gorgeous, even if it was a bit too hot for me. I loved the sauce from this spooned onto the plain steamed sticky rice.

A variation on sweet and sour chicken, with big juicy chunks of mango, plus some beautifully cooked greens. I used up the sauce that the greens were in on the last of my rice because it was just so tasty I wasn’t going to waste any of it.

Asian mango, sweet sticky coconut rice.

This is a dish that many of us could have eaten again and again. The mango was so sweet as to be almost caramel in flavour and that rice was absolutely delicious. I need to learn how to make that!

We had a lovely time, and it was nice to sit around and chat, and not be made to feel utterly weird for taking photos of my food. Thank you to my fellow food bloggers Jennie and Kavey for keeping me company.

I am never buying a red and green mango again. It’s the slimmer, yellow ones all the way now, assuming I can get them. I’d rather have none at all than fibrous, dry ones. I suspect I may be spoiled for mangoes now.

Kavey’s more detailed write up – and a recipe – can be found here and May from Slow Food Kitchen’s excellent write up is here.

We ate as guests of Suda Thai.