Adventures in Alcohol | Cocktail hour: Pomelo smash at Chachawan counters feisty Thai fare
This cocktail has the acidity to cut through the fattiness of Thai pork and duck dishes and the sweetness to soften the effect of the chillis in the food
Tunny Grattidge, manager and mixologist at the hip Thai restaurant Chachawan, in Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, was headhunted by the owners from Sydney, where he had been working with Jowett Yu of Ho Lee Fook fame.
The Papua New Guinean is well travelled and although “backpacking around Asia” is not normally considered a job qualification, familiarity with the continent’s flavours has helped him compile a cocktail list to match the restaurant’s spice-laden Isaan menu.
The key, he says, is recognising how fatty certain dishes are – especially pork- and duck-based ones – and making sure that the drinks have an acidic element to cut through the richness. The Thai influence means that acidity needs to be balanced with sweetness - which is great for cocktails, as the sweetness will also counteract the chilli heat in the northeastern Thai dishes.
New drinks on the cocktail list are generally well-known classics given a twist. Taka the TT Margarita: the TT stands for Thai tea, which is used as infusion for agave syrup. The tea-flavoured syrup sweetens the drink instead of triple sec or Cointreau. The restaurant uses the very floral Thai tea Number One brand in this drink, but teas more commonly drunk in Hong Kong for other cocktails.