Sold on seafood

At the ongoing seafood festival at Red Zen, you will find fishes, crabs, lobsters and squids on display. You can decide which variety you prefer to have cooked for your meal. A variety of sauces are also kept in a bowl to taste by dipping a fish cracker into it.u00a0

You can either grill, fry, batter fry, roast or have your seafood curry in a sauce of your choice. The Pan Asian Food Festival at Red Zen, Courtyard by Marriot Pune, City Center, lets you go beyond the set menu of the restaurant.u00a0

Chef Jatsalid Sirimongkolthong cooks up delicacies from Thailand, China, Vietnam and Malaysia for his guests at the restaurant. "I want to bring the authenticity of the cuisine from these regions to Pune. I want to give my customers a variety and something new to explore," says Jatsalid, who has been working in the hospitality industry for 24 years.u00a0

The Chef mastered a variety of cuisines while serving as a chef across different parts of Asia. "Seafood is better than meat. When I worked in Japan, I observed that people would only eat seafood because it enhances memory skills and is also good for the skin," informs Jatsalid.u00a0

"I want my customers to taste seafood beyond Basa and Pomfret. I have a variety of preparations with prawns, king crab, squid and scallops as well," he adds.u00a0The chef is well-aware of the taste preferences in India. "Thai cuisine is extremely spicy, Cantonese Chinese can be a little bland, Vietnamese cuisine is simple whereas Malaysian cuisine is quite similar to Indian cuisine," informs Jatsalid.u00a0

When he came across the idea to combine cuisines from across Asia into one seafood festival, Jatsalid asked his friends to help him out through Facebook. "My friends from Thailand, China, Japan and Malaysia helped me out with tips and techniques on how to carry out this food festival. I have compiled and implemented all the ideas that came from across Asia," he informs.