Saiphin Moore – Food for Thought
Nestled in the northern mountainous area of the Kaho Khao District near Phetchabun Province in Thailand sits a pocket-sized village. Here, a young girl spent her days and nights on her family’s farm, trekking for two hours to get up to their acreage where she foraged whatever she could get her green thumbs on. She would then walk back down for another two hours and serve her family the fresh vegetables she had harvested, which she would steam and serve with sticky rice adorned with a sizzling fried egg. Eventually, at the age of 14, the young girl opened up her own noodle shop in-between school hours. Queues began to wind through the village streets, all eagerly waiting for their chance to try a taste of Saiphin Moore’s notorious noodle soup.
From the start, the Thai British cook, restaurateur and entrepreneur Saiphin Moore has always been a go-getter. From opening up a noodle shop as a child, to selling enough coriander to buy a motorbike to make food deliveries to founding one of the most recognisable high-street chains, Rosa’s Thai Café, the indomitable Moore has done it all.
As Moore dials in via WhatsApp, she explains how she is currently stuck in a 14-day quarantine in Thailand visiting her mother. After chatting for a while, it soon becomes obvious that being back home has made Moore all the more nostalgic when recalling her upbringing in Thailand. “We had acres and acres of vegetables back home,” she says, “we grew a colourful variety of corn, bell peppers, broccoli, coriander, chilli, ginger and owing to the cool climate in the mountains, we could grow unusual vegetables like carrots and Chinese vegetables.”
Moore continues, “the way you learn to cook in Thailand is through your mother and grandmother, so for me, I had been trained as a cook since the age of five. By six, I was setting up a fire with charcoal from tamarind wood and learning how to cook rice with a fried egg.” Born to Laotian parents, Moore found herself regularly cooking a blend of Lao and Thai cuisine; she would use the Lao staple of steamed sticky rice and then serve it with Thai-style curries.
Life for Moore took a turn when one fortuitous night in the run-up to her 18th birthday, she lay down in a field on her farm with her radio and looked up to the sky: “I saw a star moving, and I was so confused. I had no idea it was an aeroplane,” she says. Serendipity kicked in, and as she stood gawping she heard on the radio that there was a job opportunity in Hong Kong to work as a nanny. Moore borrowed a white dress from her aunt, practised enough English and Mandarin to get herself hired, and left her home to go on an aeroplane for the first time ever. “I was so nervous but so excited,” she recalls. “I could tell it was the start of a new adventure.”
While working as a nanny in Hong Kong, Moore honed her culinary skills stocking up on ingredients for large family meals and lavish dinner parties. “The family believed that Thai people knew how to cook, so I was expected to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I went to the market every Wednesday and Friday to speak to the market traders and shop sellers, butchers and grocers, in the heart of Kowloon City (known as Hong Kong’s “Food City”), and I found myself learning so much about ingredients and seasonality.”
Always one to have her hands full, Moore asked her employers if she could work part-time for a Thai restaurant in Hong Kong. “My career as a restaurateur started there,” she says. In 2001, Moore met her husband and future business partner Alex Moore. The pair’s first taste of restaurateuring began with opening up a takeaway shop in central Hong Kong, which they called “Tuk Tuk Thai.” Eventually, they sold the business and, in 2006, moved to the UK.
On the hunt for a golden goose, Moore set up a business selling Thai food to offices. She struggled to find Thai ingredients in the UK, so would often find herself mushroom-picking and getting used to the Jersey Royal potato (now a staple ingredient in the beef massaman curry at Rosa’s). Subsequently, she found a stall in Brick Lane market in East London, where the queue she had experienced for her childhood noodle shop was quickly matched; she would often sell out before lunchtime.
In 2008, her husband came across Rosa’s Café, an old greasy spoon on Hanbury Street in Spitalfields. The pair fell in love with the venue, drew up a business proposal and after feeding the agents a homecooked meal, the deal was sealed. The Moore’s have now opened up 26 café’s and have plans to expand across the UK. According to Saiphin Moore, what makes Rosa’s Thai Café unique is its carefully selected ingredients. “I spent ages looking for coconut milk, but I just couldn’t find one that was good enough,” she explains. “Eventually, I decided to work with a factory and a farmer in Thailand who provided the right milk which is not too thin or watery. Another example is our curry paste, I didn’t want to have one readymade from a big brand so I get it made by this family that I know well in south Thailand.”
The Rosa’s Thai Café menu includes everything from lemongrass chicken satay to fried spring rolls with their homemade sweet chilli sauce, tom yum soup, a traditional pad thai, green curry with aubergine and sweet basil, stir-fried aubergine with yellow bean sauce, chicken & cashew stir-fry and of course, Rosa’s special sticky rice. When asking Moore what the secret is to great Thai food, she stresses that it is all about finding an equilibrium between “spicey, sweet and salty.” For example, with Rosa’s papaya salad, it’s all about balancing the sweet with the sour, the freshness of lime juice sharpened with the tang of fish sauce and then sweetened by a tablespoon of palm sugar.
For Moore’s last ever supper, she picks a starter of “Lao-style grilled chicken.” For her main, “a papaya salad with anchovies and pickled crab.” For dessert, “a sweetcorn cake that her grandmother used to make,” and she chooses to wash it down with “a Thai iced tea with milk.”
Following the interview, Moore sends photographs of her enviable view of the sunset softening into the sea. You can’t help but feel in awe of not only her view but of her sheer capability to make her lifelong dreams an everyday reality. Chances are a Rosa’s Thai will be on your doorstep soon, until then, you can try her recipe for Tofu Basil Stir-Fry here:
Pad Kra Prow Taohu – Tofu Holy Basil Stir-Fry
Serves 2
Pad Kra Prow is another national dish found on many a Thai street corner, and that includes the vegetarian version. In Thailand, we use holy basil, the very pungent sister of Italian basil, which is a key ingredient in Thai cooking. You’ll notice the sudden bursts of aroma from the wok as soon as you start tossing the ingredients together over a high heat – it’s a smell that wakes up my senses every time.
Ingredients
3 red bird’s eye chillies
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
150g (5½oz) firm tofu, cut into chunks
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
½ tablespoon dark soy sauce
½ tablespoon sugar
pinch of white pepper
½ onion, chopped
¼ red pepper, sliced
¼ yellow pepper, sliced
30g (1oz) yard-long beans or green beans, cut into 2cm (¾ inch) pieces
A handful of holy basil leaves
2 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
Steamed jasmine rice, to serve
Method
Using either a pestle and mortar, grind the chillies and garlic to a paste.
Heat the oil in a wok set over a high heat. Add the chilli and garlic mixture and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, until nice and golden brown.
Now add the tofu chunks, both soy sauces, the palm sugar and white pepper and cook, tossing everything around in the pan, for about 1 minute, until the tofu is well coated and has taken on a little colour from the sauces.
Once everything is mixed well, add the onion, peppers and long beans and cook for a further 30 seconds, all the while tossing the mixture together. Throw in the basil and lime leaves and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds. Serve immediately with jasmine rice.