ISAAN cuisine is famed for being hot and spicy that visitors to this country find tasty and exotic. The Isaan region refers to the northeastern part of Thailand, bordered by Laos to the north and east and by Cambodia to the southeast. One outstanding contribution of the Isaan region to Thai cuisine is som tam, or spicy papaya salad.

Recently a new Isaan restaurant opened in Chaweng, which banks on its high-quality food. The name of the restaurant, Tum Zaap, best describes its food, too, the owner says. Tum in Thai mean pounding (the preparation of som tam involves pounding of the papaya shreds and other ingredients, remember) and zaep is Isaan for delicious.

Owner Paphavee Choksan, or Iew, envisions Tum Zaap to become a trailblazer among the Isaan restaurants on the island. Ms. Paphavee, a native of Isaan, says she uses recipes handed down by her family and which she used from her own cooking experience. She has trained chefs and staffs to cook in the way that she wants it for customers.

After all, she started cooking when she was still a child. After she moved to Samui eight years ago, her first business was a restaurant in Nathon. After only seven months of operation, however, she close it because of poor location. She changed location to Chaweng, but instead of a restaurant, she opened a clothes shop. She had been engaged in this business for seven years. After another much thought and seeing its great potential, she again decided to open a restaurant, which would serve only high-standard Isaan food to locals and tourists alike.

“There are lots of Isaan restaurants and stalls all over Samui, but hardly any of them offers delicious, clean and high-quality dishes. So I want to this restaurant in the style that customers are happy to eat in because of the high-quality food we serve them,” says Paphavee.

She says she has had very good feedbacks from customers on the first day Tum Zaap opened. Now she has regular customers coming over, she adds.

For the foreigners, who constitute 40 percent of the customers, the restaurant has to adjust the dishes according to their taste, making it less hot but more sour.

For example, when cooking tom yum kung, or hot spicy prawn soup, they make it very hot and spicy for Thai customers, but softer for foreigners. In addition, the restaurant has hired an experienced chef to cook other Thai foods apart from Isaan dishes, says Paphavee.

Paphavee urges customer to try their papaya salad with blue crabs and crispy Tabtim fish fried with chicken and topped with Thai herbs.

The foods served in Tum Zaap are not just high-quality but also priced reasonably. There is no double-standard pricing because Thais and foreigners are charged the same. Paphavee also insists that the ingredients used in making the dishes should be fresh. She has in fact hired staffs part of whose duties is to select only high-quality products including papaya, tomato, chili and lime. If she finds that these ingredients are not of high quality, she easily rejects and sends them back to the vendors.

Also, she says, “each ingredient is used differently. For example, the chilis for preparing papaya salad are different from those used for cooking soup. We also use pure lime juice, not mixed with vinegar like in some other restaurants. The dish decoration should be beautiful and I train all my staffs to follow my instruction so that customers get high-quality service and taste.”

Paphavee says the prospects for a successful Isaan restaurant on Samui are exciting. “If you can make the customers, especially foreign, realize that the food you serve them is safe, clean and high-quality, it (realizing a successful Isaan eatery) is possible; there is a high-potential market here. If someone wants to do the same business as mine, they have to show off the outstanding points our foods do have,” she says.

She would like everyone to visit her restaurant and taste her food. She welcomes any opinion and suggestion because her dishes are always adjusted to meet the preferred tastes of customers.The restaurant’s telephone numbers are 077-960801 and 084-6270434.