Asian flavors are a favorite at our house. Additionally, grilling and smoking are frequent techniques - especially in warm weather months. This cookbook was an exciting discovery - focusing specifically on Southeast Asian cuisine. We couldn't wait to explore the recipes! Be forewarned: most of these dishes require advance preparation. Thus, these are not simple weeknight meals. Allow yourself a leisurely weekend and you will be rewarded with a dish bursting with flavor. Choosing a dish to start with proved challenging. There were just so many appealing options! Normally, we'd select several and spend the week preparing them. This is one we'll definitely have to allow several weeks to complete. • Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Coconut Rice and Chile Relish - We had long wanted to make Cornish game hens. This was our opportunity! Combined with the eggplant salad (below), this was an epic feast! Our ambition almost got the best of us but together we successfully executed this dish. It was certainly no easy task. There were several steps requiring advance preparation. Even though we enjoyed these dishes on a weeknight, we wouldn't recommend it (ie: "Don't try this at home...on a weeknight.") To begin, we prepared the game hens for a 24 hour rest in the refrigerator. The simple soy sauce-based glaze also requires 24 hours for the flavors to develop. Like most of the recipes within the book, making this dish requires preparing a charcoal grill - complete with hot and cool "zones". We took the easy way out and roasted these in a cast-iron skillet in our oven - as we do most of the time we make a whole chicken. This yielded predictably reliable results - allowing us to focus our attention / efforts on the other components. We were concerned if just two game hens would be a sufficient portion. They were - especially considering all of the other food. The coconut rice is familiar to us - as we frequently make a variation of this. Again, in the interest of efficiency, we utilized our rice cooker instead of the suggested stovetop method. We don't feel the dish suffered in any way from this preparation. The game hens turned out perfectly! The skin was crispy and golden brown - just as we had hoped! Combined with the sambal oelek, an Indonesia-style chile paste, these were delectable!• Grilled Eggplant Salad - With the game hens diligently roasting in the oven, we were able to turn our attention to the eggplant salad. We love Japanese eggplant - specifically when roasted. The vibrant purple skin takes on a crispy texture while the flesh inside becomes rich and pleasingly charred. As suggested, we used our grill for these. The accompanying coconut milk dressing, while tasty, was a bit "lumpy" in texture than we had hoped - likely a result of adding cornstarch. Still, this was a beautiful and delicious plate of food. Garnished with red pepper flake, mint and cilantro, the various flavors worked harmoniously. The crispy shallots added a pleasant textural component. We'd gladly make this again!