Saffron 59 Asian fusion cuisine caters to New York's finest. The culinary artist behind this Southeast Asian success story, Irene Khin, says travel -- especially to Asia -- is what keeps her on top of The New York Food chain. Pacific News Service editor, Andrew Lam, caught up with her in Bangkok recently as she meandered her ways through the city's markets and restaurants to practice her art.

BANGKOK -- To see the way Irene Khin studies a baby egg plant is to know what it is to be in love. The chef and owner of the Saffron 59, New York's fashionable "Asian fusion cuisine" catering business, prods, scrapes then smells the vegetable. She is in Bangkok looking at new ways to make food elegant and delicious.

In a few more months she'll be back again, to lead a group of 12 culinary students on a Southeast Asian eating and cooking fest. Half of that time she'll be cooking with famous chefs, the other half eating, of course.

Meanwhile, she's scouting the area. Actually, she admits, it's an excuse to get away.

She doesn't need to do the tour for money. Catering to wealthy New Yorkers takes up most of her time and the business is thriving. She travels out of passion more than anything else. "I get rusty if I don't get back in touch with Asia. So I go every year, at least once or twice."

Khin, 35, who hails from Burma, of Shan parentage, started out as an investment banker on Wall Street but got fed up with business investment. "Food has always been part of my upbringing. It's my passion."

When she was young and living in Burma, her parents, who were wealthy owners of a lumber mill, hired an American missionary to teach the children manners. "He was a black man who taught us how to eat properly, speak proper English and so on. My parents had him over twice a week because they wanted us to be schooled in western manners so later on we could go abroad. I was young and I was scared he was the first black person I saw. He was very strict. He 'd show us how you're holding the fork wrong, how you switch it over the right hand, pick up the meat, etc."

"I got so focused on the etiquette of eating that I fell in love with the whole thing. Food, cooking, catering."

Khin's business has more than doubled since she started three years ago after giving up her restaurant, Road To Mandalay. Saffron 59 now employs some 40 people on a busy day, including three chefs, catering to both the wealthiest and the middle class. Its website (www.saffron59.com) sells food products.

Khin counts celebrities and corporations among her clients, including The Asia Society, AT&T, IBM, Annie Leibotvitz, New York University, Estee Lauder Cosmetics, Time Inc. and many private clients. Hillary Clinton loves her food.

Irene is also a consultant with various restaurants, including E&O Bar and Restaurant, River Bar and Grill, Spice Island Tea House, to name a few. Last year she spoke at a seminar on Southeast Asia sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute. To top it off, she's on the Faculty of the New School for Culinary Arts. Her dishes have been featured in New York Magazine, The New York Times, and newspapers across Europe and Asia.

Not bad for a little girl who left Burma without knowing how to cook Burmese food. Today her repertoire includes some of the best and original dishes in Southeast Asia.

She's spent four years in the region learning Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian food. One of her more daring feats was to spend a week with a tribe in Borneo's rain forest to learn how to cook without utensils and use roots like yuca and ginger. "I did what they did and ate what they ate," she recalls with glee.

Vietnamese spring rolls, Indonesian crabmeat fritters with corn, green papaya salad with chicken and Thai seared scallops in holy basil leaves, these are a few dishes she can whip up for you at a moment's notice.

To be on top of the game, to remain what many consider New York's top Asian caterer, she finds she needs to travel time and again.

"How did I teach myself? I just cooked with a lot of

experienced people. Mentors really. I would make friends with the best chefs so we can cook together. This is how I learn."

"Every year I take at least three trips. I just got back from the Middle East two months ago. Why the Middle East? The freshness of great food and vegetable. I wanted to explore how simple food can be. You have to learn constantly new ways of cooking and presenting food."

Indeed, presentation is important in the food she makes. Though one of her signature dishes, the mouthwatering dancing tiger prawns with lemon grass and coconut, is to die for, it's the way the whole thing is put together that makes it exquisite. Presented on lacquered trays papered with fresh banana leaves, it's both elegant and earthly.

Her large apartment in New York houses a collection of antique lacquer wares and hammered silver bowls. Her waiters and waitresses either wear bright sarongs or Mao jackets or whatever costumes fit the client's mood. "We actually did a mixed Asian Latino affair the other day and had pinatas and it was really fun. If you want Bali, I can give you Bali."

Half of Khin's family is still in Burma, including her mother who has returned there from New York. Khin, however, considers New York her home. "No one holds a gun to my head and says stay in New York or else. Once you decide to stay somewhere the rest falls into place. I do know this where I am going to be, and I want to introduce Asian foods to Americans here. American tastes are changing and more and more, it's the Asian cuisine that delights. Especially among young people. Very rich now, those in high-tech business, all those dot.coms people and they very willing to taste exotic dishes."

Asia remains the source, her art's life line. "I don't sightsee in Asia. I go to the market to look at vegetables and the fresh foods and then it's straight to the kitchen. There are always new dishes made here too, and I need to learn, to keep up."

Out in the sunlight, amidst the din of bargaining and the aromas of spices, Khin adoringly lifts a bunch of ginger roots, and smells it.

"Look at this ginger, isn't it beautiful?"

You can tell that she couldn't wait to go back to the hotel and cook it with the chef.

And this interviewer, of course, is invited along to eat.