Bangkok’s Michelin two-starred Gaggan is rated by some as Asia’s best restaurant so I had to go see whether it was worth that hype and especially since the restaurant will close in 2020. After getting some help in securing a reservation, I’m glad I came because it’s a blend of food that’s unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere. The cuisine is borderless – creative Indian with Thai, Japanese and French influences and generally beautifully presented in 25 small courses. While some of it can be slightly gimmicky, notably the menu consists of emojis and one of the courses comes with a boombox playing the song that inspired the dish, it’s all meant to be light-hearted. Unfortunately, my impression is that while I’m happy to have gotten to eat here, there wasn’t anything that would really make me want to visit again. In a way, it’s like being invited to dine with the cool kids but it’s hard to say whether they really want to see you again.
The 25 Courses:
No surprise that the course with the song is “Lick it Up!” – well appreciated by some of my friends who lived through the Kiss years of hair and spandex. And essentially, we had to lick up the three pastes, generally curry flavours, on the plate. But my one of my favourite dishes for the night was the eggplant cookie. It was a totally unexpected way of cooking eggplant and also very pretty to look at. The eggplant had been roasted for 48 hours in a tandoor oven. Unsurprisingly, this was one of the signature dishes at Gaggan and hence, probably a menu fixture.
This was followed by the Chilly Bon Bon, which was another beautifully presented dish. This was chocolate over a chilly emulsion with coriander and mint.
We started to see a few dishes with more obvious Japanese influences – there was chutoro (tuna belly), uni (sea urchin) and anago (sea eel) as well as edamame (soybean) and shiitake mushroom in a tempura batter darkened to resemble charcoal. As a big fan of uni, I enjoyed the Turnip Uni Taco which consisted of uni, catfish, pumpkin and finger lime in a soft green turnip taco. The raw scallop was from Hokkaido.
Return of the CTM refers to Chicken Tikka Masala, also known as the national dish of Britain. In this case the flavours have been turned into a meringue. We were coming to the end of the menu with the remaining courses being dessert. While I’m not a dessert person, I thought both of the two main desserts were good although probably nothing to write home about in terms of taste and when compared to some of the savoury course we had. However, they were certainly pretty to look at, especially the roses made of beetroot while I liked the way the Flower Power Rose, which reminded me of Jalebi, was all the more fun because of the mosaic patterned plate. The second course is akin to petits fours at other fine dining restaurants. In this case it was caramel candy in a origami pocket. The final course is coffee, which I didn’t quite photograph.
Cost and other less fun matters:
Our dinner cost THB6,500 and you’d have to multiply this by 17% for service and tax. Gaggan doesn’t do an a la carte menu and they are only open for dinner. Reservations are definitely required and bookings have been difficult to get so a little forward planning may be needed. The place is closed on Sundays. Gaggan website link.