Paste is an award winning Thai restaurant in Gaysorn Village in Bangkok. According to their website :chef-owners Bongkoch ‘Bee’ Satongun and her husband Jason Bailey have spent years painstakingly studying and chronicling the evolution of Thai cuisine, discovering century-old recipes and long-forgotten techniques in the process”. It is Thai cuisine blending history, tradition, and modernity.
The visit
I booked my table with Chope and I went for a lunch.
Luckily they had a tasting menu perfect for a solo diner. The a la carte menu is more suitable for parties as the dish are quite large. The tasting menu was also massive!
I was seated in the part of the restaurant furnished with booths.
I was quickly offered an amuse bouche: spanner crab from Fraser Island on a seaweed cracker with sesame seeds. A very nice and rich welcome dish.
The tasting menu included three starters and three mains, plus dessert.
The first dish was based on a recipe used for the inauguration of the Emerald Buddha temple in the year 1809 under King Rama I. The dish had a base of watermelon, ground salmon (like a floss) with fried shallots, roasted galangal powder, and salmon roe. This was an exquisite dish. The flavors fused together seamlessly. The salmon roe were very fresh and provided sudden explosions of flavor. I liked the combination of fruit and seafood.
The next dish arrived after a bit of waiting and consisted in seared scallops tossed in a salad with fresh mangosteen, Peromia, lemongrass, young coconut, and Thai wild almonds. Just delicious.
The final appetizer was a finger food: roasted duck, nutmeg, curry paste, and sawtoothcoriander on a rice cracker. This recipe was inspired by an old traditional Thai cookbook.
The first main was again inspired by the Snidwongse family cookbook and consisted in seabass and jicama dumplings in a watermelon rind and fishroe soup.
The second main was crunchy rice balls with sour sausage, kaffir lime zest, red curry paste, river weed, and rose pepper leaf.
Finally I was served a delicious yellow curry with Australian spanner crab, hummingbird flowers, Thai samphire, and tumeric. I was also served rice to mix it.
The dessert was a trio of palm sugar ice cream, coconut ice cream, and Thai coffee sorbet.
And finally a chocolate treat: walnut chocolate filled with orange and thailam.
The check
After tax, service charge, and one bottle of water, I spent 4,167 THB (135 USD). I must say that it was a massive tasting menu. Not the usual tiny bites. Given the quality of the dishes, I was extremely happy about the meal and I am ok with price point. It would just be advisable for them to also have a lighter tasting menu, at least for lunch!
Where in Bangkok:
Gaysorn Village, 3rd floor, 999 Phloen Chit Rd, Khwaeng Lumphini, Khet Pathum Wan, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10330, Thailand.
Website: https://www.pastebangkok.com/