I was passing through Bangkok in August 2019 and I was able to book a seat at Gaggan, the iconic restaurant that for many years topped the Asia’s 50 Best restaurant list (to slide to number 2 in 2019). What prompted me to try the venue was my experience with Goh in Fukuoka: apparently Gaggan (the chef) will close his Bangkok restaurant by the end of the year and relocate in Fukuoka starting a collaboration with Goh. This was Gaggan’s last menu and, according to the them, the most challenging to date. Here’s how it went.
UPDATE: The restaurant ended operations on 24 August 2019 earlier than expected, not without some drama. Future plans are still unclear.
The visit
Booking took some back and forth via email. They wanted me to prepay via a bank transfer (no way!). We settled eventually for a Paypal payment.
They have two turns per night, one at 5.30pm and one at 9.30pm. I was offered the second turn that worked very well with my schedule.
A bit early, at 9.10pm, I was the first to be accommodated in the dining room, friendly nicknamed the Lab. It was a true chef’s table experience with all the diners sitting around a horseshoe-shaped counter circling the open kitchen. All 14 seats were taken, but a couple disappeared maybe preferring the privacy of a private room. We were asked our nationality (I overheard some Italians, Spanish, and Americans, definitely a crowd made of travelers) and presented the wine options by a flamboyant sommelier (I had to kill his spirit by only asking water; surprisingly they did not have a non-alcoholic pairing).
Gaggan was not there and the head chef was a young professional from Costa Rica. He did most of the interaction with the guests and opened the dinner with a short oration about Gaggan’s philosophy centered around perception and seasonality. He also indicated that we were about to experience the last iteration of their menu in Bangkok as the restaurant was about to shut down (but he did not mention the future projects) and that this was the most challenging menu to date. Behind the kitchen there was a team of half dozen young chefs from all over the world. Someone mentioned that over 20 nationalities were represented in the kitchen staff, sometimes hired just through emails. Gaggan was certainly a big school for many young chefs. At this point it was 9.50pm and we had yet to start with the food.
The menu was made only with emojis. This was actually a clever idea catering to an international audience. In the past they had tried other innovative approaches such as using poems, but this turned out to be the sleeker. I will try to incorporate the emoji for each dish (it may or may not be visualized depending on your system. To be very precise, the menu used the Apple emojis, while in this page you will see visualized the official ones from Unicode).
Once the food started to come, it was very well timed and there was no wasted time. We received our checks at 10 minutes after Midnight. It was “just” a little over 2 hours for 25 dishes.
1. πΊ We started with what in another restaurant would be called a welcome drink (here summer pitcher): it was a mocktail based on seasonal fruits, lemon juice, and mint infusion. It had a refreshing taste with small bits of fruit pulp.
2. π₯ The next dish was a fixture on Gaggan’s menus called yogurt explosion. It was a sort of molecular lassi to be eaten in one bite from the spoon.
3. π The third opening dish highlighted the attempt to play with perception and with the guests. From what I understand it was another fixture on the menu, with the content of the plate changing but the way to eat it remaining the same: licking it up. It was funny to see 12 grown up men and women licking the plate. A gentlemen did a particularly good job and was praised with an applause as the winner of the context for the cleanest plate (I guess his wife must be a happy woman). Meantime, loud music was underscoring our deeds. Music tended to be too loud for my taste during the dinner. There were four pastes on the plate with tomato, some berry, something I could not identify (the green), and mango flavors. Appropriately, Lick It Up by the Kiss was used as a soundtrack for this segment.
4. π₯ Starting with this dish, the appetizers were inspired by various Indian regions, highlighting the roots of the cuisine (Gaggan is from India). The first dish in this series was called Chili nest and had a quail egg resting on a nest of fried noodles. It was inspired by the panipuri from UP/Bihar and the egg was filled with flavored water.
5. βοΈ The next dish called khandvi snow was inspired by khandvi, a savory snack in Maharashtrian as well as in Gujarati cuisines of India. It was a cold appetizer based on a yellow fried curry that is one of the key ingredients in Gaggan’s kitchen. It was very fresh.
6. πΎ Then, we had a kachori (a type of Indian fried dumplings) topped with mashed peas.
7. πͺ The journey across India continued with a cookie inspired by Kolkata Jhalmuri, a type of street snack made using puffed rice. We were told that this was a childhood favorite for Gaggan. Our cookie was flour-less with some sort of marmalade in the middle. I would have called it an Indian macaroon.
8. π₯ This series of dishes was ended by a special aloo bonda, an Indian fritter that can be found with different fillings. Ours was pitch black, thanks to a homemade batter, as a homage to the use of charcoal by street vendors. It was filled mainly with yellow curry.
These initial snacks were meant to display the Indian roots of the restaurant. The plates came together to form a silhouette of India. I must admit that I liked this gimmick, it was very clever and gave a sense of structure to this part of the meal.
9. π§ With the new dish, we were back to test our perceptions. We were offered a blindfold and we were given the next dish on our hand while blindfolded. It was something gummy, tender, a bit spicy.
After taking off the blindfold, all it was left of the dish was a skull.
Apparently, we just had eaten a brain made with tumeric, tofu, and peppers. The “brain” was shown to us after the fact. It was an interesting commentary about the role of our brain in determining perception, I guess.
10. π The new dish was called fake truffle and came in the form of a dim sum dish. It was not said, but clearly the buns were meant to replicate the famous Hong Kong pineapple buns (that is a fake pineapple by the way). The filling was foie gras and a hint of truffle (I think).
11. π Next was a “tomato sundae”. The main ingredient was salmon roe squeezed in a roll made of pastry. Another nice refreshing bite.
12 π½ The dinner continued with what the chef defined a “love letter to fast food”. It was a fried corn dog filled with foie gras.
13. π The next dish was a snack where the shell was made with orange candy. Inside there was a piece of smoked eel.
14. π€€ The drooling face was quite a fitting for the next dish called “uni and onion orgasm”. It was probably my favorite dish of the evening. It consisted of a handmade Monaka base filled with onion ice cream and topped by uni. The onion was not just any onion, but onion from Awaji island in Japan (we were informed that they cost 10USD a pop). The union of the flavors was perfect.
15. π£ The next dish was a tribute to sushi. It was a superb piece of fatty tuna on an original base of nori (seaweed), rice, and dashi. The base was a bit too hard for my taste, but the tuna, which was blowtorched, was phenomenal. No soy sauce, but only citrus and salt.
16. π± We then had an interesting mushroom soup that was poured on a tea-infused egg custard on the bottom.
17. π¦ The next dish brought us to Goa, an Indian state whose cuisine has been influenced by the Portuguese. We had a big prawn inspired by the Prawn BalchΓ£o, that is a spicy shrimp based masala pickle in Goa. Interestingly enough, this was the first “main” dish (or “protein rich dish” as the chef put it). And it was dish number 17!
18. π The second main was a dish of curry noodles. But not the Thai type. This was a kind of idiyappam (string hoppers) with vindaloo sauce. The idiyappams are steamed Indian noodles. Again, it was a dish popular in Goa. I felt that the noodles were stuck together, the curry was great.
19. π¨ Then we had a lamb chop with Indian spices. Man, this was a delicious lamb chop, I would have eaten many… The official name of the dish was “A hater called it as a fart…”. Apparently 15 year ago or so, Gaggan got a bad review for this dish and it was kept on the menu with the idea to make it perfect (or maybe it was already perfect…). This dish was a subtle commentary about the tricky relation between chefs and reviewers.
20. π¦ The crab dish was made with dashi stock from a fried crab shell, sesame paste (to me, reminding the crab roe) and a couple of microscopic crab pieces. Nice flavor, but the dish left me unsatisfied.
21. π₯ The next dish was much more satisfying. It was a kind of fish paturi, where the fish was a piece of prized kinmedai from Japan. It was cooked using blowtorches wrapped in banana leaves. The chefs worked at the rhythm of heavy metal music.
22. π The 22nd dish opened the dessert streak. The first dessert was called “pebbles in the water”. We were challenged to find the edible pebble in the mix (it was, of course, the white one on top). The stone was filled with melon flavored water.
23 π₯ Time for more games with the next dessert: a mango shake. The trick was that the shake was presented in a feeding bottle. We all sucked it up.
24. π³ The second last dessert was a beautiful bonsai standing on a jasmine tea mousse. Bonsai are mainly Japanese and Japanese music was playing. But jasmine tea is Chinese. And this was by design.
25. πΉοΈ Final dish was a tribute to a popular culture icon: Pac-Man. Eating the eating-video-game character was funny enough. Pac-Man was I believe yuzu, the mini-ghost was chocolate and then there was a raspberry ball. Pac-Man Fever song was playing in the background.
Before closing there was an additional dish for people with birthdays and for couples. Too bad if you were there as a single.
At the end they were also supposed to handout a celebratory t-shirt, but for some reason they forgot.
The check
Cost? The total cost for the experience after taxes was 9,816 THB (or 318 USD). No charge for still water (and non alcoholic drinks were reasonably priced, but I did not have any). There were 400 THB that I paid to cover Paypal charges not shown on the check.
Was it worth it? I will use two emojis: π€― π¦.
The first emoji is the exploding head. Yes, it was a mind-blowing experience. So much creativity and twists. They challenged the diners, but in an acceptable way. It was fun and the food was excellent.
The second emoji is the frowning face with open mouth. Because here and there I also got the impression that the ratio between food and showmanship was skewed too much toward the latter.
On balance, I think it was a worthwhile experience, I do not regret the final check and I enjoyed the creativity in both the dishes and their presentation.
PS: Speaking of emojis, did they really make a movie about them? That’s mind-blowing.
Where in Bangkok:68/1 Soi Langsuan Ploenchit Road Lumpini, Bangkok 10330
Website: http://eatatgaggan.com.
Closed.
