City of Flavours

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2FEATURE DINING

City of Flavours

Join us on a ‘Bangkok Dine Around’ as we sample the fine fare of a different restaurant for every course... Gavin Nazareth

T

he culinary melting wok that is Bangkok makes eating out a gastronomic adventure that merrily switches between street stalls venerated by the locals to upscale starchedtablecloth establishments serving everything from French nouvelle cuisine to Pacific Rim fusion.

The smorgasbord of food available also makes it easy to eat your way around the world, taking your palate on a journey from kimchi and kebabs to sushi and souvlaki, stopping in between for mind-bending cocktails you eat and sumptuous little foie gras macarons.

Given all these choices, why limit your dining experience to a single restaurant?

With restaurants literally cheek-by-jowl in this city, it’s not hard to plan a Dine Around that takes in different restaurants and cuisines for an evening of epicurean delights. Follow us on the one we did to make your task easier.

17:45 – The St. Regis Bar (www.starwoodhotels.com/stregis)

Slung low on the horizon, the sun dyes the interior of The St. Regis Bar reddish hue, and its huge picture windows overlooking the fairways and racetrack of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club perfectly frame the city’s jagged skyline in the distance.

Located on the 12th floor of Bangkok’s newest luxury hotel, the bar has a masculine vibe with dark wood, a long bar, and comfy leather couches, while the terrace zone is casual with wicker chairs and leather cushions. It’s a great place to enjoy a pre-dinner drink, which is what we are doing, sipping a signature ‘Siam Mary’, a local variant of the original Bloody Mary.

As the legend goes, in 1934, Fernand Petiot, a bartender at The St. Regis New York’s King Cole Bar, first concocted the tomatobased cocktail that he initially christened ‘Red Snapper’. Over the years it’s been endlessly adapted and replicated, but at St. Regis Hotels & Resorts worldwide it has become a ritual for each property to infuse the original recipe with native ingredients that reflect local cultural tastes.

Our Siam Marys come in 14-ounce silver goblets; the fiery red liquid stands in stark contrast to the greens and yellows of the Thai basil, coriander, lemongrass stalk and lime wedge used as garnish. The zesty tomato juice has been spiked with Thai chilli and wasabi for a balanced and refreshing sundowner.

If a Siam Mary is not for you, there are 22 other versions available; including the ‘Great Wall Bloody Mary’ (Beijing) that uses Tsingtao Beer instead of vodka, the ‘Bloody Smoke’ from London (10-year Single Malt, Clamato), the ‘Agave Maria’ from California (tequila, jalapeno), and the Bali Mary from Bali (cucumber, jicama, brown sugar).

With night throwing its dark cloak over the city, it’s time for us to move on to our next stop, which is a short walk along the side of The St. Regis Bangkok down Soi Mahatlek Luang 3 to Langsuan.

18:45 – Gaggan

(www.facebook.com/gagganlangsuan) The narrow lane opposite Langsuan Soi 3 opens into a leafy forecourt beside a whitewashed colonial-style wooden house. This is Chef Gaggan Anand’s eponymous restaurant where he tempts and teases with what he calls “progressive Indian cuisine.”

Inside, the two storeys offer a cosy atmosphere with floor-to-ceiling French doors, wooden floors, white furniture and chic marble tabletops. The space is at once relaxed and elegant. For most diners the best seats in the house are at the Chef’s Table, where, with the flick of a switch, a translucent window clears to show the kitchenlaboratory replete with Pacojets, liquid nitrogen on tap, vacuum-packed meats slowly cooking in water baths, shiny racks that hold large syringes and jar upon jar of ingredients, ranging from colourful edible flowers and freeze-dried fruits to salts sourced from around the globe.

After stints at two restaurants in Bangkok, the 32 year-old from Kolkata, India, a gradutate of the Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces management training programme, became the first Indian and only the second Asian to intern under the Michelin-starred Ferran Adrià, widely recognised as one of the world’s best chefs. For Gaggan it was “the equivalent of attaining nirvana ... In

terms of cooking, it was like being reborn.

You have your memories, your styles and your cooking techniques … but when you go there, you have to erase those ideas and fill them in with new ones.”

And his new take on Indian cuisine is what he serves us as an amuse bouche. A popular Indian street snack, ‘papri chaat’ is Papri (or crisp fried dough wafers) topped with boiled potatoes and chickpeas, yoghurt, tamarind chutney and chaat masala. Gaggan’s version is served in an oblong platter in which the air-dried potato wafers that replace the ‘papri’ are teamed with a green foam made from coriander and mint, tamarind chutney and spherification of yoghurt that is a sensual blend of creamy yoghurt, cumin, rock salt and pepper. It’s a delightful mouthful that is evocative of childhood evenings spent devouring this snack by the plateful.

To showcase his food for us, Gaggan had promised us small platings of some of his creations. Crispy soft-shell crab comes with a tamarind and molasses dressing that offers a sweet-sour combo assertively accentuated by black peppercorns. There is red chicken tikka kebabs wreathed in a delicate lemony foam topped by blue angel flowers that taste like fresh oysters. On the side is a small mound of salty fingers, a plant that grows along the coasts of tropical America and Asia; it has a crunchy texture and salty,

slightly bitter taste and pairs surprisingly well with kebab.

Another signature dish is titled ‘The Lost Jewel’, a kebab made with the exotic Kashmiri gucchi (morel) mushroom. Also known as the ‘royal mushroom’ or ‘Indian truffle’, this wild mushroom mostly grows in forests located over 2,000 metres above sea level.

Harvesting it is also cumbersome, with collectors having to trek through hundreds of miles of mountainous forests to identify and pick them from among hundreds of other varieties of wild mushrooms. At Gaggan the flavoursome mouthfuls are stuffed with mashed green peas and slow-roasted fennel. The pineapple chutney served with it is a nice counterpoint to the rich, woody, nutty flavour and meaty texture of the mushroom.

Gaggan’s not done with us yet, as he brings out colourful little aluminium buckets packed with crushed ice and holding sticks of sugarcane. “My version of mojitos,” he tells us. The cane is infused with rum, lime juice and mint for a pleasantly potent edible cocktail.

As much as we would like to linger and sample the rest of the chef’s tasting menu, which offers ten bite-sized courses, it’s time for our main course elsewhere.

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Langsuan 7

GAI & JOEL

Langsuan 6

Chidlom Chidlom BTS BTS Station Station

Langsuan 4

Langsuan 2

Langsuan 1

PLOENCHIT PLOENCHIT RD. RD.

GAGGAN

Mahatleklua ng 3

Chidlom BTS Chidlom Station BTS Station Chidlom BTS Station MEDICI MEDICI

PLOENCHIT RD. PLOENCHIT RD.

MUSE MUSE HOTEL HOTEL

PLOENCHIT RD.

Lang Suan Rd.

Lang Suan Rd.

THE THE ST. REGIS ST. REGIS BARBAR

Langsuan 1 Langsuan 1

MEDICI MUSE Langsuan 2 2 MEDICI HOTEL Langsuan THE THEMUSE MILLENNIA HOTEL MILLENNIA

THE Mahatlekluang 3 Mahatlekluang 3 ST. REGIS THE BAR ST. REGIS BAR

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RATCHADAMRI RD.

Ratchadamri BTS Station

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MEDICI MUSE HOTEL

THE ST. REGIS BAR

some bite. Rougie duck breast is massaged with a fresh herb bouquet, pink peppercorn and tarragon before being perfectly seared, and then glazed with a honey-lavender mix.

The Australian lamb chop is marinated for two-to-three days with cinnamon, saffron, garlic and cumin, then pan-seared and served with a crispy garlic-raisin couscous.

Each mouthful is complex and exciting, evoking various taste memories, like minitrips to different places.

The list of sweet treats is tempting but we still have one more stop to make before the night is over.

PLOENCHI T RD.

Our final stop is almost at the other end of Langsuan. Rising 25 storeys above street level, the artsy boutique Hotel Muse brings to the city a hotel dedicated to the golden age of travel. The design and décor of all 174 lavish guest rooms exude an interplay of classic European signatures juxtaposed with ornate Asian motifs and playful twists. The theme continues in the hotel’s distinctive food and beverage venues, one of which we are headed to.

Within a few weeks of its opening, Medici Kitchen & Bar, located in the basement of the hotel, is already doing good business, seducing diners with its architectural blend of neo-industrial design. Modern lines and surfaces are offset by rusticated elements like brick walls, wooden casks and a barbecue spit. There is a well-integrated bar space for aperitifs and tapasstyle dishes, as well as two private rooms (called ‘Caterina’ and ‘Lorenzo’).

Chidlom BTS Station

(www.hotelmusebangkok.com)

Chef Francesco Lenzi rules the roost here, and after informing him about the contents of our previous courses, he is quick to suggest the Piatto di Formaggi Misti (assorted imported cheese platter) as a prelude to the desserts he has lined up for us. The platter is a fine selection of hard and soft cheeses, many of which are not usually available.

There is a pungently aromatic Taleggio from Piedmont, a gorgonzola, a Grana Padano, a semi-fat hard cheese invented nearly 1,000 years ago by the Cistercian monks of Chiaravalle Abbey, and a variety of pecorino cheeses, including Pecorino di Fossa that is matured in caves and is slightly sweetish with a peppery finish. It’s a highly satisfying platter that comes with raspberry and blueberry jams as accompaniments.

By this time, our desserts are ready and the chef brings out a sublime Tortino Al Cioccolato (chocolate fondant), Tiramisu served in a large Martini glass, and a little surprise that was not on the menu: truffle ice-cream. Francesco tells us he makes the ice-cream using a Pacojet, a machine that mixes and purees deep-frozen foods without having to thaw them, to produce intensely natural tasting ice-creams, sorbets and mousses at the ideal serving temperature. It’s made almost a-la-minute.

He also Ratchadamri Ratchadamri BTS BTS adds a bit of vanilla to heighten theStation taste Station of truffles. After some initial hesitation, a spoonful later we were all addicted, and Francesco promised to put it on the menu.

A fine experience like this begs to be Ratchadamri mulled over a well-aged single malt but BTS Station with all the food and drink we have Ratchadamri ingestBTS ed and imbibed that thought would have Station to Ratchadamri keep for another day. 2 BTS RATCHADA MRI RD.

Our next pitstop is just down the street, on the corner of Langsuan Soi 7. Chef Gai Wilkinson first worked at Le Vendome at All Seasons Place before moving to The Deck on the river. Another career change took her to Alila Cha-Am, where she met Joel Wilkinson, the head chef for the Alila hotel chain.

Temperatures rose in the kitchen and the two soon got married, moving on to Alila Luang Prabang, where they worked for several years. Last year the couple moved back to Bangkok to present their eclectic kitchen talent in their showcase restaurant that embraces a global cuisine concept that Joel tells us is “an expression of over 23 years of cooking in nine countries.”

Spanning three floors, the elegant restaurant also features a tiny rooftop garden that overlooks the busy street below. Downstairs, the main dining area is smartly dressed in beige, white and black and accessorised in red and yellow.

The upper floors accommodate private rooms and an open kitchen that allows diners to glimpse how the gastronomic magic is created.

Before our main course, Joel offers us their signature welcome drink, which blends cherry, lemon and orange for a refreshing tonic on a hot night. A lip-smacking amuse bouche of slow-roasted Pacific Oyster with bacon bits, dripping with Worcestershire sauce, sets the tone for the main course, the interplay of flavours pushing all the right buttons.

Veal, duck and lamb come together for the Mixed Grill main course; a medallion of milk-fed veal is paired with a smokeyflavoured risotto cooked just enough to offer

21:00 – Medici Kitchen & Bar

Lang Suan Rd.

(www.gaiandjoel.com)

Langsuan 3

20:00 – Gai and Joel

Langsuan 14 Langsuan Langsuan 4 Langsuan 1

THE ST. REGIS BAR THE GAGGAN GAGGAN MILLENNIA

Mahatlekluang 3 Mahatlekluang 3 Mahatlekluang 3

THE MILLENNIA

Langsuan 2 Langsuan12 Langsuan

Langsuan 3 Langsuan 6 Langsuan 6 23 Langsuan Langsuan

THE MILLENNIA

GAI & GAI & JOEL4 Langsuan JOEL

Langsuan Langsuan 34 Langsuan 7 Langsuan 7