It is 2 days after Christmas and it’s the day for Gaggan Anand! if you have been following and / or read (ing) the blog, we embarked on this maiden oriental tour since the beginning of December starting in Tokyo, Ho Chin Minh and now Bangkok, which is the last leg 😢. We really didn’t plan for an extended holiday but here we are (full disclosure see Gyu-an lol). What we did plan for was Bangkok and Gaggan Anand PERIODT! Oh, if you are new here (welcome and thank you for stopping by) allow me to reintroduce us – we have a thing for food and wine. Well, a little bit more than a thing for food and wine, we kinda have a huge thing for food and wine, so much so, that we sometimes plan our holiday around restaurants 🤦♀️. Yep, we are well serious with it!
Anyway, we planned our Christmas holiday intent on trying out some authentic Thai cuisine and eat at Gaggan Anand’s restaurant. Let me just say this, f*******! Very few restaurants leave me wordless and that is because, the said restaurant literally pulled it out of the bag! L’enclume, Story, Feel Como, 2254 are food experiences that still leave me in awe and now Gaggan Anand!
G A G G A N A N A N D where your menu comes as a 25 piece emote puzzle in a gorgeous box which you complete as you sample the twenty five, yes, 25 courses of seriously orgasmic food and wine whilst listening and jamming to some serious rock chuunesss.
I don’t have all of the right words to do enough justice on how flipping epic this food experience was ! You must go and try it for yourself and then we can compare notes because trust me, there is only one Gaggan Anand!
We rocked up as we do a little early to the restaurant and there is a bar just outside where you are encouraged to have drinks and mingle, think ‘mixer’ before your meal. Not only can you get your drink on like for real, it is a cool way to mingle with people you are about to share probably one, if not the most epic meals of your life!
Our meal started off with a bang! This is literally what the dish is called. It was a yogurt explosion that starts in a plate and ends in your hand and it was well, bang! Yes people, welcome to Asia where eating with your hands is the norm.
Our second course was an ode to an Indian Hindu tradition called HOLI[1]. It was a colourful plate of flavours which we had to lick and that took some maneuvering (curly girl problems lol).The next 3 courses had leaves, eggs and fish elements to it. Now let me just say this, this menu is unlike any other, I mean the courses were represented by flipping emotes! Each dish uniquely made. I mean this is a 2 Michelin star restaurant that has held the number 1 spot as best restaurant in Asia 4 consecutive times! hello?!
The next five courses, took this food adventure to another level of dopeness! We started with some kind of lollipop meat, the humble tomato and then the truffle. Now this was special as it was the last truffle of the season! The asteroid was equally impressive, crunchy and had gooey middle and we ended up with some purple love which of course by this stage we had Prince’s purple rain blasting out of speakers!!!
Courses eleven to fifteen though? Lawwwddd… we had curried potatoes in skins, what I call the ‘fuck you course’, it is Gaggan’s ode to all the haters and naysayers, I mean, well you know, eff you!
an Indian taco, eggplant and yummy filled puff pastry.
Now we were well into the meal and wine, and our sommelier Amaro was in his element, ensuring we had the best wines, chatting and what not. It honestly did not feel like a restaurant at all, it was more like a dinner party. The vibes were on 100%.
Our sixteenth course was a chilli, yep, a chilli that was smoked and fragrant! I loved the onion dish, it was pretty. Yes, I said pretty and that is a first because you lot know I don’t do ONIONS but this one was an onion-based soup which was green in colour? Course 17 depicted by a fish looked like a ‘cheese puff’ shaped like a fish. Listen this menu got me all confused like.. what? Where? How? The duck (course 18) was equally divine and again looked nothing like any duck dish I have had which is usually duck slices smoked / roasted, no sir, this duck was in some sort of stew filled with veg, fruit and the duck of course.
The last 5 courses kicked off with a rack of goat, yep, goat, and rice. Interesting that the rice was one of the last if not the last course almost like a final top up before pudding aka deserts.
The desserts? Dear lord, the desserts! Major props to Melanie the pastry chef, my gyal turned up, showed out and blew it out of the park! The first dessert was pineapple which was a type of sorbet but not really a sorbet. It came oozing with liquid nitrogen that you really could not tell what it was but after the nitrogen settled, it revealed a really pretty dessert which was a bowl within a bowl.
See what I am saying? Now dessert number 2 took it all the way to the other end of the spectrum, I defo didnt see that one coming at all. The menu had a mushroom emote, so I am going to go with that, however it didn’t look, feel or taste like any mushroom I have ever had. Plus it was finished in your hand, yep, we are back to hand eating again and it was good. The piece of ‘mushroom’ is placed in the palm of your hand, slightly moist and then a sauce is squeezed on it before it is then peppered with brown powder that was a mix of flavours which turned what would have other wise been an ordinary mushroom (which looked nothing like a mushroom) into a pimped out mushroom that tasted flipping amazing! UNREAL!
The final desert was depicted by a humble cookie but there was nothing humble about this cookie. This cookie took the mick! came out looking like a Nubian queen, with diamonds and ting! Honestly this cookie was blinged out and it was just so sinfully scrumptious!
Phew! GAGGAN ANAND! one word SPECTACULAR!
Cheers
Ndidi and Neal
P.S. Round of applause to the team because they did their TIIIINNNGGGGG!!!
Addendum: Remember how we started the evening with the mixer? well lets just say that mixer turned into a night cap with us jamming to the music with the team. It was a whole vibe!
[1] Holi – Hindu festival of spring / or light / colour
This sounds amazing 25 courses how on earth did you move after all that.
ha ha ha.. lets just say I slept good after