Gaggan (68/1 Soi Langsuan, Ploenchit Road, Lumpini, Bangkok 10330, tel : +66 2 652 1700) is a progressive Indian restaurant by Gaggan Anand, an alumnus of the defunct El Bulli. The restaurant has had a list of accolades including being crowned as Best Restaurant in Thailand and Asia's 50 Best Restaurants for a few consecutive years. On top of that, they're also in the list for The World's 50 Best Restaurants and are currently rank at the 7th.
There is a mention that Gaggan is the only Indian restaurant in that list of the World's 50 Best. In my opinion, categorizing them as Indian is somewhat a misnomer. While the food is undeniably and mostly influenced by Indian cooking, it is also almost equally Japanese inspired.
We were seated in what they had described as the Chef’s Table where stories and backgrounds of each dish were explained as they were served.
A number of items on the menu has its inspiration from street food so they're meant to be eaten with hands.
The menu is listed by a sequence of emojis. Hence, this would would be the legend from which we would attempt to decode what we eat based on what the emoji could possibly represent - as tenuous as some might be.
I'll be describing what I can remember from the 25 course emoji menu. Though we had been given some introduction to each of the items served, we are revealed only the main components. The rest are mysteries that the magicians do not reveal.
Watermelon emoji : This was a disc of watermelon gelatine on top of some sugar shell I think. It was designed to look like an oyster.
Explosion emoji : This is known as Yoghurt Explosion. Gaggan's signature item and from what the restaurant mentioned, the dish (if that's the right word for it) that earned Gaggan Anand his millions. Haha.
It's a smooth skinned spherical yoghurt, served on a metal spoon so that it easily slides into your mouth. From there, the explosion of spices, sweetness and of course sour. Maybe cumin too? It reminded me a lot of dahi puri minus the textures.
Tongue emoji : As this dish was served, the kitchen was playing Lick It Up by KISS. This was served without utensils and we were told to lick up what was on the plate for a bit of fun.
The brown stuff was some mushroom tapenade with truffles and the words are made with green pea puree. I think.
Prawn emoji : amaebi head filled with chilled tom yum cream making this Gaggan's interpretation of tom yum goong. This was excellent.
Flower emoji : I couldn't tell what this was. It tasted like some sort of cookie to me.
Eggplant emoji : I think they said eggplant that was pulverized, dried, powdered and made into cookies with onion chutney. This took five days to make and would last 5 seconds in the mouth.
Chilli emoji : Chocolate shell that's filled with spicy and sour tamarind water. Basically a chocolate pani puri.
Rice bowl emoji : I think they mentioned something about inspiration from idly. I forgot what's the foam and what's the bottom. But it did taste like an idly. For those of you that didn't know, the relation to the emoji is because idly is a steamed rice cake.
Banana emoji : Black sesame base, chicken liver mousse and banana jelly on top. Nice.
Fish emoji : The restaurant mentioned about making this item by accident when they left some sea bass frying for too long. The remnants of the over frying was dried crispy bits of intense flavoured fish. It was then crushed and mixed with nuts and cranberries and stuff to form a granola which was then topped by cream cheese. Very smart, very nice. The fish flavour was quite subtle and still identifiable with a very mild aftertaste. When we were eating it, it tasted like a nice fruity granola with cream cheese.
Martini in glass emoji : This emoji was picked because there wasn't any gin & tonic emoji the restaurant could use. This was Hokkaido uni on a cone of compressed dill with gin & tonic pearls on top. Obviously, this was inspired by an uni temaki. There was cucumber sorbet and something sweet in the cone as well. Couldn't tell what that was. This was delicious.
Sushi emoji : Shoyu marinated otoro with some yuzu zesting served on a dashi meringue. The dish was designed to use chutoro but they only had otoro for their current shipment and it was used instead. Lucky us.
Carrot emoji : A carrot and sugar shell waffle with foie gras mousse inside. This was one of the tenuous links I was talking about for emojis. The carrot did not register anything beyond colour. It was still very delicious though it was largely the sweetness from the sugar and the foie gras mousse that made it so.
Cup of matcha emoji : Looks like cups in preparation for a drink.
Looked like green tea powder.
Looks like matcha.
Mixing with the brush.
And we were served a chilled, refreshing fruity drink. The green liquid is what they described as Indian gazpacho - made with mint, coriander, green apples and green tomatoes. The powder was made from freeze dried asparagus.
Meat and bone emoji : This was an Iberico pork vindaloo.
The pork vindaloo was made into a little parcel, breaded with panko and fried - just like tonkatsu. Served with a dab of mustard and sauerkraut paper.
Bowl/wok with orange contents emoji : This was called uncooked curry. Coconut gelato, raw scallops, fried shallots, chilli oil and some leaf that tasted like curry.
Hotdog emoji : The emoji was suppose to represent sheesh kebab which were those brown lollipops. The "kebab" was served with some kind of mango chutney leather which are the dark patches of "leaves".
Chicken emoji : Chicken skin with shimeiji mushrooms. Think the skins were baked.
Fire emoji : This began with a little bit of theatrics. The kitchen was darkened and a bunch of stuff on a tray were set on fire.
From the embers, packages were retrieved and put onto our plates.
Beneath the burnt packages was banana leaf which hid fish! The green stuff was something they called Bengali mustard and it contained coriander.
But I finished it and liked it.
Black circle emoji : something in a charcoal batter that's fried like tempura. I couldn't tell what it was as it was gooey inside. This black dish is a main stay at Gaggan. The only thing that changes for this particular item is what's in the black batter.
Taco emoji : Lobster in a rice flour pancake that's suppose to be a dosa. The lobster was prepared in some tomato butter sauce which made it essentially some kind of butter lobster. Delicious.
Rose emoji : The first of desserts start here. It was served in a wooden box.
The box opens to unveil roses which are made of beetroot with some cookie below the petals. That's all I could tell.
Clinking wine glasses emoji : A milk cookie of sorts that had fillings made with muscat and reisling grapes. Both are floral scented grape varietals that are used to make sweet wines.
Lemon emoji : ice cream flavoured with mustard - or so I had assumed mustard. As this was served, a song sung by the Minions was played.
Peach emoji : Last dessert item that came in a box.
Some sort of peach jelly and cream with some cookie/fritter at the bottom. It tasted much better than I had described it.
At the end, a little bit of explanations were attempted with an update of the menu that included some key ingredient descriptions. The only thing that I didn't see coming was goat brain. Hahaha!
