A Melange of Tastes

“This is like a science class!” said my daughter Chantal. We’d just entered Gaggan’s, the colonial-looking restaurant in Bangkok’s Chidlom area that this February was declared Best Restaurant in Asia’s top 50 for the third year running in the ranking sponsored by S. Pellegrino & Acqua Panna—as well as listed #23 in the World’s Best 50 Restaurants. Chantal is as quirky and unpredictable as Chef Gaggan himself. She confessed recently that she loves the sound and sensation produced by scraping a fresh carrot with eyes closed, and that sinking a knife into boiled beetroot sends chills down her back. Her first reaction to Gaggan’s molecular cuisine laboratory in Bangkok, however, was apprehension. Along the wall were arrayed the instruments of molecular delight—freeze dryers,

centrifuges, salamanders, vacuum sealers, a liquid nitrogen tank, a blast chiller, spherification kits.

Gaggan doesn’t cook like your mother would. Your mother might fry up some papris, douse them with sweetened yoghurt, spoon tamarind chutney over them and sprinkle on some rock salt and coriander, and bliss you out for ten minutes with her signature papri-chaat. But Gaggan’s world was turned upside down during his many years under the tutelage of Spain’s formidable Ferran Adria, master of El Bulli restaurant, home to cutting edge advances in molecular gastronomy. At the end of the apprenticeship, Adria told the young Gaggan, like a Holmes to a Watson: “You know my methods, apply them—to your cuisine.” In Gaggan’s hands, the papri-chaat now turns molecular and emerges as the legendary Yoghurt Explosion—two yoghurt-coloured blobs in steel spoons. Pop them whole in your mouth and the agar-agar wrapping breaks, releasing the many complex flavours and tastes of papri-chaat. No crunch— but what a punch.

His crowning creation, the Yoghurt Explosion, says everything about him and his cuisine. Like most of the 25 finger foods on the menu at his eponymous restaurant, it is inspired by the sights and bites of the Calcutta streets he roamed as a kid. Every molecular creation at Gaggan’s is at the same time a personal culinary retrospective.

His evolving menu now includes a Japanese dimension. “India gave me the spices and the tastes, but from Japan I get perfection,” says Gaggan, who now makes frequent pilgrimages there. Already there is something of Zen in the presentation, and even an intriguing sushi. Gaggan also dreams of opening a weekends-only, 10-seater restaurant in Fukuoka.

The Gaggan experience is food as theatre, and costs 4,000 Thai baht a pop (Rs 7,500). Bookings need to be made as much as four months in advance. At the restaurant, the air quivers over the teppanyaki-style surround table, as if dinner will feature fire-eaters and hobgoblins throwing daggers at each other.

The menu card is a column of emojis—well, icons, really—each representing a single creation. But Gaggan himself introduces the dishes with the passion of a born raconteur. Then the dishes appear, mini masterpieces of bonsai food, served with as much attention to the presentation as to the taste and texture.

Each bite-sized morsel has its own way of dismantling itself, the crust crumbling and dissolving while liquids packed in layers gush and squirt out, blend and merge, creating eureka moments of recognition, amazement, intrigue and sheer delight. At some point, you close your eyes, not long before the expression on your face says you’ve reached heaven.

Among my favourites was what looks like a white mushroom with foam on top, which discombobulates your taste buds with direct strikes of sambar, idli and fresh coconut chutney.

For me, though, the entire evening was worth it for the look on Chantal’s face when she popped a red-and-white streaked ball in her mouth. Her eyes closed when she realised it was a chocolate. But a parsec later, the pani-puri’s complex flavours hit her, and the most beatific smile appeared on her face.

“Cool beans,” she said as we left. “This is the best science class I’ve been to!”

MINI MASTERPIECES OF BONSAI FOOD, WITH AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE PRESENTATION AS TO THE TASTE