Fervent and fabulous
48 Oriental Avenue,
5th floor,
Bangkok, Thailand
+66 (0) 2 659 9000
www.mandarinoriental. com/bangkok/chao-phrayariver/fine-dining/restaurants/ french-cuisine/le-normandie
Mon-Sat, Lunch from noon to 2pm, Dinner from 7pm to 10pm
French fine dining
Lunch set from THB1500. Dinner entree from THB1750.
Elegant attire and footwear.
Impeccable
Go for it
Yellow chartreuse baba surrounded by citrus and topped with milk ice-cream, against the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. de L’Eridan and Emile Jung at Crocodile. He also spent three years at Maison Lameloise in Burgundy before joining Le Crillon in Paris under the leadership of Jean-Francois Piege. He was executive chef at Chateau de la Tour du Puits in Chambery.
A TEASE TO THE PALATE
The degustation menu preludes with palate-teasing canape of corn chip with carrot and cumin, mushroom consomme with truffle foam and mango jelly with sourdough bread. An enticing accompaniment is the seaweed-infused butter, lightly salted and under layered with an intriguing, savoury soul. This spread certainly rises above its boring butter brethren.
Having coaxed the palate into full gear, I am launched on a startlingly vibrant Isigny salmon with lightly textured avocado and grapefruit. Served ravishingly rare, the salmon freshened in the grapefruit’s trademark tang is a supreme catch.
Next is an exquisite and eye-pleasing dish, Oscietre caviar and sea urchin dressed
Isigny salmon, avocado and grapefruit.
Chef Arnaud Dunand Sauthier
in potato foam. Led by the delicately aromatic Oscietre caviar, you work your way through velvety foam laced with champagne sauce all the way to the sea urchin buried underneath. This complex dish is well at ease with itself, uniting taste and texture harmoniously.
The main dish, pigeon mieral de bresse, is a constellation of flavours. Matched against the dense gamey appeal of roasted pigeon is the mellowness of melon uplifted by citrus and grapefruit notes of timut (Nepalese) peppers.
Wrapping up is the dessert - milk icecream resting on yellow chartreuse baba (small sweet cake) with citrus alongside - delivering a tantalising tinge of icy, fruity finish.
That authentic French cuisine thrives in this region is testimony to a chef not inspired to serve up a watered down variety of his native cuisine and a well-travelled, discerning clientele who appreciates nothing less than original. Roasted pigeon in different cuts with melon, rocket and timut pepper.