FOOD TO GO GAGA OVER
Low-key local produce transformed into multidimensional will amaze your palette
There’s one small alley in downtown Bangkok that always makes visitors like me, a veteran food journalist, feel like we’re entering into a worldly-wise, yet unexplored, culinary sanctuary.
Globally-celebrated restaurant Gaggan lives here. As does Gaa, its baby sister born just nine months ago.
Though I had quite a few times passed by the yellow-façade of Gaa, I didn’t know anything about its cuisine until my recent dinner visit there where I met its hands-on chef-founder Garima Arora.
Right before starting her own venture, Garima was a sous chef at Gaggan. Prior to that, the French-educated Indian native from Mumbai used to work at Noma, formerly regarded as the world’s best restaurant, in Copenhagen.
That’s where she cultivated her passion for naturally-foraged ingredients, as well as her interest in science-centric, experimental cooking.
At Gaa, Garima leads a big team of international chefs through her wholehearted mission to transform low-key local produce into new, multidimensional flavours that, as she says, reflect the richness and variety of the land and the moment in time.
She defines the cuisine as modern, eclectic and intellectual.
Food here is offered as either 10-course (2,000 baht per person) or 14-course (2,600 baht per person) meals. An optional juice pairing package costs 900 baht per person, while a wine package costs 1,9002,600 baht. An à la carte menu will be added in the near future.
My wide-eyed dining companion and I settled for a full-scale experience paired with juice for our weekday night out.
The menu may take no effort to read but you have to see the dishes and eat them to actually let it all sink in.
Many of Garima’s creations take a cue from her Indian cooking heritage that centres around fermenting, curdling and pickling, and, of course, spices.
The restaurant has its own fermentation chamber, where all of the condiments used in the food — from cultured butter to fish sauce — are created from scratch. Everything that is served to the guests is freshly prepared in-house and without any fillers or MSG.
You can expect to find during your dinner here a chilled soup of pumpkin with crunchy kick from pickled green mango. Or a sweet bread roll made with fermented jasmine rice dough, koji (red rice yeast) ganache and Indian spice dressing. Or roasted cauliflower in a creamy pool of caramelised whey, a by-product from the kitchen’s very own cow’s milk tofu, which reflects its strong mindset against food waste.
Other novelties on the current menu include a single betel leaf that’s been seethed in reduced duck stock, fried in duck fat and served in a dry tree branch; grilled potato mochi with egg yolk cream and chives; buttery doughnut stuffed with duck vindaloo; khakhra (Indian-style spiced flat bread cracker) topped with poached crayfish meat, crayfish aioli and pomelo pulps; and keema pao, a white bread bun with dry lamb stew filling.
Excuse me for spoiling your surprise should if are expecting a meal at Gaa sometime soon.
Still, allow me to continue praising its creamy chicken liver terrine, which came in frothy flaky form and promises to melt your heart while it is melting on your tongue.
Equally terrific were tamarind-glazed pork ribs, which were hefty, tender and super succulent; and grilled organic baby corn which proved so addictive that my friend attempted to eat even the husk.
My respect for Garima peaked when a housemade ice cream was simply presented before me in a cone with details of local ingredients that didn’t ring any bells with this food writer.
The ice cream was made with egg fruit, aka sien thor, aka mon khai (tell me if you’ve ever heard of these names). It’s an indigenous fruit of northern Thailand with the taste and texture almost like a hybrid between avocado and pumpkin.
Garnishing the deliciously creamy ice cream were morsels of jackfruit, toasted peanuts, macadamia muts and (worse yet) krabok, aka wild almonds.
Perfectly complementing the food was the juice. However it wasn’t those homespun refreshments based on freshly-squeezed fruit. Instead, it boasts a collection of original cocktails, many of them infused with essence of kombucha (a sweet effervescent brew made with symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that is fermented on the premises.
Non-kombucha concoctions to match our food included jasmine-scented coconut juice and guava with mint and chillies juice.
The restaurant offers wine selections from respected trailblazing producers from around the world, most of which promote natural, biodynamic and organic practices.
As admirable as the culinary flair was the humble yet detail-orientated setting and truly enjoyable service by knowledgeable English-speaking staff.
THE JOY OF TASTING SOMETHING FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IS WHAT WE OFFER AT GAA Chef Garima Arora