Gaggan in Bangkok is a progressive Indian cuisine restaurant that serves up molecular gastronomy type meals. I had a chance to visit it a few years before it really blew up, making it to the Best Restaurants in Thailand/Asia/the World List from 2015 (it’s top in Asia in 2017) and I really enjoyed my meal there. Naturally they’ve changed up the menu (no emojis back then) and it’s probably much harder to get a reservation now compared to 2012, but I think the overall philosophy is still the same – I had some pretty strange but interesting food which made for a very interesting dining experience.
I’ve never had a waiter actually feed me, so top marks for service haha
How did I end up at Gaggan?
I’m very much an eat-to-live sort of person – I like food well enough but I’m not much of a foodie to be honest. Food and eating out is the way I see a culture overseas, and I like eating interesting local delicacies but I’m happy enough with simple staples as well.
This particular trip to Bangkok was with my colleagues and meant to be a bit of a breather after an intensive work period. We ended up doing a lot of shopping and eating awesome Thai food, but one of my colleagues was adamant we check out Gaggan for dinner, so the rest of us just shrugged and went along with it.
I mean, who really goes to Thailand to eat Indian food of all things?
The Gaggan Experience
Gaggan turned out to be housed in a small white bungalow off Soi Langsuan and looked altogether very charming. The interior is quite chichi yet comfortable, perhaps like visiting a very rich friend’s dining room. There were 6 of us and we all had the 10-course tasting menu, added 2 sides and some wine and sangria, and waited in anticipation for the food to arrive.
Gaggan Restaurant – 68/1 Soi Langsuan, Ploenchit Road, Lumpini, Bangkok 10330. Call (662) 652 1700
I’ll show you the menu at the end of the meal – the service staff prefer not to let you look at the menu right at the start so they can introduce the food to you as it’s served and surprise you with each course. You’ll notice that the headline is that this was a progressively Indian meal – that’s not a typo – this progressive Indian meal got progressively more Indian as the courses went by, so it’s a bit of a joke we had to make.
Course 1: This eggy looking thing can and should be eaten all at once, but bursts into a mouthful of yoghurt. It’s their signature dish.
Course 2: This 3-part dish on a hammered metal plate was quite unusual and supposed to be a deconstructed samosa of sorts – made up of (from L to R) a Beetroot-Carrot chip thing, a little handroll of nacho chips, and a fancy mini papadum
Course 3: The starters were washed down with an artificial bellini, which tastes exactly like the real thing, cheap wine or not… yummy!
Course 4: Looks like a bowl of dishwater foam, tastes like airy truffle-y bliss… mmh! It was like eating tasty bubbles, cool way of drinking soup.
Course 5: I don’t usually have the chance to eat Foie Gras, but this one atop chewy naan was pretty delicious
Course 6: 62 degree eggs (basically fancy term for soft boiled eggs) soaked in a curry and slurped up. The dish comes with this one weird leaf that looks rather nondescript, but when you chew on it tastes exactly like Oyster, salty fish taste and all. BIZARRE, but true.
Course 7: This ravioli looking thing is actually an italian spinoff of the famous indian cottage-cheese and spinach dish. I ate the flower too, but this just tasted like… plant.
Course 8: A chicken shish kebab which looked very much like Chinese Ngoh Hiang and had a green chutney bubbly foam accompanying it. If you notice the veggies on the right, that is the world’s smallest cucumber, a deceptively hot chili that the waiter kept calling ‘sugar’, and another leaf. Can you really not eat something touted as the world’s smallest cucumber? Veggie-hating me gamely tried most veggies that day, all in the name of molecular gastronomy
Course 9: This green crumbly thing is pistachio, and the others mentioned it was like a delectable Kulfi and named it their favourite dish. I’m not much of a Pistachio person so it was just alright for me. Interesting texture though
Course 10: Can’t go wrong with a chocolate ending! Though this lovely mousse was neither Indian nor particularly molecular to me, I never say no to good chocolate.
All this was accompanied by shared sides of giant scallops, Iberian pork, naan in a shrimp curry and a frozen slushy like Sangria that was pretty yummy. And a complimentary limoncello digestif to cap the meal. *BURP*
Here’s the actual menu for the evening for those who are curious. These days they gave you an emoji menu so you can try and guess what exactly you are eating instead.
The menu back in 2012
Chef Gaggan himself came out to say hi a few times and check on us – he once interned at the famous El Bulli under Ferran Adria, wow! and our darling waiter was very friendly and playful so the meal was a lot of fun. His explanations of the dish made it much more interesting than just browsing a menu.
Gaggan Anand in the flesh
Overall, an awesome food experience! It cost something under 4,000 baht (S$160) per pax for our full meal, which included the full tasting menu (only 1,600 baht/S$66) and the many, many sides/drinks/wine we shared, which might be a bit pricey to eat everyday, but for a once in awhile treat, pretty worth its salt as something similar to this would probably cost twice as much in Singapore.
Check out Gaggan’s generally positive reviews on TripAdvisor if you want a second opinion on the place.
Want more ideas on things to do in Bangkok? Check out all my Bangkok posts.