Dinner @ Gaggan

On our last night in Bangkok, Becky and I devoured a phenomenal meal at Gaggan on Lang Suan Road. I had heard about this place about a year ago, after reading a profile of chef Gaggan Anand in a magazine article about Bangkok's most famous gourmands, and the restauranteurs pushing the city's culinary profile forwards. Gaggan was the only Indian chef listed in that article, and what jumped out at me was the fact that he'd trained with the legendary Ferran Adrià in Spain. Now, I'm not a huge fan of this new and emerging trend of "molecular gastronomy." The idea of creating food in a lab-like environment doesn't speak to my sensibilities at all, yet I keep reading that some of the best chefs in the world are doing astonishing things with this new approach. In Chicago, there's a restaurant called Moto where chef Homaro Canto is doing things like printing pictures of sushi onto edible paper, instead of actually making old fashioned rolls. Sounds crazy, but it apparently tastes magnificent. I've always eyed this new future-facing approach to food with suspicion, because I for one like my food made by hands, not machines. Aside from my biases, the cost of a meal at a place like Moto can be astronomical, so it's always seemed like something worth trying for novelty's sake, but I've always regarded molecular gastronomy as a trend only worthy of the wealthiest palettes. Not for a down-home Bengali boy like me...

Or so I thought...

Gaggan advertises itself as a home for "progressive indian cuisine." Becky and I booked a table, and found ourselves in an amazing spacious house filled with lovely decor. The staff was solicitous and warm, the wine list was intriguing, and the menu was a delight to read through and marvel at. While there were plenty of dishes on the menu that piqued our interest, we ultimately settled on some fairly standard entrees. We ordered some bhindi masala (fried okra and tomatoes), saffron rice, a cheese naan, chicken tikka masala, and a fusion pea dish that Becky thought looked enticing. Turns out the pea dish was not an option on this particular evening, as the chef (i believe it was Gaggan himself) ventured out to offer up an alternative, which turned out to be a divine pea and mushroom bhaji. We ordered fairly standard items because you can tell a lot about the worth and quality of a restaurant by the way they do everyday dishes. If an Italian restaurant can't get a spaghetti bolognese right, there's not much chance their more ambitious dishes are worth your time. That, at least, is my attitude. The article I'd read on Gaggan asked him what his signature dish was, and he responded by naming Chicken Tikka Masala. I thought that was an astonishing answer, because almost every Indian restaurant on the planet offers up a version, and there's not a lot to differentiate the dish from one place to another. We ordered it in the hopes of seeing what made Gaggan different... I was delighted to discover that everything I'd read was validated within the first few bites... This place lived up to the hype.

I can honestly say that the food that emerged from Gaggan's kitchen was the finest Indian food I've ever had. I am no dilettante when it comes to the cuisine of the subcontinent. My great great great grandfather was the Nawab of Dhaka, and my ancestors made a name for themselves by developing a cuisine so rich and decadent that they soon became caricatures of aristocracy, growing fat and happy on progressively more outlandish meals. We are known in Bengal as a rich family that ate itself out of its fortune over the course of several generations. I can attest to the fact the food is part of my heritage, and beyond the delectable marvels that I've sampled from the kitchens of my aunts, I've also traveled the world, and eaten at fantastic indian restaurants on 5 continents. I love Indian food, whether it's at a fantastic Mangalorean spot like Trishna in Mumbai, or a high-end Kashmiri curry house in London, or a 3-dollar plate of greasy biryani at Ghareeb Nawaz in Chicago's Roger's Park neighborhood. Each has its rightful place in the great spectrum of Indian food, as do street dishes like pani puris. It really amazed me to discover food at Gaggan's that I could never have imagined....

I highly recommend checking this place out. I could wax poetic about each dish we tried, trying to nail down the distinctiveness of everything, but honestly, words don't do it justice. I've had a thousand chicken tikka masalas, and yet what was served up at Gaggan was superior, yet I cannot quite describe why. Becky and I had finished the whole bowl and I was still trying to figure out what made it different. If you're in Bangkok, have an inclination for some Indian food, and want something different, check out Gaggan. Be sure you have some money to burn too, because it's not cheap. But it was worthy every penny. I'll be back soon. What a find.... No wonder Gaggan spent some of his younger years as the President of India's personal chef....