It has been a trend in restaurants in Bangkok where Thai cuisine is taken on a high, fine-dining ride (like Paste Bangkok, for example). While a great number of best Thai restaurants used to value highly-priced imported ingredients, humble-locally sourced ingredients have been enjoying the limelight and make appearances in an elevated approach.
Taan Bangkok, the new indoor rooftop restaurants in Bangkok at the quirky Siam@Siam Design Hotel Bangkok, takes the local produce obsession, especially from independent suppliers of organic goodies, to the next level through unconventional, Thai-inspired creations courtesy of chef Monthep Kamolsilp. Borrowing techniques from his experiences in French cuisine, Monthep reinvents traditional Thai fare through playful deconstruction and blows our palate away with unfamiliar dishes that boast familiar flavor profile.
Alongside adventurous creations in the a la carte menu, Monthep has also recently introduced the tasting menu that still champions the concept of “hyper-local innovative Thai cuisine.” Through the succession of dishes, he believes diners will be able to mesmerized by the stories he wants to convey, as well as indulge into the full-on “hyper-local” experience.
The nine-course menu kicks start with the tangy kick of spiny lobster cured in fish sauce with green chili and Royal Project caviar. Inspired by the casual eat “goong chae num pla” (raw shrimp cured in fish sauce), the dish champions fresh ingredients with Ranong lobster, “Ded Doung” fresh water fish sauce from Sukhothai, and the caviar produced by the Royal Project. Fermented pork sausage boasts in juicy texture and bold flavor from spices, balanced out by “khao leum pur” sticky rice and garnished herbs, while satay-marinated river prawn with peanut sauce and pickled raw papaya is a tribute to the Thai and Malay cuisine.
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
“Nam prik ong”, staple tomato relish in Northern cuisine is given a reinterpretation into the wild grouper dip. Monthep makes his own “pla som,” fermented fish indigenous to the North and makes it into nam prik ong (instead of pork that’s used in the original recipe), paired with crispy dried fish.
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
“Same-same difference” approach is epitomized in the stir-fried hinlay-marinated blue swimmer crab, as Burmese hinlay curry has a close proximity to hunglay curry of the North—the whole combination also reminds diners to “puu pad pong karee”—stir-fried crab meat in Indian curry paste, yet elevated by homemade salted egg and crispy spring roll.
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
Mains sees traditional servings in samrub and are meant to be shared. The trio dishes feature grilled organic pork belly with crispy skin with stir-fried sator bean and shrimp paste; charcoal grilled chicken wrapped in banana leaf served with lotus stem salad with pad thai dressing (the somtam and padthai mash-up); and coconut curry with wallago fish and horseshoe crab roe.
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
The meal ends on a high note with chef Monthep’s reinterpretation of kanom taan (palm cake); featuring pumpkin ice-cream with kanom taan chiffon with shredded shrimp that offers savory and umami note.
Sereechai Puttes/Time Out Bangkok
TAAN is open daily. Lunch: Monday-Friday 12:00-14:30, dinner 18:30-23:00. 25th floor, Siam@Siam Design Hotel Bangkok. Reservation 06 5328 7374. http://www.taanbangkok.com