At this point, it is hard to avoid mounting evidence that I am a foodie. Don't know if it started with Chef's Table, but it probably did. Before Chef's Table, I always appreciated a nice meal, nice plating, great flavors. Since? I craved these things. The one that always drew me in through the shows first two seasons (now four, if you throw out that weird dessert season) was Gaggan. 25 courses. Indian food. A rockstar chef with a cool story. I always wanted to go. Now I did. And it was amazing.
The first truly world-class restaurant I went to (or at least fully remember going to) was Maido in Lima. It was at that time ranked #8 in the San Pellegrino 'World's 50 best' list, a list that while there are politics and all that, is generally accepted as a good guide of what is great out there. Maido is still around that level. Gaggan, I believe, at that time was around #12. Now, it is #5. Combining in Pujol is Mexico City, I've been to three of the Top-13, and Gaggan more than earned its place.
Let's start with the basics. Gaggan (so named after Gaggan Anand, the wildly amazing chef/owner) has a 1-seating 25 course tasting menu, which takes about three to three-and-a-half entertaining hours to take in. The dishes change constantly, though there are some mainstays that I had that I saw years ago on Chef's Table. But parts of hte menu have changed, mostly the parts that have opened up Gaggan's culinary range beyond modern Indian. During the time of the Chef's Table, there was a course of curries with Naan. That is gone now. I'm sure his curries were incredible, but I was fine getting an incredible range of Indian food with curries instead.
There are a few aspects of the meal that made it even better than it may normally be. Being seated a a chef's counter in front of their test kitchen, with the head chef du cuisine (a pretty chill Polish guy), and two sous chefs (a Singaporean girl and guy on a 2-month 'internship' from Punta Arenas), made for a great experience. So was the wide arrange of the 15 or so people around that counter, including a group of three US diplomats stationed in Pakistan, one other Indian couple who we kept exchanging glances with when the Polish chef was explaining core Indian dishes to the other people, and a few more. In this area they also played a series of rock music that matched up to each dish (Gaggan is a famous rock-head). When walking to the bathroom, you walk past the regular tables. These people are eating the same food, and probably enjoying the more quiet conditions, but I did feel sorry for them.
Gaggan Anand himself showed up for a quick minute about a third of the way through. He's kept active starting a few other ventures, and has already set his sights on a post-Bangkok world, as he's closing Gaggan in 2020 and starting something new in Japan. Gaggan was wearing a black rock T-Shirt that I'm 95% sure he wore on Chef's Table. The polish chef was quite a great entertainer throughout. The Seattle-based Sommelier looked exactly like what you would think a hilariously punk pretentious Pacific Northwest wine snob would look and act - in all the best ways. Finally, the Punta Arenas chef regaled me with a nice story of how he works for a restaurant in Lima that is considered the equal of Maido or Central (#4 on the same list), but since the owner doesn't like the Top-50 list people, they aren't ranked. It was all a great experience even if I haven't even talked about the food yet.
When you arrive at Gaggan, right in front of your seat is a simple glossed white paper with 25 small emojis running down the middle. Each emoji is a dish; some are good representations of what the dish is (one was a prawn, and lo and behold, the dish was a prawn). Some are intentional misdirections. Some are showing an emotion or feeling that bases the dish rather than the dish itself. It's an imposing list, one that helps ground you midway through that there are 20-19-18 more dishes to come, and then starts to weigh on you when you reach towards the end.
Anyway, let's get to the main show:
1.) This was a little amouze bouche style start, with a perfect little meringue made out of mandarin orange. Like all dishes at Gaggan, it was plated excellently; so much so I was a little saddened the rest of the plate wasn't edible. Anyway, small but great start.
2.) The Explosion; one of the few mainstays. The polish chef today, and Gaggan himself on Chef's Table, talked about this being the dish that made the restaurant. It looks like a little squiggly thing on a spoon. That's what it is - but it has so many complex flavors inside that immediately throw you into Indian street food.
3.) Lick It Up (with Kiss's Lick It Up playing); I honestly don't remember the explanation of what it actually was, but you are supposed to actually just like the plate clean of its sauces and little greens. Again, tasted amazing. I'm pretty sure these were all various chutneys but a bit sad I didn';t write it down.
4.) This is where the night starts getting ridiculous. It appears to be an egg on a small nest. That is what it looks like. That's not what it was. Sadly, I didn't write down this one either.
5.) This was basically the same, but the little cracker, gel and leaf combined to somehow taste like idli sambar, an Indian breakfast / snack food from the area of India my family is from. I so want to know what exactly goes into this dish, and how it retains such a strong taste of idli sambar despite not being an idli and not having any component at all that would indicate sambar despite looking so, so different.
6.) And now we get bhel puri, another Indian breakfast / snack staple, and again we are just left to wonder agape at how he made it taste so much like these things. The small cracker contained so much liquidy taste to indicate its bhel-puri-ness.
7.) This egg dish was indicative of another classic Indian street dish. At this point they basically confirmed that the first part of the meal would be various classic Indian street dishes, reinvented to have the same, direct taste but be so different, so elevated.
8.) The last of the set was a charcoal kachori (a fried vegetable snack food) that was, again, so indicative of that taste. It was also at this point the sous chef came and took the plates that these dishes were served on to create a map of India, with each of the last five dishes being an Indian street food from that area.
9.) This was the first dish that required some performance art, with them pouring some liquid on it to create a frozen perfect munch that tasted like an asparagus. Instead of an asparagus though, it was a mystery vegetable. After a rounds of guesses from teh audience, they revealed it was cauliflower.
10.) Then a came a scrumptious little dumpling of such perfectly cooked goat cheese. If you've been following, we are now 40% of the way in without a single meat dish. Given India is a largely vegetarian country, this isn't too surprising, but it was a bit odd to realize how amazing this place was despite having so few non-veg courses.
11.) The Eggplant emoji got a laugh when the emoji concent was introduced and a laugh when the course arrived. Luckily for us, it was very tasty, being a little floret of smoked eggplant - something I've never really considered that can be done.
12.) We're back to amazing street food, with a little bite of pani puri. It's amazing that these are truly basic Indian street foods - stuff you can buy on the street for 5 rupees, but done in such a gifted, talented way.
13.) The first meat dish wasn't even Indian - as it was Japanese inspired (the first of a couple Japanese inspired dishes). Here was sea urchin, with sea cucumber based, so shaped by using the an eraser as a mold (not sure if they were joking or not). Again, amazing.
14.) A second straight sushi dish and you start to understand why that is Gaggan's next place he's taking his talents to. This was a traditional o-toro sushi dish. I'm pretty sure it had some Indian aspect, but it was basically masterful sashimi.
15.) A quick pause from teh meat dishes with a pallate cleanser of rasam (Indian soup) made with Japanese carrots; simple, but so smokey and tasty.
16.) The first of two Goan dishes (Goa being my Ancestral home) was prawn balchao, basically a grilled prawn dish, that was so, so good. The prawns were cooked perfect. The balchao was a sauce instead of a dusting. It was amazing.
17.) The only 'curry' on the menu, though the polish chef went to great lengths to explain that curry itself is a British word, and the dish would be the opposite of what we all think curry to be, as it was cold with raw meat instead of hot and cooked. It was still great though, with raw scallops.
18.) The other goan dish was a deconstructed pork vindaloo, which was made liked a deconstructed dumpling (a lot of deconstruction going on), which again tasted so much like this classic Goan dish I've eaten tons of times.
19.) This is the one dish that was about as basic an Indian dish as you can imagine: a grilled lamb chop spiced nicely with chutney. So well cooked, meat falling off the bone in a way that is rare for an Indian lamb chop.
20.) The first of two dishes inspired by Gaggan Anand's mother, this was a lightly cooked fish covered in cheese wrapped in a banana leaf. Such a light dish, such a perfectly classical coastal Indian presentation.
21.) This was the 'star' which was inspired by Gaggan's grandmother (misspoke earlier), which was egg, green curry and rice. Just mix it up and chow down. So simple, but so tasty, and a perfect way to end the mains. It was served inside a death star, with the Star Wars theme playing.
22.) At this point, I started getting almost depressed knowing internally that the meal is drawing towards its close. The first desert was a daikon ice cream shaped nicely like a rose - served to 'Kiss by a Rose' by Seal. Honestly, the music added so much to the overall meal.
23.) A deconstructed strawberry tart - if there was a 'worst' course, it was probably this one. Still tasty, but not really Indian.
24.) Made up for nicely by a Jasmine ice cream cake shaped nicely into a ying and yang. This was amazing, and by this point I started getting really depressed that this meal of a lifetime was almost over.
25.) With Dark Side of the Moon's Eclipse on (so perfect as a capper), out came a cured ice rock as a prism. It was a perfect capper.
Gaggan was amazing. I would recommend anyone with the ability to get to Bangkok to do so by 2020 when he closes it down. It was a culinary masterpiece, and it will be a loss to the world to see it go - despite what I'm sure will be many more successes for Gaggan Anand in the future.
This was the night, the meal, the experience that the trip was built around, and it lived up to every single expectation and hope I had of it. That was a true meal worth traveling for, worth spending for, worth enjoying, worth eating.
