1.) Amouse Bouches
Annoyed I didn't write these down, as they weren't listed on the menu, but each was really, really good. As we'll get into with RedBox, there weren't as many courses, but maybe had the highest hit ratio. For the amouse bouches, the best was the second one - which I think was squid in a sauce, but the bolinho and tartlette were excellent also - this is what RedBox is, highly finely presented Thai ingredients and food.
2.) Iberico Pork with Thai Hollandaise
This was probably the weakest dish, and it was probably a 7/10 - my only issue with it is the star was the pork, when the thai flavors in the hollandaise (and the white asparagus underneath) got a bit overpowered accordingly. Still, though if you are going to overpower such things, doing so with just perfectly cut slices of jamon is the way to go.
3.) Golden Bloom - Northern Crab
This was an awesome dush, with a perfect crab in the middle, a film made of squid topping it (just an insane texture), and the most delightful, spiced sauce underneath it all. The crab tuile / cracker was a bit take or leave it, but even without that topper this would have been a truly stellar dish all around. I'll be thinking about that squid film for a long, long time.
4.) Royal Heritage - Khao Mun Chicken
While my glowing review of that dish is a fair representation of how I feel about it, the best dish was this one. I've rarely had a chicken cooked that well, with such a beautiful galangal adn pepper taste throughout smoked in, and the sauce was incredible too. They also gave a little thing of rice steamed in banana leaf to help sop it all up as well. There was a lot going on here, but it resulted in a truly special dish, and a brilliant representation of Thai spices and flavors.
5.) Siam Citrus - Charred Prawn
It's a bit strange the description of this dish was "Charred Shrimp", since while there is charred shrimp in it, the shrimp is then cut up, mixed with scallop mousse, with a shrimp stock foam / sauce on top, and some other mixings. It was awesome. It was super inventive. That bowl is a lot deeper than it looks, so it was quite a hearty dish as well. As mentioned earlier, not the most number of courses, but man were they all excellent.
6.) Penang Curry Lamb
Yeah, Penang Curry Lamb is going to be pretty perfect for me - the penang curry in the middle was so rich, warm and nutty. The lamb itself was cooked perfectly - which is to be expected at a restaurant like this; great crust and medium rare middle. The little cutlet thing on the left was one of teh underrated stars - a shredded lamb and lemongrass croquette that was just perfect. All the other fixings elevated things. All in all, this was a really lovely main course.
7.) Siam Ruby
Some places just don't mess with tons of desserts, and RedBox is one of those - just one dessert, but it was an excellent one, which takes the "Siam Ruby" - the leaves of a red banana plant, purees them makes them into a sorbet ball and adds a bunch of other stuff I forget at this point. On the whole, it was a really nice dessert and way to cool down after some fairly highly spiced dishes.
Friend's Table
1.) Smoked Salmon Roulette
Lovely little first bite that did have a good amount of Thai flavor, from the dollops of red curry, to the fermented shrimp made into the roulette to begin with. It's their signature dish that has remained on every iteration of the menu, and while I wouldn't say it was the best dish, I udnerstand why it has remained.
2.) Gimpbab - Smoked Himachi
Another great little bite, but the first example that the tasted would extend to various parts of Asia and not just Korea, as this was a very Japanese sushi-esque type preparation. I oddly had a very similar dish at Fyn in Cape Town (not a bad thing), and a nice sign of how well the chef here can manage this range of cuisines.
3.) Miang Cham - Duck Confit
Another duck tartlette, a dish I feel like I've had elsehwere. The unique elements were the betel leaf to add this great bitterness and that little brown stuff on top which was local Thai caviar. This was a great example of fusing a variety of styles together for something that overall worked really well, but I figure I've had better versions of this dish elsewhere.
4.) Tostada - Hotate & Yuzu
Calling something so small a tostada is probably a stretch (this was a proper two bites) but man was it excellent. My favorite of the courses so far. The crudo was spiced with this light hint of lemongrass and other thai herbs (as you can tell, it isn't like none of the dishes were Thai-influenced), with yuzu and of course roe on top. Lovely dish, but tostada may still be a stretch.
5.) Truffle Toast - Croassant pudding, balsamic glaze
I'm not sure what "croissant pudding" is supposed to mean, but that little block on the bottom is basically a cube version of a croissant with all of the layers, and of course some truffle on top, balscamic glaze on teh whole thing and other delicacies. Rich, heavenly dish - not Thai in any real way, this one not even really Asian, but still just wonderful.
6.) Tom Zaab - 72 wagyu rib
You have properly cooked little bits of wagyu like this, and you really just wish you one day plopped down a few hundreds of dollars to eat a large piece of wagyu meat. So buttery and soft, and worked really well with the Tomato, coconut and lemongrass sauce around it. Hard to not have a good dish when you have a brilliantly cooked, marbled piece of wagyu in the middle.
7.) Gindara - Miso Snow Fish
This was a dish back to Japan in terms of the composition of the sauces, but the actual fish itself was local to Thailand - one of these great white fishes that you find across the wrold that when cooked well is so light, flaky, buttery and delicious. From just a pure fish cookery perspective, this was one of the best fish dishes I've had in a long time.
8.) Umami Burger - Wagyu Patty & Black Garlic Gochujang
The dish ate exactly as yummily and decadently as it is described - ground wagyu for the burger, a delicious homemade gochujang sauce, and incredible buttery bread. It was a wonderful take an upscaling a burger to the nth degree. Again, not a single Thai element to be seen, but at this point I should stop critiquing Friend's Table for that.
9.) River Prawn - Tomalley Prawn
To go back to Thai v non-Thai thing one more time, why I found issue with it is when they went more or less full Northern Thai influence, like they did here, it was incredible. Those two sauces, adn partocularly the green curry one on the head meat, were just unreal. As was the cook on the prawn itself. One of the great prawn dishes I've had in a while.
10.) Peking Duck - Barbary Duck with Scallion Pancake
The platonic ideal of an incredible "main" at a tasting menu. The scallion pancake had so many vegetable sub-layers that were all cooked brilliantly, but let's be real, this is about the duck, which was cooked so well from the crackly skin to the breast itself, to finally the duck sauce. The sauce was unreal - so sweet and tart, so thick and perfectly reduced. This is the duck jus they put in recipes but actually down with the time it takes to make something like this.
11.) Chiang Mai Banana - Sundried Banana Cake
Sometimes it's easy to scoff at this kind of cutesy preparations, here making a banana cake and custard to look like a banana. But you know what? kitsch works well when the food underneath is also still amazing. They could have presented this concotion so many different ways, and as long as it would be as yummy as they made it, the way it looks is immaterial. Just a spendid, fun dessert.
12.) Basque Cheesecake - Gorgonzola & Parmesan Cheesecake
And let's close with maybe the best example of why I found Friend's Table both tasty and difficult - the last dish of the night was a basque cheesecake, presented as it is (with a few side fixings as you can see). It's just a basque cheesecake - now it uses great cheeses and tasted amazing (and I'm not usually a fan of basque cheesecake), but at the end it's ending a meal in Chiang Mai with basque cheesecake. Luckily for Friend's Table they made the basque cheesecake, and many other very much non-Thai dishes, just excellent.
