“I was a journalist to start with, working with a newspaper in Mumbai but somewhere down the line I knew I wanted to cook and when I decided, it had to be sooner rather than later”
 
These were Garima Arora’s first words and they were like music to my ears. For a 20-year-old to have studied mass media, working for The Indian Express in Mumbai — a job I’m sure her family was very proud of — and then to decide that ‘I want to be a cook’… the worst nightmare for many parents, and a lot of food for thought!

Thereafter Garima went to study at Le Cordon Bleu Paris for two years and stayed on to work. She then went to Dubai for two years before she found her way into an internship and then as an employee for three years in Copenhagen at what was then the world’s number one restaurant, Noma. Noma is the epicentre of most of the culinary focus, look and feel of most high-end restaurants in the world today. Known for its simplicity and use of the freshest, almost untouched ingredients, Garima says it changed her outlook towards food and shaped her.

What came next through a few common friends was a year at Gaggan Anand’s restaurant in Bangkok Gaggan. The Punjabi boy from Calcutta, more of a Bengjabi in all honesty, who I first wrote about seven years ago just after he opened the restaurant and since then has made it into the Top 10 of almost all of the restaurant guides in the world. Gaggan has held the number one spot for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for the last seven years running with his modernist approach to Indian food.

Since then, Gaggan the chef and Garima have partnered in the restaurant Gaa in a building opposite to where Gaggan the restaurant is located at the end of a small lane just off Ploenchit Road in the heart on Bangkok. It has only 50 seats and one dinner sitting and unlike Gaggan, Gaa started with a tasting menu from Day One, with a choice of 10 or 14 courses and where I’m sitting now, about to embark on the 14 courses.

What am I to expect from the menu? “Gaa is a culmination of my journey so far with all of the emphasis on having fun with the finest local ingredients. It’s almost too easy to import everything from Japan or Amsterdam, so this is about giving back to where you are. The menu has a lot to do with the flavours of my journey,” said Garima.

The restaurant itself has a clean, homely, almost Nordic feel about it and the diner is given a choice of a 10 or 14-course tasting menu and a further choice of wine pairings. We opt for the menu-only option, an amuse-bouche is placed and a light pea miso served on a cheese cracker and the dinner begins.

The service and training of each individual item on the menu is immaculate, as with Gaggan the restaurant, and is always the first indication that this restaurant isn’t just here to mess around.

We start with a refreshingly clean chilled mango soup, full of flavour, scented with lemongrass, a great start, followed by a single betel leaf which has been cooked in duck stock and baked to taste almost like crispy duck skin… one of the most interesting things I’ve tasted for years with not even the faintest scent of flavour of betel, served perched amongst the branches of a dried bush.

Next is, as written, Chicken Liver, Longan but is far more complex than it sounds, with shavings of frozen chicken pate, a sense of chilli, and rich with intense flavours of Bombay aloft a crisp toast and hinted with cooked loganberries. Followed by an almost sabudana vada-like chewy Grilled Potato Mochi, topped with a little chilli mustard egg puree. Followed by Corn, which Garima says is something inspired from the roadside bhutta back home — babycorn cobs, chargrilled with butter and lemon, lovingly pushed back into the husk and served with a corn milk-like custard to dip.

The next two courses are served with a fresh juice pairing of white basil and green apple. Course Six, an interesting light fresh Cow Milk Tofu with a little sauteed mustard leaves and topped with dehydrated herbs, somehow had Noma written all over it. The Crayfish Khakhra, the khakhra, topped with crayfish butter, flaked crayfish and pomelo, packed in Indian coastal flavours.

Another one of my favourites — Crab, Cauliflower, Caramelised Whey. Charred confit cauliflower paired with fresh crab sitting on caramelised whey, something like a warm puree-like cross between unsweetened, evaporated and condensed milk and makes for the perfect dish, paired beautifully with the fresh tender coconut water... and it’s amazing how a single jasmine flower floated on top can fill a wine glass with fragrance.

Next is Khanom-La, a skit on the roadside Thai dessert, a crisp lacy tuile, served mini nacho-style filled with egg foam, wholegrain mustard, potato and grilled grouper (fish).

The Pork Rib is almost as Neanderthal as is written, a single chargrilled sous vide cooked whole. A meaty, short rib tasting lightly of miso and topped in sections with finely chopped onion, green chilli and pomegranate seeds. Followed by Caramelised Onion Bread, a buttery onion-filled bun and the most delicious homemade slightly acidic butter, which, if you have never tasted homemade butter before, quickly over whip some cream now, press out the watery whey and fresh butter you will have. Both paired with another delicious fresh juice of guava, mint and green chilli.

Which thankfully lead us to the final three courses and dessert. We begin with a freshly churned, straight-out-of-the-machine Thai Egg Fruit Ice Cream, which is rich and avocado-like, served in a mini cone and topped with caramelised nuts. The next is something almost adulterated’ly vulgar, in the form of light and crispy pork skin coated in rich dark chocolate and covered in tiny colourful flowers, called the Chocolate Crispy Pork Skin. The only thing that could have made it any better was my childhood thoughts of those salty pork scratchings I grew up with. And finally but no less adult, a sweet savoury cinnamon or Bhakarwadi served with a rich bitter and deliciously sour Koji Ganache.

All in all, if you’re lucky enough to get a table at Gaa, the 10-course menu at 2,000 Baht or 15-course at 2,600 Baht with optional wine pairings of 1,900 Baht for four glasses and 2,300 Baht for five will be money well-spent if you’re looking for a great three-hour dining experience in Bangkok.

A tip from me, when getting into the cab and asking the driver to take you to Soi Langsuan Ploenchit Road, if your cab driver asks you, “Where?” as mine did, say “Gaggan”, and he will immediately smile and say, “Ahhhh Gaggaaannn yesss berry phaamassss restronnnn”.