Gaggan and Above Eleven

We had our first fancy dinner of the trip at a restaurant called Gaggan, which was recommended by a friend of ours. They define their cuisine as “progressive Indian” and it’s hard to argue with that description. Very similar to the dinner we had a Komi in Washington, D.C., the meal is various courses with each course being a bite or two of very unique and interesting flavors. The presentation of each course was excellent as well. The menu comes in three sizes: large, medium, and small. We each got the medium menu, which costs 2800 baht.

Overall, the experience was great, but you’ll see as you read on, it was almost completely ruined at the end. Here are the course highlights:

Extensive Wine Menu in a really cool book

Yogurt Explosion – Not that great, but tasted like an egg with no egg! The edible plastic bag with nuts was also very neat

Explosion – fun to inject syringe of herbs into fried yogurt ball. Didn’t taste that great tho

Charcoal – crazy, burnt looking dish that didn’t taste burnt! Waiter had us eat it before telling us it was sea bass wrapped in bamboo

Angry Bird Chicken – Excellent, not too crazy, but that’s okay because it was the main entree

Made in Japan – Wasabi desert was the best of the bunch

DO NOT GET OLD FASHIONED – Disgusting cigar ashtray flavor

So as you can see, I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT GET THE OLD FASHIONED. It literally almost ruined what was an excellent meal up until that point. The drink came out in a smoke filled jar, and when the cover was lifted (very dramatically by the waiter I might add), cigar smoke filled the room. The drink tasted like an ashtray. Biggest miss by a restaurant that I’ve experienced ever. This place would have had an A-, but gets a B instead because of it.

So after that horrible drink, we clearly needed another. We headed to Above Eleven, another one of Bangkok’s rooftop bars. This one was located on Soi 11 near our hotel which made for an easy walk back. Above Eleven didn’t have as good a view as Sky Bar, but it was a really nice place to have a drink. The rooftop is actually 3 levels there (you need to look a little bit for the staircases which are enveloped in ivy), and the vibe is very relaxed. The theme of the place seemed to be going for a New York City rooftop with a mix of brick everywhere, couches, white Christmas lights wrapped all around, and lounge-y jazz music playing. Definitely a good spot to go to unwind, and was a perfect spot to enjoy our last night in Bangkok. Coming up: On to Laos!