We went gaga for Gaggan! (Yes, more food...)
July 25, 2018
We headed back to a big city in Bangkok and were immediately greeted with the traffic, scooters zipping by, and the smell of diesel in the air.
We spent our first day here exploring the Jim Thompson house. He was an American that fell in love with Thailand and revitalized their silk industry. He took several traditional Thai style homes, had them dismantled and brought to Bangkok to be rebuilt into his home. The grounds were beautiful and designed to feel like you were in the rainforest. The house also has all the art and china that Thompson collected from all over Asia including Thailand, China, Laos, and Cambodia. Another interesting detail in the bedroom was a mouse box, which looked like a dollhouse. Apparently before television they would put a mouse inside and watch it go through the house as entertainment. Jim Thompson disappeared without a trace in 1967 and they have never found out what happened to him.
The entrance to Jim Thompson's house.
We also finally had spirit houses described to us. These little houses are on the outside of every home, hotel, and other buildings in Thailand. We noticed that every morning the owners or staff would leave out food, drinks, and flowers. Apparently, whenever a new structure is built, they believe that they disturbed the previous spirits of the land. They build these small houses, which cannot be in the shadow of the home, and give offerings each morning to please the spirits.
After this museum, we stopped along one of the canals to have lunch and watch the long tail ferry boats pass through.
For dinner, we had a reservation at Gaggan. It has been ranked the #1 restaurant in Asia for several years and within the top 10 worldwide. When we saw it on Chef’s Table and then heard it was closing in 2020 we decided to go all out and book a table since we’d be in Bangkok. We got seated at the chef’s table and it was such a fun meal. We won’t bore you too much with details but the menu included 25 emojis that represented either the dish, ingredient, or emotion tied to the dish and then 25 incredible courses to match. It was fun to figure out what we were eating and several items were also matched with music or specialty made serving dishes to match the theme.
That's our emoji menu!
The most interesting theme was 5 courses whose plates all came together in a puzzle in the shape of the 5 providences of India with each dish representing cuisine from that region. We are really glad we got to eat here and experience such a fun meal experience! The only comparable course was a lamb chop that was by far the best lamb chop we’ve ever had!
We then went to a rooftop bar that had a great view of Bangkok at night to top off our evening.
