As well as eating the street in Bangkok, I also treated myself to one top-end meal at Nahm, David Thompson’s restaurant. Thompson is an Australian chef who has earned himself a reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on Thai cuisine. His book Thai Food is referred to in my family as the ‘Thai Bible’, an encyclopaedic tomb on Thai food, history and culture, including over 300 recipes.
I went to his restaurant in London several years ago and was disappointed, but my experience at Nahm, Bangkok could not have been more different. I wonder whether this is because I left the chefs in charge of the menu choices.
The tasting menu at Nahm comes in three parts, canapés followed by the main meal – a dish from each section of the main menu served ‘family-style’ for the whole table – and then dessert. In this instance I was the whole table and, as before, I found myself wishing that they would westernise this part of the meal and serve it in stages. I do understand though that Thompson’s aim is to educate diners about authentic Thai cuisine and one part of that is the custom of sharing dishes.
I was much more impressed by the food this time. The canapés set the tone for what was to come, each a different variation on the typical medley of Thai flavours – sweet, sour, salty and spicy. Thai cuisine is often a bombardment of these flavours, but where Thompson’s cuisine excels is in his ability to balance and contrast them.
The salty pork and sweet lobster (far right) dressed with tangy Thai citron and studded with shredded ginger, crispy shallots and coriander was my favourite. Wrapped in a bitter betel leaf, it was a perfectly balanced mouthful.
His mains followed suit. Clear soup of roast duck with Thai basil and young coconut was a mild, Chinese-style broth flavoured with soy and lots of white pepper. It was the lightest of the main dishes and provided a nice counterbalance to the more intense flavours of the other dishes.
It was a close contest between the salad and the curry for top place. Oyster and Thai samphire salad with peanuts, toasted coconut and shallots should probably win on account of being the most interesting and refined Thai salad I have ever eaten, not to mention beautifully presented.
It had all the usual features of a Thai salad; as well as sweet, spicy, salty and sour, it was crispy and crunchy, vibrant and refreshing. But there were subtleties of flavour and ingredients in there that I have never experienced in a similar dish. Thai samphire added a different kind of crunch, alongside the more typical crispy shallots. Toasted coconut added sweetness to contrast with the zesty flecks of pomelo. Oysters added an unusual but interesting texture and minerality.
But the penang curry of wagyu beef with peanuts, shallots and thai basil was perhaps the best I’ve every eaten and a textbook example of how such a curry should be: nutty, hot, red and rich with meltingly tender meat. Hmm, let’s call it a draw.
Less interesting were the stir-fried tiger prawns with deep-fried shallots, chillies and garlic, which were just that. The galangal relish and BBQ pork were both perfect when eaten separately – the caramelised pork salty and sticky, the relish sweet, smoky and tangy with a big kick of chilli – but together it was too much. The relish also came with river prawns which sounded interesting but turned out to be a bit tasteless and overcooked.
One thing that does mark this out from most Michelin star establishments is the very generous portions; I didn’t come close to finishing any of the main dishes. I did, however, manage to make room for dessert, which is saying a lot given (a) I am not a dessert person and (b) I am even less of an Asian dessert person. The custard apple in coconut cream, which was in fact an iced soup, was so light and refreshing that I managed to eat the whole thing.
That delightful looking fried thing in front was a deliciously nutty, deep-fried sesame biscuit, and yes, I ate all of that too.
At Nahm, David Thompson certainly does a fine job of demonstrating that “the traditional Thai meal is an exercise in balance, with the dynamic interplay of hot and sour, sweet and salty”. It was the most ‘dynamic’ and interesting Thai meal I have ever eaten… but by the end of the meal I still felt that I’d had my fill of the the barrage of big flavours that is Thai cuisine and was ready for something more delicate and refined. Next time I’m heading to Nam instead.