Gaa: A Fusion of Indian and Thai Flavors

Gaa restaurant in Bangkok opened last March 2017. It is owned by Gaggan Anand, the chef and owner of Gaggan restaurant, which holds the number 1 spot  in Asia’s Best Restaurants List for 2018.

Gaa restaurant

Gaa  restaurant is located in a bright yellow
building across its sister restaurant, Gaggan.

My friend tried to get us a reservation at Gaggan but the restaurant was fully booked on the date that we are available so we ended up trying the sister restaurant, which was just a stone’s throw away from Gaggan, called Gaa.

Gaggan restaurant 

Gaggan restaurant, which offers progressive Indian cuisine degustacion style,
 is located across Gaa.

Gaa is in a bright yellow building across Gaggan restaurant. Gaggan’s former sous chef, Garima Arora, an Indian chef who trained at the well-known Noma restaurant in Coppenhagen, is the one who leads the kitchen at Gaa. The dishes offered is a fusion of Indian and Thai flavors.

We were given a table at the first floor that gave us a good view of Gaggan restaurant and it is also a spot where we were able to see everyone coming into the restaurant.

The interiors of the restaurant include a mixture of dark wood, mirrors and bricks. The dining area features mid-century modern style furniture which blends well with the cozy and dimly lit restaurant.

The interiors in Gaa's first floor dining area features a
big dark wood center table where  big fresh flowers,
wine botttles and glasses are placed.

The dining area features mid-century modern style furniture.

Currently, the restaurant offers a 10-course at THB 2,200(around USD 70.00) and a 14-course menu at THB 2,800(around USD 90.00) and they also offer wine pairing.

We had dinner at Gaa and chose the 10-course menu.  Below are the dishes that we had:

(    The first dish served was the chilled soup of Marian plums which was placed in a soup bowl on top of shaved ice. The chef who served it informed us that the cheese was made fresh and homemade at Gaa.

Chilled soup of Marian plums and fresh cheese curd

The next dish that was served to us looked like a Takoyaki ball. We were quite surprised that it was a Filipina chef at Gaa who served the dish to us and she told us that it is a duck doughnut.

Duck doughnut

The next dish was a combination of savory and sweet since they served shavings of chicken liver on top of a longan fruit.

Chicken liver with longan fruit

(   The next dish they served is a bowl of grilled young corn with corn milk dip on the side. This one is quite simple yet we found it very tasty since the dip was really creamy and had some butter in it.

Young corn (sharing portion) with
corn milk dip

The grilled young corn can easily be pulled out from the husk
and dipped in the corn milk dip 

They also served us Cauliflower bread with home made butter, which was not what we expected since we thought that it is similar to how zucchini bread is made by other restaurants. Gaa's version of the cauliflower bread is a bread which had the same consistency similar to a moon cake and the pieces of spiced cauliflower are stuffed inside it.

Cauliflower bread with homemade butter on top

(    The sixth dish they served was crayfish with khakra(a thin cracker common in western India).

Crayfish with Khakra

(     The next one is something that we never had before. It is a vegetable called Bottle Gourd(which is similar to zucchini in terms of taste) and was served with caramelized whey.

Bottle gourd with caramelized whey

(    The eighth dish was quite a different way of serving pork rib. The grilled pork rib was very tender and was served with some relish on top.

Pork rib topped with chopped spring onions, shallots and
pomegranate

Out of the ten dishes the last two are both desserts. The first dessert was a soft-serve Burnt Coconut Sugar Ice Cream in organic red rice cone with pork floss topping.  This was certainly a mixture of sweet and salty flavors.

(   The last dish they served was quite unique. It is a betel leaf that was half dipped in dark chocolate and the other half was dusted with Indian spices. We were told by the chef to place fold the leaf in half and then eat it in order to have a mix of the flavors together.

Out of all the 10 dishes that we tried, we all agreed that we liked 3 dishes and these are:  the young corn with corn milk dip, the pork rib and the chocolate betel leaf.  

If you are a type of person who wants to have a more filling type of dinner then Gaa is probably not the type of place that you should go to since their servings are quite small since the dishes served is mostly just one piece  per person. Also, their menu is not the type that kids would find appealing since we noticed during our dinner a foreign couple with their two young kids(below 10 years old) ended up ordering a noodle type of dish in a bowl for their kids.

Since the location of the restaurant is not near the malls or a mainstream area, it is best to go there via an Uber or Grab car in case you are not going there with a local who is familiar with the area.

To know more about Gaa restaurant, you may visit their website: www.gaabkk.com