Bangkok is heaven for Thai food lovers.

The scents, colors and strong flavors are things you just can’t stay indifferent to as soon as you walk into the city. The range is between local and cheap food sold in stands in the streets and markets, to restaurants and food stands in gorgeous malls, and to upscale restaurants serving modern Thai cuisine.

The first time I discovered real Thai food was over two years ago when I first traveled to Thailand – and I just fell in love with it. When we arrived in Bangkok I was impressed by the enormous amount of street vendors, scattered on city sidewalks and markets, and from the funny prices of the street food, that I didn’t even consider the possibility to check the more prestigious restaurants the city has to offer {and it turns out that not only are there a lot of them – many of them are considered the best restaurants in Asia!}.

You could say that then we were much more spontaneous in Bangkok, we had three days in the city and decided to go with the flow – without setting specific destinations. During our second time in the city, we were a bit more focused – and we decided that during our short stay in the city we must dine at one luxurious restaurant to give us a bit of a different perspective on Bangkok in general, and especially regarding Thai food.

We read a lot of recommendations about restaurants that are considered mandatory spots for foodies in Bangkok, and decided to try the restaurant PASTE which was highly recommended by one of the people that I really appreciate in the culinary field in Israel, Dudi Kalifa from the Beygale website. A short post on Facebook, along with pictures of the restaurant’s amazing dishes made us wait in anticipation for the moment we will get to Bangkok and we’ll wake our taste buds up with Thai food that’s different from what we were used to.

PASTE serves modern Thai food based on traditional recipes written centuries ago combined with innovation and creativity while using the highest quality raw materials {some local and organic and others flown in especially from around the world}, special attention to the preparation of dishes with unique techniques and serving the dishes that are bordering on art.

Unlike other modern food that can be found today in various elite restaurants, modern Thai cuisine isn’t based on fusion cuisine, which combines traditional Thai cuisine with cuisines from around the world, but to it creates interesting and innovative combinations only consisting dishes originally with a culinary Thai background.

All the dishes we ate in the restaurant were definitely Thai, but they had a special twist which separated them from street food and from the homemade style dishes we ate during the trip. It’s not just an amazing and clean serving style, but mostly different flavors – subtler but no less delightful.

The restaurant, located in one of the most prestigious shopping malls in Bangkok – The Gaysorn, has modern Thai décor with relaxing shades of gray, white and pastel green combined with wood. Seating in the restaurant is divided into main seating in the center of the restaurant with long tables in front of a bar, and private and very comfortable seating in booths with huge glass windows overlooking the urban landscape of the bustling main street. The atmosphere in the restaurant alongside the professional service and attentive staff of waiters made the experience very luxurious, even though we arrived during the afternoon and not the evening.

Now to the interesting part – what did we eat at the restaurant?

The meal began with a welcoming and refreshing drink, an herbal sugary sweet and wonderful fusion, served with two interesting appetizers: the first, crab meat from the Gulf of Thailand based on chili relish served on pork wafers, and the second a mixture of chopped roasted duck, coriander, nutmeg, curry paste served on rice crackers.

Both dishes were very special and the combination of textures was excellent. I loved the fact that they were served bite-size, creating an explosion of flavors in your mouth. The duck was just how I like it and I could eat more and more and more… but the crab’s taste was too strong in my opinion.

In between the courses, we ordered two salads – one, salmon and watermelon salad made with perfect watermelon balls wrapped in dried, minced salmon with crispy shallots, toasted coconut, powdered galangal and salmon roe caviar. The salad was visually mesmerizing and completely different than any other salad I ever tasted. This is a salad that combines the freshness and sweetness of the watermelon along with the strong salmon taste created from the combination of the caviar and powder. The truth is I still haven’t decided if I liked this dish or if it was weird – but what’s certain is that it was very interesting and unique. Very suitable for adventurous people who love challenging the palate!  😉

The second salad was Canadian Red Lobster salad, with edible flowers and local crisp seaweed with kaffir lime juice, mandarin juice, chili and shallots. I personally don’t love seafood so I didn’t really enjoyed this this dish. On the other hand, Daniel finished the whole dish himself and said he had never eaten such an impressive amount of high-quality lobster meat. He said that the salad ingredients created special Thai flavors and the crunchiness of the seawood compared to the softness of the lobster meat made a winning dish. {Let's put it this way, there wasn’t even any salad dressing left on the plate after Daniel took care of it…  😉 }.

For the main course that traditionally come along with rice, we ordered one of the restaurant’s signature dishes – yellow curry with crab meat which was definitely the most delicious curry dish I ate. The crab meat was a refreshing change from the curry, usually served with seafood or chicken/meat pieces, both in terms of flavors and especially the textures. In other words, it became much softer in this variation. The crab meat was amazing and there’s no doubt that the curry sauce, which was creamy and wonderful, was prepared by the chef’s special recipe.

In addition, we ordered a dish of pork cheek with crispy seaweed, cooked on a charcoal grill until the meat became super soft and was placed on flavorful sauce from the northern Thai cuisine, which fit in great with the rice. Even here, the use of different textures was part of it – the combination of liquid sauce, soft meat and seaweed which all underwent a process of natural drying aroused the taste buds.

The restaurant’s dessert menu, which had only 4 desserts, presented us with a big dilemma. Even though there were less options here compared to the rest of the menu, each and every one of the dishes surprised us and were very unconventional. Combinations of authentic ingredients like dorian, lemon-grass and turmeric aren't things you see every day. And yet, like we always do, we ordered the first dessert from the dessert menu – Shiitake mushrooms made from white chocolate parfait with lychee sorbet, chocolate truffles, Thai nectarines on a bed of sauce made from pistachio and nougat, which like the rest of the dishes was very special and not standard. It was a very refreshing dessert with a Thai fragrance.

To top it off, we ordered coffee which came with a side of the most delicious chocolate truffles on a bed of half-ground coffee beans.

The prices at PASTE are considered very expensive for Bangkok, but completely make sense considering the quality of the ingredients, the experience and the sophisticated flavors. During the afternoon, the restaurant offers business lunch menus which allows you to enjoy a meal with more friendly prices, at a special price of 1200++ batt per person {minimum of 2 people}.

If you're in the mood to go on a culinary roller-coaster and to have an unbelievable experience that will give you a different view regarding traditional Thai food with modern and luxurious surroundings, you should add PASTE to your next trip to Bangkok.

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