Gaggan goes on | Mihara Tofuten, Bangkok [CLOSED]

Local chef Gaggan Anand, known for his boundary-pushing creations and eponymous restaurant topping Asia’s Best Restaurant list for four consecutive years, has made a career out of pissing people off. His cross-pollinating food and self-described “progressive” cooking have had Bangkok’s knickers in a twist ever since he opened in 2010. Now, he’s expanded that offering.

An entire restaurant dedicated to squidgy, silken bean curd. Doesn’t that just sound like the most ridiculous idea ever? Who’s backing this?

Fuelled partly by his travels, the Indian-born chef resides in Thailand, yet, his most recent fascination has been with Japan. This new cultural lure is thanks partly to recent visits and his friendship with the chef Takeshi ‘Goh’ Fukuyama of La Maison de la Nature Goh in Fukuoka, on the northern shore of Japan’s Kyushu Island. Together, the two chefs have collaborated on various global pop-ups worldwide, touring under the epithet GohGan. The successful collaboration is set to endure, with plans to open a restaurant together in Fukuoka in 2020. But first, they plan on introducing “authentic tofu” to Bangkok.

Yep, tofu. An entire restaurant dedicated to squidgy, silken bean curd. Doesn’t that just sound like the most ridiculous idea ever? Who’s backing this? Well, seemingly someone. The story goes that Gaggan fell for tofu, as much as anyone can fall for tofu, while dining at a near 60-year-old bean curd eatery in Fukuoka called Mihara Tofuten. Hellbent on bringing the concept to Bangkok, he persuaded Goh, along with the restaurateur Varesara ‘Big’ Smitasir of Khua Kling Pak Sod and Thai food blogger Tan Raitiemtarn to invest; jointly importing tofu from Kashima in Japan to ensure quality. And now here we are.

Located in the Sathorn area, halfway up a traffic-choked Soi, you’ll find Mihara Tofuten Bangkok, the first Mihara Tofuten outpost outside of Japan. Set in a converted townhouse, the restaurant has an unassuming facade for somewhere so new; low-lit and low-key, the advertising is minimal, self-effacing and respectable – all very Japanese. Behind a grey cement wall, a stone pathway leads you through a small Zen garden and inside, a brightly-lit, narrow space is revealed, with a long counter, like traditional omasake dining. I sat at the counter on the only chair in the entire building. This isn’t the concept – solo dining, Billy No Mates eating. No, no, I’m the first to dine here. The very first. The restaurant will open fully next week, and I’ve bagged myself the first-ever booking. The first-ever review. The exclusive.

I watch as meditative chefs, both Japanese and Thai, meticulously fiddle with chopsticks, tweezers and knobbly wasabi roots, shaving away the horseradish plant into tiny piles of intensely green mush. Some chop, some dice, others are cubing the jiggly tofu into bitesize chunks, all hunched over and prestidigitating like actors. The menu, priced at 3,600 Baht, say 80-ish pounds, is a 16-course set that dips and dives between soft and firm, smooth and sweet, semi and fully-curdled – intentional and desirable in making tofu. Some examples are sweet, like a crème caramel; other flavours are more conventional, accompanied by a “Special Soy” dressing, the rich umami flavours sucked up inside the soft white blocks, bursting in the mouth on the first bite. I ask what makes the soy so special, but Gaggan being Gaggan, remains secretive, suggesting a fee of one million Baht in exchange for the recipe. I jest that he should be paying me to be eating eat. It doesn’t land as I thought it would.

First up is a chilled glass of soy milk with yuzu jam, with just enough citrus and pricked with candied sweetness from the yuzu so as not to overpower. This was followed by a white meat crab claw soup topped with two deep-fried cubes of pudgy tofu; and the heart-shaped leaves of Japanese mitsuba, comparable to wild parsley, where chervil-meets-celery. It brings bitterness, contrasting with the sweet meat crab. Good, but not spectacular. Then, a piquant tomato jelly topped with shrimp comes with finely diced okra in a rich tofu sauce with dashes of lemon oil, offering a sweet sucker punch juxtaposed with the creeping citrus sting of lemon. Then two self-assembly nori rolls, accompanied by semi-soft tofu with the white, creamy consistency of near-coagulant mozzarella. I add a liberal helping of plump uni and a thumbnail-size blob of freshly-grated wasabi, then finish with a dash of dark soy. It’s a salty crunch, a soft wash of melting tofu with the umami soy, followed by a lump of hot, bitter green explosive – pow!

Then there’s a fillet of Akamutsu, sometimes called nodoguro or black throat sea perch – a fish I’ve never heard of or tasted – that’s marinated in salt koji and served with a light, soya milk espuma with beetroot powder. I’m told that the fish has had its fat line removed, meaning a more delicate flavour. It’s a pairing of high proficiency, demonstrating mastery of the elements, the airy soya milk foam almost suspended above the Akamutsu like a cloud. And there’s bread from Bangkok’s trendy Conkey’s Bakery in Ekkamai to accompany, offered to mop up any remaining sweet soy milk gravy. A beef and onion broth with ‘dancing’ maitake mushrooms is heated table-side, gently cooking A5-grade Hokkaido wagyu wrapped around thinly-sliced tofu that, when warmed, has the melt-in-the-mouth texture of a hot meat marshmallow – it’s as good as it sounds. The homogenised merging aroma of broiling beef, onions and mushrooms is tantalising and fresh in my nostrils come morning.

Best of all the silken tofu here is dessert. I swear I was as surprised as you. Who would have thought that a tongue-whipping soya ice cream served as four chilled mini tofu bites could not only work but would be a standout? There’s white and dark chocolate, matcha and pistachio. That’s pretty much it. Nothing else was added, just whipped tofu and chocolate – a revelation! Smooth, light and devilishly moreish. Umph, that lasting flavour like a magical sapor, served with a cold and fragrant cup of excellent sake – blue bottle, Japanese writing. I had no idea tofu could stretch this far.

In his latest project, Gaggan has managed to combine the best components of dinner – taste, sensation and theatre – with his blithe rock persona wizardry, all coming together perfectly. There’s less theatre and performance than guests experience at Gaggan’s restaurant across town, allowing diners to concentrate fully on the kitchen and its tofu output rather than blowtorches and a blaring Foo Fighters soundtrack, and it’s all the better for it. This is a strange and unusual menu with myriad flavours and textures alongside the moulding, shaping and impressive manipulation of a seemingly ordinary central ingredient, paired with some of the finest ingredients – wagyu, crab, uni, Japanese mitsuba, maitake mushrooms. Everything is presented almost ritualistically, to which any Japanese connoisseur would bow in appreciation. C

Mihara Tofuten, 159/3 Sathon 7 Alley, Thung Maha Mek, Sathon, Bangkok 10120, Thailand
MiharaTofuten (Facebook)