Sala Rim Naam, Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok

I tried the set menu priced at 2300 baht.

 Appetizers

Grilled squid with ground toasted rice and chilli tamarind sauce.

I could smell the charcoal smell of being grilled, which was great.  The flavours are short and kind of simple—just sweet, hot, sour.

Steamed Thai dumpling filled with herbed minced chicken and peanut

The dumpling has great skin. There is a balance between the savoury of the chicken and the sweet of the peanut. Also, a nice balance between the softness of the minced chicken and the hardness of the ground peanut.  Not too bad.

Deep-fried prawn patty with sweet plum sauce

This employs the age-old trick of balancing deep fried with sweetness. Yes, this appetizer is that simple and hence, ordinary.

Spiced mushroom salad with batter deep friend scallop. 

The olfactory-scape is quite complex— you can smell the woodiness of the mushrooms against the spice.  Although the spiced mushroom salad goes well with the deep fried scallop, the pairing of wet against deep fried is, of course, yet another age-old trick, and hence, ordinary.  This dish is only ok.

Red roasted duck curry. 

The scents of the roasted duck and curry are distinct from each other.  In other words, they are short and flat.  One starts, stops; the other starts, which makes me wonder how long they have been cooked together.  It’s as if the ducked has just been dipped in curry.  The duck has weak flavour and retains no traces of the curry (which supports my theory of being cooked only a very short time).  I was hoping the roasted duck flavour would fill my mouth but that was not the case.

Sea crab cooked in herb coconut cream paired with carved fresh vegetables.

This is the most disappointing dish of the night.  The sea crab was done well—the flavours are intricately interlaced and hence complex.  The carved “fresh” vegetables are just dead.  They probably has just been blanched in hot water, and blanched too long at that.  The colours are dead.  The vegetables smell ordinary; there is no scent of freshness to the vegetables.  I wonder about the quality, the freshness of the vegetables they use.  When paired with sea crab cooked in coconut cream, it’s like smearing caviar on xerox paper and eating it.  The vegetables could not have “lived’ without the sea crab.  This was a complete fail.

Clear smoked dried fish soup with fresh herbs.

The soup is indeed clear and smoky.  But nothing beyond that.  The flavour was ok.  It was like drinking stock. 

Fried Ayutthaya river prawn marinated with turmeric, sweet and salty tamarind sauce

Ok. The turmeric, sweetness, saltiness came together for a complex, satisfying symphony.

Water chestnut rubies with coconut ice-cream

First the flavour of vanilla, then the sweetness, finally the taste of coconut.  So there are 3 different layers to it, Although I wonder if it would have worked better of the taste of coconut came first.  At least, this dish gave me a prolonged and reasonably complex taste-scape.  However, this dish was sunk by the red rubies which were much warmer than the ice-cream.  They should be the same temperature.  Details matter!!!!!

Sweet millet porridge, Thai barley and gingko topped with salty coconut cream.

This was the best dish of the night.  The scents and flavours flow smoothly into one another, a good indication they have been cooked long enough together. The texture is a good melange.

Assorted tropical carved fresh fruits

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At best, the set meal qualifies as a good, home-cooked meal.  In my opinion, it is not worthy of a 5-star hotel as well as its price (2300 baht).

The service here is quite atrocious.  Early on in the meal, I asked my waiter if he could recommend me a good wine to go with my dishes.  He probably didn’t understand me, for he went, “Recommend?” and then he just went away.  If he didn’t understand, he should have asked another waiter.  He didn’t.

I ordered a Merlot/ Cabernet Sauvignon , Michel Lynch, 2010 from Bordeaux, France (450 Baht per glass) to go with my Red Roasted Duck Curry.  It was a good pairing, but the wine was way too warm. 

I also had a local Thai dessert wine to go with my desserts — Chenin Blanc Late Harvest, Monsoon Valley 2010, from Hua Hin, Thailand (300 Baht per glass).  It was excellent and served very cold.