Beginning this month, Kintsugi Bangkok By Jeff Ramsey is serving tasting menus for lunch and dinner, both of which are designed to showcase seasonal ingredients at their peak perfection in summer.
True to its name "Kintsugi", the term is derived from the sophisticated art of repairing broken ceramics with golden lacquer, which metaphorically refers to how the American-Japanese chef Jeff Ramsey bridges the gap between the traditional dining of kaiseki and his contemporary cooking.
If you're new to kaiseki, such a meal takes pride in serving the Japanese culinary philosophy "shun", a sense of enjoying fresh ingredients at their prime time. To sum it up, imagine a multi-course meal delicately prepared and presented aesthetically with core elements such as hassun (seasonal platter), mukōzuke (sashimi) and mizugashi (dessert).
Always putting a spin on seasons, the chef brings in Japan in the summertime to your tastebuds with four dining options, which are available until Aug 31. For lunchtime, expect a seven-course Ito menu for B2,500 and a nine-course Kin menu for B4,800 each. Meanwhile, the dinner sets include an extra course, and they set you back B4,900 for the Ito menu and B7,700 for the Kin menu.
I settled for a seven-course lunch menu. Steamed ginkgo nuts sprinkled with salt, hotaru ika with miso sauce and pickled winter melon made an enjoyable prelude to my meal. The first course starts with a bowl of cold somen noodles. Not only did the dish help you cool down from the heat outside with refreshing lime dashi broth and an Amela tomato, which has been infused with onion dashi to deepen the flavour but also worked as a palate cleanser. And just when you thought you'd experienced it all, sprouts of junsai (watershield) as garnishes delivered a slimy surprise with its gel-like coating.
Hassun came next, showcasing a variety of summer's finest ingredients sourced from all over Japan. The platter includes spotted babylon cooked with sake; truffle chawanmushi, a truffle steamed egg custard topped with Alaskan crab meat; a slice of fresh aubergine with a dash of miso sauce, a piece of marinated winter melon carved into a frog; a fillet of Ayu sweetfish braised for two days until its meat and bones melted in the mouth; steamed edamame; and a savoury and sweet inari (seasoned deep-fried tofu) aged with veggie simmered in sesame oil—each can be finished in a single bite.
Followed by Mukōzuke, or sashimi course, which raised eyebrows with quite a smell when the chef pulled out thick fillets from a dry-ageing fridge next to the dining counter. The stars of the show were otoro (the fatty belly of bluefin tuna) and kinmedai (Alfonsino fish), which have been dried age for four days before serving. Otoro came as sashimi, showcasing its natural texture and taste during the fish's bulking season before winter, while Kinmedai was torch-seared for an extra layer of flavour.
The parade of summer delicacies continued sumptuously with a comforting bite of crab korokke, accompanied by roasted corn and kani miso sauce.
For Yakimono, or the course that showcases seasonal fish, sawara (Japanese Spanish mackerel) was represented as the face of the summer menu. The fish underwent a two-step grilling process over a charcoal grill. In the first round, it was cooked until the meat was nearly done, and then a delicate coating of miso was applied before getting a flame-kissed finish, transforming into a glaze that graced the fish's exterior.
A5 Wagyu beef donabe gohan (clay pot rice) arrived next before the sweet course. Thin slices of beef were flash-torched to retain their marbling texture, and then they were layered on top of steamed rice cooked with an ox tail dashi, resulting in flavourful bites with a hint of meaty fragrance. The rice bowl was topped with pickled egg yolk and served with an umami-packed clam-stock red miso soup.
The sweet finale was the much-hyped Shingen mochi (water cake), which resembles a clear, translucent droplet, accompanied by sweet toppings kinako (roasted soybean flour) and kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup).
Insider tip: always get front-row seats by the counter table as you can watch the chef in action up close, although tables or private rooms complete with sunken horigotatsu tables might feel cosier and authentic.
Call 02-650-8800 and visit kintsugibangkok.com.
