COCONUTS CRITIC’S TABLE – Club-like lighting and sparkly black carpeting guide you from the lobby of the W Bangkok to the second floor, where Kitchen Table is located.
The restaurant is not small, scaled-down and unpretentious, as its name might suggest. As you enter the high-ceilinged space, what draws your attention is the faux rattlesnake paneling at the curvy far end. As my dining partner noted, it’s high concept poorly executed. The design itself – already cartoony – is not aided by the poorly spaced lights behind the paneling, causing darker sections to take on the color of dark pee.
There is an open kitchen, which you can sit up against. There’s also an elevated communal table (the kitchen table?) and oversized booths that make diners look comically small. We opted for a four-top toward the entrance so we could watch people as they came in. When we sat down – 10 minutes after seven pm – the place was quiet. But soon thereafter, several groups of diners appeared, among them a dapper bunch of aging military officers and Thai socialites.
Our chairs were accented with real or imitation snakeskin, and before I had a chance to open the menu I halfway hoped to find snake on offer therein.
Alas, no such luck.
The menu, broadly western with a dash of Thai items, charts familiar territory. In addition to all the usual crustaceans, fish and meats, there is the requisite supporting cast: foie gras, duck fat, heirloom tomatoes and porcini mushrooms. Imported luxury foodstuffs aren’t cheap, and this is reflected in the price of menu items, which mostly hover around the 500-1500 THB range – tip (17%) not included.
But that should be no surprise as soon as you see that at the head of almost every occupied table is a long cylindrical bottle of Voss water (THB275). We opted for the smaller bottles of Avitez (THB100) and sipped sparingly.
After putting queries about the food to our waiter, who patiently explained certain menu items and even offered some suggestions, we were brought bread. Though not warm, the bread was fresh and refilled upon request.
The first plate that arrived was seared scallops with sea urchin foam, coriander and Kabocha pumpkin (THB900). It would’ve been a promising start to the meal, except for the fact that we hadn’t ordered it. After informing the food runner of this fact, she brought out our waiter, who apologized for the mistake and took it away. Another dish we’d ordered – the fried soft shell crab with garlic and black pepper (THB480) – came out soon thereafter. The flavor of the rich brown gravy enmeshed with the soft crab was unctuous and satisfying, but after a few bites I wondered if the dish would have been better if it had some brightness to cut through the one-dimensional heaviness.
Several minutes after the scallops were taken away, they were returned to us free of charge. We were happy to receive the free food, but the vacillation that went into this decision felt sloppy. The foam – salty, with a hint of Parmesan – and the smearing of mashed pumpkin worked to bring out the creaminess of the scallops. Best of all were the pickled coins of daikon scattered around the plate. Bursting with flavor, they provided a wonderful contrast to the more delicate elements of the dish.
Next up were the heartier dishes we’d ordered. We first focused our attention on the rack of Western Australian lamb (THB990), served with a handful of ravioli stuffed with sweetbreads and shitake mushrooms. I liked that the American barbeque-reminiscent sauce came on the side, and the lamb was plenty flavorful with or without it, but the temperature was way off. We’d asked for rare but what we got was nothing short of medium well.
We found a similar issue with the pan-seared, line caught monkfish (THB930), which was cooked to an almost rubbery consistency. The light buttery flavor of the fish came through, but perhaps this is more a testament to the deliciousness of monkfish rather than its preparation. Accompanying the monkfish was a small dollop of squid ink pasta, ingeniously amped up with cayenne pepper. There was a tiny sliver of smoked eel as well: delicious, certainly, but seeming to exist solely to fill blank space on the plate.
Our server had directed us to try the sautéed Kipfler potatoes (THB200), but we went instead with the duck fat roasted root vegetables (THB200). The spiced rhubarb, beets, and carrots – slightly mushy – tasted, intentionally or not, like something you’d eat on Thanksgiving. Try as we might, we could not detect the taste of duck fat.
Finally, out came the foie gras butter lobster (THB1200), which our server had mixed up with the scallops. The lobster meat – shell discarded and cut into bite-sized pieces – was interspersed with peas and other brightly colored vegetables. The cumulative effect was like a hi-so stir-fry; delicious and pretty to look at, sure, but not worth the price. Just as it does with duck fat, the Kitchen Table uses foie gras as an adjective: its real value is not in taste (indiscernible) but in marketing.
And therein lies the rub: good food is to be found here, no doubt about that. But when you’re paying through the teeth I’m of the mind that good is simply not good enough. But you’re not me. Maybe you’re in a relationship and need new check-in worthy places to make up for the fact that you have nothing substantial to say to each other.
Or maybe you’re nearby and curious about the W Hotels brand. Here’s a suggestion: stay downstairs, at Woobar. It’s an echo chamber – to put it politely – but their excellent Thai-inspired libations make up for that deficiency. The two drinks we sampled at the end of our meal were the Chatuchak iced tea (THB400) and the chor maung (THB300). The former justified its steep price with four shots of premium spirits, lime juice, and Thai tea; the latter with its flower infused raspberry vodka (the floral notes subtle but unquestionably present), the slow-melting ice ball, and the 24K gold dust (unnecessary but fun).
The truth is that the restaurant – like the W Bangkok – won’t be new forever, and if it doesn’t work out its kinks (if they are workable at all), the moneyed Bangkokians who can afford the steep prices won’t come back, and the Kitchen Table will fall in step with the majority of its peers: existing solely to maintain a five-star rating for the W, and to prepare the occasional meal or room service order for its captive audience – the hotel’s guests.
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Coconut’s Critic’s Table reviews are written based on unannounced visits by our writers and paid for by Coconuts Bangkok.
James Yu is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow him on instagram @jamcyu and tumblr.
