Didn’t find the time to post this yet: had an interesting dinner at Potong in Bangkok in May. I feel like the restaurant is getting a lot of attention lately – they know how to market themselves and having more female chefs is definitely a great development in this male dominated scene.
That being said, the quality of the 20+ dishes we had during the course of this 5 hour meal was mixed. Even before actually eating there it was pretty obvious that Potong puts a lot of emphasis on storytelling and theatrics. I don’t have a problem with that per se, but what actually went down in the restaurant was a bit much for my taste. You start on the ground floor with one of their own Kombuchas – the flower that was dipped in liquid nitrogen before being put into the drink was unnecessary, but the drink itself was a nice welcome. There, they also present you with their own app that you can use to scan different objects in the restaurant to learn more about the history of the building and the chef’s family. The historic building in Chinatown is amazing and it’s impressive how much work they put in the refurbishment, but the whole concept of this app and constantly being reminded by the waiters to scan some object etc. got on my nerves and cheapened the experience for me. It felt like you’re in an amusement park at times. One of the dishes even came with a printed comic book (kudos for knowing which language the different guests were speaking, we got it in 4 different languages) with a funny story about the creation of the dish. Combine these theatrics with the 2-3 minute explanations about the motivations behind and relation to Chef Pam about every single dish and you end up sitting there for more than 5 hours.
After the drink, they bring you up to the rooftop in a tiny elevator. During the ride up you move through the kitchen and every floor of the building. This was the kind of storytelling and immersive experience that they should have focused on, because the building speaks for itself. No need for apps and VR shenanigans.
But let’s focus on the food: the restaurant is known for 3 dishes in particular – the duck, the crab and the phad thai. And all 3 of them were the biggest disappointments of the evening for me. The duck is the main course and the breast was delicious. That being said, the style of presentation and the rest of the dish were nothing special and felt more like a slightly above average Chinese restaurant. I don’t want to eat out of shared bowls in a fine dining restaurant. The crab dish for me really showed the bad influence Noma has on other restaurants. This was nothing but two scoops of crab pate with horrible oily brioche but putting it in the shell of the animal and a bed of rocks must somehow elevate it. Same with the phad thai: style over substance. The flavor of the shrimp wasn’t good and the noodles tasted like nothing. Sadly, this was actually one of the worst phad Thais we had on the trip.
by Einzelkind90
1 Comment
Cont.:
The rest of the courses were more successful. From my experience, Potong was the best when it focused on different variations of one ingredient for a single dish. The 4 different versions of banana were fantastic, same goes for the dessert with 3 different interpretations of corn. All the desserts were truly fantastic and the highlight of the meal for me.
Overall, the issue I had with the meal was that Bangkok has so many good normal restaurants that I struggled to truly be surprised by many of the flavors offered in Potong.