Chef David Thompson, an Australian born chef, had plans to take a vacation but when those plans fell through, he decided to go to where all the other Aussies like to vacation... Thailand!
When he came, he fell in love with the people, the tradition, the lifestyle and most importantly, the food. He stayed and studied Thai food for several years then returned to Australia and opened a Thai restaurant called Darley Street Thai... After several successful years, a hotelier in London asked him to open a restaurant in their COMO Hotel, and within 6 months Nahm became the first Thai restaurant to have a Michelin star. In 2013 Nahm was named Asia's 3rd best restaurant and one of the top 50 restaurants in the world... In other words, he's kind of my hero
In 2010 chef Thompson opened a Nahm branch in Bangkok, I dined there 2 years ago and I wanted to return again. In reality I wanted to stage at this restaurant but the logistics did not work out... So I took the opportunity to treat my sister and Joe since they were newly engage... And my mom
#Fun fact about thailand# Thai people eat a balanced meal... There's always rice of any kind, then there's a salad, usually a relish/salsa of sorts, a curry, a plain soup, a stir fry, then dessert. Thai people eat with fork and spoon, the fork used to push the food into the spoon... No knife and no chopsticks! (unless you're eating a Chinese influenced dish like noodles) All the food is shared family style and it's not a free for all buffet, they eat some salad then they eat some curry with a little rice, then some stir fry with rice... They don't take a little of everything and mix it, they finish one thing at a time. Depending on the region, relishes, soups and curries will contain different ingredients i.e. some regions don't make curries with coconut milk
With that fun fact being said, chef Thompson has built his menu along those guidelines and seasonality
There are options for Appetizers, Salads, Relish, Soups, Curries, Stir-Fried/Grilled/Steamed
He also offers a prix fixe menu which includes all appetizers, a salad, a relish, an individual soup, a curry, and a stir-fried/grilled/steamed dish, and an individual dessert. The dish size will be based on how many people decide to enjoy the prix fixe menu... All this for 2000B ($61.29) That's a steal!
Myself, Valerie and Joe decided to do the prix fixe mad my mom ordered indivudual dishes as she wanted try spicier options.. Which was actually nice cause we all got to try a lot of things.. We had way too much food!
An amuse bouche - pineapple with sweet and savory jam. A nice way to get the palate ready for dinner
Appetizers
Prawn and coconut wafer with pickled ginger - the wafer was nice and crisp, the filling was well balanced with the shrimp, bite from the pickles and the distinct flavor of shaved kafir lime leaves
Salted threadfin perch with ginger, chili, green mango on betel leaves - this was nice and tart but spicy then finished with a herbaceous note from the betel leaves. Anything with a betel leaf is a bit of work to chew cause the leaves a little thicker than they look.. And consumed in large quantities can cause psycho-stimulation with adverse health effects
Blue swimmer crab, pickled garlic, peanuts on a rice cake - this was a really great one bite. The crab was fresh and sweet, the peanuts gave a nice creamy note, the pickled garlic was a kick and then the rice cake was the perfect amount of texture. This one bite made me want more
Smoked fish, peanuts and tapioca dumplings - this dish normally is a sweet and savory jam with a tapioca coating eaten in a lettuce wrap but this one was different in that the filling was the smokey fish and it was wrapped in a large cilantro leaf so there were nice heights of flavor and something particularly funky/pungent about this filling which I loved
My mom's relish, Grilled prawn and shrimp paste relish with sweet pork, grilled fish and fresh vegetables - this was insanely spicy and funky. Relishes are eaten as a dip or mixed with a little rice, the veggies are the vehicle or the cooling agent. Even the server was like this is Thai spicy! But it tasted really good and the sweet pork helped to balance out the crazy spicy
Our relish, Salted duck egg and prawn relish with grilled catfish and fresh vegetables (mom's sweet pork on bottom right) - this was also spicy... It was a little bit more salty from the duck eggs but all easily balanced with the veggies and smokiness from the grilled catfish.. Insanely delicious and had the perfect texture of duck eggs and prawns in every bite
My mom's salad, Wild mushrooms with grilled prawns and chili jam - this was a nice relief from the spicy relishes, it was sweet! Don't let the name chili jam fool you, it's actually a sweet condiment... And you know my love for mushrooms... This was my choice for the salad but my sister doesn't eat mushrooms so we chose something else
Which apparently I didn't get a picture of our salad... Lobster and mangosteen salad ($10 supplement for the lobster... Hahah it would normally be like $50 in the states!) remember mangosteens, fruit of the gods? Mixed with lobster? Yea... It was sooo incredibly delicious I forgot to take a picture! Big chunks of lobster, bits of mangosteen and lots of herbs tossed in a creamy coconut milk vinaigrette
My mom's main dish, Stir-fried soft shell crab with chili, salt and coriander- this dish was crazy salty! The server warned that it must be enjoyed with rice cause it was too damn salty to eat by itself.. Other than that it was nice a crispy and garlicy with huge claws too!
My clear soup, Crab tumeric mushrooms and egg - first I apologize for the glare on the clears soups, I tried my best to change the filter so you can see the soup... This soup was so salty I couldn't eat it... I don't like sending food back so I ate what I could and gave it up cause we had more food coming... Looking back I should have mentioned it was salty so they could fix it for the next soul that ordered it
Joe's clear soup, Roast duck with Thai basil and young coconut - apparently it only had 2 pieces of duck in it, the broth was salty but this was balanced by the basil and coconut meat
Valerie's soup, Coconut and chicken soup with fried garlic, green mango and chili - this was basically a tom yum soup with coconut milk in it but not sour or spicy just really sweet.. The opposite of mine, so sweet she couldn't finish it
Rambutan in scented syrup and Thai cup cake - this was a mind twist cause it was savory! There were fried shallots in the rambutan syrup and the syrup was only slightly sweet. The little Thai cupcakes were slightly sweet, cooked on a clay disk that looks like a ebelskiver, it's a batter of most likely tapioca starch, coconut milk, sugar and salt (the sweet version of these coconuts are so addictive)... I kept eating this dessert cause it was so different and I couldn't figure it out.. I'd never had anything like it! My mom knew exactly what it was and how you never see these old school style desserts anymore 
Pandanus noodles with black sticky rice, water chestnuts, tapioca and coconut cream (with a cameo of the fruit of the gods) - my sister loves this dessert.. Except this one has more ingredients than she's used to... Normally we're used to just the green noodles in coconut cream syrup with crushed ice... It still tasted really good. The pandanus noodles are made similar to spaetzle... A starch mixed with pandan extract and color then forced through a colander into boiling water and stored in rose water. Inside the banana leaf was a steamed custard
Coconut ash pudding with boiled bananas - the bananas are boiled in simple syrup until tender then served with the same coconut cream syrup as the pandanus noodles except this is served warm. The pudding is a starch dough steamed with coconut cream and mung beans.. I don't quite know what made it the black color or explain the flavor but I really enjoyed the texture... I don't believe westerners would find the texture appealing, I don't even quite know how to explain the texture but I really liked it
Petit Fours - I'm not even going to try to remember what they all were but I remember I really liked the ones on the top and the bottom of the picture... The top ones were a toffeed peanut thing on a banana and the bottom was some sort of peanut jelly coated with an unexplainably familiar tasting dust... Sorry for the really poor explaination
There were some miss dishes but I still really enjoyed my meal at Nahm. Valerie and Joe also really enjoyed it and was thrilled to have experienced Thai food on a fine dining scale... Surprisingly my mom also enjoyed the meal, although much much more expensive than any regular Thai person would spend on a Thai meal (or any meal), she said everything tasted really good and understood the capabilties I could have of taking Thai food to another level
I hope I have another opportunity to enjoy food at Nahm and also at achieving what chef Thompson has accomplished and has done for Thai food
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