Sticks and Spoons Food Travel

Eating at Michelin Restaurants

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Eating at Michelin-starred restaurants always higher our expectations. We have witnessed quite a diverse overall dining experience visiting Michelin Star Restaurants and our guess is that it's all depending on the Chef and the establishment's Core Values and Goals.

 

This is just a theory. It's more likely to have a fun experience at a restaurant with a charismatic, open-minded, and relaxed Chef than at an establishment with a hard-driven Chef trying to prove a point with their cooking or aiming for the stars.

 

The latter can also affect your dining experience in a negative way.

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Writing that you might know what's coming but remember this; food can be excellent even if our restaurant recommendation has a lower score, which was the case this time.  

 

Entering Paste, Bangkok, Thailand

 

An exclusively designed interior met us and we were seated at a big round table in the middle of the restaurant. We had a late reservation but the restaurant was quiet at this time of the week. Good! That's promising and usually means you will get more attention as a guest.

 

We got a pretty insecure welcome though and it felt like the waiter wasn't used to serving two casually dressed people like us at all.

 

We wanted to taste everything on the menu actually and get as much influence from Chef Bee Satongun as possible so the big table was welcome. After ordering "half-the-menu" the waiter lightened up a little but still felt too "stiff" and insecure about the whole situation.

 

What a contrast to the visit at Gaggan where service was so relaxed, and fun yet impeccable in all ways when coming to service terms.

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Starters and dishes started to arrive and it all looked great; fresh, modern, and yet with a lot of respect and recognizable tastes from traditional and heirloom Thai Cuisine.

 

Wine suggestions were on point and we could easily find the "6th Ground Taste" on every plate - Love.

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The 6th Ground Taste is Love

 

We know; it's not even a "taste", yet it's crucial to make an ordinary dinner extraordinary and almost as hard as Umami to put a finger on. As we work as Chef and Waitress though, we have thought about it as a "Ground Taste" for a long time.

 

You know a Chef loves cooking when true balance unfolds in the depths of tastes when the perfectly shaped and arranged ingredients is revealing perfectly timed textures and aromas that pervasive the actual presentations.

 

That's the closest description we've come up with yet on what we think is one of the most elemental of Ground Tastes. The Love for Food.

 

A lot of Chef Bee's Food has an overflow of this ingredient.

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Our Review of Paste, Bangkok, Thailand

 

The dinner took "like forever" to finish and was resulting in one of the most severe Food comas until the present day! Think we even impressed the team at Paste by finishing all dishes. Even though we are "Pro Eaters" we kind of stumbled back to our hotel and collapsed!

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We really enjoyed the food though - it was truly excellent. However; don't judge a book by its cover.

 

Two ordinary-looking people can be real Bon Vivants like us and we really would have enjoyed the evening more with a more relaxed service.  And maybe a visit to the kitchen? Now we didn't take a Tasting Menu, where a visit to the kitchen is more an unwritten rule than an exception, but with so few guests in the Dining Room, it would have been nice to see the kitchen and maybe have a chat with Chef Bee?

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That would have made our experience of Paste so much better.

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Paste Bangkok is a 4/5 Sticks & Spoons Recommendation.

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Visit Paste Bangkok's website or follow Paste on Instagram.

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Find Paste in Bangkok: