Shiny New Thing
Sorry Fish Cheeks… Bangkok Supper Club is a perfect restaurant.
I’ve been stuck in my apartment for the past week horribly sick, so I hope your week is going better than mine. (It seems that this has slowly become a space where I overshare about my health as well as my eating habits…) What have I been up to? Mostly, trying to find gratitude despite having to delay and cancel a few travel (and culinary) plans.
Very unlike myself and mostly out of necessity, I’m embracing slow living, using this time to reflect on various aspects of my life. I finally put away my summer clothes and rescued the sweaters living underneath my bed; I finished a few books that I previously abandoned halfway; and I bought a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and have been losing my mind trying to complete it.
About this puzzle: perhaps this is a symptom of me being alone in my apartment for days on end, but I feel as if there is a real animosity developing between myself and the puzzle. I’ve dedicated almost every waking hour to it since Thursday evening and while I’ve made some progress, I haven’t made nearly enough. Last night, as I was struggling to fall asleep, green and yellow puzzle pieces danced behind my closed eyelids. I’ve been eating all of my meals relegated to a tiny sliver of my dining table because the puzzle takes up almost all of it. My back hurts from hunching all day. It’s really become a bit of a David and Goliath situation. But hey, it is passing the time.
Overall though, I’m doing alright, thanks for asking.
Prior to me losing my mind though, I did have two meals I meant to write about, and while now it’s torture to imagine the good ol’ days of dining out with friends, I’ll soldier on… especially since one of these meals is too good not to tell you about.
For the longest time, Fish Cheeks was a restaurant I was perennially aware of, probably due to its proximity to the Reformation on Bond Street, but somewhere that I never considered eating at. It simply never occurred to me. Right before Thanksgiving, Viraj and I were eating down the street at BONDST (very good) when I said, like I always do in the area, “Hey, we’re right by Fish Cheeks!” But this time, a seed was planted, and two weeks ago Viraj, Aiden and I had dinner there prior to seeing “The Boy and the Heron” at Angelika. It was weird, eating somewhere that had for so long simply existed in my imagination.
Fish Cheeks is a modern Thai restaurant focused on seafood (it’s all in the name!), and after a round of drinks—I got the nam gin martini, which was great but not the best martini with an Asian twist that I’ve had—we got a half dozen oysters, which turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. I’m not always one to order oysters, but our server informed us that it was happy hour and well… I can’t resist a deal. And ordering them was exactly the right decision. Oysters are all about the accouterments, and Fish Cheeks serves their oysters with a superior alternative to the mignonette: nam jim seafood, a Thai seafood sauce. Usually, this sauce is made with garlic, chilies, lime juice, fish sauce and cilantro, and a dollop of this concoction and a sprinkle of fried shallots transformed a humble oyster into something quite extraordinary.
The rest of the meal sped by; the pork belly pad kaprow was another impressive dish, the pork perfectly crispy yet still melt-in-your-mouth tender. Their famed coconut crab curry didn’t impress me, and neither did the rawaaeng curry (duck curry), but they were still good and dishes I would look forward to eating again. All in all, a great meal that I would absolutely recommend, but little did I know, that meal would be quickly one-upped by a newcomer…
A few days after eating at Fish Cheeks, my friend Allison and I were trying to figure out where to go on a double date when Bangkok Supper Club came up. Although I had heard that it was a tough reservation to book, Allison instantly sent me a Resy invite and soon enough Viraj and I were bundled up and trudging our way through the West Village on a quiet Monday night. Only three months old, this new restaurant from the team behind Fish Cheeks is a fusion of Bangkok’s late-night food scene and a traditional supper club (all in the name, once again). The interior is quite beautiful, filled with round, cushy booths that make you want to gab all night.
It is my firm belief that it’s impossible to order wrong at Bangkok Supper Club, as every single dish we ordered was more spectacular than the next. When I bit into a thick slice of beef tongue from one of our two appetizers, lin yang, and the meat had none of the less-appealing, chewy texture of what I've come to associate with tongue, I knew that we had stumbled upon a very special meal. It turns out, the beef tongue is brined for over 24 hours to achieve its unrecognizable texture. We paired the dish with yum khai dao, a fried duck egg sitting atop a salad with grated cured egg yolk and trout roe—funky, fishy, and the best “salad” I ever did eat.
We ordered three mains, the pork jowl, grilled eggplant and ba jang lobster, my favorite of which was the pork jowl. Similar to the pork belly dish at Fish Cheeks, the deep fried pork cheeks were served with garlic fried rice and spiced pork cracklings, a true explosion of texture as well as flavor. It’s a theme Viraj and I noticed throughout the meal: Bangkok Supper Club consistently nails the textural intrigue of each of their dishes from a surprisingly tender bite of tongue to the satisfying crunch of cracklings in a scoop of rice. The sticky rice that the lobster was served with was interesting as well, the rice formed into a flat patty beneath sautéed lobster that I felt I could eat like a slice of flatbread.
I dislike comparing restaurants, because each of them have their own story to tell. However, comparison is oftentimes how we talk about restaurants, and in an effort to communicate to you, dear reader, that you must go eat at Bangkok Supper Club, I will say this: Bangkok Supper Club is better than Fish Cheeks, and Fish Cheeks has already set the bar very, very high.
Bite it!
Although it opened seven years ago, Fish Cheeks remains a hot reservation. Plan ahead and book Fish Cheeks on Resy: while there are usually tables available, those at prime times (and indoors) go fast.
I have no idea how Allison booked a Bangkok Supper Club reservation so quickly, but the restaurant opens their books 30-days in advance at midnight. They also save 25% of their seats for walk-ins, so definitely try your luck if you don’t mind a slight wait.