Nahm Bangkok is a restaurant that shows up in many lists when we searched for places to eat using the phrase”best Bangkok restaurants”. They certainly have received many awards such as Top 10 restaurant in Asia in the annual San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna list, a Michelin star etc. They do not do so well on TripAdvisor, being rated a lowly #559 of 10,909 restaurants in Bangkok. We suspect the relatively high prices may have something to do with that. Nahm Bangkok serves traditional Thai cuisine – nothing avant-garde or modern. According to their website, “Chef Pim Techamuanvivit, who heads the restaurant, wants diners who visit nahm to feel as though they’re dining in the home of sophisticated Thai friends“.
Nahm Bangkok is located on the ground floor of the COMO Metropolitan Hotel. We discovered that it is not an easy to find hotel. Two taxi drivers turned us down. The third one was unsure but was prepared to take up the challenge. He was ultimately successful. It is situated in a quiet lane about 100m down the main road from the Banyan Tree Hotel. It does not look like a hotel, more like a residential building. Described as “a contemporary Bangkok stylish design hotel”, this hotel is indeed very attractive, from the lobby to the restrooms.
The dining area at Nahm Bangkok has a somber atmosphere. We can imagine that the area with the round dining table would be what the home of our sophisticated Thai friend would look like (if we had one).
Nahm Bangkok Menu
The Nahm Bangkok menu contains a reasonable range of dishes. They are recognisable Thai dishes except that they contain some ingredients that we seldom or had never come across. There is a set lunch menu (1,600 Baht per person) whereby diners can select items from different sections of the menu. That sounded like a sensible way to try many different things and so we opted for the Nahm set lunch. Here are pictures of the Nahm Bangkok Menu for lunch and a page from the wine list.
After the amuse bouche (above), we were served with both canapés on the menu. These are the descriptions on the menu :-
Bright santol dressed with dried shrimp, pork, peanuts and herbs served on crisp rice crackers
Miang of lobster, chicken, green mango, snake fruit, and herbs served on a betel leaf.
Frankly we could not taste all the ingredients. What I can remember is that both had a refreshing tart taste. Very Thai in character but very new to us.
We had to choose one entrée from the menu. We decided to go with the “fiddlehead ferns from northern Thailand with songkla wild prawns and delicious tawai dressing” because we were curious about the fiddlehead fern. It turned out to be a crunchy type of vegetable served as a salad with a mildly spicy dressing.
Rice was offered in two versions, the regular white steamed rice and a green one. We tried both. The green one looked more interesting but we could not tell the difference in terms of taste. The rest of the dishes were then served at the same time. Soups and main courses were meant to be eaten with rice, similar to what we do at home.
Both soups on the lunch menu were served:
Tom yum soup of river prawn, blue foot mushrooms, chilli jam.
Chicken, coconut and galangal soup with chilli oil.
The tom yum soup was similar to what we are used to and served in Thai restaurants in Singapore. The taste was very clean and pure. The prawns were very fresh. Rather spicy but enjoyable. The galangal soup was new to us. It was not much to look at just like a milky broth with chicken. It was more spicy and complex than the tom yum soup.
We had a choice of two items for main course and we selected these:
Steamed leopard coral grouper with pork, fermented yellow beans and fried garlic.
Rich red curry of duck with snake fruit , sour yellow eggplant and chilli leaves.
These were the best dishes of the day. The grouper was of a very high quality and cooked just right. The accompanying ingredients were light and allowed the natural flavour of the fish to shine. The red duck curry had a rich taste which made us eat more rice that we should have.
We were served both types of dessert:
Tropical fruit in scented syrup.
Sweet thai wafers with poach persimmon and golden duck egg noodles.
The memorable thing about the dessert was the use of fried scallions in the sweet fruit syrup. It was unusual and unexpected combination of flavours that turned out to be a successful one.
The food served at Nahm Bangkok did not contain colourful flowers, fancy crockery or other decorative elements. In fact the dishes look not much different those served at humble Thai restaurants. We liked the freshness of ingredients and experience of new ingredients and the ways they were combined.
Ratings:
Food: 4
Service: 3
Value: 2
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 3 TOPS 
Nahm Bangkok
COMO METROPOLITAN BANGKOK
27 South Sathorn Road
Tungmahamek, Sathorn
Bangkok 10120, Thailand
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