Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow

Like many people, I was skeptical about eating Thai food in Indonesia. But after the meal, “How can it be good?” became “How can it be this good?”

Saffron Banyan Tree first opened in 1995 at Phuket and has now expanded to–according to its un-updated website—ten outlets including two in Mexico. We had a 6-course dinner (800K IDR, or S$76) at the Bintan outlet by the very talented Chef Porntip Eumanan. A la carte is available with starters from 226K IDR (S$22) and mains from 310K IDR (S$30). Toto, we are not in a mid-range restaurant anymore.

The fresh ingredients are sourced locally from growers and they also have their own garden. “The Thai eggplant was just plucked from our garden this morning,” Porntip said. Good food comes from good ingredients, and this farm-to-table freshness is hard to beat.

The first course started strongly and set the bar for the rest of the meal. The smoked duck spring roll had such complexity that it made me tear. I kept chewing and couldn’t bear to swallow the explosion of flavours. It started lightly, but soon the mint, Thai basil, duck, cucumber all mixed beautifully with a sweet chilli.

Unfortunately, the course that followed the first was also a duck dish. Given that this was only a 6-course meal, there shouldn’t be a repetition although this duck tartare was delicious and handled differently from the spring roll. While smoked duck was only part of the flavours in the spring roll, here, it took over the tartare.

Unanimous praise for this sour soup (I think, made from tamarind mostly). It was so boldly sour that it tasted almost fermented, almost like liquid sauerkraut. But the sweetness from the extremely tender beef counterbalanced the soup, giving this dish a yin-and-yang factor.

This deep-fried prawn arrived a little cold, and we know that fried food loses its appeal when cooled. Otherwise, it was competent.

What audacity! The main course was a curry chicken with quail egg and coconut flesh; with a choice of four types of rice. How many curry chicken have we eaten in our lives before? It took guts to serve this as a main course.

But the gambit paid off. The curry itself had depth (did I taste pineapple?), the chicken was tender, and the quail egg was mind-blowing. That crispy bits of fish added to the curry–I want to add it to everything I eat now.

Without a doubt, it is expensive for Thai food. Even Singapore’s only Bib Gourmand Thai restaurant, Yhingthai, costs about S$40/pax. Here, it is twice as much. But this is one of the best meals I have had this year. The care and sophistication taken to transform traditional Thai food into modern creations require great culinary skills, finesse, and creativity. And Saffron has lots of those.

Food: 8/10
Decor / ambience: 8/10
Service: 8.5/10
Price / value: 4/10

Written by Dr. A. Nathanael Ho.