The Indian fine dining aficionados at Jhol have launched their Culinary Journey: Purification menu to celebrate five years of service in Bangkok, following flavors around the subcontinent. 

 

For three of those last five years, Jhol has been the Top Tables winner for Best Value. When it comes to fine dining Indian food and affordability, it’s hard to beat Jhol—an actual, honest-to-god high-end tasting menu designed by the inimitable Chef Hari Nayak for B2,200. 

 

 

The menu starts out with three preludes, including the Calicut Pepper Crab from South India, Goan Choris Pav from western coastal India, and the Kolkata Dim’er Devil hailing from, obviously, East India. If you’re sensing a theme here, that’s because Jhol’s menu takes its cues from a sort of Indian travelogue, putting a fine dining spin on flavors from the nine states of India. 

 

Some of the dishes are familiar, like the BFC, or Berhampur fried chicken, an Odisha oriented dish with Jhol’s own spicy (though somehow refreshing) hot sauce—a popular dish that will likely stay on the menu for some time to come. Another favorite is the Fine De Claire oyster, which takes its notes from pomegranate and mango. 

 

 

New dishes include the Kundapura Ghee Roast Crab. While the crab itself is Thai, from Nakhon Si Thammarat, the flavors come from coastal Kandapura, with flavors distinct from the more southern Kerala. The dish, served in its shell, is slow-cooked in ghee and Karnataka spices, but the surprising bit is that the crab flesh-like outer layer is actually a a idli batter, with a bready, rich consistency. 

 

The Bengali Biye Bari Fish Korma, a new addition, is inspired by Bengali wedding feasts, serving up local sea bass with a heady, almost smokey mix of cashews, poppy seeds, and caramelised onions. 

 

 

In an ode to Indian street food, Jhol also puts a spin on Surti Anda Ghotala, a Gujarati egg dish, for what turned out to be one of the real highlights. This version comes served with a slice of chilli cheese toast and a bowl filled with a savory and sweet-ish mix of spiced gravy, amul cheese and winter truffle. 

 

The mains, or The Feast, will be familiar flavors from the Coorgi Pandi Curry and a delightfully creamy Bengali korma of sea bass, both served on a sharing tray and both requiring a little construction—rice bread pathri in the case of the curry and parrota, a sort of maida and ghee based roti, for the korma. 

 

 

While some of the dishes are old favorites, Jhol is putting its own fresh spin on Indian dishes without being gimmicky about it. And it’s a formula that works—works so well in fact that we should be seeing a version of Jhol open in Kuala Lumpur soon.