Bed is dead, long live CHI + Mana Cuisine by Blue Elephant, near where the original supperclub was, on Soi 13, housed in a skeletally similar UFO construct, only bigger and better.
Supper is sexier, the décor trippier and there's more space to act extemporaneously. You still enter up a gentle incline but now you ascend on golden bling instead of a functional flying saucer entry ramp.
In stark contrast to Bed's white riff on Kubrick's Space Odyssey, "Funk Shui Asian lounge culture" is how Vivaldi's PR eloquently describes celebrated nightclub innovator Daryl Scott's immersive oriental dragon-inspired design. Set and tapas menus – luscious fruits of a free-basing collaboration with Royal Thai cuisine legend, Blue Elephant, are artfully original – and cocktails flow from Daryl's unfathomable mind in league with CHI's status as Thailand's first world class Diageo Club, the mixology project of Diageo Moët Hennessy.
Open Tues-Sat, Mana – "divine nourishment" – operates from 07.00-10.30 pm but tapas (from sticky-sweet crispy cola and sesame marinated chicken wings to half-baked cookies and hokey pokey ice cream) are served till 01.30 am. The adjoining club, interconnected through doors and across mezzanine gantries, opens at 09.00 pm, spills into the dining room, and shutters at 01.30 am.
Blue Elephant appointed Chef/Project Manager Tony Bish and Head Chef Anjie Ratanakovit co-create all-original dishes blending exotic, spiritual and technical influences that reconstruct Thai and other Asian culinary traditions.
Tony, whose Thai mother cooked well, trained in Cordon Bleu French cuisine before "finding my way back" to Thai themes. Anjie came later to cooking after catching the bug as a food reviewer and talking her way into top chefs' kitchens with raw passion and quick-study acumen.
"Using a lot of Royal Project produce we play with flavours and present them in a modern, westernized way so it looks European but tastes Asian," she encapsulates.
There are "elemental" 5-course Fire, Water and Earth (meat, seafood, vegetarian) set menus (Bt1,800++/person), with course selections interchangeable. New menus arrive every three months.
We start with Beef Tenderloin Salad, 58°c Sous Vide, confit quail egg yolk: buttery cubes of soy- and fish sauce-marinated Company B butchered-to-order meat lightly sauced yam tok style. Addictive!
With Foie Gras Tortellini Soup the wanton-like tortellinis cosset duck liver and meat set in krachai "lesser ginger" and pickled daikon mustard seed broth, baby bok choi and a saffron flower. The herby-rooty soup and sweet meat complement the foie gras' richness awesomely.
Chicken Roulade features organic black rice exclusive to Blue Elephant, blended with Moroccan-style preserved soy-citrus jus to create an intriguing risotto complemented with tender herbed chicken medalions, sautéed peas, carrot, zucchini, asparagus and drizzles of mint and soy-citrus jus.
Mae Naam salty-spicy tom khlong-style soup is infused with basil tapioca pearls and roasted Thai herbs and added with tiger prawn stuffed with seasoned minced fish wrapped in radish.
Pan-fried Indian Halibut is juxtaposed with purple sweet potato purée, charred fennel, Thai seafood-style cucumber vinaigrette and a cheeky orange candy crunch.
Yellow Iranian Saffron Curry takes paneer homemade with raw milk and interweaves a technicolour demi-garland of mixed grilled vegetables, violet potatoes, burnt corn and playful popcorn.
"Banoffee-ish" is caramelized banana, chocolate soil, smoked banana cream and rosemary cream with quirky splinters of Oreo.
With a massive dragon head – the literal incarnation of a lounge lizard? – dominating the dining room, vibrant-hued animated dragons swimming across the cavernous ceiling in uber-cool 4K and the Zen-inspired DJ booth booming forth, it's tantamount to a virtual reality fantasy.
Better yet, with six fire escapes and an advanced sprinkler system, it's also a particularly safe "international gold standard" nightspot.
