V9,
Sofitel,
188 Silom Road
Bangrak, 10500
BANGKOK
Tel :02 238 1991
Open 6 pm to midnight

I had the sunset brunch on Sunday a month or two ago at V9 and vowed I would go back for the tasting trees. That I did this week. Confused: I will explain.
V9 is on the 37th floor of the Sofitel on Silom road. As you can imagine the view over Bangkok is quite spectacular. But there is much more to this cutting-edge operation than the view. This is described as a wine market, bar and restaurant, with the emphasis placed on the wine bar part of the operation. Wine Connection has a store on the outside of the restaurant, so wine is available at something close to the retail price as opposed to the restaurant price. In addition there is a genuinely big selection and some very different wines on offer.
On Sundays as opposed to a Sunday Brunch at lunch time they run a brunch-style event from 5 pm to 9 pm where you can watch the sunset over Bangkok from this exclusive eerie. I enjoyed the brunch although it was fairly typical of 5-star brunches around town. In particular I was impressed with the cheese board. The whole brie had clearly been put out at opening time and by the time I got to it at 8 pm it was perfect - just beginning to run. The Camembert was the same. Of such joy to find cheese like that in Bangkok!
However back to the tasting tree: these are menus served on a tree of tiered plate holders allowing one to pick at the dishes at will. There are four main trees: a V9, French, Thai and Chefs, as well as a desert tree, all with six dishes included. They come in two sizes - small recommended for 1 or 2, and large for 3 or 4. I was tempted by them all but settled on the Chefs tree with dish one: scallops and squid salad, two: pizza topped with stir fried lamb, roquette and melted mozzarella, three: Crab mouse with caviar sauce, four: Smoked salmon and crab salad, five goat cheese ravioli and six: marinated kangaroo with foie gras. They were all good with a good selection of varying tastes. I thought the crab mouse was the best, with both the little pizza and the ravioli getting a highly recommended star.
We had this as a starter, be it a large one, for two. It could have easily been a meal for one. The rest of the menu is interesting without being that extensive. But as can be seen from the tree I chose this can be comfortably called inventive modern cooking. This month they have a special tuna menu with 3 starters and 3 mains. Three of the options are Ahi Tuna Tartar (quail egg, shallots, garlic, pine nuts, sesame, chili oil, mint and basil), seared peppered tuna loin (mixed Asian field greens) and one that tempted me: fish and chips (tuna "tempura," crispy potatoes, black olive oil). But just as we finished the tree, the Chef, Boris Cuzon, appeared. Boris is a pleasant chap from Brittany via a ten year stint in L.A. We passed a few agreeable minutes discussing the finer points of Bangkok's better cuisine before his bleeper summoned him back to his stoves. We went for two of the simpler dishes as mains. On wanted steak so she had beef tenderloin and I had roasted venison with mustard sauce. The venison was sliced and placed on polenta with mushrooms. The sliced meat had been folded through the sauce so the hot mustard shone through in the eating, but this was not to its detriment. Not a bad dish to eat whilst viewing Bangkok's night vista from above! I enjoyed watching all those souls stuck in the Silom and Sathorn road traffic!
I had to have a cheese board to follow and good it was too but not quite up to the standard of that cheese on the previous Sunday! We enjoyed a couple of bottles of decent wine. The white, Chateau Hostens Picant 2001 from Sainte-Foy, Bordeaux, was a very revealing wine. It was a big wine, with almost too much flavour to drink on its own. And of course I ordered it partly as an aperitif. Not too bad to start with, but by the end of the bottle, it was WOW, what am I drinking! I looked up the Chateau website and it is obviously a revamped Chateau with high aspirations and worth trying. Here it was a very reasonable 1,220 Baht (++) for such a good wine. For the red I had a good Cotes du Rhone and again this was a very big wine.
Later on in the evening V9 takes on a more hip image with a dreaded DJ set loose with vinyl, hip hop and acid house. That side I did not see or hear that side of it, but as an eatery it is well worth a decent detour to try out those trees - and drink some decent wine at sensible prices.