FOMO, Bengaluru’s Newest Thai-Viet Restaurant, Serves Bun Cha To Moo Krob, Dishes You Miss From Your Last Vacay

We love our Northern Thai and Vietnamese flavours, and having spent a lot of our vacations in Chiang Mai to Hanoi, imagine our happiness when we heard there’s a new restaurant in Indiranagar that’s serving up Banh Beo, Moo Krob, Bun Cha, and Khao Man Gai, things that Bengaluru doesn’t have a lot of options for. Next thing you know, we are seated at FOMO or Flavours Of Modern Orient for dinner.

The 40-odd-seater restaurant is on the bustling 100 Feet Road and is done up in muted shades with colours coming from the painted panels on one side. The brand’s mascot, a praying mantis, is depicted in various vistas of Vietnam and Northern Thailand. The place isn’t, thankfully, dimly lit; you can pretty much see across the room, and there’s enough space for you to have a meal without overearing the other table. We were seated near the kitchen side, and we could take a sneak peek into the kitchen through the glass windows. Always love watching the chefs do their thing.

Sanket Reddy, the founder, popped by our table to welcome us and to let us know that he’s going to feed us a feast. From our chat, it was pretty evident that FOMO wasn’t positioned to be yet another Asian space in the city, which we are already bursting with, but rather, to offer flavours and dishes that we had once and kept dreaming about. With a research-led and ingredient-led approach, Chef Prashanth helms the kitchen and, along with Sanket, both of them having spent weeks in the Thai and Vietnamese cities to bring the menu to Bangalore.

We started our meal with Tempura Fried Betel Leaves, Nam Tok, and Grilled Chicken Wings. The Nam Tok features fried jackfruit or flash-grilled tenderloin, and this Northern Thai salad from Isan packs quite a flavour that’s very much Thai. We had the jackfruit version that added a bit of crunch. The Tempura Fried Betel Leaves was the go-to order of our media friend, who’s been eating this since the restaurant opened. Minced tofu (or chicken) is served with a potent nam prik or chilli jam, you top it on the fried betel leaves and eat it like a cracker.

Between all the crunching and munching came the Grilled Chicken Wings, Prawn Toast, and Moo Krob. The wings are stuffed with sticky rice and glazed with a koji hot sauce, and it’s so addictive that you’ll want more of all that sauce and wings. One of those few dishes we don’t mind getting our hands messy. The prawn toast, made with milk bread, was the star of the night until we dug into the Moo Krob — crispy pork belly served with a side of green apple som tam and fermented green chilli. We now have FOMO about this dish.

Sanket insisted on us trying the Jungle Curry, Bun Cha or Khao Man Gai, but we were too full and we went for the Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu because it showed up on our Instagram feed one too many times along with the Crepe Cake. Strong way to end our meal.

We are going back. End of story.

Timings: 12 noon to 3:30 PM, and 7 PM to 11 PM. Closed on Mondays.

Cost for Two: INR 2,000

Ratings: 4.6/5 on Google

Instagram Handle: @fomoblr