A world of difference

       In the age of culinary specialisation,the idea sounds preposterous: A restaurant featuring a menu that covers the cuisines of the world OK, not the whole world, but at least French, American, Vietnamese, Mexican,Lebanese, Senegalese, Moroccan, Norwegian, Australian and Caribbean (that's not a country though) as well as Thai.Each country is represented by two or three dishes, except Thailand, which gets about 10. Why these particular nations are covered and others aren't - why Norway and not, say, Denmark?- is hinted at in the owner's background,though the real answer may simply be the vagaries of whim.
       Eat's My World is a restaurant on the 7th floor of CentralWorld, tucked away in a rather obscure corner of the complex's food floor near Zen. The owner is Mr Bilal, a Franco-Vietnamese Muslim from Paris. Thus Eat's My World is a halal restaurant supervised by a coterie of Muslim ladies in veils, with the clientele ranging from Thai, Japanese and Chinese to African and Western - in short, a vibrant cosmopolitan clutch of Ratchadamri shoppers.
       Our verdict: despite the odd-sounding concept, Eat's My World has enough culinary know-how to endow its diverse dishes with individual integrity. More than anything perhaps, what it tries to do stands out from the tasty yet formulaic franchises of chic restaurants that inhabit most of CentralWorld.
       Once seated, a waitress brought us a small cup of dates, an Islamic tradition especially during this fasting month.Scanning the menu, we encountered a number of unfamiliar dishes from farflung countries: Senegalese eggplant cake (99 baht) and chicken yassa (189 baht);kefta from Lebanon (189 baht); chicken creole from the Caribbean (189 baht),Vietnamese beef loc lac (179 baht), Moroccan tagine (189 baht).There are also cheeseburger, representing the US (189 baht), a gratin dish and grilled duck from France (189 and 289 baht), as well as salmon steak, representing Norway (269 baht), though I doubt if any of the ingredients actually come from Scandinavia.
       Never mind. We were pleased with what we sampled. Leading the charge would be the tagine . This very Moroccan dish is basically a chicken stew, with Arabic and North African influences,and at Eat's My World, it came in a traditional cone-shaped earthenware pot - like what you'd have in Casablanca - and a serving of sliced baguette.
       The broth was aromatic, with a mix of potatoes and eggplant, and was very tasty eaten with the crispy French bread.The chicken meat is tender, but not melting from being soaked too long in the soup. In short, a recommendable tagine , considering there are not that many places in all of Bangkok that serve this Maghrebian dish.
       Still in Africa, we proceeded to chicken yassa , reportedly from Senegal. Forgive our ignorance, but we have no way of knowing how authentic this Senegalese dish served at Eat's My World is, but it tasted good anyway.Yassa is a marinated piece of chicken leg topped with a yellowish puddle that reminded us of a mild version of sauerkraut, and served with white rice. The whole thing tasted foreign, if not slightly exotic, with the sour and sweet notes of the sauce kicking in from the first bite.
       We moved on to a French item- the owner is from France - and we picked crepe bolo (129 baht). The white, soft crepe wrapped a stuffing of minced meat coated with slightly sweet sauce. It was a light dish that can be shared among a few people, or as a sort of heavy snack in the afternoon. And again, though it's not spectacular it's rather impressive.
       Lastly, we tried Lebanese kefta . The dish came with three balls of meat served with French fries and two dippings. At first glance the meat looked just like rotund burgers (without the bread), but the first bite revealed the mysterious aroma of Oriental spices, resembling those used in Indian kebab . I'm sure the Lebanese places around Nana or Suk-humvit can offer a more traditional version of kefta , but the flavourful one we had showed that Eat's My World knows what it's doing.
       The final impression as we came out was that this was a restaurant that tries to offer a difference without resorting to hollow gimmicks. It's a mall restaurant that put effort in the cooking.
       Eat's My World, I believe, will have to work hard to attract shoppers away from the familiarity of the Japanese joints and fast food chains, and after a satisfying meal last week we wish them all the success.
       Eat's My World CentralWorld,7th floor Ratchaprasong intersection Tel 02-251-4299 Open: Daily 10am-10pm