Heap, with its cool décor and occasional live bands, is better suited to polishing off a bottle of whiskey than to actual dining. Still, with proper tables and ambitious items on the menu like lobster soup and baramundi fillet, it definitely sees itself as more than a “drinking food” place. Unfortunately, execution doesn’t quite live up to the menu’s pretense—not even when ordering simpler gab glaem dishes. Everything tastes a bit too much like fast food, or something out of a can or box. The marinated chicken wings with lemongrass are a greasy mess where watery chicken gets covered in batter and fried to the point of tastelessness (well, apart from the oil). The New Zealand mussels are equally tasteless, but also rubbery, having us wondering (and worried) if they were kept at the back of the freezer too long. The prawn salad in wasabi sauce is fresh and crisp, with a very sharp, if overly sweet sauce, but the shrimps feel like chicken nuggets of the sea. Even the tom ka gai is no stranger to artificial flavors, courtesy of its condensed milk-like soup. And yet we’d go back: Heap is dirt cheap; the crowd is young; there’s a large mezzanine made of steel and wood and even some vegetation in the parking lot. We see this experience as the equivalent of Pizza and beer at a friend’s place. Vaguely gross, but edible, and kind of fun. With its parking and BTS access, Heap hits the spot for those who don’t want to pay Thonglor prices (or just don’t want to head East) but still want a smidgeon of cool factor without a grungy Taksura vibe. Corkage B250.
