I maaaaay have said some mean things about Chef David Chang in the past. I may have suggested he’s arrogant and that all of the NYC food critics are stuck up his butt. I may have complained about his anti-photo policy and his online reservation system that requires weeks (months!) of clicking just for the opportunity to spend $700 and not eat until 9:40 p.m. on a Monday night.

But I was wrong, and on Saturday, Dr. Boyfriend and I had what was so unequivocally the best meal of our lives that I might have to add an extra doughnut to my rating system just to accommodate it.

We’d heard that lunch at Momofuku Ko was longer and more creative than dinner service, so we arrived at 12:40 p.m. on Saturday and handed over our obligatory e-mail reservation confirmation (I imagine they’d have a lot of people pretending to be other people without it, hard as it is to get a reservation there). Neither of us were excited about it. In the least. We were interested in the restaurant from the standpoint that about 99% of people who eat there call it life-changing, but honestly, if they didn’t charge $150 per person for not showing up, I’m not sure we wouldn’t have gone to Taco Bell instead.

We were seated at two of the stools around the 14-person bar like at Degustation, only at Ko, there was a good two feet separating us from the couples on either side of us, so I didn’t have to worry about some dude’s elbows in my food. The kitchen is in the center of the bar, so we watched for a moment as plates of mushrooms and uni were prepared for our fellow diners. I scanned the various containers situated all around the kitchen for shrimp heads as Stereolab, Dr. Boyfriend’s favourite band, began playing overhead.

One chef stepped in front of us, greeted us familiarly, and asked if we had any food allergies. I considered listing all of the things I didn’t feel like eating that day–tomatoes, mushrooms, seafood of any kind–but in the end, we said we were good to go. And here’s what we got (with wine pairings!):

• British Columbian and Kumamoto oysters in sweet potato vinegar

My first time eating an oyster! It’s funny, because Kamran always says he won’t take me to Per Se because he’s afraid I’ll make him eat the inevitable oyster, but the chef just placed one each in front of us on a little bed of crushed ice, and I just scooped it up and, you know, kind of chewed on it without actually biting through it, and swallowed it whole. I didn’t even consider not eating it. And I think I actually liked it a little bit. It had super-intense ocean flavor made even more potent by the vinegar, but it also had that fresh, clean thing going on that really gets you ready to eat more.

• grilled sesame cracker smothered in black garlic spread with banana peppers

If there was one throwaway course, this was it. It was a cracker about the size of a postage stamp, grilled so the layers of dough puffed up and formed a little pocket, with black garlic spread and little sliced banana peppers sprinkled on top. It was fine and plenty delicious, but it felt less like a complete course and more like a time-filler.

• potato souffle tube filled with artichoke puree and Hackleback caviar

It looked like a half-size pretzel rod, but it tasted like the best potato chip you’ve ever had, formed into a browned tube and filled with smooth, rich artichoke. The caviar added a nice little salty note, but it wasn’t nearly as present as caviar usually is for me, which is good or bad, depending on how you feel about BRINY FISH EGGS.

• Fried artichoke on parsley root puree with olive and lime

This artichoke, light and fluffy as it was, reminded me of a deep-fried zucchini flower. It was served on the traditional Japanese soup spoon with a dollop of the puree underneath. I think of artichokes as being sort of beige and chewy, but this one nearly disintegrated on my tongue and made me think in yellows and pinks. The acid from the lime perked the entire dish up and made it seem summery.

• sushi plate:
1) fish scales
2) Spanish mackerel with beets and freeze-dried soy sauce
3) fluke with pickled onion
4) diver scallop with pineapple vinegar

This was the first real dish and the one where Kamran and I looked at each other with the glint of “holy crap!” in our eyes. Without a menu to reference, I was trying to jot down the courses as the chefs presented them to us, and this was one of those cases where my notes are sadly lacking. “fish scales”?

I’m someone who leaves the best thing on the plate for last, and to imagine myself–a life-long seafood-hater–actually putting aside a piece of fish with the intention of savoring it later is unthinkable. But those fish scales, whatever they were, were incredible. They were literally two slices of whitefish the size of quarters with the skin still on and nothing else. And they were INCREDIBLE. I loved fish + beet, I loved fish + onion, and I loved scallop + pineapple, but I loved fish + scale.

• 1) Santa Barbara uni, yuzu zest, puffed black rice
2) wagyu with diced squash

Sea urchin ovaries are weird. Bright orange with tiny striations, they kind of remind me of a cat’s tongue. A really, really sick cat’s tongue. I’m not in the OMG-uni-is-the-world’s-greatest-delicacy camp, but I do appreciate that it tastes unlike anything else–and at the same time exactly how you expect it to–and can be slurped down like only a freaky, freaky ladyparts custard can be.

The wagyu slice was basically raw. It had the tiniest bit of searing on the outside, but the inside was still dark red, which really let me appreciate its beautifully marbling. We made audible sounds of enjoyment as we chewed tiny bites of the steak to make it last longer and speared sweet orange squash squares.

• salad of wild mushrooms foraged from Maine, pickled jalapeno puree

This was Kamran’s favourite dish and the one I was toooooootally freaked out about. As someone who only started eating a few mushrooms at a time in the past few months, to see an entire dinner plate coming at you with about 15 large chunks of different types spread in a line across it is a very scary thing. But you know what? Mushrooms are the chicken of the forest, man.

Everything was meaty, moist, tender–and most importantly–punchy, thanks to that spicy puree. The Hen-of-the-Woods mushroom was absolutely my favourite because of the way its paperthin ends got browned and developed a crunchy texture. Kamran loved the cauliflower mushroom, which looked like a golfball-sized puff but was also a little crunchy.

• puffed Hillcrest Farms chicken egg in bacon broth with chives on top

This egg was as airy as any angel food cake, as whipped as any cream, and almost as sweet as either. It didn’t matter that the crunch of the bacon wasn’t physically present, because all of the flavor and fat still was.

• bento:
1) sous-vide lamb rib over daikon slaw
2) rice ball in pork fat
3) chopped broccoli salad with homemade XO sauce
4) kimchi consomme over a cube of pork belly

Never have I liked lamb so much! This was thick with the kind of fat that melts in your mouth and had probably cooked for hours if not a day. The julienned radish was flecked with chopped herbs for such an elevated take on BBQ and cole slaw. The cube of fatty pork belly was equally as tender, and the dark flavors of long-cooked pig were such a compliment to the fermented broth. But the real star was that XO sauce, which Kamran has been telling me about for a long time. It’s full of everything I don’t like in the ocean, but the result is just a really savory chili sauce along the lines of Sriracha.

• matsutake ravioli with matsutake tea, spruce oil, and a brown butter bread “sugar cube”

Mushroom tea! With a tiny spoon and an even tinier “sugar cube” made from sweetened bread!

• trout in caper brine with green beans, butter-toasted almonds, yuzu glaze

This was the least exciting savory dish for both of us, but we still loved the textures of the tender fish with the snappy beans and crunchy almonds.

• shaved frozen foie gras torchon, lychee pine nut brittle, Riesling jelly, yuzu

With a grater in one hand and a napkin-wrapped, salami-shaped, frozen foie gras in the other, the chef shaved about a pound of fatted liver over the other components of the dish. As soon as our spoons touched it, the foie melted and became a little gelatinous to match the Riesling jelly. I understand that if even the Real Housewives of Atlanta are mispronouncing foie gras and talking about how much they love it, everyone’s aware of how rich and creamy a torchon is, but I’ve never had it richer nor creamier.

• short rib, shaved Brussels sprouts, compressed watermelon, cake of japanese eggplant

It was at this point that Kamran announced, “Honestly, this is worth any price.” The short rib was covered with such a thick, sweet crust that we had to saw through it with our knives, but the beef inside was super-tender. I’m a huge Brussels sprouts fan, but I’d never had them in this preparation, where all of the flavor remains but the form is entirely not-cabbagey.

• sunflower and rye bread box filled with Camembert, golden raisins, and apple with shaved macadamia nut on top

Kamran called this “gourmet grilled cheese”. It was a crispy open-topped box the size and shape of a stick of butter, filled with melted cheese and fruit.

• fruit compote “chutney”, sancho ice cream, vanilla wafer chips (paired with Little Kings beer from Cincinnati, OH!)

I really have NO IDEA what this course was about. We had been drinking the paired wines, sakes, and beers for more than two hours at this point, and we were trashed. Although my notes clearly say “sancho ice cream”, I was clearly crazy. What could it have been? Sunchoke ice cream? That sounds awful.

All I know is that the fruit was heavily glazed like a mango chutney and some sort of ice cream on top that quite frankly tasted like vanilla to me. But maybe it was just the overwhelming Ohioness of the beer overpowering my tastebuds. Either way, as a play on pie, it was a success.

(Now that he’s a little more clear-headed, Kamran thinks the “sancho” may actually be “sansho”, which is a kind of Korean pepper.)

• bittersweet chocolate pudding over puffed white rice bits with a shot of almond milk

The almond milk is what made this dish. The pudding was a bit too drippy for me, but the dark chocolate flavor was rich, and the tiny puffed balls of rice added a great crunch.

• To take home (lunch only, from what I’ve read): onigiri, pickled vegetables

It feels dumb to write about this food, honestly, because nothing I can say can convey just how utterly exciting, technically perfect, and intensely flavorful this meal was. It’s actually kind of offensive to keep saying it was “seriously, really, really good”, because it was beyond passionate and masterful. We spent the entire night and most of the next day talking about how we had probably ruined ourselves for any other sort of fine dining.

The terrible part is that in the midst of our heavy drinking, Kamran said, “I think it’s pretty likely we’re gonna go home and puke everything up.” And guess what–I did! I just don’t think I’m equipped for three hours of drink pairings. I got plenty of enjoyment out of it in the hour or so I kept it down, though, so I’m going to say it was well worth what Kamran spent.

The other great moment is when the woman next to me went to the restroom–which was filled with cookbooks, by the way–and I leaned over to ask her boyfriend if I was going to see his review on his blog. He’d been writing down the entire meal and asking the chefs for clarifications (I wonder if he got “sancho ice cream”, too), but he said he doesn’t have a blog yet. And then he asked, “Did you review SHO Shaun Hergatt on Chowhound?” And I said, “Nooooooo,” because my brain was entirely nonfunctioning at that moment. But then I realized it was me and said, “Oh, wait, yeah!” And then I had to apologize for being drunk three to four times. So, sorry about that, ramenbound, and nice to meet you!

Two of my co-workers and I decided to hit SHO Shaun Hergatt for a Restaurant Week lunch at the last minute, and their dress code was listed as “jacket preferred”, so I changed into a pair of open-toed red patent leather wedges from my usual flip-flops and hoped no one would notice my jeans and my co-worker’s t-shirt. It must have worked, because they let us in (and were even nice to us!). And I’m sure glad they did.

potato-yuzu dip

Our crusty rolls came with the usual butter but also this dip, which our server told us is one of the chef’s specialties. It had the consistency of mashed potatoes and tasted very fresh and citrusy, thanks to the yuzu.

carpaccio of black angus beef, fried capers, parmesan

I think this is the first time I’ve had fried capers, and I really enjoyed their crunch and their peppercorn-ish flavor. The presentation was so beautiful that my photographer friend, Anthony, had to take several shots of this of his own to mess around in Photoshop with. The texture of the beef was so buttery and tender it was as if it had been cooked for hours.

organic red and yellow beets, Sicilian pistachios, espelette

I may have ruined this dish by starting a glass of sake before I tasted it, because I couldn’t taste the sauce at all. It reminded me of mayonnaise in texture, but the only taste I got were from the earthy beets and the toasted nuts, which of course I loved, because those things are objectively good.

handmade porcini pappardelle

I think pappardelle is my favourite pasta. Thin yet broad, it soaks up flavor and doesn’t overpower other ingredients with breadiness like thicker pastas do. This dish was wonderfully creamy and umami-y, perfectly cooked and YUM.

char siu braised pork belly

But the pork belly was better. I know I’ve said it before at Craftbar and at Sakagura, but I’m just so impressed that it’s possible for someone to take a half-inch thick layer of fat and make it not only edible but craveable. It tastes as good as the pork itself. Raw apples mixed with the soft cooked vegetables, and the salty-sweet soy-infused sauce had seeped into every inch of that belly.

milk chocolate palet, yuzu chantilly, raspberries

I would be hard-pressed to call this milk chocolate if you asked me to describe it, because it was so dense and rich. The chocolate was substantial, too, creamy and whipped yet thick enough to stay on a fork. I admittedly didn’t taste the yuzu in the whipped cream, but the fresh raspberries were divine, as was the crumbly chocolate crust.

peach tarte tatin, mascarpone ice cream, pistachio crumble

I loved the thin, nutty wafer on top, but the whole point of the dessert was the peach, which was so intensely ripe and sweet. I didn’t get more than a taste of it, so I want to go back and order it for myself.

chocolate financier, passion fruit jellies

These were really better than either of the menued desserts. The spongey chocolate cake was buttery and piped with a hazelnut frosting-like cream. The caramelized hazelnut was . . . gah. I like to save the best thing on my plate for last, so I had left a bite of my chocolate palet behind, but I gulped it right down after I had the first bite of this.

The gummy was so sugary it might scare off lesser sweet tooths, but I loved the juxtaposition of the more savory financier with this. And I was mad that I had eaten more slowly than Nik and Anthony, because had I gotten to it first, I would’ve grabbed both of theirs, too.

The great thing about eating lunch here during Restaurant Week (which SHO is continuing through Labor Day, by the way!) is that they give you a $24 gift certificate to come back for dinner. Which means that this lunch was essentially free. So go.

Don’t be fooled by the look on my boyfriend’s face as he eats his seseri, or grilled chicken neck, at Yakitori Torys. This is actually his favourite thing on the “Chicken Limited” menu.

That, the crispy chicken tail, and the chicken oyster sell out fast and are well worth arriving early for. I can’t speak to the grilled soft knee bone, though, as it’s been sold out every time we’ve been there in the past two years.

The place also has the best decor for taking faux-serious photos.

When it comes to candy, the Japanese really know how to name their products for maximum American kitsch appeal:

Note that I found this on the same day I bought the bacon-flavored jellybeans from the SoHo Pearl River location, because the Japanese also know how I love to eat fattening foods but am too lazy to grill up some actual bacon.

The Crunky bars were like Kit Kats but less dense and less sweet, which is basically how all Japanese candy is in my experience. Which is why I’m never leaving the U.S. for it, despite the number of karaoke joints there.

Having reservations somehow makes me feel really cool–despite the fact that only old people plan their meals and that I’d actually be much cooler if I just walked into restaurants on a whim–and I love using OpenTable to book just about any meal I can. While rating my recent wd~50 dinner last week, I saw the OpenTable Diners’ Choice list for the top restaurants fit for foodies and was surprised that I’d never even heard of #1. So naturally, I promptly booked a table for two there for Sunday night.

Kajitsu is a cozy, sparse, underground East Village Japanese den dedicated to shojin cooking, which is the basis for all Japanese cuisine, especially haute cuisine. And it happens to be vegetarian, which is . . . fine. I was vegetarian for several years and think it’s a completely valid lifestyle choice, but I wasn’t sure even an eight-course tasting menu was worth $70.

Osechi (new year) box: black bean, lotus root, soy candied pecan, nama-fu, burdock (thistle) in kelp, crosnes (Chinese artichokes), broccoli rabe, chestnut paste, simmered vegetables

The first course had me convinced. We didn’t know what any of this was (okay, maybe the carrots), and it was all so exciting. Even things I generally wouldn’t care for, like broccoli not covered in butter and/or melted cheese, seemed more delicious when placed delicately in a lacquered box next to all sorts of unknowns. There were so many highlights I can’t choose just one favourite, but the most delightful bit was probably the two black beans lying atop the chestnut paste on the plate in the back of the box. They were surprisingly sweet, skewered onto what looked like a cherry stem, and covered in a bit of gold leaf. It just goes to show how important plating is.

The real delight in a dish like this is that no matter how freakily eel-like something might have looked, I could just remind myself that it had to be vegetation of some sort, and vegetables don’t scare me. The little novelty ball of white, pink, and green in front was just gelatinous and starchy-tasting, and there was way too much bamboo for my taste, but even then, I appreciated the way they were presented.

Clear soup with grilled mochi, tiny turnip, carrot, daikon ribbons

Upon first taste, this was a relative disappointment to the first dish, because it was so mild. Upon second taste, I appreciated that we had to really stop and explore each sip of the soup in order to really get the flavor. The top piece of mochi was raw, and the bottom piece was cooked, and their juxtaposition was immense. I don’t really see a need for raw mochi to exist anymore, other than to remind me how much better it is grilled.

Lotus root cake, nori (seaweed) , myoga (flower bud), lotus seed

This was the closest to what I’d call comfort food, but it was much more delicious than, say, mashed potatoes. The skin on the cake flaked right off into crunchy layers that matched the crunch of the lotus seed and complimented the sweet pickledness of the myoga. The nori provided the base of the cake and a lot of ocean flavor.

House-made soba noodles

I think I was a lot less impressed by the soba than my boyfriend was. I’ve had some really delicious hot soba at Soba Totto near Grand Central, and cold soba just doesn’t compare for me. The texture was wonderfully gritty and made the noodles seem very rustic, but even with the dipping broth and wasabi, they were missing something for me. Perhaps a HUGE HUNK OF BLOODY STEAK.

Ankake (thickened sauce) tofu, tempura of red potato, oyster mushroom, asparagus, and cauliflower

This was the silkiest, smoothest tofu ever. I still don’t quite understand what ankake is, but it was syrupy and slightly sweet. You can’t go wrong with anything tempura-battered, of course, but the crispy chrysanthemum leaves on top made this special.

Steamed multigrain rice, lily bulb, white miso soup, nama-fu (raw wheat gluten), house-made pickled vegetables

Do not be won over so easily by the lily bulb! Yes, it’s beautiful, and yes, it’s unusual, but it doesn’t taste like anything! Fortunately, the rest of the rice did, especially after I soaked it with my miso soup. Which of course made it impossible to eat with chopsticks and thoroughly embarrassed my boyfriend. The real star, though, were the pickled vegetables, which were delicious to a surprising degree. I’m sure kelp would make me slightly squeamish in any other context, but it was so pickley and sweet here.

Steamed manju filled with red bean paste

This was one of the better red bean desserts I’ve had. I sometimes don’t feel like topping a dry pancake with dry bean paste is very pleasing to the throat, but the warm outside skin of this was so moist. Still, as a dessert-lover, I would hardly call this a complete dish. A big, fat scoop of red bean ice cream was entirely necessary, and no amount of cute little red fork can convince me otherwise.

Matcha (green tea), rakugan (sweet, solid rice flour cake made with the Japanese sweetener mizuame) candies by Kyoto Kagizen Yoshifusa

This was another dessert for people who don’t like sweets. I don’t want to say that the Japanese don’t understand the glory of insulin shock, but the lukewarm green tea was creamy and entirely unsweetened, the tiny rakugan domes tasted of plain sugar, and the hard candies didn’t explode in my mouth to reveal a gooey chocolate center or anything. Call me a glutton, but I’d rather have no dessert than two savory courses posing as dessert.

Of course, we also had to try the five-course sake tasting, and the drinks that came with dessert were better than either of the actual plates. My boyfriend got a plum sake, and I got a yuzu sake just to try something different, since I’d usually go for the plum without question. But the yuzu was incredibly sweet, and the plum reminded my boyfriend of a popular Persian soft drink, so we both ended up with what was perfect for each of us. We delighted ourselves by talking about how drunk we were going to be later, but sadly, there was just too much food for us to walk out swaying.

Aside from the dessert, which I’m half-kidding about, my one real criticism overall would be that the dishes in any given course didn’t necessarily seem to go together. None of the flavors ever clashed, exactly, but I never felt like, “Wow, this tofu wouldn’t be the same without those battered mushrooms.” Still, when I think about the dishes that really wowed–the osechi box, the grilled mochi, the lotus root cake–I’m blown away thinking about how simple yet flavorful they were. If a meat-filled tasting menu in this town is $125-$150, then $70 for all of this new-to-me deliciousness is more than worth it. The fact that I only missed meat in exactly one dish seems like a major accomplishment.