Momofuku Ssam Bar‘s large format duck dinner is a whole rotisserie Long Island duck served with chive pancakes, bibb lettuce, hoisin, duck scallion sauce, crispy shallots, and two sides of your choosing. It’s $140, feeds three to six people, and is The Best.
This and the bo ssäm (pork shoulder) dinner are the only ways to get a reservation at Ssam Bar, and that alone is enough to make the dinner worth it, as the wait at Ssam is regularly two hours in my experience. (Get there before 6:30 or after 9:30 on weekdays if you want to avoid the line.) My group of six included a couple of people who can really eat (obviously I’m including myself here), so we started with some regular menu items to supplement the duck:
It’s really hard to say “this thymus really melted in my mouth” without rolling my eyes at myself, but if I didn’t know this was offal, I’d think it was dessert. It was sweet and creamy inside, spicy and crispy on the outside, with a kick from the lemon segments arranged on top. It’s like fried chicken, if chicken had the texture of custard.
This was my second time having this dish, and I’d have it a third time, too. The rice cakes are this perfect spongy, chewy consistency, and I love all of the spicy peppers and the crisp of the shallots over the meaty sauce.
The lettuce and sauces arrived just before the duck did and were the ultimate excitement-builder. I felt about these the way I feel at a concert when the lights dim after hours of standing around, listening to crappy opening bands. Not that our starters were crappy. You know what I mean.
The duck arrived on a platter the width of the table with scallion pancakes, rice dripping with duck drippings, and what must have been every herb in the kitchen. From my vantage point, it looked like a glistening little duck breast lost in the forest:
I took a few slices and tried to keep them intact as they threatened to separate into pieces in all of their tenderness. I grabbed a scallion pancake and found it pleasantly salty and soaked through with oil, like a funnel cake. The duck scallion sauce was just adding duck to duck, and the sambal sauce was too vinegary for my taste, but the crispy shallots and hoisin were just the right combination of crunch and thick stickiness. The skin wasn’t crispy, but it had a layer of pork and duck sausage piped underneath it that was a fine substitute.
The duck thighs were apparently cooked confit and served to the side of the breast, but I couldn’t see what I was doing amidst all of the basil, cilantro, and mint, so I grabbed whatever I could with the tongs and thought it was just a pile of the fatty, fatty skin. Well, even if I missed out on the confit thigh, the skin was shockingly melty, and I wish I could feed it to anyone who’s afraid to eat fat.
Our sides of fingerling potatoes dripping in duck fat and broccoli salad just couldn’t compare to the duck, perfectly adequate as they were. The potatoes had a nice crispy-on-the-outside texture, but the flavor didn’t knock me out. The broccoli salad, on the other hand, had too much fish flavor for me. I wouldn’t order it again for myself, although I’m pleased to have had the two sides that aren’t available on the regular menu.
Clearly the duck was the star of the meal for everyone, because while half of the potatoes sat uneaten at the end of the night, my dining companions were clamoring to finish the fatty rice:
We counted about 26 slices of duck in all, which meant four to five slices per person. And honestly, I could’ve eaten twice that. So next time, I’m bringing half the friends.
Just kidding, friends.
(But not really.)
This dinner will stick with me for a while. I’ve had some good duck, but this was some good duck. A couple of my dining companions were also at the Wong whole duck dinner with me, and they both thought Wong was better because of the diversity of the duck dishes. The creativity at Wong wasn’t lost on me, and I seriously love a good Chinese bun, but I think I may have liked the scallion pancake and hoisin sauce with the duck more at Ssam Bar. It’s a toss-up. Go to Wong for the full-meal experience, but then go to Ssam Bar just to tear into some really well-done plain, ol’ duck.
It’s funny how you can ride by a restaurant on the bus every day and not notice it until its chef is a contestant on a reality TV show. Or sad, maybe. But that was the case with Hearth, which I must have seen at least 365 times but didn’t actually see until Chef Marco Canora performed spectacularly on the Food Network’s Next Iron Chef. Another of the Tom-Colicchio-trained, it’s no surprise that his food seems honest and that his ingredients speak for themselves.
Hearth is casual without being unimpressive. The waitstaff is in t-shirts and visible tattoos, but the exposed brick, polished wood, and candlelight match the mid-priced menu. We tried the seven-course tasting menu, which is full of the fresh, bright ingredients of the season and is one of the more-affordable tastings in town at $76 per person.
Cool and starchy, with a floating topper of slightly-hardened yogurt and pea skin to add some texture. The natural sweetness of the pea, one of my favourite flavors in nature, contrasted the sourness of the yogurt.
It’s all of my favourite ingredients in one bowl! And then a whole lot of tomato, my least-favourite ingredient ever. But I’m an adult, and I ate the skin and an eighth of an inch off of every single one of those tomatoes before making Dr. Boyfriend switch bowls with me. Aside from the tomatoes, which even I will admit were perfectly ripe, this was summer in a bowl and made me sad for the mushy, mealy produce that’s going to be showing up in stores in the coming winter months. It was simple, fresh, acidic from the sherry dressing, hearty thanks to the beans, and crunchy from the celery. Of course I’m more preferential toward land animals, but the use of the tuna felt like a very deliberate choice to keep the salad light.
This items isn’t on the menu, which doesn’t surprise me, since the repetition of the beans in consecutive courses didn’t seem well thought out. Careless or not, I really loved this dish, and I say this as someone who would’ve been absolutely freaked to find edible suction cups on my plate a year ago. I always think that octopus is going to be rubbery and hard, and I always find it tender and just the right amount of chewy. It doesn’t hurt that this is grilled; I’m a sucker for charred flavor, and the grilled taste permeated the very manageable chunks of meat. The radicchio added a pleasant bitterness, and the oregano made everything a little more familiar for a landlubber like me.
Eating good pasta always reminds me that I want to eat more good pasta. The pappardelle at Babbo completely changed my expectations, and although this wasn’t life-altering, it was very nice. The little baskets of pasta were the perfect chewiness, and the ricotta added just the right amount of dry, crumbly texture. The basil-laden tomato sauce was still chunky and bright, so I could’ve really used some heavy meat in place of the eggplant to add a smokiness or some richer flavors. It felt a little too simple to me for a restaurant dish, not one you’d use to impress on your tasting menu.
Not to bring up another food I’m squeamish about, but up until very recently, I didn’t like cucumbers; they’re one of those half-sweet, half-savory foods, like tomatoes, that my tastebuds didn’t respond well to. But in this dish, the cucumbers were the best part! Their brightness matched the briny flavor and the freshness of the roe. This was my first time having freekeh after seeing it in an episode of “Chopped“, and I wasn’t disappointed; it added such a chewy texture and such a familiarity. The salmon made the freekeh less heavy, and the freekeh made the salmon heartier. The scapes in the freekeh reminded me of scallions, and we liked what we believe were pea shoots on top, but I unfortunately missed the mint.
I’ve had a lot of crispy-skinned pork in my life, and the most interesting thing about this pork was that it wasn’t crispy-skinned. Instead, the “skin” tasted like it had been caramelized, and its sweetness was a nice compliment to the cooked onion. The pork was extra-salty, and the housemade bacon was extra-firm–both pluses in my book. The gnudi of Swiss chard was . . . well, it was too healthy for my taste. I did like it, and I did think that the chard was a nice accompaniment to the pork, but I want my gnudi to be cheesy and bad for me!
This was easily the most interesting course of the night, and I’m ashamed to say that, as a hardcore tomato-hater. It’s not my fault, though. The tomatoes were sunk into a syrup so sweet and herbaceous it was like eating a Bloody Mary ice cream float. The saving grace was that there was the perfect amount of syrup in the bowl for me to take in multiple spoonfuls after each bite to mask any raw tomato flavor. With the yogurt sorbet providing a sourness, the dish became the perfect bridge between the savory and sweet courses.
I was a little preoccupied with my raspberry liqueur from the Finger Lakes and the fact that the people next to us were getting extra courses that I was dying to see, but the standout in this dessert was the chewy, sugar-dusted top of the financier. I loved how the lemon verbena ice cream was like lemon for grown-ups: bright and herby and not at all sour.
Hearth is serving solid rustic Italian-inspired food. The weirdest part about my visit is that the dishes I thought would be exceptional were really just fine–the pork, the pasta–while the dishes I thought I’d have to quietly shove into my napkin–the octopus, the tomato and ice cream–turned out to be my favourites. Although I think the individual dishes may be too simple for their price tags, the tasting menu was a great value, and I would certainly return for it.
When my friend Kim saw a four-person dinner at DBGB pop up on GiltCity for $150, the first thing she thought was, “SUNDAE!!” And the second thing she thought was, “Can I eat four sundaes by myself?” And the third thing she thought was, “Guess I have to invite Katie.”
I’d had a very so-so experience the first time around at DBGB, but my subsequent tasting menu at Chef Boulud’s flagship restaurant, Daniel, was so outstanding it changed the way I rate all other restaurants; naturally, I was interested in a second try at DBGB. So Dr. Boyfriend and I met Kim and her friend Kelly on Friday night to share what we’d read wouldn’t be enough food but turned out to be so much we couldn’t finish it all. Nor did we want to, in the case of the final course, but more on that later.
Shrimp, mussels, clams, oysters, snails, tuna tartare and a whole crab claw. All things I was completely terrified by a mere couple of years ago. And it’s not that I exactly salivate over any of them now, like my boyfriend does, but I was perfectly willing to try everything on this platter. Luckily, the fact that there were only two of some of the items meant that I only had to try a few.
The mussels were perfectly cleaned, which is a major issue for me, because eww, please don’t try to feed me sand and stomach leftovers if I’m already going out on a limb by eating seafood at all. The fact that they were covered in a cool, creamy sauce with herbs didn’t hurt anything, either. The tuna tartare was well-appointed with fresh herbs, and the crab claw looked so fresh I didn’t even bother dressing it with lemon. Wait, no, that was because the server took the lemon away before I could dress the crab. Anyway.
I tried one of the larger and one of the smaller oysters, but Dr. Boyfriend and Kim handled the apparently veeeery-oceany-tasting clams and the giant snails, a process which began with excited faces,
quickly switched to determined faces when the snails refused to let go of their shells,
and ended with whatever you call this face once they actually tasted the things:
I’m still not entirely swearing off trying snails drenched in butter sometime in my life, but I’m a little less sure after this.
Very classic, and an excellent palate-cleanser. The iceberg wedge is one of the only salads I actually enjoy, because:
a) it has bacon, b) it has cheese, and c) iceberg lettuce is basically water.
I like to think of it as a vehicle for moving fatty things to my mouth.
I think we all agreed that though this was a rich, hearty sausage, the lentils were really the star. Which is good, since we ordered lentils, glazed carrots (undercooked for my taste and not nearly sugary enough), and ham and crayfish gumbo (flavorful but too thin) as our sides without anyone telling us we were already getting lentils.
This one was too sweet for me. When I see beer-braised, I want the lingering stench of Guinness on my breath for days; I think this might have been soaked in O’Doul’s.
This was the most complete of the sausage plates in that there was a lot going on but that the theme was so evident. I loved the homogenous texture of the sausage, more like bologna than ground meat, and the crunchy pickle that was such a divergence from the cooked-until-mushy accompaniments on the other plates.
Easily my favourite, just because it had the most flavor. I was in need of some spice, and I might have liked the peppers more than the sausage itself because of that.
I’ve always been scared of but interested in blood sausage, and after having tried it, I can’t believe I ever even considered it exotic. The texture was crumbly and dry, the taste earthy and rich. It was like eating fake meat, or textured vegetable protein, which I did for four years as a vegetarian. I wouldn’t say I liked or disliked it; it was boring enough that I was just sort of neutral about it. And that’s the last thing I ever thought I’d say about sausage made of blood.
We were there for the sundaes, and once again, they were so good they’d make me come back to DBGB again despite the otherwise just-okay food. I went for the blueberry-mint after my first wonderful mint-chocolate experience and again found the mint flavor so fresh and herbaceous. Dr. Boyfriend and Kim said it was like eating ice cream salad, but I loved the savoriness of the mint coupled with the olive oil cake. The candied brioche added crunch and sugar to the very natural-tasting berries.
I would’ve been equally happy with either of the other sundaes, though. Kim and my boyfriend both got the caramel-pear, which had the most flavorful marshmallows and pears that tasted like they’d just come out of a pie, while I almost got drunk on Kelly’s beer-soaked cherries. These were adult sundaes.
I had another soufflé this bad once. The server asked us how we were enjoying it, and I said we weren’t, and he brought us another dessert. This time, the server was basically absent for all of our meal, so we just left it sitting.
I was the first to poke my spoon into it to make a hole for the creme anglaise, and I described the bite as “exactly on the edge of egginess”. Well, of course, the farther we got down into the soufflé, the eggier it became, so once everyone had a bite, the rest was inedible. It was the very opposite of the Grand Marnier soufflé we had at The Mark by Jean-Georges. Egg when you want cake is disconcerting.
As with my last visit, this was a mixed bag. The sausages–which are of course supposed to be the focus of the restaurant–are good, but none of them had me mmming in disbelief like so many of the dishes at Daniel did, and for $13 to $15 per sausage, I should’ve been. The place is borderline hip (what we could hear of the soundtrack was all indie rock), but the noise level is obtrusive, and the service suffers because the servers can’t interact with diners. Not that they’d want to, apparently: our server seemed like the classic NYC wannabe-actor who’s annoyed by customers, and the waiter at the door who looked like a greeter was actually just waiting for us to move so he could leave. Luckily, the sundaes were incredible at $9, and I can see myself popping in just for dessert some night if I’m in the Bowery.
Degustation is designed entirely to facilitate a relationship between the chef and the diner. With only 16 seats arranged in a half-rectangle around a bar that encompasses the prep area, you don’t miss a moment of your dinner being made. For better or worse.
Do you want to see the plastic storage bowl your rabbit liver came out of? Do you want to look at a whole container of cooked bacon slabs on the counter throughout your meal and know that you only get two tiny pieces? Is that worth it to get to watch your chef so delicately place a single slice of Fresno pepper on top of a sardine with a pair of forceps? It’s not exactly the most romantic of date spots, but dinner at Degustation is special in its own way.
Being served this the moment we walked in the door was kind of hilarious, if you know me. While I can at least eat seafood without much complaint now, I still don’t find it the least bit comforting or homey. And it was actually my first time at Degustation that I tried fish skin for the first time. At least that was attached to a piece of actual fish, though; this was just straight-up skin.
And I actually kind of liked it! It was only slightly fishy, and the texture reminded me of Cheetos: crispy, puffy, and full of tiny air holes. The sherry vinegar was so sour it made me wrinkle my nose, but I liked the combination.
Clearly this is much more my speed. A crunchy exterior, a creamy potato interior punctuated by ham bits, and a smoky emulsion underneath that I kept coming back to, trying to scrape more off my plate. This still wasn’t as good as the one at Tenpenny, but I think it was improved over the last time we were at Degustation.
This was our favourite on the plate because it was the most original and complexly-flavored. The tortilla had the texture of a Shanghai bun skin, and the filling was like caramelized onions: sweet and sour and like it came off the bottom of a cast iron pan. The shallot jam is just really nice, too; it has all of the flavor of an aged wine with all of the texture of a homemade jelly.
• hamachi crudo
I somehow didn’t take a photo of this, but it was served on a spoon with pickled vegetables. It wasn’t fishy but had that distinctive fresh ocean flavor that you find in mild seafood like scallops and shrimp. The refreshing bite was a nice palate-cleanser for the more intensely-flavored amuses.
I love a savory panna cotta; you just don’t get enough creaminess in savory foods. Panna cotta topped in sea urchin is a little bit different, but I understand that uni is considered a major delicacy, and I’ve only had it a handful of times at this point, so I was open-minded.
It tastes like iron, looks like orange chicken skin, and has the texture of mousse. Which is not to say that I didn’t kind of enjoy it. The spice of the single slice of pepper really pervaded the entire bowl, and I can really get behind the idea of uni pudding, which is basically what this was.
The problem is that everything in the bowl was just so unfamiliar. About halfway through, it started seeming just, you know, something someone should eat only if beef isn’t available. I ended up mixing the rest of my uni into the panna cotta so I could disguise it. I’m still a work in progress, I guess.
On the other hand, I think I can honestly say that I like monkfish liver. I had it first at an Asian buffet (Ichi Umi), but it was drowning in some sort of sweet sauce that I figured was the only thing making it palatable.
But no, it tasted like any other totally non-fishy organ meat and had a wonderful flaky, chunky texture. And, as I’ve probably made abundantly clear, I hate tomatoes despite years of trying not to, yet these were weirdly delicious. The cilantro and red onion overpowered that gross not-quite-sweet, not-quite-savory thing tomato has going so that the topping tasted like a fresh, crisp salsa. I really loved the way that nothing could get soggy because of the way it was cut into little slivers.
I was really excited when this was set down in front of me. I was ready for something earthy and familiar. We sunk the contents of our spoons into our cups of soup and were delighted by crunchy bacon and artichoke tips and . . . SALMON ROE? I wrote in my notebook, “Just give me something without fish!” Even the wine this was paired with tasted salmony to me. At least the soup itself was delicious, with a savory foam on top that reminded us of eating garlic and onion potato chips.
We loved the salty, garlicky flavor of this dish. After a pretty dismal experience at Flex Mussels recently, this brought me back to bivalves a little. The textures in the dish were all of a similar chewiness, but luckily, I like chewy.
My boyfriend was worried I wouldn’t like this due to its silver-skinned fishiness, but on the contrary, it was just a big, salty, crunchy fish stick. I loved the spicy pepper against the cool pickled vegetables, and the tzatziki was like a better version of tartar sauce.
This one kind of overwhelmed us and sent us into a five-star-dish coma, starting with the adorable presentation of the brown egg on blue-and-brown-striped plates and ending with the tiny chunks of ham hidden in the cheesy egg filling. We loved the texture progression from creamy egg to chewy ham to crunchy crouton.
Watching a chef form your rabbit liver into a quenelle with two spoons right in front of you is kind of a joy. So is eating different preparations of the same animal in one dish. The liver was smooth and organy, but the pate was like eating a really fine lunch meat–spicy, flavorful, but so likeable a kid would eat it. Spread on the crisp baguette and topped with some pickled greens, it was hearty and filling.
This lovely little chunk of rare lamb was wrapped in lamb bacon and proved once again that any kind of bacon is good bacon. The Romesco sauce was nutty, garlicky, and sweet from the red peppers it’s made from; we weren’t sure if it was just the color, but when we swiped our barley through the sauce, we swore it made them taste like orange Nerds candy. We loved the sour dirt-looking topping, and I was shocked to learn it was made from my enemy, the olive.
I wish I had any memory of what this was, but between wine pairings and my not writing anything about it in my little notebook, it’s pretty hazy. Some sort of meringue, an orange supreme, and a slice of jelly. I remember liking it, but I guess it wasn’t quite memorable enough to overcome the wine.
On the other hand, it’s almost like I can still taste this little square of French-toast-like brioche. It was our favourite dish on our first visit to Degustation and definitely did not disappoint the second time around, even without the benefit of newness on its side. The way they torch the outside but leave the inside doughy and uncooked makes for such interesting taste and texture contrasts. The chef in front of us, sensing our delight, informed us that the bread is soaked in heavy cream for twenty-four hours. And that explains that.
We didn’t, however, care for the grapefruit segment on the side. I really, really love grapefruit, but next to the super-sweet caramelized bread, it became savory; usually I love the play between sweet and savory in dessert, but in this case, the grapefruit just sort of lost all its flavor, like fruit does when it’s out of season.
I wasn’t using a ratings system at the time of our first visit, but I think I would’ve given Degustation four donuts back then, too. It doesn’t exactly reflect how I feel about the place in certain circumstances, though. I don’t think the food is technically perfect, and for me, it’s way too heavy on the fish. But for diners who are just getting into high-end food and don’t mind a little roe here and there, I think it’s one of the best values going.
For $80, you get to try ten tasty and creative courses and watch the chefs make them right in front of you. Things can get pricey if you opt for the wine pairings, which run the same as dinner itself, but it’s still several hundred dollars less than you’d pay at many of the restaurants I’ve rated five donuts. Of course I’d argue that the several hundred dollars is worth it for a five-donut meal, but while those might be once or twice in a lifetime meals, Degustation serves more of an everyday dinner in a less-stuffy environment. Plus, did you see that torija?
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!
5 donuts: transcendent experiences
4 donuts: extremely awesome meals
3 donuts: good-ass eats
2 donuts: food I could have made
1 donuts: dinners not fit for the dogs
