Reservations for this restaurant are nearly impossible to land as they are based on an online booking system. Much like getting concert tickets at ticketmaster you go on their site at 10:00AM to reserve a seat at their 14 person counter-side seating. By 10:00:05 most seats are gone and your frustration boils.
Luckily for me one of my friends, Felice, had a table that she wasn't able to go to. She asked me to take over for her and sure enough with little effort I was able to land a table at one of the hottest restaurants in New York city.
Took my friend Daniel there for a post-birthday celebration. It was a 10 course meal serving mostly fish. Apologizes for the crummy photos - they're not allowed in the restaurant. Here is how it started:
1. Black Pepper biscuit (top right): absolutely delicious, can tell the heavy use of the butter as the richness of the biscuit will take you over. Fantastically seasoned. Accompanying pork grind was crispy, a little salty and lacking of pork flavor, but overall pretty good. Moving down you had the sliced beef cheek which was accompanied with some various seasoning and mustard, though you couldn't really taste the effects as the beef was overpowering the taste of the accompaniments. Lastly you had the lobster and turnip cake, a tribute to your turnip "Lo back go" that you find in dim sum joints.
2. Sliced fluke with poppy seed and buttermilk. This was one of the weaker dishes. Fluke was a very delicate fish with a beautiful texture but quite ruined by the confusing poppy seed. They added a rough texture to the fish but did little to season or enhance the flavor. Buttermilk was very rich, and everything lacked the acidity to lift the fluke (splash of lemon or lime would have been great)
3. Third was Spanish Mackerel. This is how you do fish. Keep it simple. Flavors of the fish were clean and unobstructed by the garnishes, which in fact enhanced this dish. Fresh fish requires nothing, serve as is.
4. Toasted brioche with caramelized onions, greens, sitting on a reduction broth of something I can't remember. Fantastic dish. Salty soup mixed with the brioche and onions had the perfect combination of acidity, saltiness, as well as richness from the bread. Onions were sweet and blended perfectly with the dish.
5. Smoked Egg with Fingerling potato chips, Caviar. This is one of the signature dishes of Momofuku Ko, and I can see why. Perfectly smoked egg leaving the yolk soft and runny with the nice consistency. The fingerling chips were great, small crunchy and packed so much potato flavor without all the grease and salt. Mixing the caviar with the eggs was a great mix, but the highlight was a garnish not shown in the back which was a pickled onion side. Perfectly accompanies the entire dish.
6. Hand torn pasta with chicken and snail sausage garnished with chicken skin. Chicken skin was crispy, but didn't do much for me on the overall dish. Al dente pasta was definitely tossed in a mound of butter because that was basically all you can taste. A little too rich, sausage was nice but didn't really see the point of adding snail, might as well just call it chicken sausage.
7. Skate with cauliflower and almond milk. Skate was done perfectly, crusted skin on the underside. Almond milk had great consistency and the accompanying cauliflower was a great way to add crunch to an otherwise milky and rich dish. Simple dish, the best way possible. Few ingredients, don't mess with the fish, let it be the highlight.
8. Shaved Foie Gras with Lychee. Definitely the most innovative dish in my view. Usually you have Foie Gras cooked and placed in a delicate manner accompanying a dish. I have never seen it as a highlight and done in such a outlandish bold statement. Shaved it is overwhelming, and I was first off put with the sheer monstrosity of it. But after mixing it with the lychee and having the shavings melt and blend into the fruit it all made sense. Bravo
9. Duck Breast with Japanese turnips and pork pate. This was sitting in the oven and resting for nearly the entire dinner. Dan and I were just transfixed to the absolutely delectable protein. And when it was finally plated it was well worth the wait. Perfectly cooked and rested, all the juices remained inside the meat. And with the mustardy greens sitting on the bottom it was a perfect blend of the two. Japanese turnips were fine, and pork pate was salty and typical, but didn't know if it was necessary. Overall the duck was fantastic.
10. Last Dish: Penna Cotta with pine nuts and root beer ice cream. Bomb, just bomb. Thats all I can say. Never had penna cotta before and if they set quite a bar. Root Beer ice cream was absolutely fantastic. Great finish.
Overall it was a good experience, although I would be reserved to say it was worth all the trouble landing a reservation for. There are other restaurants that serve better counterside dining (see Le Atelier de Joel Robuchon), and other places with stronger dishes (see Per Se/French Laundry's Oysters and Pearls). Would I come back? With all the fuss of landing a reservation? Not really. Was disappointed with the lack of pork in the dishes (a David Chang almost fetish). I would say if someone invited me back because they got a table I would gladly come in the homes I would just get a heap's worth of pork belly.
Overall rating: 7.5/10
Till next crazy dining experience.
TWO DAYS LATER: Went to Noodle Bar to have their Fried Chicken. Comes with a Peking style like thin pancake with garnishes such as lettuce, parsley, and cilantro. Two whole chickens comes in southern-style or Korean-style. Now thats how you do fried chicken.
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