Eating through NYC 2012

[oli collett]

Sunday

After flying in, we were both pretty tired, but we weren’t going to miss out on sampling some food and headed off to a branch of Momofuku Milk Bar for some nibbles.

Milk Bar started off as a venture between David Chang and Christina Tosi to provide delicious cakes and pastries to New Yorkers and it’s proven to be quite a hit. There’s now 5 locations across Manhattan & Brooklyn, and we were lucky enough to be only a few blocks away from the midtown branch on 56th st.
When we got there, we discovered that it wasn’t just Milk Bar, but also Má Pêche, and since the bar was open we thought we might as well sit down and try out some of Chang’s legendary steamed pork buns.

Pork Buns

As it turns out, the buns are indeed epic. A couple of slices of pork belly along with some pickled cucumber served with some sriracha sauce. We also had some duck terrine which was great. It was only a light meal, so we thought we would take advantage of milk bar next door and get some crack pie for take away.

Crack Pie? I think it’s called that because – to quote superhans off peep show – it’s really moreish. I’m going to have to make some.
We went for a long walk to burn off the crack pie and ingested massive quantities of Coffee in order to stay awake – I don’t normally suffer from jet lag but for some reason it hit me hard on this trip. We did a bit of sightseeing while we could and then headed out for dinner. Before we went to our destination though, we took a quick detour:

Booker & Dax Bar
http://www.momofuku.com/restaurants/booker-and-dax/

Another part of the Momofuku empire – this is a collaboration between cocktail guru, director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute and host of the Cooking Issues podcast Dave Arnold and David Chang.
I had heard great things about Booker & Dax and this would be one of many stops on my trip. Sadly, we only had time for one drink but it was a good one:

laurel & hardy – rye, cognac, maraschino, fernet, benedictine, mole bitters

Kajitsu
http://kajitsunyc.com/

One of the things I wanted to do for this trip was have quite an eclectic range of restaurants, from casual burger bars to sushi and high-end places like Per Se. When I was looking at nice places to book, one place stood out as very unusual – Kajitsu.
Kajitsu is the kind of restaurant I wouldn’t normally make an effort to try, because it’s vegan. But with two Michelin stars, they were clearly doing something right, and the set menu seemed reasonably priced at $70 for 8 courses.
The first course was superb:

Spring Vegetable Sushi with Crispy Cherry Leaf -Ginger Petal, Salted Cherry Blossom

Really fresh ingredients, perfect seasoning. There was no thoughts of “it could do with a bit of bacon”, which I guess is how vegan food should be.
Another highlight was this dish:

Grilled Fennel with Yuba and English Pea Sauce - Sugar Snap Peas, Shiso Flower

I found some of the other dishes a bit disappointing, it probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I was extremely tired, but I was glad I went and it was certainly unlike any meal I had eaten before

Monday

After a reasonable night’s sleep in our cupboard hotel, we decided to head over to the sea, air and space museum at the USS Intrepid. A slight detour took us past Milk Bar, so we got to try the pastrami & rye croissants they serve for breakfast. As you might expect, they were awesome.
After visiting the museum, we headed over to one of the famous burger joints in NYC – Shake Shack. The small chain churns out high quality burgers for those that are after something nicer than the usual suspects but don’t want to wait around in a formal restaurant.
The menu is extensive, but I thought I’d keep it simple and go for the Shake Shack Burger:

It didn’t disappoint. The bun/patty was a lot like those at Meat Liquor in London, but not quite as greasy. If they had a branch in London I would definitely be a regular. We just went with some fries to go with it (which, despite some complaints I had seen in other reviews, I found to be great) because in the evening we had another nice meal planned at a popular spot…

WD-50
http://www.wd-50.com/

I really enjoyed WD-50 on my last visit to NYC – It’s a casual restaurant that pushes the boundaries, utilising all kinds of weird and wonderful techniques to create new flavours and textures. One memory of my previous visit was having a 5 course tasting of desserts – a little mad, but fun. Sadly, jet lag was still hitting me and neither of us could face the full tasting menu, but instead we opted to order a couple of starters each as well as main and dessert.
The starters were all pretty awesome – I started with Corned duck with rye, purple mustard and horseradish cream which was great, but my companion made an even better choice:

Cold fried chicken, buttermilk-ricotta, tabasco, caviar

A very clever dish – the chicken was indeed cold, but it was also crispy. I don’t know exactly how it was achieved, I suspect crispfilm was involved. All together the flavours came together beautifully to create a very satisfying – if unusual – plate of food. The other starters – eggs benedict and smoked cuttlefish were also great.
Onto the mains – I ended up with another unusual dish:

Wagyu chuck steak, black-eyed peas, fig, rutabaga

If you look carefully you can see a seam along the steak where it’s been glued together – they have essentially created a new cut by joining two pieces with transglutaminase aka meat glue. I enjoyed this dish but I did think there was a bit too much puree for me. The other main course I tried, pork ribs, hush puppies, spaghetti squash and red-eye gravy was also good.
Finally, for dessert we felt pretty full so just opted for one dessert each rather than go for a 3 or 5 course dessert tasting. Both were excellent – liquid churro with bitter cocoa, chillies and meyer lemon had a nice kick to it, and the soft meringue with passionfruit, banana and star anise hit the spot.

Liquid churro, bitter cocoa, chilies, meyer lemon

 

[oli collett]

Tuesday

The plan for Tuesday was simple – walk across the Brooklyn bridge, wonder around Brooklyn, find Roberta’s pizzeria, walk off the pizza and get ready for a posh meal.

Roberta’s
http://www.robertaspizza.com/

Walking across Brooklyn Bridge was easy enough, but getting to Roberta’s was a bit more difficult. Taxi’s aren’t as easy to come by in Brooklyn, but thankfully it isn’t a long walk from the subway. Thankfully we managed to spot the entrance without walking straight past – which is easy to do.
After some very nice ham, and beer (2 of your 5 a day) we ordered some pizza’s

Famous Original

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-nunoLAhSS4w/T5K-NPmRaDI/AAAAAAAABBg/fJTmzdDSV9Y/s640/DSCF0286.jpg
The Speckenwolf
Pictures say it all really – excellently cooked with a light, thin crust and delicious toppings. Perfect.

Per Se
http://www.perseny.com/

When planning this trip it was always going to be a bit of a toss-up between Per Se and the Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare. Both had an excellent reputation, but I had been meaning to try Thomas Keller’s food for years and after not wanting to spend a frankly nuts £250 at the French Laundry pop-up at Harrods last year, I decided now would be a good time to sample his food.
First things first with Per Se – it’s not cheap. It’s in the astronomical price range for restaurants – whilst not quite being as bad as some French restaurants, you can easily go over $500/head if you start supplementing dishes, even without going too silly on wine. Once you enter, you realise what you are paying for. You won’t have to raise a finger, the service is incredible. It’s a very smart restaurant, but it doesn’t feel uptight like some high end restaurants, and the staff treat you like they want you to be there and have an amazing time, not that you are just someone to feed.
Onto the food – as you might expect it was all amazing. Well, just about. There was one dish I wasn’t very keen on, but that wasn’t the end of the world. First up was one of the signature dishes:

Oysters & Pearls

I’ve had caviar here and there on dishes before, but not as a main ingredient as it was her, so I hadn’t really got it before. It was an incredible dish, creamy, salty, rich, but balanced.

"Terrine" of Hudson Valley Moulard Duck Foie Gras

The next course – Terrine of duck foie gras was a supplement at $40, which didn’t help the bill at the end. It was fantastic though, served with compressed strawberries and bright green Sicilian pistachios.

Sauteed Fillet of Mediterranean Lubina

There were two options for the fish course – Sauteed fillet of Mediterranean lubina (sea bass) or citrus cured Japanese kampachi. The sea bass was cooked perfectly – as you would expect – and served with beautiful sweet pepper ravioli which was just the right thickness. The Japanese kampachi was very nice as well, but I preferred the sea bass.

Hand Harvested Maine Sea Scallop

Next was probably my favourite dish of the lot – sautéed Maine sea scallops. These were big, and cooked perfectly with just the right texture and a lovely salty crust. They were paired with a salted bacon emulsion, confit tomatoes and compressed lettuce.

Four Story Hill Farm's Pork "Pressé"

Pork “presse” was next – a terrine of sorts, with rhubarb marmalade, turnips, pecans and sorrel. Excellent.

Marcho Farm Veal Tenderloin

The final savoury course was veal tenderloin – yet another great dish with veal cooked sous-vide, white asparagus, peas and wholegrain mustard.
At that point, we had realised the food had arrived fairly fast. We had a 6.15pm table and we had only been there 1 ½hrs, which for that amount of food is not a lot of time! I spoke to the waitress and asked for a break, but before they got to the kitchen they already had our next course on the way…

Meadow Creek Dairy's "Grayson"

Before dessert, there was a cheese course, which I didn’t really like. It was a bit of a shame really, I like cheese but I do sometimes find myself a bit disappointed with the composed cheese courses like the one I had here. Not the end of the world though, as the rest of the meal more than made up for it.

“Blue Gin”

The penultimate dish was “blue gin” – a cocktail of dragon fruit, yoghurt sorbet and violet gin granite. This was fantastic, it cleansed the palate but had enough flavour to stand up by itself.

"Popcorn-Cola"

Finally dessert - again there were two options here. I preferred the “popcorn-cola” out of the two which was served with macerated raisins, cola syrup, chocolate biscuit and buttered popcorn sherbet. My companion preferred the other dessert – “pamplemousse blanc” with vanilla genoise, grapefruit bavarois, fennel bulb relish and olio verde sorbet.
Just as we thought we were done, they brought out the sweets. If you’re looking down the list of food thinking “oh the portions look a bit small, I’d be hungry after that”, well I’d be surprised if you were, but either way after this there’s no chance of leaving hungry. First up were macarons and truffles:

Then, the infamous “coffee and donuts” – a cappuccino of sorts with a sorbet underneath, along with some amazing donuts, plus a load of chocolates:

I managed to work my way through a fair amount without doing a mr creosote impression, but it was a close call:

It was an excellent meal – it was a shame it was all delivered a bit quickly though, I expect our table had a second sitting which is fine for 6.30 but I’d rather they had aimed for a 3hr meal rather than 2.
Overall verdict – A very, very good restaurant, I’d give it a score of 784 on my random number scale of ranking restaurants.

 

[oli collett]

Wednesday

Sushi Yasuda
http://sushiyasuda.com/

I realised that the day after Per Se we were going to be feeling a bit sore, so I figured sushi might be a good bet. NYC has no end of options for Sushi, from cheap and cheerful right up to Masa with it’s $500 set menu. Masa was always out of the question, and I had heard really good reports about Sushi Yasuda which seemed a good bet that would not break the bank. I booked a couple of weeks before we left to ensure a spot by the bar so we could see the chef preparing lunch, and we sat down expecting to have a light lunch.
It’s fair to say it didn’t quite go to plan.

We sat down and explained to the chef we would put ourselves in his hands, known as “Omakase” in Japan. The chef immediately got to work and produced by far the best sushi I’ve ever eaten. I should probably add, I’m no sushi expert, I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting Japan, and my only past experiences have been in London, but none of those came even close to this. The rice was at a perfect temperature with a lovely texture and just the right seasoning. Each fish was seasoned slightly differently by the chef, with some of the stronger flavours being balanced with some extra wasabi. There was no dipping in soy at any point in the entire meal – the chef explained that he had already seasoned the sushi before serving and there was no need to add any extra, and I was not going to argue with him – I trusted him, it wasn’t just because he had a ridiculously sharp knife which he could have used to turn me into a sashimi platter had he desired to do so.

The dishes arrived at quite a pace, roughly one every minute. All kinds of fish was put in front of us, I wish I could remember all of it

We ended up having 2 types of sea urchin roe – it’s not to everyone’s taste, and it doesn’t look particularly appetising, but if you really like fish you should give it a go:

Most of the sushi was simply nigiri, but there were some other items as well:

As we started getting full, I thought I should recall exactly what we had. When I counted up I realised we had 24 items in total – a bit more than a light lunch! We said to the chef we were about done and thanked him for his work.
In the end it wasn’t too painful price wise – about 1/3 of what you would pay at Masa. I’m sure Masa is amazing, but if you don’t have $500 to spend you could do a lot worse than come here. It was interesting to discover that it doesn’t have a Michelin star, which I found quite surprising, I’m convinced it deserves at least 1.

Korzo Haus
http://www.korzorestaurant.com/haus.html
After a light lunch – a light dinner.
Korzo Haus was recommended by a friend in NYC who believed it to be the finest burger in the city. It’s a small restaurant, and if you don’t know it’s there you can easily walk straight past. The staff are laid back and the Chef De Cuisine Steven is quite a character – he’s certainly proud of his burgers! Some of his creations are a little unusual, including a burger that features nutella. It’s odd, but it somehow works!

The Slav - haus ground beef patty, slow-cooked pork neck, Haus sauerkraut, caraway seeds, juniper berries, bryndza

This was amazing. Instead of having a normal burger bun, this burger was encased in Hungarian Langos – fried bread. What more could you possibly want from a burger?
Shake shack and the others are good, but this is something else. If you’re in NYC, make sure you visit!

 

[oli collett]

Thursday

Eleven Madison Park
http://elevenmadisonpark.com/

I had originally intended on only dining at Per Se out of the “high end” NYC restaurants, but when I realised that EMP did such a good value lunch deal I figured it was too good an opportunity to miss. And I’m glad I didn’t miss it – it was my favourite meal in NYC.
There’s two options for lunch – either a 4 course (+snacks) menu for $74, or the tasting menu at $125. The tasting menu seemed like the obvious choice, but it wasn’t quite that easy – they had their renowned whole roast duck dish on as a special. We did enquire whether we could have it as part of the tasting menu as a supplement, which they could do at an extra cost – but given the size of the dish they warned us it might be a struggle - I’m sorry to say that I passed on this challenge! They did let us know that the chef did have some 50 day dry aged rib of beef though, so we weren’t too worried after all!

First up were some snacks – a savoury black and white cookie, apple tea, quail egg and bacon,

Quail egg & Bacon

Next, lollipops with curry, panisse with yoghurt, smoked sturgeon sabayon

Panisse with yoghurt

All of the snacks were fantastic, especially the quail egg & bacon and panisse pictured above. Next we moved on to the first course – a clam bake

Clam Bake with chorizo, apple & potato

This was a great piece of theatre – the clam chowder was slowly steaming away and was surrounded by various preparations of clams:

The bake was served with a craft beer that was an excellent pairing.

Before the next course, we were given a teaser of our main dish, the 50 day dry aged ribeye:

Bread also arrived and was excellent, served with both a cows milk and goats milk butter.

Cauliflower, tabbouleh salad with olives and orange

This was quite an unusual course – the snow on top seemed like some kind of sherbert! The next course was an interesting take on foie gras

Foie with buckwheat, buttermilk and lemon

This was really well balanced with a contrast in texture and enough acidity from the lemon to cut through the fattiness of the foie gras.

Sunchoke – roasted watercress, horseradish and mustard

Lobster, Meyer Lemon, Burnt Leek, Shellfish Bisque

Two more excellent dishes and the last before the main event:

50 day aged Rib-eye roasted with wood sorrel and marble potatoes

The best dish yet – I don’t think this needs any words

Before the desserts we had a cheese course. After the one I had at Per Se a couple of days before I was a bit worried this might not be up to the standard of the rest of the meal, but there was no reason to fear in the end:

Rebolochon, pickled mustard seeds, pearl onions

Before the desserts begun to arrive, we were whisked into the kitchen for a cocktail! The pastry chef was ready with a liquid nitrogen bath to poach the cocktail:

This reminded me a lot of the palate cleanser at the fat duck and had a similar effect, but this had more flavour

Next, another cocktail of sorts:

egg cream, cocoa nib, orange, seltzer

This was mixed at the table and had to be consumed immediately to keep the foam

Finally the desserts:

Cheesecake – goat cheese, blood orange, vanilla

Chocolate – sorbet with caramelised cocoa pastry, bergamot, olive oil

Of course, we weren’t finished there. We finally had a sweet version of the black and white cookie and a peanut butter chocolate brittle:

But after we paid the bill they came back with another surprise:

“Help yourselves”

Thankfully they didn’t have to carry us out, but I did leave a little more intoxicated than I had originally intended!
This was my favourite meal in NYC – even better than the excellent Per Se, but at around half the price. The atmosphere was very relaxed and the pace was a lot more comfortable than that at Per Se – in fact we ended up leaving nearly 4hrs after we originally sat down! Highly recommended.

 

[oli collett]

Friday

Momofuku Day

Friday was Momofuku day. Breakfast at Milk Bar, lunch at noodle bar and finally dinner at Ssam bar - The perfect end to a week in New York!
I started with an almond croissant which was excellent, but not quite to the level of the pastrami and rye croissant I had earlier in the week. We also took some cookies with us which we ended up scoffing at Newark airport the next day whilst hungover – the compost ones are amazing, consisting of a blend of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, oatmeal, coffee grounds, graham cracker crumb, crisps and pretzels!

Momofuku Noodle Bar

Our lunch mission was simple enough – tackle a bowl of noodles at noodle bar. I can’t claim to be a big eater of ramen, no particular reason why, it’s just not something I ate often. The ramen at noodle bar is some of the best in NYC though and I wasn’t going to leave before I tried some.
The choice was simple enough – first up some more buns, this time ham:

Ham Buns

Next, the Momofuku Ramen:

Momofuku Ramen

There’s belly pork in there, a poached egg, pork neck and all kinds of other goodies, but at the heart of it all is a really, really good broth. It was quite substantial too, we noticed the people next to us struggling, but not struggling quite as much as the small couple who decided to order the chicken dinner, which is meant for around 6-8 hungry people:

They had barely dented it by the time we left.

Momofuku Ssam Bar

Finally onto our last meal of the trip – Momofuku Ssam Bar. We arrived early and we were told there would be around a 25-30 min wait, so they took our names and we retired to the bar and surprise surprise, drank some cocktails:

Lady of the Night

This cocktail was like a bloody mary – it certainly had quite a kick from the tobasco!

Soon we were seated and we got ordering – first up some country ham. I’d heard good things about the country hams they produce in the US and this did not disappoint:

Benton’s smoky mountain ham

It was quite different to European air-dried hams with a very distinctive taste, it’s a shame we don’t see any of it over here

Spicy Chinese sausage with rice cakes

This was really good – although I wasn’t a big fan of the rice cakes, I found the texture a bit odd

Finally our main dish:

Beef rib

This was big. Fortunately there was 3 of us. It came with beef juice and brussell sprouts. It was cooked really well and had a very rich flavour

When it came to desserts my companions conceded defeat, but I wasn’t going to miss out:

Pear sorbet, blue cheese, cornflake

This wasn’t for everyone – the frozen blue cheese was strong, but it worked nicely with the pear sorbet

If you’re in New York, visiting a momofuku restaurant is a must. I did regret not having the chance to book the renowned “Ko” restaurant, but I’ll leave that for another time.

Next stop, Chicago...

 

[oli collett]

Hmm, can't get one of the pics to work for Per Se but will have to sort it later

 

[oli collett]

Wow. comprehensive.

Food looks delicious. However, some of the portions look ridiculously tiny. I mean, please tell me you ate some of that 50 day rib dish before you took the photo.

Very wide range of foods though. Certainly something for everyone. Some of those restaurants must have hit your pocket quite hard.

I feel like a philistine for saying this, but the burger and beef ribs looks the best to me!

I didn't post pics of everything from EMP but there's no way you would be hungry after that, there was something like 13 courses in total!

 

[oli collett]

Looks amazing, I'm very jealous. Perfect trip for me! Though, there would be a stronger onus on booze.

Is this a trip of a lifetime sort of thing, or a regular holidaying experience for yourself?

I don't normally do quite as extreme a trip as this, it did get a bit out of hand though! The last 18 months I've eaten out a pretty crazy number of times, I doubt I'll do another trip on this scale until I go to Japan, but that won't be so easy as I don't know anyone over there and with the culture over there it can be v difficult to go to anywhere without help from a local!

I still mean to writeup something on the trip I did to San Sebastian Easter 2011, it was a shorter trip but I had some amazing food out there, and it's not as expensive as some might think.

 

[oli collett]

Sorry, clicked after that the meal with the beef was loads of courses. Mind you it's a bit of a tease though, They bring out a huge rib like that to wet your appetite then give you a small slice

I like the idea of multiple small courses, but am having trouble finding one in London.

Dabbous is a good bet that's not too expensive - but at the moment it's over 2 months wait for a table!

 

[oli collett]

Great write up, thanks for sharing it and taking the time for the write up. Will do something similar for when we go to NYC for Xmas although our choice of dishes will be a little less complex I think.

I always go for food that you just can't get readily or done well over here when I am in the states; good BBQ, peel and eat shrimp, epic steaks, lobster rolls etc. Don't get me wrong, there is a place for fine dining but I figure I can do that here.

But thanks again for write up and have some stars

Cheers You really should try some sushi if you can - there really isn't anywhere over here that comes close!

 

[oli collett]

I'm guessing you had to book some tables in advance and stuff?

kd

Yeah Per Se and EMP aren't easy to book, the worst one to book was Next in Chicago (that'll be in the next writeup) as they sold out the entire restaurant in a few seconds

Momofuku Noodle Bar & Ssam bar don't do reservations, Sushi Yasuda I booked the week before to ensure we got a spot at the bar.

 

[oli collett]

What an awesome thread. I thought it was going to be a bit pretentious at first but you're clearly well into your food

Wow, that lot must have cost you a bit. When I went to NYC we stuck to the more budget (=hipster) places that did some really good food I thought. I really think NYC is one of the world leaders for great restaurants now. It's difficult to walk into a place and get bad food there.

Pretentious, moi? Overall I tried to strike a good balance - Per Se and EMP are definitely a bit that way, but the rest are pretty down to earth really!

NYC is definitely up there - It definitely beats London at the high and low end, and it's not far off for diversity either.