The Wandering Eater

As of yesterday morning, when I check my morning Twitter feed, I read Midtown Lunch’s tweet, that Momofuku Midtown (or Má Pêche) was serving lunch! I e-mailed Zach of ML if he’d welcome company to eat with him since I have every intention to try at least half of the Midtown Specials. And thankfully, being the cool guy that he is, he accepted my invitation. Awesome…

Menus; Midtown Specials on left, Mezzanine Menu on right

I went there early before Zach and his adorable kid Harry made it. I checked out the menu and was surprised it’s empty, at least in my experiences with Momofuku restaurants. By the time they arrived, he told me he wanted to try everything on the menu. So, here we go…

Mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel around 11 AM

We started off with the gỏi calamare, a squid salad with fish sauce vinaigrette, Thai basil, cilantro, and greens, should be considered an appetizer rather than an entree. Unless of course, you’re the ones who’d like to eat light. This salad is very refreshing and it has a good amount of heat without killing your palate.

Gỏi Calamare

The bánh mì du maison, a three terrine sandwich with daikon and cilantro, was simply delicious. Crusty, toasted baguette stuffed with headcheese, which I adored, contrasted with the refreshingly crisp condiments. (This was the preferred of the two sandwiches.)

Bánh mì du maison

The bánh mì au poulet was a solid sandwich in every way possible – fresh ingredients, great bread (most likely from Sullivan Street), and a good ratio of filling to bread (and fatty goodness). But for my own palate, this is a tame sandwich. It lacked that interesting contrasts of flavors that makes a bánh mì a bánh mì.

At any rate, this sandwich is meant for people who are non-adventurous eaters, and it what Zach said, “a great gateway sandwich.” (Both sandwiches are about 6-inches long in all, if you need a reference as to how large are the portion sizes are.)

Bánh mì au poulet

The pork and porcini terrine (off the mezzanine menu), was a great pâté. It’s nicely balanced in terms of flavor and it matches the superb quality of what Bar Boulud serves (for pâté).

Pork & Porcini terrine (with and without the baguettes served along)

The bún du riz was probably my favorite dish of the bunch we’ve tried. The bún rice noodles are not the rice vermicelli noodles that I’d normally associate for a traditional bún (unless I’m wrong, by all means do correct me). The ones used here are flattened sheets of rice noodles that’s been rolled up and been pan fried that it gets that lovely crisp crust on the exterior contrasted with the chewy innards. The saw leaf, or culantro, was the dominant flavor besides the mildly spicy and porky ragout. Personally, I would prefer something acidic or something spicy to mix things up in terms of flavor. But I do remember when we gotten to the bottom of this dish, there was some vinaigrette (I just wished there’s more). In terms of portion size, this was quite substantial for the average eater.

Bún du riz

When we wrapped it up and asked for the check, they gave us a peanut butter cookie. It’s the same ones that they have downtown at the Milk Bar. Everything was delicious even though, it’s served in an upscale setting.

Peanut Butter Cookie

Address:
Má Pêche
In the Mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel
15 W 56th Street
New York, NY 10019 (map; website)