[Note: I'm holding off writing posts that are non-Restaurant Week for the time being unless I do manage to squeeze in something between visits before this event is over. For those of you who are interested in RW, you have about another week to eat out.]

Dovetail was on my list of restaurants that I thought of eating one day. Not the MUST EAT list but something to try once. What sparked my interest was Frank Bruni’s review but reading a few different food forums, like Chowhound and e-Gullet over the past recent months, the foodie/gourmand community to appears to have a lukewarm or mixed response; also a friend of mine who went there a few months ago told me of a disappointing experience. I was ambivalent but I thought, “What the heck, it’s Restaurant Week. It’s not like I’m going to try their tasting menu and spend an absurd amount of money.” And took the available reservation the past Thursday afternoon.

Interior

Checking in with the host, I was escorted to the small dining room, completely filled with diners, ranging from their 20s to a two parties of septuagenarians. Tables were relatively close to each other. The noise level was moderately loud with lively conversations and the occasional moments when I heard lively jazz being played in the background. As I was seated toward the back along the banquette, I was given the menu.

Dovetail’s menu and a funny line…

This particular line you see above, “Dovetail Loves Restaurant Week,” was humorous to me. I don’t think restaurants in general, loves Restaurant Week but I guess it’s better than little or no business when it’s the downtime of the tourist season as well as the economic slump that we’re all in.

Cornbread

The white cheddar cornbread was served warm. It’s soft, crumbly with a touch of gritty cornmeal, tasted sweet and salty. The drawback was that it’s too greasy for me, since there was a large grease stain left behind on the paper lining on the dish.

Amuse

An amuse was served with the cornbread, a shot glass of sweet potato royale with melted rosemary marshmallow and fennel. First of all, I never encountered a restaurant during Restaurant Week serving amuses. I guess they do take RW with some gravity. This amuse was interesting when both parts were eaten in one bite – it was light and airy, tasted salty and cheesy yet sweet with a nuance of pungent rosemary. The fennel added a background of anise flavor and added a slight crunch. I liked this amuse but the gritty texture from the royale and the burnt marshmallow was a slight turnoff.

Close up of the pork belly

The pork belly with coco beans, Oloroso sherry and mustard-cranberry relish appetizer tasted as good as it looked. Crisp, fried exterior meets soft, creamy pork belly meat (or fat). The creamy, earthy beans played along with the pork’s texture and the tart cranberries that just pop in my mouth. Oh. My. Goodness. I liked this dish a lot.

Close up of the braised lamb shoulder

The braised Lamb Shoulder with carrots, almonds, blood oranges and yogurt entrée was quite interesting as well. Tender chunks of braised lamb sitting on a swath of tart, creamy yogurt foiled nicely with the crunchy almonds, lettuce, and sweet carrot slices.

Top view of the caramel cake

As for dessert, the caramel cake with popcorn ice cream and peanut butter powder didn’t fared as well as I thought of. My waiter described this dessert as a yellow sponge cake that’s soaked in caramel, served with popcorn ice cream and caramel popcorn. It is as what it’s stated. The caramel could have been more complex or have some kind of rich, creamy fleur de sel caramel on top of the cake. The popcorn ice cream tasted more like a sherbert than an ice cream. I didn’t like it nor love this dessert.

Generally speaking, Dovetail has surprised me. Given the somewhat low expectations from them after reading so much about them. I would visit again. If I felt a bit disappointed from the dessert and have a need for something cold and creamy, I could go around the corner as the new Shake Shack is located and grab a small custard to go.

Address:
Dovetail
103 W 77th St (between Columbus Ave & Amsterdam Ave)
New York, NY 10024 (map)

I made plans with Giulia several weeks ago to have lunch during Restaurant Week. I’m itching to try out new restaurants rather than my safe and dependable restaurants during this time of the year (e.g. Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park), so I proposed Matsugen. I heard generally good to very good reviews around the web so I thought this place wouldn’t let me down.

Matsugen’s Exterior and Interior

Arriving around 12:30, I waited in their lounge section of the restaurant while Giulia was driving into the city. The decor is understated, refined yet trendy enough for the hip neighborhood of TriBeca. Upbeat music playing softly in the background, a bit unexpected for an Asian themed restaurant but it’s fine by me.

Table Setting

As the hostess escorted to our table I’ve noticed, strangely, that the dining area is partitioned into three small sections rather than one relatively large dining space. Perhaps it’s meant to feel more intimate?

Anyway, when Giulia and I were perusing the menu, I was hoping that they would actually serve their “Winter Promotion” lunch bento box menu that’s currently online, which reads the following: Green Salad with Soy Sauce, Homemade Soft Tofu, Goma-dare Soba, and Black Cod Miso for $24. However, the actual Restaurant Week prix fixe (I forgot to take a photo; a rare thing but it did happen) of $24 read: Green Salad, Mushroom broth with soba, Grilled Fish (which turned out to be salmon, observing from neighboring tables), and vanilla pudding. If you asked me, it sounded very depressing that I even asked the waitress if I could substitute the entree?

Since this was obviously rejected, I worked around Giulia’s budget and gauged how hungry we were (which was not very) and here’s what I came up with picking from their a la carte menu:

Bakudan

We started with the Bakudan, a bowl filled with an assortment of raw or barely cooked seafood (scallops, calamari tentacles, salmon roe, uni, and shrimp) and natto beans with a side of nori sheets. What stood out from most of the appetizers that were on the a la carte menu were the natto beans and uni. I love uni’s silky texture and how it tastes like the briny sea. As for natto, I never had it before. When I tried, it tasted a tad salty like soy sauce (it is fermented soybean, ya know?) but then the flavor changed to coffee. It was weird yet I liked it a lot. Texturally speaking, it’s still soft and creamy like any typical bean one would eat. Mixing the barely poached egg yolk with all of the ingredients and eating it with the nori, this was interesting to eat. The nori gives it the salty, briny flavor with some crispness, the bakudan mixture is chewy, silky and the natto’s coffee flavor that lingers on the palate.

Black Cod with Miso

Progressing onto the mains, I’ve ordered black cod with miso and cold soba with Kamoseiro duck soup. The black cod was simply amazing. It’s perfectly cooked, moist, and the fish is fluffy. The sauce that’s coated the cod was sweet and salty. I wouldn’t have mind eating several orders of this dish.

Cold soba with Kamoseiro duck soup and the cool red kettle

The cold soba with Kamoseiro duck soup was a pretty generous portion of cold soba noodles that’s served with a small bowl of salty, flavorful duck broth. This particular dish is comfort food for me in the winter – a hot bowl of soup and noodles, hence the reason why I ordered it. The plus was, there’s four slices of meaty, tender (with a touch of fat) duck in there absorbing salty flavors in the warm soup. How we’re supposed to eat it, as the server told us, we take the soba noodles and drop it in the hot bowl of soup to be warmed and eat it. The cool, red kettle was given to us when we’re almost done (see pictured above); it’s meant to dilute the salty broth and it warms it up so we can drink it.

This was very good and Giulia and I were satiated by the time we’re done with our meal. I didn’t bother with dessert since I’m running late and she has to go to another engagement.

Would I go to Matsugen in the near future? Yes, but wouldn’t bother with their Restaurant Week menu. I do hope they’ll switch back to the aforementioned “Winter Promotion” menu soon since I heard really good things about their soft tofu (and I do love my tofu) and the goma-dare soba, then I’ll think about coming back.

Address:
Matsugen
241 Church Street (off of Leonard Street)
New York, NY 10013 (map)

The past Friday, I’ve finally eaten out with Mary and her friend and fellow co-worker, Mei. How Mary and I know each other was actually through Robyn. Small world, no?

We’ve been discussing for nearly several weeks about getting together for lunch and despite the fact that it’s recruitment season (Mary being snowed in with a TON of work by her bosses), she promulgated that Friday would be our lunch date, whether her bosses like it or not. Hey, I don’t mind. I don’t have anything urgent to take care of on my end. After exchanging several emails with Mary and Mei, we finally decided upon having our faces stuffed with stuffed cheeseburgers from Stumble Inn, after I was inspired after reading A Hamburger Today’s post about this place.

Menu cover & Interior

Trekking up from our offices in the cold (not bitter cold, like today’s high of 19 degrees Fahrenheit), we finally made it. In this quiet, sort of cozy neighborhood bar it was speckled with a man lingering at the bar and a pair of men sitting at one of the tables. The sole waitress told us that we could sit wherever we like and sat at a table near the windows, peering out the sidewalk facing East 76th Street.

We pretty much knew what we wanted to eat and didn’t really try too hard deciding upon which Juicy Lucy we wanted.

Mei’s burger and ketchup action

Mei ordered The Second Avenue Stumbler; a burger that encased swiss cheese and sauteed mushrooms with a side of tater tots. Unfortunately, I don’t have an innards shot but when she ate her burger, a lot of juice leaked out – most likely it’s the water from the sauteed mushrooms. She told me it was good. I did try her tater tot and it tasted like the frozen variety and it’s on the greasy side.

Mary’s burger and fries

Mary customized her burger with American cheese and sauteed onions and a side of fries. But made my eyes open wide was the moment after Mary took a bite of her burger. Just take a look below…

Gloriously cheeesy

Don’t you understand now? It ooozed a ton of melted, gooey cheese! My brain pretty much had the emotions of this emoticon: @.@. I haven’t tasted it either since I have a burger before me as well.

American Burger

My American Burger was stuffed with American cheese and crispy bacon and like Mary, with a side of fries. The burger is cooked too well for my preference (I like medium rare burgers) but I know their intention is to heat and melt the cheese within the burger. The bacon flavor wasn’t strong enough for me even though there were bacon bits in every bite. Methinks there’s too much cheese in ratio to bacon. As for the bun, it’s the generic, soft hamburger bun that I prefer. It doesn’t require much chewing and it doesn’t screw up the texture of the meat and filling. The fries tasted like the typical frozen fries, nothing to write home about.

Hmm…not as coma inducing as I thought

It was a fun hanging out and having lunch with Mary and Mei. This excursion just made us a tad aware of some possible food spots in this bleak area of Manhattan, especially burgers.

Address:
The Stumble Inn
1454 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10021 (map)

My photo is featured in Forbes’ Magazine’s favorite restaurant picks. [Points down]

FOR REALZ?!

I almost forgotten about this and thought it wouldn’t happen since I’m just a wee food-and-photo obsessed blogger. I mean, I’m sure that there are a lot of professional photographers out there who could easily take an exponentially better photo than I could and somehow I’ve been “discovered.”

How this happened was that the photo editor of Forbes contacted me and requested to use my photo of Cafe Boulud (this one) about a month ago. Since I haven’t heard anything more beyond the first few days, I presumed they’re not using my photo. However, the same person emailed me yesterday and told me that I was featured and gave me the link.

All I could say is, “Wow…I feel humbled.” I just wish they do linkbacks but obviously it’s hard to do for a caption but it’s better than no credit (Duh!).

If you would like to see the actual page, here is the link. Just be warned that their slideshow starts automatically within a few seconds.

Thanks to Forbes for featuring me and to all of you guys for (silently) rooting for me.

This was taken place before the New Year’s, December 29th. Yeah, I’m behind.

Interior

It’s been a year hiatus since I’ve been to Jean Georges and I thought it’s about time to eat there again before New Year’s dawns upon us.

Menu

Perusing through the menu, it didn’t change much with the exception of tweaking some ingredients or flavorings to make it more “seasonal” or adding in some new dishes like Nishiki risotto, Parmesan, yuzu, Thai chili and Japanese red snapper carpaccio, crystallized ginger, white radish and olive oil. Eventually, I chose to go with the two-course, two-dessert route.

Amuse Bouche

As always, in Jean Georges at least, the amuse bouche was given. It’s similar to what I had last time. The difference between then and now is, swapping out the shiitake mushroom for a dehydrated tangerine with a citrus-flavored gelee. This particular part of the amuse wasn’t appealing to me. It was very dry (flavor-speaking) and a bit too tart (that I coughed out loud to this moderately quiet dining room) and it’s one-note flavor: citrus. The other amuses were a shot of artichoke soup with hibiscus foam and a slice of salmon belly with scallion sauce. Of the two, I liked the soup more. It’s earthy yet the foam lightened the rich texture and added some floral notes.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Moving on to the first course, I had roasted brussels sprouts, avocados and pistachios, mustard vinaigrette. I love the roasted brussels sprouts because of the sweetness that comes out when it’s caramelized and the bitter undertones that is usually associated with this vegetable. The pistachios added a kind of creamy, nutty element as well as the avocado slices, found underneath the pungent arugula leaves. It was good, not exactly earth shattering though.

Sweetbreads

As you might know by now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I love offals, especially sweetbreads. I order them whenever it’s on a menu. Anyway, these pan roasted sweetbreads, licorice, grilled pear and lemon did not disappoint. The sweetbreads were creamy and delicious, while the licorice root were skewered into the sweetbreads. I hate licorice candy (tastes medicinal and bitter) but this wasn’t aggressive, thankfully. It just adds a mellow spice and sweetness to the offal. The slice of grilled pear enhanced the sweet factor and the lemon’s acidity brightens the earthy dish. I wished I had more but I needed to save room for…

TWO desserts!

Two desserts! Yes, I was crazy (arguably bold) enough to think that I could finish two desserts on my own.

“Winter” Dessert Tasting

Starting with the seasonal dessert theme, Winter, a plating of cranberry parfait, walnut nougatine, soft meringue and a cinnamon doughnut and prune-Armagnac jam, they were both very good. I liked the texture of the cranberry parfait – cold, smooth and creamy from the parfait and the slightly warm, marshmallow-like pillow of meringue contrasting a whisper of crunchiness from the walnut nougatine base – but I would prefer the cranberry flavor to be more robust.

The cinnamon doughnut combination with the jam was delicious (light and airy, not greasy doughnut meets creamy, sweet with a touch of alcohol jam) but I wanted a bigger doughnut to schmear on the rest of the jam. The menu should have mentioned doughnut hole, even though I know I was expecting it to be on the tasting portion side. Hey, I like doughnuts! Don’t deprive me of wanting more if it’s good.

Innards of the cranberry parfait

Caramel curd, dehydrated sponge dessert

Moving onto the other dessert theme, Caramel, this was generally disappointing. The portion of caramel curd, dehydrated sponge, roasted pineapple sorbet flavors and textures were discordant. You have the cold, sharp, sweet pineapple sorbet with the almost-chewy caramel curd that doesn’t taste caramel-ly enough and the dehydrated sponge just added a crunchy texture, not much in terms of flavor. It’s weird and left me scratching my head wondering if I missed something.

Chocolate Pop and a bitten shot

The saving grace of this tasting was the chocolate pop, coffee-cardamom ice cream. Smooth, creamy ice cream that’s boldly flavored with coffee with a hint of warm, sweet-spicy flavor of the cardamom encapsulated by crisp tempered dark chocolate. This was awesome. I wouldn’t have mind if Pastry Chef Johnny Iuzzini just serve me a normal sized ice cream bar of this.

Mignardes

And as every Jean Georges lunch (I don’t know about dinner since I can’t afford it yet) ends, mignardes was served. Nothing changed here – the usual puffy macarons (that aren’t remotely divine as Pierre Herme), bonbons to nibble on, and the trio of house-made marshmallows. Nothing much to note about but it’s a nice way to end the meal and a bittersweet ending to 2008.

Address:

Jean Georges
1 Central Park West (between W 60th & W 61st Street; inside the Trump Tower)
New York, NY‎ 10023 (map)

Cheers!

Happy belated new year everyone! I hope all of you had a great time partying all night long or had a quiet time at home with friends and family. If you’re wondering what the heck I did, I went with the latter option. I’m not exactly the nightlife-lovin’ gal. I just shared a bottle of Prosecco with my family at midnight and made this cake several hours before. [Points down]

Crepe cake

Yup, I made a gâteau de crêpes cake with green tea pastry cream. (For a not-so-fancy name would be a crêpe cake). All thanks to Seungmi for giving me the book, Chocolate Epiphany for Christmas. Looking through the entire book made me drool and yet it motivated me to create a time consuming cake. It’s just a lot of waiting – resting the batter for at least two hours in the refrigerator and cooling the pastry cream, then making A LOT of crêpes for the darn cake.

Serving and my slice of cake

As you might notice, the green tea isn’t so green. I didn’t use any matcha green tea powder. I replaced it with my aunt’s Bi Luo Chun tea because I don’t want to spend $10 for a tin of tea that I’m not intending to drink and the tea that I’ve replaced with was quite intense, bitter and floral that I could use it. Problem was, I didn’t use enough of the tea despite dumping a large amount when I infused it with the milk. [sighs] The other drawback was the fact that I spread the pastry cream too thinly that the cream was almost been totally absorbed by the crêpes. Bah. It’s a learning process and I’m willing to re-do this cake in the near future. It tasted good but of course, there’s always room for improvement on my end.

As for my baking lovin’ readers, I would type out the recipe but I’m too lazy to do so. It doesn’t help that the book is at home, too. Double d’oh! If you want me to send you the recipe, just email me. I think Francois Payard would have issues with me if I posted it on my blog.

The day after my Payard dinner, I was crazy enough to schedule to have dim sum with my friends, Seungmi and Giulia, whom I haven’t seen for months. I love these girls to death but hell, my stomach’s filled with French food and desserts and after that evening, I thought I couldn’t eat anymore. Obviously, I underestimated my hunger…

Since I’ve anticipated this brunch, if you will, I skipped breakfast (unless you consider a cup of coffee and a banana, breakfast) and wandered around SoHo in the search of pretty wrapping paper and ribbons. (It’s Kate’s Paperie, if you really want to know). Yes, I have a weird obsession for good quality paper that’s obscenely expensive (it’s priced by sheet and it’s no bigger than a normal-sized poster) and pleat them to my little heart’s content. If you ever talked to my friends about receiving gifts from me, they’ll tell you how insane I am.

Eventually, I got hungry from roaming around and since I don’t want to fill my stomach with food, I thought getting a steamy cup of hot chocolate should suffice. The closest place to get such a thing was Vosges Haut Chocolat.

Aztec Hot Chocolate & Chocolate Bar

I ended up getting a tall glass of Aztec hot chocolate and an organic “Enchanted Mushrooms” chocolate bar. The hot chocolate was still very good in terms of texture, not too thick but creamy enough; heated well enough that the glass can potentially scald my cold fingers, and it had a good hit of chocolate. What disappointed me was the fact that they made the spiciness milder. I was hoping for a slightly bolder, smoky, peppery kick that I remember tasting last year or so.

As for the mushroom chocolate bar, it wasn’t as good as I hoped. The bitter dark chocolate and finely chopped walnuts dominated the mushroom flavor, making it gritty and not mushroom-y.

I realized that I was running late to brunch as Giulia called my cell phone and I have to haul my ass down to Chinatown to Chatham Square Restaurant.

Giulia and I met at the waiting area of the restaurant for the not-so-good-sense-of-direction-but-oh-so-adorable Seungmi arrived. We’ve gotten seated immediately since the bitter cold and icy pavement probably scared potential diners but the dining room was about 95% filled. Not too bad.

As we all finally got seated, I’ve started to order. Here’s the highlights:

Fried Taro Balls

Fried taro balls (Wu gok) were awesome. Ethereally crisp with layers of wispy, thin fried batter with mashed taro stuffed with diced shiitake mushrooms, pork. Mmm…

Steamed meatballs

Steamed meatballs with tofu skin were nice and beefy. It helps that they added some Worcestershire sauce to give it some extra tang.

Char siu sou

Char siu sou are always welcome to my belly. These flaky pastries are one of my absolute favorite dishes. They’re filled with diced roast pork.

Shu Mai

The shu mai was pretty good. The unfortunate fact was that Giulia and Seungmi has issues with shrimp. But strangely enough, Seungmi took her chances with her digestive system and eaten two and slathered some sriracha sauce on them. Giulia and I thought she lost it and she’ll be asking for one painful heartburn.

Stuffed rice noodle rolls: shrimp and beef

Then we eaten cheong fun. Rice noodle rolls that’s filled with beef or shrimp. Obviously I’ve eaten the entire plate of shrimp noodle rolls (as I’ve mentioned why a moment ago). They’re soft, chewy pillows of noodles that has some tasty protein.

When the dessert cart rolled by us, I’ve spotted an unusual dish where I saw something small, spiky and baked. I’ve stopped the lady and asked her, “What is it?” She told me in Cantonese (when literally translated) it’s called “pig-pig” buns. Since I never encountered such a thing in my entire life eating dim sum food, I’ve ordered one.

Edible cuteness!

But I didn’t expect these adorable porcupine-shaped buns. Awww… They’re too cute. All of us were staring at these babies for a while, contemplating whether or not we should eat it or not. Of course, we each taken one and started to nosh.

Innards

These little buns were filled with crisp layers of peanut butter, encased with a baked, soft bun.

Egg custard tarts

Egg custard tarts were extremely flaky and the not-too-sweet, eggy custard filling were quite good.

Fried salty dumplings

Haam sui gaau means literally, salty water dumplings. They’re basically dumplings that were fried, filled with savory items like finely ground pork, shrimp, and mushrooms encased with a sticky rice flour dough.

Mini fried sesame balls

Jien duy or fried sesame balls are another of my favorite dim sum dishes. Basically, it’s rice flour dough filled with lotus seed or red adzuki bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds and deep fried.

I LOVE YOU!

What made it awesome was the fact they’re filled with lotus seed paste. I’m having a harder time finding this particular filling in this dessert as well as getting cans of these in Chinese markets.

After finishing dim sum, I asked for the check, paid it and walked around Chinatown for the purpose of food shopping for my mom. She wanted me to pick some stuff up on the way since I’m there.

If you want my opinion about their food, they’re good but not excellent. Next time, I shall venture to Flushing instead.

Eventually, we’re getting our butts frozen from wandering around Chinatown that Giulia and Seungmi were craving hot bubble tea. Honestly, I never tried it before and am never interested in those tea concoctions.

Ten-Ren Tea’s (Stark) Interior

Despite my indifference to bubble tea, I won’t be a party pooper and we walked into Ten Ren Tea. Stark decor and they’re playing music relatively loud.

Hot Assam black tea with tapioca pearls

Seungmi gotten herself a cup of hot Assam black tea with tapioca pearls. When I tried a spoon of it, it affirmed my beliefs with bubble tea: I don’t hate it. I don’t love it. I’m simply indifferent. The black tea was slightly sweetened, not cloyingly so. The bubble part of the tea, tapioca pearls, was chewy and I think it turned me off from liking it. I know a lot of you people reading this now are screaming at me, “ARE YOU NUTS?! WHAT KIND OF ASIAN ARE YOU?!”

Rose Tea

Moving onto Giulia’s hot rose tea, it’s slightly sweetened and I didn’t taste much of roses. It smells lightly floral but I don’t taste it. Not bad but I was expecting something different.

Addresses:

Vosges Haut Chocolat
132 Spring Street (between Greene & Wooster Streets)
New York, NY 100 (map)

Chatham Square Restaurant
6 Chatham Square (between Mott & Doyers Streets)
New York, NY 10038 (map)

Ten Ren Tea
79 Mott Street (between Canal & Bayard Streets)
New York, NY 10013 (map)

Payard’s exterior

Last Friday, my former boss (sort of – it’s complicated) invited me to his lab’s holiday dinner. Problem was, his current assistant told me about his plans the last minute (technically, three days prior to the dinner) and needed some suggestions as to where to eat. Thankfully, me being the crazy, food-lovin’ girl that I am I figured we should go to Payard. It’s close to work, the food’s good from what I heard (I only tried their desserts), it’s within the budget he wanted to work with and they have vegetarian options.

All of us filed into the relatively quiet restaurant at 6 PM (it snowed that day and the streets were wet and slushy), checked our coats and been escorted upstairs where we’ve been divided into two tables. Not exactly a desired arrangement but at least the view was nice from here.

Our view

Eventually, our waiter in his faux-French, accented English told us the evening’s specials and talked a little bit about the prix fixe menu. We all noticed that and found it very annoying. Anyway, we discussed out loud what are certain things on the menu (not all of them are foodies) and made up our minds what we wanted to eat.

Bowls of Soup

What I remembered seeing (and taking photos of) for the first course, we all settled for chestnut soup with Fuji apple and Champignons de Paris with croutons and the fennel soup with red pepper coulis and crouton. The chestnut soup tasted like mushrooms rather than chestnuts. It only had the texture of pureed chestnuts though. As for the apple, you only get small dices that’s on top of the soup but it doesn’t have much flavor to it. The fennel soup at least tasted like fennel and it’s quite viscous. I do like the red pepper coulis on top, imparting a slight zip to the earthy soup.

Main courses

Moving on to the main courses, the other table had a vegetarian who ordered a potato tart that’s encased in a puff pastry. Another person ordered the classic cassoulet with tarbais beans, duck confit, Toulouse sausage, pork shank and fresh bacon. It sounded good and with ton of meat was cooked in there but I didn’t taste either dishes. As for the remainder of the table, they ordered the pork chop with lemon crust, crispy polenta, bok choy and chanterelles with a black mission fig-pork jus (which I had it myself). My pork chop was a tad overcooked than what I would like since I had a relatively tough time cutting through my slab of meat; the remaining accouterments to the dish was generally fine, nothing earth shattering. A few others had the steak frites, roasted, stuffed chicken, and the classic bouillabaisse with Chilean sea bass. From what it seems like from their reactions to their dishes, they liked it.

Caffeinated beverages

We’ve slowly progressed onto our dessert courses, which a few (like me) ordered espressos and cappuccinos. My espresso shot was fine; it’s bold, robust, and slightly bitter but I wish there was better crema. There wasn’t any at all. As for a few of my companions who ordered cappuccino, their drinks had an unusually large cap of milk foam with a dusting of cinnamon on top. Honestly, I haven’t encountered this particular style for nearly a decade. Perhaps they’re trying to go old-school before the coffee revolution?

A whole bunch of desserts for each table

Generally speaking, the desserts fared a bit better than the savory courses. I did like the green tea creme brulee a lot. It was a huge enough to serve four people; smooth, creamy and the burnt sugar crust was brittle like glass when the spoon tapped it.

Since all of us were lazy to get our butts out of our seats to look at their pastry cases as to what we would like to eat individually, the waiter ended up choosing our assortment of cakes to share family-style. Most were familiar to me like the Chinon and Beaux-Arts – they’re the signature cakes and they are deemed to be designated as such. Hopefully, you do like pistachio and raspberry to like either of these. As for the remainder, there was a chocolate chiboust tart (I love chocolate and hazelnuts), a chocolate cake which I don’t remember, a Mont Saint Michel (was fine; nothing extraordinary), Notre Dame (I like the smooth chocolate), and a seasonal pear crumble tart (it’s not my favorite; too little pear flavor).

The most disappointing dessert to me was their Cendrillon; composed of pumpkin mousse, cranberry gelée and pumpkin sponge cake. The orange exterior was fluorescent orange. I mean, it’s like the orange color is on steroids that one would think of as Halloween. When I took a bite, the pumpkin flavor was taken over by the oddly paired cranberry gelée; tasting a strong acidic note then eventually a hint of pumpkin. It was weird. I didn’t like it at all.

Group photo

We’ve reached to a food coma by the time we’re done with dessert. After digesting for ten minutes or so, I took a group photo of all of the lab members and a few of their significant others.

Overall, this dinner was simply fine. I wasn’t expecting to be “wowed.” But considering the price of this dinner ($37 per person, pre-tax & tip) and where the lab wanted to be located for dinner, this wasn’t too shabby.

Address:
Payard
1032 Lexington Avenue (between 73rd & 74th Street)
New York, NY 10021 (map)

He’s cuuutte

Ain’t that little Santa adorable? This was a little cake topper from my co-worker’s birthday cake a few days ago. It’s made of colored meringue.

So, Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! And for some eventually, Happy Kwanzaa! May you all have a safe one filled with LOTS OF GOOD FOOD! :D Thanks to all of you to make this weird obsession of mine worthwhile. Through this blog, I’ve made virtual friends and eventually, friends meeting in the flesh. It’s a great and wonderful feeling to know that you all support me (silently or actually commenting on my posts).

P.S. I shall post my dinner at Payard with (former) co-workers and a dim sum lunch with my friends Giulia and Seungmi soon.

On a side note, does ANYONE know what the heck is going on with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera? With the exception of Amazon.com’s insanely overpriced body (albeit from a third party seller), many other places are back ordered, WTF?!

Picholine’s menu cover

Two Fridays ago, I’ve arranged a small dinner with Robyn, Jess, and her roommate, Jen to Picholine’s bar/lounge. Why? It’s because I’m intrigued by their menu, it’s relatively affordable compared to their main dining room’s menu and we’re not dying of starvation.

As we waited a bit for a table to free up in this small area, we’ve talked updated each other about our lives since most of us haven’t seen each other for a bit. Also, observing the restaurant and the lounge, it’s filled with diners are generally at least a decade older than all of us. The atmosphere is very refined, you smell the heady musk of cheese and edible mold, and as Jen said when we left the restaurant, “stuffy.” Probably, I could live with it but I guess it’s not for everyone.

Eventually, we got seated and decided what we wanted to try from the “tasting flights.” So here’s what we all ordered:

From top: From top: Chestnut Pheasant Veloute, Foie Gras Explosion & Sweetbreads (Robyn’s & Jen’s tasting plates)

Robyn and Jen ordered the same thing – unintentionally. They both wanted the chestnut pheasant veloute, foie gras explosion, and the sweetbreads. I’ve tried Robyn’s veloute and found it pretty delicious. Thick, rich and creamy soup that’s slightly flavored with chestnuts and has that viscous texture of it when it’s blended. The pheasant flavor was veering toward the neutral side. But the few shavings of black truffles made this soup a bit decadent. I’ll write about the foie gras explosion and the sweetbreads later on since I have them myself.

Jess’s tasting plate

As for Jess’s flight, she wanted to be different than the rest of us by having the Wagyu beef a la Basque, exotic fruit soup, and sea scallops cru. Honestly, I haven’t tasted anything but her fruit soup, which basically passion fruit soup that was wonderfully vibrant and balanced with sweet and tart. She told me the other items on her plate was simply “good.”

My tasting plate

Finally for me, I’ve ordered the PX sherry sorbet with serrano ham chips, foie gras explosion, and sweetbreads. I have to wonder what did I think of when I ordered the PX sherry sorbet? I have a ridiculously low alcohol tolerance and I still ordered this tasting. Anyway, this sherry sorbet was exceptionally strong in terms of sherry flavor and alcohol content, as well as slightly sweet, dark, and syrupy when I let it dissolve onto my palate. When I let Jen and Jess try my sorbet, they all commented that “it’s strong and boozy.” The salty, serrano ham chips along with this cold, slushy, concoction kind of lost me. It’s interesting in terms of playing with temperatures on the palate but my tastebuds can’t get over the fact that I’m tasting alcohol with a touch of salty ham at the end.

Moving onto the other dishes, the sweetbreads this is my favorite dish. The sweetbreads was cooked correctly – creamy-firm texture and it’s crisp on the outside. The heirloom beets and mustard-caper emulsion added some flavor to otherwise a relatively bland offal and made a bit lighter and complex. The foie gras explosion with gizzards and frisée was the most disappointing. I didn’t experience any “explosion” from it. It’s just a thin raviolo, if you will, filled with a touch of foie gras. No flavors exploded, nothing physically exploded from the thin pasta shell. I was befuddled why they named it “foie gras explosion.”

Chocolates & Petit Fours

They actually included a miniature dessert course of chocolates and petit fours. The chocolate bon bons (flavors included were mint, lemon, milk chocolate feuilletine, dark chocolate truffle, and another flavor that I can’t remember) were generally good but not amazing. The petit fours were basically a small cake stand of bite sized: Florentine cookie, Linzer cookie, almond financiers, chocolate cakes, apricot filled tarts, and apricot pâté de fruits. These fared a bit better but still on the small rationed side for sharing amongst us four.

Overall, I think the “tasting flights” menu has some hits and misses like any menu would have. It’s not too awful spending three tastings for $20. I need to try out the dining room’s food to have a fuller perspective.

Address:
Picholine (Lounge/Bar area)
35 West 64th Street (between Broadway & Central Park West)
New York, NY 10023 (map)