Archive for the Restaurant Review Category

One of my favorite dining experiences in Paris was at L’Atelier off the Rue de Bac. Master chef Robuchon has a small empire now using his name, all around a concept of being able to watch your dinner being prepared, in a type of “workshop”, at the counter. I like the concept, and the ability to find consistent fine dining from among a collection of cities is welcome for the avid traveler.

I recently visited L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in New York City, located inside the Four Seasons Hotel.

Amuse of parmesan foam, port reduction, and foie gras mousse:

There are basically three menu choices; you can choose small courses which are similar (or the same, in some cases) as those in the tasting menu. There are also larger full plate-sized entrées as well. We chose to choose from among the à la carte offerings, and one in particular that evening was also part of the tasting menu: Le caviar par Joël Robuchon.

This is presented in a caviar tin; below the layer of caviar is a gelée of lobster and below that, crab. Everything was delicious, but I would have wished for more caviar and less crab.

Many dishes have one of two “fats” in them: butter or foie gras. So was the case with the simple salad of haricot verts, cold foie gras played a delicious role in this light and delicious salad.

The best dish of the evening was likely this one, of foie gras hamburger sliders, with the most delicious fries. This was an absolute favorite dish, I must say, likely of all of 2011. Rich, juicy, and more flavor than you could imagine.

Dessert was on the light side, thankfully, a passion fruit soufflé, with a canelle of ice cream. Delicious!

My dining companion chose seafood offerings, all reported as delicious, and quite enjoyed the white chocolate/raspberry sphere dessert:

We knew what was going to happen. In Paris, it was dark chocolate, and the sphere melted before our eyes as hot chocolate sauce was poured over the top. But the pre-melt is more beautiful than the aftermath.

I really like the trend in counter-dining (although traditional seating is available) and doing so at the high-end. It’s great for smaller parties of 2 when you want your emphasis to be on a culinary adventure. It was like a small enclave of Paris in New York.

Highly recommended.

Tucked-in the former location of the Edible Garden in Goochland County on the curvy River Road, one finds the new Italian eatery, Portico. What a beautiful sight it is, at night, with intimate small buildings dotting the property, all lit, with (on this particular warm January evening) people dining outside.

The old setup remains, with the kitchen building separate from the restaurant/bar.

What dominated the experience inside was noise; at least on a weekend evening, the atmosphere was boisterous, with loud conversation bouncing off the ceiling and wood floor. Probably not ideal, taking in the decor and intimate surroundings that glowed with soft light.

The menu was not complicated, offering a number of items any fan of Italian food would find scrumptious. Salads looked fresh, and their special mushroom soup was deliciously satisfying.

An entrée of eggplant was served, as with many dinners, with a side of cabbage and mashed potatoes. The tomato sauce was good, and definitely looked and tasted homemade.

Service wasn’t quick, but this was a busy night. A few things I think could be improved:

• noise level - in a winter season, you want to maximize the number of tables inside, I get that; but something should be done to combat the noise level in a small intimate space like this (baffling on the ceiling, or rugs);
• bread service - every Italian restaurant ought to encourage communing with bread to start the meal. When guests can nosh on bread during service delays, all is well. Sitting at an empty table with an exhausted drink, not so much.
• go gourmet - the beautiful building and surroundings seem slightly mismatched to the level of cuisine. What we ate was delicious, but lacked real gourmet polish. The sophistication level has a ceiling to expand here.

My recommendation at this point is to seek-out Portico when you’re close by, and perhaps on a weeknight. This is a great spot for locals to enjoy an aesthetic food experience in a quasi-magical setting.

The last time I was here, it was my first time at eating soup-y dumplings. I was spoiled. Some consider these the best.

I next had them in Hong Kong, filled with “hairy crab meat,” and while they were clean-tasting and good, I still longed for the version at Joe’s.

We had to wait over an hour outside to get in. You get a number, then wait to be called. The numbers started in the high 40s, and we were number 201. Was it worth the wait for Joe’s?

If you don’t want to try their other dishes, I recommend 3 baskets of dumplings for 2 hungry persons. We were pushing it hard with 4; and having eaten one each of the crab and pork varieties, I’d wager you get 1 of the crab and 2 of the pork. Tea is nice, but I really liked a nice cold soda with this. Helped cut the “fat.”

Eating these is a challenge to westerners; a gelatin “soup” is mixed in with the meat. You don’t want to pierce the wrapper; instead, use the tongs to place the dumpling in a soup spoon that you’ve already blessed with some of their ginger sauce. Place the dumpling on the side; let part of it hang off. Bite into this, and get ready, to suck in the soup into your mouth. This is both adventuresome and potentially painful if you’re not ready—at the start these things are hot.

But the richness of that broth and the meat inside, the ginger sauce, well, yes, it was worth it. These are divine little gifts, each one worth space in our lives to savor.

Unfortunately, you’re seated with strangers, the room in the restaurant was all taken up with the bustle of customers, and it’s not a haven for relaxing.

But the dumplings are exquisite.

After Hong Kong I’ve ordered them many times, including in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Maybe I have more of the world to see; nothing yet has beat Joe’s for me.

I might add that we got a few broken this time; I’d almost prefer a slightly safer (and thicker) wrapper. But the flavor was spot-on delicious.

Located on Pell Street in Chinatown.

You’ll also find they have another (original) location in Flushing, midtown NYC, and now a budding franchise in Japan.

I wanted some peach on this trip to New York, and for our first Chang experience, I chose the Ssäm Bar, originally intended as a Korean burrito joint. No burritos, however.

The entrance is not grand; I imagine on a warm summer night they open the garage door opposite the one you pull open on the right.

The menu is an eclectic mix of a lot of small plates with some other larger entrées. Most folks sit at a bar; you can also sit at tables with a larger party. We walked in and just got a seat; it soon became crowded with a few folks needing to wait before being seated.

If readers remember my trip to Montréal, I had the best oysters at Joe’s Beef, and these weren’t bad either at Momofuku.

Sweet apple teased the senses, a new take on a mignonette sauce.

Fruit came to the scene again in my favorite dish, featuring pear with uni (fresh sea urchin).

Foie gras of the sea, I say.

Since I hail from Virginia these days, we also ordered some Edward’s ham. It was really salty (like I didn’t know), and I wished they had a “Surryano” style ham instead of this salty version. You can see it in the background in this close-up of the famous pork buns.

Those buns were good; the sauce sweet, the texture of the “bread” sublime.

In theory I should have liked this next dish, but I have to say it was not a good by itself. Shared with a bigger group, I’d want a taste. Having to eat a lot of it myself, was well, painful.

That’s apple kimchi. I like cabbage kimchi. At first I didn’t mind this, but wow, the spice! The addition of bacon was one part I liked. Bacon, apple, spice. I get the combination. But… in small doses.

Our last dish was spicy sausage with rice balls and some oniony stuff on top (I sadly don’t recall what it was, precisely). This dish made the kimchi taste light on spice. When they say the stuff is spicy, they are not kidding you.

Hot red thai chilies were in the sauce; the sausage, mostly at the bottom, was good; but the main component of spice were those chills, the sauce rich in spicy oil. The rice balls were nice texturally, but they soaked up the spice. I can still “feel” the spice of this dish just thinking about it. Good, but best consumed in small doses via sharing.

I enjoyed the experience. This was not fine dining; it was bar seated dining, which I enjoyed. You don’t get to see the cooking behind the bar (boo!), but they do have a glass wall into the kitchen at the opposite end. They use wood paneling in the dining room which I liked, taken from what I imagine was engineered for the floor and stuck it on the wall.

A great place to go with friends and explore some exotic flavor combinations!

One of the places I’ve wanted to try for some time in New York was wd~50 by Chef Wylie Dufresne. His December tasting menu was brought to us with himself in the kitchen, along with chef du cuisine Jon Bignelli and Pastry Chef Malcolm Livingston II.

We ate well; the menu was:

• Hamachi, marcona almond, ginger, oolong tea broth
• Everything bagel ice cream, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese
• Foie-lafel sandwich
• Poached egg in the shell; pumpernickel, caesar dressing with lily
• Sweet shrimps, miso noodles, with bitter chicory and yuzu
• Monkfish, smoked barley, beet-mustard, nori
• Qual rounds, chartreuse yogurt, turnip and nutmeg
• Marbled Beef with “red beans and rice”, chayote squash
• Bourbon, cranberry, gingerbread and walnut
• Milk chocolate, black bean, plantain, soy with peanut

The bagel was playful; art since it was really ice cream. We loved the pickled “salmon” on the side.

The little falafel balls were really chickpea-crusted foie gras balls! “Yummo!” I heard Rachel Ray yell from across town (okay, no I didn’t, but I pictured it all, really vividly in my head!). The balls would have been fine on their own, too, with a dipping sauce. At this point in the meal, things were tasty and clean. Each element was focused towards a “taste” for the dish.

The egg was real; but the shell was not. The yolk was runny; the caesar dressing on the plate was so delicious you wanted a small thimble to drink from.

The monkfish with beets was a favorite of many diners that evening, the entire ensemble together forming a nice heavy emulsion in the mouth. Again - very focused flavor profiles. Because of the beets and their rich sweetness, this could have gone with a red wine.

Quail scares me, if it’s presented with those little cute bones. Here, Dufresne offers quail breaded and without the bones (yes!). I liked the little fried turnips and the yogurt was a good match; the perfume of the nutmeg was a little heavy.

No matter what, at around this time you begin to want to slow down. The sizes at wd~50 are really good, but… now we’re getting serious. I am not a fan of lamb, so they thankfully substituted some beef here. It was delicious on its own; I am not sure all the rest of the “beans” were my favorite. A little of that sauce and some crunchy salt on the beef would have been most perfect.

Next? “An intermezzo” course, a sorbet filled with… a surprise! Cranberry, like a mooch all of ice cream.

That red shock of color was so awesome to find:

Our final course was a rich one, a good finish to an evolving, almost Zen-inspired meal.

The little rice puffs were interesting texturally, and chocolate, plantain (banana), and peanut flavors go well together, right?

Nice friendly service, with excited diners all around. Folks were digging the dishes as they came out, and they all looked consistent.

So, wd~50, if you couldn’t tell, is a place to find your molecular gastronomy groove. Each place I visit that does this post modern take on cuisine does it differently, which is a good thing. My journey started out at Cantu’s restaurant in Chicago: moto. Cantu’s take is far more whimsical. His idea of fine dining is total tongue-in-cheek, if not table-inspired laughter. Wd-50 was far more relaxed, and far more focused, and not as “out there” in terms of the flavors of what we could detect of technique. John Shields here in Virginia is still different from them both; from his Alinea heritage, I think maybe he’s the better of the three chefs I’m comparing; his combinations are more classically inspired, say, like Dufresne’s; but the flavor combinations are more exotic, more busy, but less about technique.

I enjoyed my meal at wd~50, and I’m glad I got to visit. But I’d go to Chilhowie again for the fourth time, and then to moto (and certainly Alinea) before I’d return.