Ling

Yes, we were very lucky to meet almost every chef! There's one other big name coming up...I took a picture with him. You'll see it soon! (The trip was expensive, but it was also our Christmas gift for one another this year. ) BTW, thanks H. du Bois. The lighting was very dim in some of the restaurants so some of the pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. But our lunch pics turned out quite nice! It helps when you are photographing beautiful food. Domestic Goddess--anyone can have gastronomic stamina, but you have to pay for it afterwards at the gym!

^Yes, I just browsed through the last two pages on the WD-50 thread and read that tony h and ulterior epicure made the same note about the fried mayonnaise. I also read on the last page that Wylie seems more comfortable using bitter flavours in his food. I like bitter flavours--I love bitter melon, for example--but it was a different, sharp bitterness in the fried mayo that I can't quite describe... The fried mayo was a highlight for Henry and our friend, though.

I remember tasting butter--perhaps it was just some melted butter on top? Daniel can elaborate. Yes, those were poppyseeds. It was a great dish, and very pretty too.

No, but Pegu is apparently one of the best. The cocktails were definitely the best I've ever had. I tasted at least 8 different ones, and they were all very good. They make their own ginger beer for some of the cocktails as well! We were going to go to Milk and Honey if we had time, but we didn't.

The venison was barely pink throughout--medium!!

Sneakeater and BryanZ: We ended up only getting six items on the menu, the majority of them being appetizers. Maybe my expectations for WD-50 were too high. I certainly felt the flavours in the foie gras dish were an odd combination. The sea grapes were quite briny--they tastes exactly like seaweed, but popped between your teeth. The watermelon was just that--pieces of watermelon. The server told us the powder was "foie gras powder", but I couldn't taste the foie in it. It was just...powdery, with a finish that reminded me of the way the science lab smelled in high school. I would have been delighted with cutting-edge food that tasted good, but I didn't feel this was the case with a few of the items we chose. If you take away the beautiful presentation on the plates (and the "coolness" factor from certain ingredients/techniques), the taste of the food overall left me underwhelmed. With the fried mayo and the squid noodles, I definitely tasted something that started out very bitter, and then both items left a metallic taste in my mouth. That obviously prevented me from enjoying the two dishes. I gotta say, the tongue dish left us all thinking: "This tastes almost exactly like bologna." The pork belly and its accompaniments were average. I think I would have preferred bolder flavours, as Henry said. Again, the corned duck on rye was tasty, and the bearnaise ice-cream made the hangar steak tartare memorable. I thought the plating was very creative and beautiful, but unfortunately I didn't enjoy the food as much as I hoped I would.

The pyramid chocolate shells were a little thick. I did enjoy the chocolates more at Jean Georges, but agree that the desserts themselves were not as good as the ones we got at Gordon Ramsey. I liked the macaroons at Jean Georges too! They were the tiniest things...1/2" diameter. The strawberry ones were the best, and the pistachio flavour was too mild. I liked the pork buns (and well, Henry LOVED them, but he loves any combination of bread and pork belly ) but I gotta say, we do a tastier version at home. I am sorry I missed out! I ran in to look at the pastries on our way to the subway, but they were out of croissants and we needed to catch the plane... Sounds like you had a great time in NY as well!

So thanks to EG, we booked a reservation at Jean Georges for their incredible lunch deal ($28 for 2 courses, $12 each additional course). We both enjoyed the food very much, and agreed it was a cut above Gordon Ramsey (though that meal was pretty high up there as well.) The whole experience was incredible. On with the photos! For this meal, we were both feeling a little under the weather and opted to stay away from the alcohol. Sparkling water is not inexpensive here, at $9 a pop for a small bottle. (And we were a bit dehydrated from the previous night's excessive drinking, so the water alone cost a small fortune! ) There's Jean Georges working the room. amuse bouche--hamachi, Parmesian panna cotta (this was my favourite--so little gelatin was used to set it, yet the lines were absolutely perfect!), and butternut squash raviolo sourdough rye from Sullivan Street bakery--delicious the best bread I ate on this trip--the french roll from Sullivan Street bakery At this point, the captain came by our table. He said to us, "I noticed you were taking pictures, and I wanted to offer you both what I think is our prettiest dish here." creamy scrambled eggs topped with vodka cream and caviar (We got two of these.) (We looked on the menu when we were figuring out the tip on what the total cost of what our bill should have been, and saw that each of these eggs are a $15 supplement. So a very generous gift indeed!) Many of you have recommended the hamachi carpaccio with pink grapefruit sorbet and cilantro-chili seasoning, so that's what I got. The fish was very fresh and they did a great job controlling the amount of sugar in the sorbet. Even though Henry woke up in the morning complaining he was "too full" to eat another big lunch, he opted for two of the biggest and heaviest items on the menu. That worked out great, because he chose two dishes that I wanted to try as well. The first was the broiled squab with onion confit, preserved lemon, and squab jus. After our first course, I thought we should try the signature scallop dish as well...how often are we dining at Jean Georges', after all? So I asked the server to add it on our bill, but they also gave us that dish with compliments from the kitchen. scallops with caramelized cauliflower, caper-raisin emulsion This was fantastic--easily one of the best dishes I ate on the trip. The scallops were cooked more than I'm used to (they were sliced thinly, as you can see) but I enjoyed them nonetheless. As we're eating, Henry notices a famous architect in the room--I. M. Pei, the man who designed the pyramids in the Louvre. He was dining with three other people. Jean Georges came out of the kitchen to shake his hand. I love sweetbreads. I ordered them again--this time with licorice, grilled pear, and lemon. Henry got the roasted venison, quince madeira condiment, broccoli rabe and Cabrales foam. He enjoyed this more than me--the venison was a bit overdone (medium) and the Cabrales was quite strong for the meat. No sooner did we order dessert did the matre'd wheel a silver cart to our table. "I will now carve you a pineapple for your pre-dessert," he said. He sliced it, then put some kirsch and candied mint on top. It was a good 10-minute show...almost everyone on our side of the restaurant was transfixed in the process. I picked the "Late Harvest" dessert, which came with roasted apples on olive oil cake, maple brown butter ice-cream with candied peel, beet parfait on a crispy chocolate base topped with cocoa nib, beet powder, yogurt powder, beet reduction, and a small rectangular piece of chocolate mousse. The beet side of my dessert plate was a clear winner. The powders and the reduction were both so intense. Henry chose the Citrus dessert--Meyer lemon chocolate chiboust, Earl Grey/lemongrass sorbet, dehydrated grapefruit, crispy tangerine, lime curd. The flavours and textures in this shot glass were incredible. This was one of the best things I tasted on this trip as well. With coffee, you get a selection of chocolates and marshmallows (grapefruit, vanilla, cocoa). The fennel chocolate (the one closest to you in the picture) was the best, but they were all very well made and tasty. Needless to say, we'd be here for lunch as often as we can afford it if we lived in NY!

We stayed in the city! Sorry we didn't call the next day, because we ended up sleeping in until half an hour before our Jean Georges reservations (blame it on Momo and the cocktails!) We ended up making it to JT on Saturday, right before we left NY. But this Jacques Torres had a production facility as well, and I got to meet Jacques there!

The order we did the restaurants was actually Danube, then Bouley...we had an hour to kill before our reservation at Bouley, so we went for a "snack" and a drink at Danube cocktail lounge first. (At the time, Upstairs at Bouley had a 2.5 hour wait, and we also visited the bakery, but for some reason, the people seated inside--not the staff, but the customers--kept giving us dirty looks for no apparent reason. And the lights were off, even though the hours listed said they were open until 10p.m. So Danube was the default choice.)

For some reason, when I got to that sentence I couldn't stop laughing. You guys are machines. ← Joe's Shanghai was a last minute addition! We saw it as we were walking from GR to Fauchon, and Henry insisted that we go there. I needed an extra 15 minutes to digest, so we compromised and went to Fauchon first.

^It's not? That's funny! I guess Henry didn't miss out on as much as he thought he had!

I got them all right too--but most of these are a joke!

Yes, definitely come! We need to return the hospitality.

Tien is probably one the nicest and most humble chefs I've ever met. He overheard us telling Don about Gordon Ramsey and he was really excited to hear what we thought of the food, and then was really interested in hearing about the rest of our trip. He talked to us for a long time, and then gave us his contact info and told us to tell the people at Cafe Gray that he sent us in for a kitchen tour. We're going to send him a link to this thread so he can see the pictures we were taking. But back to the food at Momofuku Ssam bar--everything was very good, especially the squid salad, the sweetbreads, and the terrine banh mi! Hot damn, that was a tasty sandwich!

Thanks! I did the best I could under the circumstances...but I actually took 3 shots of each dish on the trip and we posted the one that was the least fuzzy.

From the local bakeries, I've only had Grand Central. I tend to like the Italian imports as well. They are selling this delicious panettone at Metropolitan Market for $29.99...I think the brand is Mirabisse (?) A bit expensive, but so fragrant. The dried fruit is plump and soft as well. Another brand I like is Tre Marie.

^I regret not trying Alex's desserts. We thought we were running a bit late to meet up at Pegu Club (but we were, in fact, early). We can both definitely pack away quite a bit, and still found the meals at Jean Georges and Bouley (Day 2) among the best we've had, ever. If I were eating 10 different chocolate cakes in a row and were asked to compare them, perhaps my palate would have been tired on the last few, but the food (for the vast majority of this trip) was so good and so different from restaurant to restaurant that I don't think anything was compromised here.

Lucky for us, Gordon was there on the 14th! more lunch pics here

^New Green Bo will be on the list for our next trip! Xiao long bao is one of my favourite foods.

That's very interesting. I have tried almost all the breads Tall Grass makes, and I guess I just can't get past the dense crumb. You mentioned Bouley--we did have good bread there as well. One was an apple bun, and the other was a mini baguette.

We chose WD-50 because we have nothing like it (that I'm aware of) in Seattle/Vancouver. sesame flatbread corned duck on rye--this was far and away the best dish of the night hangar steak tartare with bearnaise ice-cream squid noodles with mullet skin...this dish tasted very bitter to me. Henry and our friend were indifferent to it as well. Tongue with fried mayonnaise--Henry and our friend loved the fried mayonnaise, but again, it tasted horribly bitter to me. Love the plating, though. pork belly (this is 1/3 of a main serving). I think the cubes are fried yucca. foie gras with sea grapes, watermelon, pistachio, and foie gras powder--this flavours in this dish didn't work for any of us chocolate sable with menthol cream

I think Tall Grass is very mediocre as well, and certainly not even close to Columbia City Bakery. We had very good Sullivan Street Bakery bread at Jean Georges the next day. I thought the Sullivan Street french roll was the best bread we ate on this trip, and the sourdough rye was good as well. I don't know why I didn't enjoy the bread we had at Gordon Ramsey. Maybe I just don't like that particular loaf.

We walked to Fauchon right after lunch. (We had a reservation at 2pm and left around 4:15pm) Unfortunately, I didn't buy a pastry because I didn't have room for it and I didn't want to keep it around until the next morning. And also, Henry wanted to fit in Joe's Shanghai before dinner at WD-50. Display cases We forgot to take a picture of our xiao long bao from Joe's Shanghai, but we were both excited to try them since we've read quite a few good things. To be honest, I thought the xiao long bao at Joe's Shanghai sucked. They were filled with soup--but it was very mediocre chicken stock, not the fatty porky broth that I love. The skins were of average thickness. I wouldn't recommend them.

TOP 5?!! It was a bit undersalted for me. The bread was passable. The crust was too soft. This was simple, but fantastic. Much tastier than the ham hock and foie gras appetizer. I thought it was very tasty, and the anchovy flavour was probably less apparent in the portion I gave Henry, because I ate most of the sauce. I don't mean that it wasn't good--it was. It just wasn't particularly special or creative to me. The lamb was a bit overdone for my taste. (It was medium.) The photographer took many pictures of the bonbon trolley, and he also took quite a few at our table. Both desserts were absolutely delicious. The figs were poached in port and the sabayon (served in a silver sauceboat) was thick and luscious. I didn't take any notes at lunch, but I think the thick chocolate mousse had cocoa nib, raspberry filling, and a sable crust. Actually, at that point, Gordon had already come by our table since I mentioned to the server that I saw him walking through the dining room and I guess she must've told him he had some fans out there. He walked straight to our table a minute later, shook our hands and said "Merry Christmas", then disappeared back into the kitchen. The service was flawless. Quite formal for the most part. Jean-Baptiste was there as well! I told the server I recognized Jean-Baptiste from TV and the server told me not to tell him because his head is already big enough. The lime vanilla candy floss and the canneles were particularly tasty from the bonbon trolley! I wish I got a picture of that because it's just incredible--so many different types of chocolates and candies arranged in old-fashioned glass canisters! BTW--an EGer came up to us after their meal to say "hello". I think I see her lurking in this thread right now!