p*ong

[rejuvelac]

has anyone been to p*ong, pichet ong's new restaurant yet, or planning to go in the next week? i have a reservation for april 28.

[docsconz]

When did it open? Should be fun!

[Sneakeater]

I think yesterday (Wed.).

[docsconz]

That's what I was able to dig up as well. This has vaulted toward the top of my go-to list in NYC.

[tupac17616]

i thought i'd read it was supposed to open tomorrow (friday). i'm so behind!

definitely will stop by some time in the next couple of weeks.

Edited April 20, 2007 by tupac17616 (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Details? I can't find a website. Addy? Hours?

[docsconz]

Details? I can't find a website. Addy? Hours?

←

According to Grub Street should be opening tomorrow.

P*ONG

150 W. 10th St., New York, NY 10014

nr. Waverly Pl.

212-929-0898

Price Range

$$-$$$  Moderate to Expensive

Cuisine

Thai, Dessert / Ice Cream Shop

Some photos at Buddha Drinks Fanta.

According to Eater opened yesterday.

BTW the food in the photos linked to above is gorgeous.

[tupac17616]

and, if you've not yet seen it, the menu

[Sethro]

I'm so happy I'm going to be working right around the corner. Pichet is a true individual as a chef, and one of my big three influences. I think I'll try to sneak in Monday night!!!

EDIT: Whooooaaaaaa I just checked out the menu. Amazing. "Thai Jewels: The Remix"? I can't imagine what could be better that the origional. This is gonna be awesome.

Edited April 20, 2007 by Sethro (log)

[Sethro]

Stopped by tonight.

Cocktails: Amazing. Try the Rose and the Bangkok margaritta. Both superlative.

Best of the savory options were the tar tare and the buracca.

Desserts: he Thai Ice Tea Ice Cream with the Vet Coffee Tart was off the charts, and the chevre croquettas was awesome too.

The place is very fun and intimate, I will be back soon and often.

[alacarte]

I like the "savory desserts" concept. You don't often see salt & pepper on the dessert cart.

I guarantee we will be hearing more about this as a rising trend. You read it here first!

[Nathan]

savory desserts, of course, never put in an appearance at Alinea, WD-50, Cru (in the Goldfarb days), Room4Dessert, Otto (the olive oil and rock salt gelato), or Kyotofu

[Nathan]

I stopped in here last night around 11.

Its small, I counted somewhere between 23 and 26 seats. Decor is reminiscent of the Jetsons with an admixture of Shag (the gay/hetero-date bar on Hudson and Abington nearby) thrown in.

The wine list has close to a 100 selections, about 15 by the glass.

This is not a cocktail destination. Ingredients were free-poured, perfunctorily shaken (for a one-count) and the ideas generally don't work. A "violet negroni" was basically a negroni with blood orange juice (an old and decent summer chiller) but almost sans gin and with campari added in some sort of reduced fashion with a spritzer. Nifty gimmick but its not enough campari (or gin for that matter) to make a balanced drink. All I really tasted was orange....

A "Rose" cocktail was merely prosecco with some candied rose bits floating in it (there were ostensibly other ingredients -- elderflower, but they couldn't be detected).

Other concoctions looked sickeningly sweet and the same amateurish crap as at every other new restaurant.

I have to give them props for having some house-made sodas as well. I've only seen JG do this before (both at JG proper and at Perry Street).

I wasn't hungry but perused the menu anyway. The current "preview" menu is not identical to the one posted on the New York Magazine website.

Anyway...it has about 8 savory items, about 5 "savory and sweet" items and about 10 sweet desserts. In addition there are cheese plates and a 10 course tasting menu for $59 that looked quite interesting.

We ordered a dish from the "savory and sweet" section -- Meyer Lemon ice with smoked salt and pepper and cheese.

This was very tasty. The lemon, salt and pepper balanced each other nicely, the cheese had been somehow whipped into a creamy consistency and lay under the ice. The presentation was clever -- wooden spoons and a glass bowl...elegantly simple and a contrast to the general decor. It worked.

Service was good and pleasant.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Nathan (log)

[docsconz]

Given Pichet's previous relationship with J-G, i'm not surprised about the sodas. The question to me is did Pichet Ong contribute the soda idea to J-G or vice versa? I love the sodas at J-G and think it is a great idea whoever developed it.

[BryanZ]

I'm kind of wondering if that tasting menu thing is a proper meal. Based on the online menus, it doesn't seem as such. And is the room somewhere you'd want to have an extended meal?

[Nathan]

I think the tasting menu had six savory courses, a cheese plate and three desserts. So it looked like it would be a "proper meal"...

as for the room...I wouldn't order it sitting at the bar (those stools were becoming uncomfortable quickly...but the banquettes and seats looked comfortable enough...the room might become distracting if I was eating alone but with sufficiently pleasant company.....

[mypropaganda]

has anyone been to p*ong, pichet ong's new restaurant yet, or planning to go in the next week? i have a reservation for april 28.

←

rejuvelac, how was p*ong? was he there?

[tupac17616]

dropped in on saturday. the chevre cheesecake croquettes are a microscopic joke. but the miso ice cream and evoo cake sandich was phenomenal. the tasting (10 courses for $59) seems like a steal. if i go back, i'm doing that instead.

[tupac17616]

and yeah, chef ong was there

[rejuvelac]

i think p*ong is a great concept. hopefully, over the next few months, everything about it will be great.

it is necessary to note that i ate the veg tasting at per se for lunch. after that, it is difficult to not pick out every flaw in the food at other nice places. immediately before our midnight reservation at p*ong, we stopped at wd-50 for some cocktails and the creamsicle dessert.

back to p*ong. besides the 10 course, they are also offer a 3 course tasting for $25. i don't know how many courses we actually ate, as the chef was just sending plates to our table. i didn't get to try some menu items that i had been curious about, but the plates we had were hit and miss. i loved the meyer lemon ice with mascarpone cream, which we recieved as an amuse. unfortunately, this first taste was the highlight of the meal. i ordered the Bangkok margarita, which i loved because of the heat provided by the sprinkling of Aleppo pepper. but there was also an unnecessarily large amount of lime zest dispersed throughout the drink. too much.

each plate had some sort of ice cream or sorbet, some with a few too many ice crystals, and the quenelles were larger than they needed to be for a tasting. i thought the flavor of the evoo cake/miso parfait was interesting, but the mango-banana split was a bowl of melting ice cream with slices of bruleed bananas.

pichet was there. currently, he is doing everything (production-wise) himself and seems a bit overwhemed. i would recommend going in a few months, when hopefully all the elements are in place.

[BryanZ]

Sounds like you had a good day overall, though.

Edited May 1, 2007 by BryanZ (log)

[tupac17616]

son of a...

they need to tell everyone about the friggin 3-course for $25 tasting. i totally wouldve done that

[Kim Shook]

Does anyone have English relatives/friends? If so does the name of the restaurant make you giggle? Yes, I am 12.

[BryanZ]

Stopped by P*ONG for the third meal of yesterday evening and had no problem getting a seat right in front of the production (as opposed to drinks) side of the bar. Chef Ong was not in the house on this evening, but I was attended to by a very nice young girl who assembled my desserts. She was assisted by a prep cook who did some plating and someone obviously in training who seemed to require help more often than not. With that said, the restaurant was full but not packed so everything came out in a timely fashion.

Much like Chikaliciousa nd R4D, much of the fun is in watching the desserts during their assembly. With that said, these desserts are relatively simplistic, certainly more so than those at R4D. Also, for a place claiming to not be a dessert bar, nothing is really cooked to order, save for the cheese souffle. To answer my own question upthread, I don't think the 10-course tasting menu is really a meal in itself. There's nothing cooked on it. It's all pre-prepared salads and things like that.

This isn't to say what P*ONG is offering is unappealing, however. It's just not really a true restaurant. We'll see if Tailor can finally break the dessert bar/restaurant divide. I had the three-course option $25. There's also a five-course for $35 which looked relatively appealing, but I had already eaten, twice.

Per the online menu, I had:

chevre cheesecake croquette, pineapple, walnut, chocolate-coffee fudge/ 10

miso ice cream and evoo cake sandwich, wasabi candy, strawberries/ 12

malted chocolate bavarian tart, caramelized banana, ovaltine TM ice cream/ 12

Tasting portions are the same size or only slightly smaller than full size, so the tasting is a good value. My favorite was actually the cherve cheesecake, probably because it was most savory of the three. Nevertheless, it's still firmly in the dessert realm and the "croquette" aspect refers only to its appearance, not its preparation. It's effectively a sweetened whipped goat cheese filling rolled in like cookie crumbs. The chocolate adds some nice sweet bitterness. The miso ice cream sandwich was good, but I wasn't in love. I wish the cake had more peppery, oliv-ey bite. I also found the strawberry sorbet to be full of ice crystals, which is quite surprising considering everything is spun via PacoJet. The chocolate was my least favorite but not objectionable. The ovaltine ice cream tastes very, very malted. Interesting.

Finally, I was served a ton of petits fours. There must've been, like, seven different offerings. A mustard, salt, and pepper chocolate was perhaps the most interesting offering, if far from the tastiest.

All in all, not a bad spot and close to lots of stuff I would be hanging around anyways. With that said, I still like R4D more.

[tan319]

Sam Mason & Tailor

Here's the thread extolling his soon to be new place and I would say Sam has a lot of fans and appreciators around here, as well as Will and Pichet.

All of those guys support each other, etc.

Hope you enjoy it.