19 April 2008

Smorgas Chef and Mandance

Spent a wonderful day with my mom today just browsing through Manhattan. We went to The Container Store, West Elm, some antique stores in the Manhattan Antique market building, and some thrift stores (Angel and Housing Works).

After that we had dinner outside at Smorgas Chef, which consisted of
  • Swedish Meatballs with lingonberries over some potatoes
  • Fresh herring grilled with a lemony vinaigrette and some salad
  • A main course lamb over some potatoes with cheese
  • A main course Grouper with Risotto with Fava beams and shrimp
We were quite pleased with the food, and it was nice to dine outside, even if it was a touch chill. We don't often eat outside so it was refreshing change of scenery. We skipped desert in favor of going to Pinkberry, and I was disappointed to find that they no longer do fresh fruit over shaved shaved ice, so I had Green tea frozen yogurt with with mochi, strawberries, bananas, and kiwi fruit. The real reason I go is for the mochi.

As an extra treat we stopped by Lilac Chocolates and picked up some Almond Bark and dark breakup before we headed a few blocks up to the Joyce Theater to see Mandance.

Mandance was spectacular. Their Backchat piece involved a plywood wall covered with rubber tire tred and some metal sculpture. 3 male dancers in bicycle pants did the rest and the movement was engaging to watch.

A promotional piece for Mandance featuring part of the Isis in Transit set which was the picture that made me buy tickets.

The featured piece, Isis in Transit, was technically amazing and had an interesting set with with the dancer interacted. The last piece that they did was called Odette and we both enjoyed that too. There were some amazing contortions, and the control that the dancers have over every part of their body is simply astounding: their toes were as prehensile as fingers it seemed.

06 April 2008

Morimoto

I was going through some of the stuff on my Palm Pilot, and discovered the notes that I took when I ate at Morimoto (the Iron Chef's Manhattan outpost). It had been a long photo safari day -- I had started at the NY Botanical Garden taking photos of their Kiku exhibit, driving down to the Upper West Side's Riverside Park I eventually wandered all the way down to Chelsea, taking photos all along the way, and before I knew it, it got late and my tummy started growling for food.

I decided to drop by Morimoto, as under dressed as I was (an M1 Army jacket, my favorite worn in USMC Matterhorn standard issue boots, etc. -- you get the idea!) and see if they would take in a poor starving puppy. For a place that is extremely chic, they get extra credit for not batting an eyelash and seating me at the sushi bar. Too tired and hungry to try and make choices, I selected the Omakase, which is the Japanese restaurant version of the tasting menu – the menu merely says Omakase and the chef presents you with a number of dishes, each a surprise.

I was seated at the far end of this bar.


My meal started with an Amuse Bouche that was a deep fried ball of sushi rice. This was followed by an O-Toro tartar with Osetra caviar and a dashi soy dipping sauce. This was presented in a bamboo flat with the chopped tuna and a little section of squares of Wasabi, sour cream, nori seaweed paste, chives, avocado and rice crackers. The presentation and the taste was quite good.

A fruit was presented to cleans the palate, and then Spanish Mackerel with shaved ginger shiitake mushrooms cherry tomatoes, followed by seared Hamachi with puréed mushrooms and watercress salad tossed in an orange vinaigrette and then with a Pacific Oyster with foie gras and uni in a teruyaki reduction to wrap up the appetizer portion of the meal.

Sushi was then served consisting of red snapper, medium fatty tuna, shad, orange clam and japanese mushroom otaki roll, all of which was followed by an intermezzo of Matcha green tea with a sesame macaroon.

The main courses consisted of roasted Maine lobster with taramasala and lemon creme fraîche, and Kobe Beef with Sweet Potato. Dessert was a red bean cake with apricot sorbet, apricot, lavender and buckwheat honey tuille and a red bean and green tea sauce.

All in all a wonderful end to a long day. Extra points to Morimoto for not being snooty about serving a gourmand in kinkster's clothing.

26 March 2008

Chestnut / Café Steinhof

This is where I would love to share a wonderful story about dining at one of the Brooklyn dining hot spots, Chestnut. Unfortunately, I have to say that my experience with the restaurant is so poor that even before I dine there, it is likely that I would never go there.

I noticed an advertisement for Brooklyn Restaurant Week, and called ahead with plenty of lead time knowing that restaurants get filled quickly. No one at the restaurant picked up the phone, so I left a message as per their instructions which specified leaving detailed instructions and that they would call to confirm. Over the course of the next weeks, I called again to confirm and left another message. I e-mailed them. Finally, I got an answer from them today, the very day my reservation was supposed to be on, that they were not able to accommodate a party of our size and beyond that they were full anyway. If the lackadaisical approach to service is the first impression that the customer get at this restaurant, then I can hardly imagine the service at the restaurant itself. It seems that it will be a long shot for me to ever try the restaurant.



Not one to give up a dinner opportunity though, I ended up going with some of my original party to a bustling place in Park Slope called Café Steinhof. A small, cheery and well lit pub-like restaurant, I was pleased to find this little delicious venue on the suggestion of my cousin's girlfriend, Jullie. The restaurant serves Austrian comfort food, and does it very successfully. Amongst our party we had wiener schnitzel, beef goulash, some weisswurst (very tender with a wonderfully snappy casing), a bit of kielbasa, some potato roesti, and a delicious slice of sour cherry linzertorte. The restaurant was an excellent last minute substitute for Chestnut, not to mention undoubtedly more economical, and the service was quite good.

IML Woof Camp

If you have been reading my posts then, one could easily think that all I have done lately is eat and travel. Well, those ARE some of my favorite things. But I happen to enjoy doing creative things too. Here is an example: I was asked to put together a poster for the IML Pup party, which this year is being called Woof Camp.



You can find out more info at WoofCamp.com.

Despite all the travel lately, IML is not one of the events I will be going to this year. My pup and I decided to take a year off, save some money ($300 plus a night for hotel adds up quickly!) and spend some quality time between ourselves.

Being involved with setting up this event, I can say that everyone there should end up having a great time!

23 February 2008

Dinner at Social House, Las Vegas




While visiting Las Vegas with my pup, I had the good fortune of eating at Social House, where Joe Elevado, a friend of mine, is the executive chef. The vast restaurant is located in the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, that has been rebranded as The TI, a move that speaks to the younger generation and at the same time sounds so bad. Despite the size of the restaurant, it is st up in such a way as to be rather intimate, and certainly the service never lets on that you are in a restaurant with several hundred other diners. Just as impressive is that the food was consistently well plated, delicious and served without the dinner feeling that it had come off an assembly line, often a downfall of many larger restaurants.

Knowing the chef, we put our culinary experience in his hands, and had him prepare a tasting menu for each of us. We were most certainly not disappointed!

Our menu consisted of many items, among which were:
  • Yellowtail in soy with tempuraed jalapeno and micro cilantro
  • Whitefish and octopus with soy sauce, micro cilantro, cilantro oil and chili oil
  • Mini squid three ways: With miso and yellow mustard, With shiso, With ponzu
  • Tuna tataki with microgreens, ginger, crunchy shallots and Yamo gobo
  • Kobe beef tataki seared with chili and soy and diakon
  • Kobe beef with sundried tomato, garlic oil, soy and calamansi
  • Hokkaido scallop over miso eggplant with curry foam and micro cilantro
  • Rock shrimp tempura with sweet sesame sauce and microgreens
  • Tamarind braised boneless short rib with wild mushroom ragout and phyllo chips
  • Ebi, toro, and hamachi
  • Apple bread with walnuts, apple spaghetti yogurt sorbet and raspberry
  • Banana confetti (Sliced bananas with a frozen banana confetti and cinammon oil


Needless to say we left feeling ver well satiated and had a wonderfule time.

22 February 2008

Best Laid Plans

Sometimes, things are beyond your control.

When I was in Las Vegas in the late 90s, I invested some of my table winnings into a sunset horseback ride out in Red Rock Canyon. As luck would have it, that trip consisted of just myself, and one other experienced rider and our guide. The weather was beautiful, the sun bathing the canyon and highlighting the rock's flaming colors. The feeling of being on horseback, being out in nature, is really incomparable -- one of my favorite things in life. As the sun set, the spectacular vision of the canyon was replaced by the serene visions of a universe of stars, and Las Vegas, a sparkling crystal city of light in the distance. The whole affair ended with us around a large campfire with a steak sizzling on the grill, embers floating into the night sky joining the stars, and the scent and crackling sounds of cooking meat and burning wood filling the night. That night was wonderful, but for the fact that I had to cut it short to return to the city for a show I had planned, and the fact I had no one to share it with. I vowed that I would return and wouldn't make those mistakes again.

Well, more than a decade and several visits to Las Vegas later, I was back. I managed to locate the same ranch (Cowboy Trail Rides), and planned it as a surprise for my pup, rudder. It was an experience that was too wonderful not to share with him, and I made sure we had no plans afterwards so that we could sit in the warmth of the fire, and watch the stars, and if we were lucky, steal a cuddle together.

As it turns out, the day started out with decent weather, but the closer we got to the ranch the more rain we got. Rain. In the desert. Who knew? The rain subsided as we started our ride, but that was not to last. It started raining again, then turning into freezing rain, then hail, then a torrential downpour to finish it up, soaking us through and through. The weather made the horses skittish, and the guides took us home early, getting us back fore darkness fell. The weather became quite cold, and by the time we were back in the ranch, I could almost not get off the horse for the fact that my left knee was screaming bloody murder. It felt like someone had taken a bat to it.

Needless to say there wasn't much of a sunset, stars were out and Vegas was nowhere to be seen. There was no firepit, and we all huddled into an open sided shack for shelter as we ate our steaks. Strangely, the heaters were placed at ceiling level, so trying to warm ourselves was all but impossible. They offered us hot chocolate, and I finally gave in despite my concerns about sugar, and even that did little to warm me up.

My pup insists he had a good time, and I know he tells me the truth without fail. However, I have problems mentally accepting that a punishing ride out in the elements could be fun. I can see it as an accomplishment but not really one would have chosen to do. Beyond that though is the idea that something I had hoped would be romantic, and a fulfillment of something I had thought about for so long, could end up so FUBAR. I guess it doesn't help that this trip was somewhat marred by financial tightening, something Las Vegas abhors, and that our money could really have been much better spent elsewhere.

But such is Life. Sometimes things are beyond your control. Life's broncin buck will toss you clear out of the rodeo sometimes. You have to dust yourself off, get back on the horse, and ride hard to find the sunset that eluded you today.

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A music video for this post:



Chumbawumba, Tubthumping.

06 February 2008

Puccini

Puccini is a small neighborhood restaurant on Ninth Avenue just north of 54th street in New York City that serves Italian food. I had come across a review of the restaurant recently, and decided that it was the perfect choice for dinner before an evening show at The Roundabout Theater's Studio 54 location.

The restaurant is is rather small, about the width of a townhouse, with space for about twenty patrons only. However, the restaurant has done a decent job of creating a welcoming atmosphere that is not too claustrophobic. One wall is painted a warm yellow and the other is bare brick; both are decorated with wrought iron tea light candle holders and wrought iron brackets that have tea light lanterns hanging over the tables unobtrusively.

We arrived just before seven to a half-filled restaurant which quickly filled almost to capacity within minutes. Unremarkable bread was served (consisting of sliced baguettes and Italian bread with sesame on the crust) with olive oil and butter on request.

The menu is just two pages, with the main entrées on the back, and a selection of pasta and appetizers on the front. The pasta is arranged so that you can choose your pasta (capellini, penne, black linguini) and the sauce that you would like to go with it.

My guest and I each ordered an entrée, skipping the appetizers, as we wanted to be sure we got to the show on time. We had the capellini carbonara and the veal parmigiana. My guest originally wanted the black linguini, but the restaurant said that it was not available, which is unfortunate as I overheard several other tables that wanted the dish during our meal and were likewise disappointed.

The staff is a bit harried, and the waitress we had was a bit flighty, but all in all the experience was decent and offered a nice, inexpensive place to dine.

03 February 2008

Adour



As I write this, car horns are blaring outside celebrating the Giants Superbowl upset of the Patriot's bid for a perfect year right where it really counted. While the Giants were working their magic, I was experiencing magic of the culinary kind, dining at Alain Ducasse's new restaurant, Adour.

Adour finally returns life to the sad emptiness left by the closing of one my all time favorite restaurants, Lespinasse, in April of 2003. One can hardly believe that it has been almost four years since the landmarked space inside the opulent St. Regis hotel was vacated, and one of the most venerable old guard French restaurants in New York disappeared forever.

Ducasse's new restaurant is the third outing for the famous chef in New York City, having first created Alain Ducasse at the Essex house, which was crucified by the critcs at the time, and then created the short lived Mix in the space next to the Paris cinema near Bergdorf's. The Essex house restaurant was criticized deeply, but many critically acclaimed restaurants sprung up in New York in its wake quietly adopting many of the standards that the Essex House established, from the obsessive service, to what was at the time called an astronomic pricing structure. Although I enjoyed several meals at Ducasse's Essex House outpost (and even paid for at least one), I can say that the experience at Adour outshines the others.

Perhaps the greatest issue with the Essex House incarnation of Ducasse's restaurant that its detractors had, was that it brought a bit of France to America, largely without interpretation. Having traveled to France and enjoyed many meals in various haute cuisine restaurants, Essex House was just as good in both service and food. However, it seems that all of the refinements enjoyed (and expected) by Europeans at fine dining establishments felt stuffy and unnatural for Americans who were confused by the plethora of cutlery, and felt the excellent service to be overbearing and stuffy.

This time around, Alain Ducasse has a very different tact, and it is noticeable even before you get to the restaurant. Open less than a week, the highly anticipated restaurant was, not surprisingly, "fully booked" when we asked earlier today as we passed by the restaurant. I called again later in the afternoon, and also not surprisingly, they had an opening at 5.30 (as most restaurants in New York do, despite being "fully booked"). Inquiring about whether a jacket and tie was required, I was informed "elegant casual" was all that was required, which would have been shocking at Essex House. I went to the restaurant dressed in Earnest Sewn baby corduroy jeans and a casual shirt, and no one even blinked. Admittedly, as more people came, it was apparent that we were the most casual couple dining there, the rest undoubtedly assuming the dress code was still formal given that this was an Alain Ducasse adventure.

As I mentioned, the space that Adour occupies is an interior landmark. Rather than take the approach that Adam Tihany took with Le Cirque 2000 at the Palace Hotel, where very modern pieces added to the space, David Rockwell's approach to the landmark is to install dark woood that is spaced away from the walls, and then have glass panels that reach up above for the top quarter of the room. The panels have texture to them and are printed with a floral pattern. Behind the glass, the beautiful space that was Lespinasse can be clearly seen. The effect is that of a clean and modern space that ties in the past without disrespecting it or clashing with it. It is at once elegant, and modern while reinterpreting the space and adding to it. The open central dining space encourages a relaxed feeling that is inline with the elegant casual stance that the restaurant takes.



The menu itself is also more casual. The tasting menu is a reasonable $110, and in speaking with our server, they expect patrons to be spending about $150 per person at the restaurant. Since my mother did not want to have a full tasting menu, which is available only to the whole table, we ordered a la carte. With a glass of wine shared between us, each having an appetizer, a main course, sharing a cheese plate, and having a single dessert, we spent about $145 per person including tea, coffee and tip. All in all, reasonable for this kind of restaurant.

The appetizers ranged from $17 to $29, with most in the above $20 range. This does not, of course account for such things as a $22 black truffle supplement for one appetizer, or the market priced of caviar. Main courses ranged from $32 to $49, with a slight majority of dishes below the $40 mark. The cheese plate was $22 and desserts were $16 each.

Our meal started with a bottle of San Pellegrino, and an amuse bouche from the chef that was a small puff pastry filled with Bechamel and comte cheese that was delightful. A server came by and offered us a selection of breads: a small baguette, an olive bread, and a whole wheat sourdough. This was served with an olive butter, and was changed to a regular butter after the first course.

The restaurant is very focused on wine: The menu starts with a declaration that its food to be enjoyed with wine, and many of the bottles are on display in integrated wine cabinets that are part of the main decor of the restaurant. We later learned from the sommelier that there are over 600 wines offered. I told the sommelier that I would like a glass of wine, whereupon he began to describe the wine program at Adour in a speech that took a few good minutes, and was a little over much for my tastes. His quick speech pattern, combined with a heavy French also did not help my ability to concentrate on what he was saying. I really just wanted to get my hands on the wine list and explore on my own but that was not to be.

Among the things that the sommelier said that I did catch was that there was a decanter program at Adour, which they wanted people to try. The rationale was that half bottles do not age as well as wine in full bottles, and imperials. So, the restaurant decants quality wines from imperials and full bottles and offers patrons the chance to taste wines that would otherwise be too much for them to finish, or simply too expensive at full bottle size. During our meal, one of the other tables in the restaurant inquired what was an imperial, and a diminutive waitress brought over a bottle that was about three quarters as tall as she was, almost struggling with both her hands on the bottom of the bottle.

When I did get was also a rather generous by the glass selection that was organized by variety (sparkling, red, white, sweet and dessert) and then into sections labeled Explore, American, Classic, and Treat The Explore section consisted of wines from regions that are lesser known in America, such as Spain and South America. The Classic section, consisted mostly of French wines, and the Treat section offered one or two exceptional wines. I ordered a glass of white wine from the Treat section (the 2006 Lys de Volan from Condrieu), despite a main course of venison, knowing that I would be sharing with my mother, and that the majority of our meal would go well with it.

My mother had the Foie Gras and Tapioca Ravioli in a sunchoke broth, bypassing the $22 black truffle supplement. The dish came in a deep bowl, with plump ravioli whose skin was thin enough to hint at the contents inside. There was an foamy emulsion on half the plate, and it was completed with a pour of the sunchoke broth. The taste and texture of the ravioli was good, but there did not seem to be that much gained from the addition of the tapioca. In fact, I was surprised that the taste of the dish was somewhat on the bland side.

That was definitely not the case with my appetizer, the sweetbreads. The sliced sweetbreads lay on a plate along with vegetables cut into perfect triangles, black trumpet mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms and a purse-like poached egg in the center. The dish was completed with the pour of a mouth watering, glossy sauce. The egg was perfectly poached, I dare say one of the most perfectly poached eggs that I have ever experienced. The consistency of the yolk was beyond compare -- creamy, yet neither liquid or even close to solid it was an exemplar of the kitchen's skill. Perhaps the best description is that it had the consistency of a Cadbury Cream Egg's consistency, and the beautiful golden flavor of yolk that paired so well with the rest of the dish. The sweetbreads were cooked to perfection, their gently crisp exteriors giving way to a flavorful interior whose texture and taste were only heightened by the sauce. Each mouthful was a joy of taste, and texture.

Having a lighter appetite, my mother opted for the diver scallops with salsify as a main course, which came with pressed tomatoes. The dish was rich in flavor and not at all heavy with large scallops that tasted wonderfully fresh. For myself, I had the venison loin. In a witty twist, on of the medallions was made to look like a chop with a perfectly cleaned, almost bleached bone sticking out of it. The dish was accompanied with some rutabaga, radish and turnips, each obsessively crafted to be a small universe of flavor.

At $22, the cheese plate was expensive, but it was also quite generous. Adour opts for simplicity here in that they have done away with the cheese cart, and provides the patron with a plate of four cheeses. I assume that this choice was made because American diners find choosing which cheese to have to be daunting, and the large selection of cheese at Essex House was probably overwhelming. The cheese plate, served with a half of a fig that has been marinated in wine, some microgreens, and some wonderfully crispy toasted country bread, consisted of a creamy goats milk from Piedmont called Brunet, a English clothbound style cheddar cheese from Vermont called Cabot Cheddar, a from Provence and a Piedmontese blue cheese called Blue del Moncesio. I found all of them to be excellent.

The Brunet was a wonderful start -- creamy and mild. The award winning Cabot Cheddar, of which, the diner is carefully educated, only three wheels are made every 12 months, was complex and nutty and really changed my view of cheddar. The Tomme de Berger was creamy, strong tasting and bold with a rind that was wonderfully sandy textured. The finish was the Blue del Moncesio which was a milder blue than I expected and was also excellent. I found out that the cheeses are all supplied by Murray's Cheese shop in the village, a fine purveyor that is on my regular resource list.

The dessert, an interesting interpretation of a vacherin, was a tropical fruit flavored delight. The bowl was layered with a lime gelatin on the bottom, then a layer of mango marmalade, a scoop of passion fruit ice cream, a scoop of coconut ice cream, all topped with a passion fruit emulsion and three crispy coconut meringues.

The very generous petit fours consisted of 10 macaroons (strawberry and chocolate), and three chocolate confections each: a passion fruit center with a white, dark and milk chocolate shell, a triangle with a hazelnut filling, and a dark chocolate.

We were offered tea, or coffee in French press. I opted for a plain cappuccino. There was a good selection of tea, from which my mother had the Gyokuro Asahi Green tea. There was also Jasmine Pearl from China and Osmanthus Oolong from Taiwan. My mother's tea was incredibly fragrant, finishing off a spectacular meal with a relaxing scent. I will assuredly be back to this wonderful experience!

26 January 2008

Baltimore and MAL

I went to visit my late Sir's hubby, Mike, this past weekend. He had just had some surgery for prostate cancer a few days ago and had recovered enough to be mobile and I wanted to visit him for a bit, in no small part because it was also his birthday on Monday. The weekend started out nicely with me arriving on Friday and having dinner with Mike before heading off to curl up in Steve's place (thank's Steve!). Mike looked well, and was certainly very glad that the last of his surgery and medical issues were probably behind him.

I had a late breakfast with him and Steve, and was thinking I would like to get a picture of the three of us together as I had not done so in a very long time. I had been under some pressure to go to Mid-Atlantic Leather from friends, and given the late start I had to the day, I left in a bit of a hurry for an unannounced visit just to show face and then head back to Baltimore. I ended up being there in the late afternoon, just in time to catch the puppy mosh, before heading off to have some kibble with my friend Saxon (a friendly Rottweiler on the outside but a bit of a Poodle / Jack Russel mix on the inside... if he reads this I am going to need to disappear for a bit, LOL). The day was a bit hectic, but we had a good deal of fun.

Unfortunately, later in the night I got a call from Steven telling me that Mike had been readmitted into the hospital for some serious bleeding. Poking and prodding hadn't turned up much, and when I went to visit him the next day he really did not look good at all. Mike's friend Mark was there already when Steven and I arrived, and we visited for a while. Mike was not in good shape physically, looking very pale and thin, and his spirits were really low. I did my best to help console him, but I was really worried that I was going to lose him. I have to admit that I was rather scared, and though I was trying to be encouraging, I know that more than a few tears escaped while I was with him. Of course, among the things that one thinks about is things like, Why didn't I take that extra few seconds to take a photo the other day?

Thankfully, Mike is recovering. But life does have an uneasy way of reminding us that we should act on things that come to mind, and that there is no time like the present, for we can plan all we want but nature manufactures its own course and plots our destinies.

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A music video for this post:


Eddie Vedder and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Long Road (from Dead Man Walking)

01 January 2008

Food / Bouley

Those who know me, know that I love food and that I love to cook. A lot of my friends often think that I only like haute cuisine, likely because I talk about it a lot, but the truth is that I love food of all sorts from the humble street crepes of Paris and the dirty water dogs of New York City to the culinary fireworks of restaurants like Alinea and Louis XV.

Since I decided to use this blog to share a more personal side of me, I thought that this would also be a great place to share my experiences at various restaurants and various meals of interest. I am not aiming to review restaurants per se, but letting this be a place to share something that really gives me great joy.

And since I am starting this out on the New Year, I guess that it is fair to start with a restaurant that is a perennial favorite, and that I have just come back from for my New Year's Eve celebration: Bouley in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City.

David Bouley's restaurant has always been a consistent crowd pleaser. I have had many good memories there and have celebrated the significant milestones there. So with my mother visiting, and no particular plans for New Year's Eve, we decided to book a table for two.

One of the many benefits of coming to TriBeCa on New Year's Eve is that you avoid the crush of traffic around Time Square, and you can make a quick exit through the various tunnels and bridges downtown afterwards. Another benefit is that parking is readily available. We had a late reservation so that we would be able to have a leisurely dinner that would end past midnight and the countdown, and still found a free parking spot directly across from the restaurant.

The single story restaurant, located on the corner of West Broadway and Duane street, is a fairly nondescript white building with arched windows, and a big wooden door that would be at home in the country. You walk in, and one of the first pleasures that the restaurant offers you is a small vestibule that has racks of apples by the door. The heat of the lights warms the apples and provides a wonderful apple scent that is at once warm, appetizing and homey.

There are two rooms in the restaurant and when I made my reservations, I asked for us to be seated in the red room because it is the color of good fortune and happiness for the Chinese, something appropriate for the new year.
The room has some triangular lights that are recessed into the wall, backed with gold leaf and trimmed in wood. I also happen to think the red room is just prettier than the other room, which is white and smaller.

As for the meal itself, there were two dishes per course of the meal since my mother and I decided to get different things from the tasting menu and share. Each full course was paired with a wine selection which we also shared. The meal began with a Chef’s canapé of baby beet gelée with beets, horseradish foam and roasted pumpkin seed.

For the First Course, my mother had Phyllo Crusted Florida Shrimp with Baby Squid, Cape Cod Sea Scallop and Maine Jonah Crab Meat in an Ocean Herbal Broth. The crusted shrimp reminded me of the texture of the ever popular coconut shrimp, but lighter and better at allowing the flavor of the shrimp to speak. The entire dish tasted sweet and of the sea. For myself, the first course was a Sashimi quality Tuna with Elderflower Apple Vinegar Gelée, Fresh Gingko nuts and a toasted Sesame-Sansho Pepper dressing. While the dish itself was tastey, I seemed to have managed to devour it entirely before looking for the fresh ginko nuts! We shared a glass of Pinot Gris, Domaine Barnes Buecher, Silicis, Alsace, 2004.

For our second course, I was presented with
Maine Day Boat Lobster with Fresh Porcini Mushrooms, Black Trumpet mushrooms, Jumbo Asparagus, Parsley Root Purée and Burgundy wine sauce while my mother had the wild, line caught Wellfleet Codfish with fresh Half Moon Bay artichokes, Baby bok choy, Salsify and Black Truffle Broth. All of that was paired with a glass of Viré-Clessé, Domaine de Bongran, Jean Thevenet, Burgundy, 2002. The lobster was delicious, rich but not overbearing, with each flavor still speaking clearly. The codfish was a much lighter item, and yet the flavors were still intense and engaging -- to me, that is a sign of true artistry in the kitchen, to make intensity with strong flavors is far less challenging than coaxing out subtle flavors.

For our main courses we had Roasted Organic Baby Pig lacquered with kumquat and homemade lavender salt, Spice of the Sultan, a chutney of baby carrot, mangoes, and sweet onions, cous cous of cauliflower and currants. When I saw this on the menu, my mouth watered and I knew that this was what I wanted. Unfortunately, this was my least favorite item on the menu as I found it a little fatty and not quite as crisp skinned as I would have liked, although the flavors were still outstanding. My mother had the organic Colorado Rack of lamb with homemade sheep’s milk ricotta gnocchi, Rocket salad, with a fresh sage and zucchini-mint purée. The Nuits Saint Georges, Les Grandes Vignes, Daniel Rion, Burgundy, 2001 that we had to accompany it all was wonderful.

The palate cleanser was an interesting fresh Hawaiian pineapple carpaccio that was served with a with pomegranate coulis, Key Lime sorbet and some candied violets. It was different from the typical cup of sorbet, and was far more pleasing to the eye. this came accompanied with an effervescent glass of Moscato d’Asti, Moncalvina, Coppo, Piedmont, Italy, 2006 which was dryer than I expected.

At the end of the meal, my mother had the snowball of frozen mint meringue with Banana Coffee Toffee, Ten Flavor Exotic Fruit sorbet, and coconut ice cream while I had chosen the Hot Valhrona Chocolate Soufflé, which came with some Vermont Maple Ice Cream, Gingerbread Ice Cream and Chocolate Sorbet. While the soufflé was good, it was the ice creams that were outstanding. The small scoops definitely made you smack your lips and want to lick the plate clean. A sweet glass of Alois Kracher, Beernauslese, (Chardonnay & Welschrieling), Austria, 2006 accompanied the dessert.

After the meal, we settled down to wait for the New Year's to arrive so that we could bring it in with a toast of champagne. The chef had other ideas though, as he had prepared a second dessert as a surprise for the diners, a glass layered with vanilla flan, spiced pineapple, passion fruit granité, and some curry sorbet. This was delicious despite the unexpected contrasts in flavors and, in fact, was almost more delectable than the desserts that we had ordered. The repetition of the pineapple in the meal did make my mother and I think that perhaps there was a fire sale somewhere on them but that was easily forgiven for the fact that we could have devoured many more of these.

The meal ended with a plate of Petit Fours and b
y the time we were finished, we were quite full! We had some coffee and waited a little while for midnight to come around. As my mother and I settled into casual conversation, the time flew and next thing we knew the ball fell in Times Square and the chefs came out banging on their pots with wooden spoons to celebrate.

We went home with a nice loaf of brioche as a parting gift, and quickly zipped through the Holland Tunnel ahead of the onslaught of traffic. All in all, a wonderful night!