Tonight's Dinner:
Amuse - pork rillette with cinnamon apple
Bar Snack: buffalo frogs legs - 3 frogs legs, cut at the joints for easy eating, light crispy dredge. The webbed toes fried to a glorious crisp. Lightly pickled celery & carrot stick batons, limp from the brine but the veins of the celery still peeled away from the rest of the stalk when bitten. Aerated blue cheese with scallions light with great mouthfeel, I found the bottom of the bowl while heaping up generous amounts onto clean frog bones. This is what I imagine when I think of buffalo wings, but 25 cent Tuesdays at the neighborhood bar will never deliver.
Small Plates 1: Beef tongue, chioggia beets, fried bearnaise, pickled onions, frisee, some kind of red reduction - beef tongue seared on one side, very tender, more about the texture than the flavor, but the sum greater than its parts. Beets were golden and we couldn't recall what the ingredient was, it was familiar, I offered that they reminded me of borscht, and that brought to mind the chioggia beets from the menu. Beef tongue had different textures throughout - all good, I liked the more fatty bits, the edges approached a liver-chalky taste, but not quite - very enjoyable. Fried bearnaise brought it all together.
Small Plates 2: Chanterelle Agnolotti, veal hearts, black truffle - best dish I've had in a long time - agnolotti filled with smoother-than-butterfat mushroom mousse, sauce balanced with butter and cream, but not heavy, complemented the veal hearts, chanterelles, truffles grated over the top, maybe a truffle oil too. I'm missing an ingredient - this was on the vegetarian menu as well, minus the heart.
Entree 1: 1/2 Slagel Farms Duck, confit leg, rare breast, savory bread pudding, brussel sprouts & spicy duck consomme - Perfect rare duck breast, fat on top could have been rendered slightly longer for a crisper fat cap, but this didn't detract from the dish in my experience; enough crispy skin to be had on the leg. Thigh was the best part, crackly skin, succulent fat, tender duck, not salty, really let the duck shine. Bread pudding had all the notes of stuffing, hit the tongue with sage and chestnut, and just when you thought it'd fall flat or slimy, it opened up the palate. Spicy duck consomme had flecks of red pepper flake floating around, very good on its own, a little hard to taste without a spoon, so this was a two-handed dish for me, spoon and fork dancing with perfectly composed bites, continually going back for more.
Entree 2: Gooseneck Cod with brandade, hedgehog mushrooms, parsley pesto? - crispy plank of potato topped the fish, brandade separated fish from mushrooms and parsley sauce. This was the one dish that didn't impress. Dining partner thought the cod was overcooked, I thought not, but the texture of the fish was grainy - not sure if this is typical of cod or if this indeed meant it was slightly overdone. [He commented that his palate is much more acute when prices get into double digits -
] Hedgehog mushrooms were the highlight of this dish, but how could they not be? Parsley pesto/sauce didn't have much flavor, which is too bad, it could've really elevated the dish and added some nice acidity.
Dessert 1: warm Gruyere donuts, maple syrup, finely grated Parmesan, roasted hazelnut, whipped citrus goat cheese - 4 large donuts, dusted with Parmesan, doused in maple syrup. With 3 cheeses on the plate, it was a borderline savory dessert, warm as promised, the Gruyere oozing seductively out of my bite marks. I couldn't taste the hazelnut - I'm not sure which component even had hazelnut in it. Also the whipped citrus goat cheese tasted much more of lemon than goat, almost like a lemon ice cream or lemon whipped cream since the temperature was cooler than the donuts. I *think* I would've liked more goat cheese flavor, but I could be wrong if I had tried a version with a heavier hand on the goat cheese. It was a pretty grave dessert already and made me unable to finish the chocolate tart. I liked this dessert although my description may not sound as exalting as the others.
Dessert 2: bittersweet "Manjari" chocolate tart, bourbon tapioca, malt cream - chocolate filling was like a good ganache, bourbon tapioca topped off the tart and filled a corner of the plate - the flavor and texture of the bourbon tapioca was reminiscent of pecan pie filling, but not cloyingly sweet, so damn good. A swirl of chocolate vanilla bean caramel looked glossy and translucent, a welcome addition when eaten with the tart shell, which had nice texture. Malt cream was light and airy, better than any Whopper could dream to be.
Very generous portions on each plate, worth every penny.
Service was paced nicely, no rushing, informative when requested, attentive at every turn but not intrusive, and genuine. The wait at 5:30pm tonight for a table of 4 was two hours! Luckily we were a table of 2, so we only had 45 minutes of anticipation.
An altogether eye-opening experience, similar to eating at Momofoku Ssam bar in the revelation department; I wanted to shake the chef's hand at the end of my meal but could see he was busy. I've been waiting for a meal like this for 3 months, it will take willpower not to wait outside their door for brunch tomorrow morning.
I have a couple crappy pictures but decided not to post them - it was too dark in there for my phone's camera.