while my [credit card] gently weeps.

this is a long overdue update, so my memory is hazy.  bear with me.

daniel

unbeknownst to me, daniel boulud’s (semi) self-titled flagship restaurant underwent a thorough revamping.  upon entry one isn’t greeted with “stuffy” as i was warned by my cousin but an oversaturated clusterfuck of classy and trashy, the inexplicable harmony of random elements that shouldn’t work together but do.  i imagine during the renovation mr. boulud exclaiming, “i love it” when shown any and every potential decorative flourish.  most hilarious, as pointed out by my namesake jew and short-lived dining partner, is an extremely large and life-like painting of a man looking at his cellphone.   the elegant frivolity makes for, if nothing else, a fun setting.

got the night started with a champagne mojito, which is as good as it sounds and the best mojito i’ve had this side of cuba.  daniel offers the familiar three-course pre-fixe dinner menu, with the option of various tasting menus.  the amuse bouche consisted of a trio of canapes.  the night’s theme was white bean, if i remember correctly.  i don’t remember much passed that except they were all delicious and much more appetizing than the description led me to believe.

because i can never not order it when it’s an option, my first course was a terrine of foie gras with kumquat and such, served with brioche.  truly excellent, and until i had a terrine at per se, was the best prepartation of the unctuous treasure i’ve had.  for the longest time i erroneously believed that foie gras is seared or bust.

next was a boulud signature dish, recommended to me over the degustation of suckling pig (which i now wish i had ordered).  braised short rib and seared rib eye served with a carrot gratin, pomme dauphine, and shallot confit.  braised short rib is quickly becoming one of my favorite foods, and the carrot gratin was exceptional in its sweet savoryness and texture.  the rib eye however was overcooked and flavorless.  it looked pretty, though.

daniel flaunts a comprehensive dessert menu, splitting its wares between fruit and chocolate, offering about five or six per category.  when our waiter came around with the dessert menu i asked right away how much more it would cost if i wanted to order extra desserts, something i had planned on doing from the get-go.  he thought for a second before saying, “merry christmas.”  i responded by telling him that was a dangerous thing to say to someone like me.  “what, do you want to order half the menu?”  “yes.”  “okay, well, i’ll have the pastry chef do small portions for you and you can order as many as you would like.”  ask and you shall receive.  fine dining restaurants aspire to please, in which case it can never hurt to ask for things that will make you happy.  the worst thing that can happen is that they say no.  anyway, between the two of us we got six desserts.  two stood out: an intensely flavored and refreshing blueberry vacherin and the guanja chocolate coulant, in which the use of fleur de sel elates the palate.

daniel
60 e 65th st
new york, ny 10065

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blue hill

tucked away in greenwich village, the unassuming and utterly charming blue hill may be the sleeper hit of my month of gluttonous extravagance.  dan barber bridges the gap from farm to plate with as few degrees of separation as possible, his dedication to quality as well as honoring ingredients evident on every plate.  after ordering the farmer’s feast tasting menu (5 courses), we were treated to a procession of things to “start [us] off”: a selection of garden fresh vegetables (a leaf of romaine, a radish, a turnip), some savory goodies (parmesan tuile, fried kale chip), some fantastic bread and a very impressive and addictive spread of butters and salts, among which was one of the best things i’ve ever been served at a restaurant: a generous quennelle of whipped lardon (aka PIG FAT) sprinkled with smoked paprika.

1. grilled cobia – a fish i hadn’t really heard of until these adventures in fine dining.  very meaty, very flavorful, cooked beautifully.  i wish i remembered what it was served with.  i think ramps were among them.  really lovely start to the meal.

2. soft-shell crab – a little limp (would’ve liked a crunch to it), but juicy and tasty.

3. berkshire pork – belly and tenderloin.  at the time, the best pork dish i had ever had.  it’s rare that i get a pork tenderloin that isn’t impossible to chew.  the belly was equal parts crispy and fatty juicyness.

4. poached rhubarb with yogurt sorbet and red wine sauce – clean and very pure in its flavors.  absolutely smitten with this one, really loved it.

5. chocolate parfait with hazelnut crispies and chocolate sauce – i hate to use the word, but i found this pedestrian albeit enjoyable.

the price to quality ratio here makes it an absolute must, though the food speaks for itself.

blue hill
75 washington pl
new york, ny 10011

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lupa

this was the first glimpse into the new york food scene i ever got back in 2001, when i visited before starting high school.  i think it may have been my first experience with what, at the time, seemed to me fine dining.  i’d been there since and always like to come back for sentimental reasons but also because the food’s really great.  ordered an assortment of small plates including some of their house-made concoctions of meat, namely the head cheese (a warm terrine-cum-sausage of fatty, pork-y goodness) and beef tongue.  the beets were especially delicious that night.  braised ox-tail gnocchi is rich and rib-sticking.  the tartufo at lupa was and always has been a must-get anytime i’ve gone.  our waitress very correctly vouched for the fennel gelato, which was amazing.  lupa’s consistently offered an easy-going atmosphere and simple, tasty food, the italian equivalent of an exceptional bistro.

lupa
170 thompson st.
new york, ny 10012

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jean georges revisited

while the lunch deal here is the best fine dining bargain in town, i’m not sure how many more times i’d want to take advantage of it.  the food is consistently very good but the service is lacking and i’ve never liked the feel of either the fine dining room at jean georges or nougatine.  i got artic char again (this time served with olive oil foam, butter-ramp ravioli, and rhubarb compote… a nice if unbalanced dish) as well as the sweetbreads, a disappointly small presentation but very good.  ordered two desserts from the nougtaine menu: muscat grape vacherin and some sort of chocolate creme.  both were okay.

what wasn’t okay was the way in which they fucked up the bill, and proceeded to be unremorseful about the mishap.  we were charged a random gratuity (we were only a party of four) that i didn’t catch until we were on our way out.  we went back and had the issue fixed, but were met with silence, as if a mistake isn’t spoken of, it never happened.  i found it inexcusable that a michelin three-star restaurant make an error like that, but of course i lack the clout and gaul to make a scene and demand satisfaction.  someday, i tell you.  someday.

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per se revisited… thrice

by thrice, i mean three times.  yes, i went back THREE times.  to be fair, the last two were in the salon.

revisit number one was the full experience.  rather than write another epic, some quick notes comparing and contrasting the two best meals of my life.  this time around, i got to try the white truffle egg custard with black truffle ragout and chive-potato chip. near tears  upon tasting it.  i’m convinced that there’s no better beginning to a meal than the series of three (with this one, four) dishes that open the meal at per se.  the grougeres, the cornets, the oysters and pearls, and THIS culminate in luxury epitomized.  the foie gras terrine was the absolute best foie gras dish i’ve ever had.  served with brioche which they swapped out about halfway through my finishing the dish “in case it got cold.” i love this place.  halibut was on the menu again and i asked for something else, and i received black bass instead, which was very good.  instead of butter poached lobster, it was langoustine a la plancha.  by this point, langoustine has to be my favorite shellfish by far, as it has the succulence of a lobster and the flavor of a shrimp, exemplified beautiful in this perfect dish.  a degustation of rabbit was truly a run in the gamut of what rabbit can be, the lamb, though good, was forgetable, and i don’t remember the cheese course much.  raspberry sorbet was unreal, and the snickers bar is out of control.  so excellent.  i mistakenly declared it the best dessert i’ve ever had, a title that should instead go to either the coffee and doughnuts or the chocolate egg from le bernardin.  either way, it’s incredible.

per se opened the salon for a la carte dining and i somehow convinced some people to go on two occassions.  the first went from an idea of going for dessert into dinner.  if you order as little as an entree, you get the per se treatment on a smaller scale.  we each ordered an entree and dessert, and were then treated to the grougeres and the cornets, as well as a gazpacho and the bread basket.  i ordered the degustation of pork, and it will forever be the most memorable and amazing pork preparation of my life.  if it gets any better than what i had that night, my face will explode.  belly, tenderloin, sausage, braised shoulder served with what i believe where grilled ramps and the most amazing corn bread i’ve ever tasted.  it was so incredibly good i had to share it with the other two just so i could see them react to it.  has to be among the greatest plates of food in human history.  you also get a smaller selection of mignardises in the salon.  it came out to $55/head for a very satisfying meal.  HIGHLY recommend it if you’re curious about the place and want to glimpse what it’s like.

my fourth and final time at per se came in the form of a farewell dinner from my roommate.  knowing that it was his mother’s dollar paying for the meal, i was perhaps a little more persuasive than i should’ve been in terms of the liberty with which i thought we should order for the sake of making the most out of the night.  we both ordered the tonic and gin ($20 a pop) and went nuts from there.  it seemed appropriate it being my fourth time in three weeks that i see everyone that i had met along the way there that night, including the waiter from my first time around who remembered that that night, i didn’t get to try to truffle egg custard because they had run out.  so after the grougers, the cornets, and oysters and pearls (yes, i ordered it from the salon), he brought out the egg custards for us, saying that he wanted to make sure i got it this time around.  after that came a beet salad of peach coulis.  at this point it goes without saying that anything i had at per se was the absolute best of that respective dish.  in this case, it was the best beet salad i’ve ever had.  compelling me to revisit the butter-poached lobster were the accompaniments of bacon emulsion and what was described to me as bacon snow–cured bacon given the texture of snow sprinkled all over the plate.  fiendish.  so excellent.  giddy delight, blah blah blah.  for dessert, i asked for something new because i had literally tried every dessert on the menus as well as the go-to off-menu dessert, coffee and doughnuts.  i was brought a pecan… something, with burnt marshmallow and vanilla ice cream.  so great.  part of me wishes the other desserts at per se were as simple as this or the coffee and doughnuts, as they are the most successful of the bunch.  instead of the mignardises-lite that normally gets served to the salon crowd, we were brought the most extensive tray of chocolates i’ve ever seen.  they were every single variety that they make in-house, two of each.  i asked if the tray could be left on the table.  that wasn’t an option.  i ended up with about 15 chocolates in front of me and i ate every single one.  i was told after that we set a record for most chocolates taken.  my finest hour.

easily my favorite restaurant.  next stop: the french laundry.