The Three Star Experience

There are doubtless many financial bigwigs in New York City who can afford to have gourmet dinners every night. But for the rest of us mere mortals, visiting a three star Michelin restaurant is still a big event in itself. Last week M and I went to Le Bernardin, one of the great holy grails of fine dining, spending as much in one meal as our entire 5 night NYC hotel bill. Was it worth it? Well, we definitely can’t make a habit of eating there regularly, but between the superb service and fabulous food, we had no regrets.

Even the outside looked fancy

The moment we walked into the restaurant we were greeted by an attendant asking to take our coats in the coatroom. It only got classier when we walked into the actual dining room. Our waiter led us to our table and shifted our table out, making it easier for us to take our seats. This was only the first of many actions taken that were entirely unnecessary but worked at making us feel like royalty.

We decided to order the Chef’s Tasting to make the most out of our visit. After ordering, the waiter came around with a complimentary pre-appetizer dish. There were three parts of the dish - a tuna tartare, a piece of sashimi, and a creamy mushroom soup paired with a parmesan cracker.

Complimentary pre-appetizer

After finishing the pre-appetizer, our actual tasting dishes started coming out. The first dish was a yellowfin tuna carpaccio. It tasted delicious, and the texture was really interesting. The soft, almost chewy texture of the gelatin base contrasted nicely with the crunchy bits of bread and asparagus embedded within.

First course

The second appetizer was a warm king fish sashimi topped with osetra caviar and served in light mariniere broth. The sashimi was great, and the caviar practically melted in your mouth. But my favorite part about this dish was the broth. It had a vibrant buttery clam flavor, and yet avoided being too heavy to drink. 

Second course

The third appetizer was a pan roasted langoustine topped with truffled foie gras and served with aged sherry-versus vinaigrette. We were trying to figure out what exactly the langoustine was - some sort of cross between shrimp and lobster? Turns out it’s a specific type of lobster that can be found in the waters around Europe. Either way, it was tasty.

Third course

We got a brief reprieve after finishing the last appetizer. In the meantime, the man with the bread basket continued to make his rounds. Everyone got a piece of bread at the beginning of the meal, and basically every time we finished our bread he came back around to give us more. They had really interesting flavors, from tomato basil to cranberry walnut. It was a challenge controlling ourselves with the bread. Gotta save room for the rest of the meal…

For the first part of the main course, we got lobster tails with lemongrass consomme served with herb spring roll. The lobster was super tender and fresh.

Fourth course

The next main dish was poached halibut in wild mushroom soup. I’m normally ambivalent towards halibut, but this one was great, best halibut I’ve had.

Fifth course

Last main dish was a “Surf & Turf” consisting of a black bass and braised veal cheek. It’s hard to choose a favorite dish because they were all delicious, but I really liked this one in particular. The sea bass was cooked to a nice tender finish with a crispy layer of skin left on top. The veal was even more tender to the point where it almost melted in your mouth.

Sixth course

By this time we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were actually starting to get full, considering each dish was a relatively small tasting size. Guess it adds up after awhile. It was also worth noting that the waiters took the time to switch out all our utensils between every course, and even re-covered part of our tablecloth because there was a tiny smudge on it. Such incredible attention to detail.

We started our dessert part of the meal with a “matcha ball” made with green tea custard, with jasmine ice cream and preserved lychee on the side. A very Asian dessert following a mostly French meal. The different flavors matched well together and were sweet but not too sweet.

Seventh course

The second dessert course was apple themed. We got a apple slices topped with caviar, more ice cream, and a ginger-scented apple “bomb” - applesauce encased in a white chocolate shell. It made sense why the apple dessert came second because this was a lot sweeter than the matcha one.

Eighth course

The waiter surprised us with a final complimentary dessert (probably because we were spending so much already). It was a decadent dark chocolate mousse served on crispy rice clusters and chocolate branches. A heavy, but very satisfying end to the meal.

Complimentary chocolate dessert

And then just for fun we got a few more goodies after that. 

Bonus dessert - truffle, macaron, fruit jelly, brownie

After the actual last dessert, we asked if we could take a picture of the menu, and the waiter one-upped us by giving us a physical copy of the menu along with a free copy of the 2016 Zagat guide for NYC. Flipping through the guide, we saw Le Bernardin near the top of multiple lists, and from our experience, it was clear they deserve it. Everything about our meal was world class - not just the amazing food, but also the quality of the service, with servers who would get you what you wanted before you even asked. Despite the resulting hole in our wallet, it was one of the big highlights of our trip, and I would highly recommend it to be on any foodie’s bucket list.

5 Places to Eat in NYC Without Breaking the Bank (Mostly)

New York City is known for many things - Broadway, Wall Street, Times Square - and I recently spent two consecutive weekends there playing the tourist and visiting these famous sites. While I was there, some of my non-tourist friends made sure I didn’t miss another big part of the city - the incredible food scene. As we partook in some of the best (affordable) food NYC has to offer, I quickly learned that there’s so much more to New York cuisine beyond cronuts and Shake Shack. 

Totto Ramen

If I could only have one type of meal for the rest of my life, I would be quite content to have it be ramen. We came here my first weekend in the city to sate my craving for ramen, and I returned again the next week because it was just that good. Totto has all the bases covered with firm chewy noodles and flavorful pork pieces. But what really sets them apart is the broth. Instead of using a pork base for the soup, Totto uses a chicken based broth. The result is a lighter, clearer flavor that wonderfully complements the rest of the ingredients instead of overwhelming them as some other places’ broth tend to do. And for about $10-15 a bowl, it’s great value for what you pay, especially with NYC food prices.

Paiten (regular) Ramen at Totto

Joe’s Shanghai/Ginger

If you’re looking for food in NYC’s Chinatown, most guide books will recommend Joe’s Shanghai, known for their pork soup dumplings. Instead, we went to Joe’s Ginger just down the street for basically the same food but with less crowds. We ordered both the pork and the crab dumplings. Whenever I have soup dumplings, I can’t help but compare them with the ones from Din Tai Fung - I thought the dumplings at Joe’s had great flavor, but the dumpling skin was little too thick compared to DTF’s. Nevertheless, they were quite good, and very affordable at less than $10 a basket. Great place for a quick lunch to satisfy a dumpling craving.

Everyone loves XLBs

Snowdays

One thing we are severely lacking in upstate New York is a good Asian dessert place. Which is why I was exceptionally excited to go to Snowdays and have some Taiwanese style snow ice. At Snowdays you can pick between building your own cup by choosing a snow flavor, toppings, and drizzle, or picking the pre-built combos. I ordered the “Made in Taiwan” combo, featuring green tea flavored snow, mochi and grass jelly toppings, and condensed milk drizzle. My favorite part was the snow itself. It had just the right amount of fluffiness and the green tea flavor was sweet but not too sweet. I definitely thought it was worth the $6 for the regular cup.

"Made in Taiwan" snow ice at Snowdays

Takashi

This trendy yakiniku place is the one pricier restaurant I have listed here. We split roughly 10 plates of meat between five people and ended up paying around $50 each, so not quite gourmet Michelin prices, but still more than I usually spend on food. Though I guess these sort of prices are to be expected for good yakiniku, and the stuff here was quite good. I’m not an expert on meat, but the marbling on the beef was beautiful, which I’ve heard is indicative of high quality meat. Our waitress was supremely helpful, giving us excellent suggestions for cuts to try, and great recommendations for marinades. Everything we had that night, from the beef tongue to the short-rib, was delicious. If it wasn’t for the price, I’d go back in a heartbeat, but if you do want to splurge you can’t go wrong here.

Yakiniku at Takashi

Cooking all the meat

Adrienne’s Pizza Bar

A large variety of pizza, pasta, and salads are available at Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, but apparently what you’re supposed to do here is order the “Old Fashioned Pizza”, a rectangular pie you can customize with individual toppings. The first thing I noticed when our pie came out was that it was huge. We definitely got our bang for our buck with our large cookie sheet sized pizza we only paid around $40 for total. The pizza itself also tasted great. The crust was pleasantly crispy, and the ingredients all combined harmoniously into perfection with every bite. Alas, even with the three of us we couldn’t finish the enormous pie. (But I’m sure the homeless person we gave our leftovers to enjoyed the rest.) Delicious food, and excellent value considering this was right in the heart of the financial district.

Giant pizza at Adrienne's

Looking forward to eating more on future trips to the city!

- MC 9/20