High-end Dining: Expectations and Reviews

[J.Brown]

[ QUOTE ]
N,

Nice review. I assume you went to the one in NYC?

He has a L'Atelier in Vegas as well. I want to go to this place in Vegas: http://www.mgmgrand.com/dining/joel-...estaurant.aspx

"The Potato Puree (mashed potatos) was the best I have ever had anywhere hands down. Trying to describe them is between difficult and impossible because the texture is so extraordinary. Its as if a stick of butter (or 4) was dropped into a cloud and then someone made into mashed potatos."

Published recipes say it's 250g of butter for every kg of potato. However, multiple sources claim that there's an almost 1:1 ratio of butterotato in it at his restaurants! The multi-step puree process is also pretty crazy. It's amazing that this guy is able to take something as basic as mashed potatoes and take them to a level that gets top chefs and foodies around the world raving about them.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have done both robuchon places at the mgm all this thread is doing is making me want to go back, especially to L'Atelier. great trip report for the nyc one. ty.

[Xaston]

Morimoto Philadelphia.

$120 omakase with $85 drink pairings.

This came with some sort of sharp/crisp white wine. I kinda suck at drinking wine so don't pay attention to my comments on the drinks.

Toro tartare. Good. Nothing incredible. The tartare had some scallion tempura on top which added a very next textural contrast.

3 kumamoto oysters

Fish sauce + jalapeno

Not very good.

Something salsa

Good and refreshing

Cilantro ceviche

Good, my friend's favorite. I liked it equal to the salsa.

Came with a morimoto martini, not bad. A lot less strong than I expected. Morimoto sake + vodka, with some cucumber slices.


2003 savignon blanc from new zealand

New style sashimi. Ginger and garlic scallops "seared" by pouring hot oil over it and finishing with yuzu soy sauce (isn't that just ponzu?). Super super super delicious. Chris says check mark for wine pairing. I have no clue. One of the two stand out dishes.

1993 Chardonnay France.

Sashimi salad. Skipjack sashimi with carrot sauce and yuzu. Micro greens and a shaved and cured piece of bonito. Almost like a jerky.

The fish is good and very fresh, and the sauce is pretty good. I think it needs a little more seasoning, but good. The jerky is pretty unpleasent in taste and texture.

The wine is too strong for me, but Chris loves it. He says its his favorite.

Black vinegar cream soda intermizzo. Its like cream soda. It's in a little shooter glass, but comes with a straw. Sipping it it wasn't very good, but I took the last 3/4 of it as a shot and it was pretty good and refreshing. I wish they didn't put the little straws in this.

2004 something riesling? Germany

Espice lobster. Pan roasted half lobster with 8 spices and yuzu creme friache. The sweetness of the wine cools the spiciness of the lobster. Pretty good. Like the small kumamoto oysters with fancy sauces, which I like less than new england oysters with some cocktail sauce; I prefer my lobster simple with a little melted butter. But it's lobster and is well cooked.

Our first red wine. A pinot noir form South Africa.

Flash seared kobe beef with soy reduction and basil oil and some abalone mushrooms. Quite good and goes well with the wine, although I don't like reds very much. The soy reduction was just perfect and the kobe beef was great. This and the scallop dish were the best.

Sake. Very strong. Chris liked it better than the martini that was sake + vodka + cucmber; I much preferred the martini. Like I said earlier, I am bad at drinking alcohol.

Sushi. The o-toro is good, but I don't like o-toro as much as most. Chris liked it very much. Kanpachi is good, I skipped (lol?) the skipjack and enjoyed the red snapper and giant clam. Nothing extraordinary though. Chris didn't like the clam. I get some really good sushi at a small local (Providence, RI) place so sushi courses always seem like a bit of a waste at a place like Nobu/Shintaro/Morimoto for me.

5 year mediara something?

Sweet potato cake with sweet japanese red bean whipped cream, with some of the beans, and a sweet potato chip.

The sweet potato cake is ok and so are the beans. The bean whipped cream is excellent though, and so is the sweet potato chip. The wine thing is good too. By the end of this dish the sweet potato cake has grown on me and is nice and moist, sweet but not overbearlingly. This was a good dessert. I finished the whole thing, and I'm not a very big eater.

Cliff Notes:

I like Nobu better. 2 very good dishes, 1 good dish, and all the rest were ok. There was no dish that was bad.

[Melchiades]

Went to one of Gordon Ramsays places yesterday. The Savoy Grill, head chef there is Marcus Wareing .

On sundays they do a sunday menu that is absolutely fantastic value for money. 3 courses for £25 or 2 courses for £18. You'd be hard pressed to go to an Indian place for a curry and dessert or an Italian for Pizza and dessert/starter for that price in London, so that is really quite amazing value in a Michelin starred restaurant. I know lots of you are ballers and that price doesn't matter to you, but this is highly recommended for those who are on a budget. Or have friends who are.

For starters we had:

Foie gras parfait with toasted brioche and spiced fruit chutney. Absoultely lovely. Not the most inventive dish, but you can't argue with the taste.

Scottish smoked salmon and gravadlax, served with classic accompaniments. Which I'm told was also fantastic.

Mains came:

Roast rib-eye of Scottish beef with Yorkshire pudding, roasted vegetables, potatoes and beef sauce. Which was a brilliant piece of meat cooked perfectly. Once again, the chef didn't really take out his most fancy moves. But it's good food prepared perfectly.

Seared sea bream with fennel purée, buttered spinach and tarragon glazed carrots. The fennel purée was absolutely top notch. Creamy and full of flavour.

Desserts:

Chocolate brownie gateau. Wow! Chocolate bomb, not too sweet. Perfect.

Passion fruit brulée. Often when I get brulées with some exotic taste they hardly taste anything but regular creme brulée. This was different, lots of flavour.

Service throughout the evening was spot on. Helpful and always there when you needed them, not too stiff. Always with a smile and a joke.

Really recommend this. But know what you are getting on a Sunday. This isn't the most innovative food. Lacks the wow factor, just great food prepared by the best chefs. So not for you if you are looking to be blown off your chair, but if you want a piece of the fine dining experience for under half the price this is for you.

[traz]

I just wanted to say that I love reading the reviews in this thread...I don't get a chance to go to upper end restaurants very often myself, so I really do enjoy reading about it. Keeps me motivated to get to balla status in any case ;P

[MrMetropolitan]

[ QUOTE ]
Morimoto Philadelphia.

$120 omakase with $85 drink pairings.

This came with some sort of sharp/crisp white wine. I kinda suck at drinking wine so don't pay attention to my comments on the drinks.

Toro tartare. Good. Nothing incredible. The tartare had some scallion tempura on top which added a very next textural contrast.

3 kumamoto oysters

Fish sauce + jalapeno

Not very good.

Something salsa

Good and refreshing

Cilantro ceviche

Good, my friend's favorite. I liked it equal to the salsa.

Came with a morimoto martini, not bad. A lot less strong than I expected. Morimoto sake + vodka, with some cucumber slices.


2003 savignon blanc from new zealand

New style sashimi. Ginger and garlic scallops "seared" by pouring hot oil over it and finishing with yuzu soy sauce (isn't that just ponzu?). Super super super delicious. Chris says check mark for wine pairing. I have no clue. One of the two stand out dishes.

1993 Chardonnay France.

Sashimi salad. Skipjack sashimi with carrot sauce and yuzu. Micro greens and a shaved and cured piece of bonito. Almost like a jerky.

The fish is good and very fresh, and the sauce is pretty good. I think it needs a little more seasoning, but good. The jerky is pretty unpleasent in taste and texture.

The wine is too strong for me, but Chris loves it. He says its his favorite.

Black vinegar cream soda intermizzo. Its like cream soda. It's in a little shooter glass, but comes with a straw. Sipping it it wasn't very good, but I took the last 3/4 of it as a shot and it was pretty good and refreshing. I wish they didn't put the little straws in this.

2004 something riesling? Germany

Espice lobster. Pan roasted half lobster with 8 spices and yuzu creme friache. The sweetness of the wine cools the spiciness of the lobster. Pretty good. Like the small kumamoto oysters with fancy sauces, which I like less than new england oysters with some cocktail sauce; I prefer my lobster simple with a little melted butter. But it's lobster and is well cooked.

Our first red wine. A pinot noir form South Africa.

Flash seared kobe beef with soy reduction and basil oil and some abalone mushrooms. Quite good and goes well with the wine, although I don't like reds very much. The soy reduction was just perfect and the kobe beef was great. This and the scallop dish were the best.

Sake. Very strong. Chris liked it better than the martini that was sake + vodka + cucmber; I much preferred the martini. Like I said earlier, I am bad at drinking alcohol.

Sushi. The o-toro is good, but I don't like o-toro as much as most. Chris liked it very much. Kanpachi is good, I skipped (lol?) the skipjack and enjoyed the red snapper and giant clam. Nothing extraordinary though. Chris didn't like the clam. I get some really good sushi at a small local (Providence, RI) place so sushi courses always seem like a bit of a waste at a place like Nobu/Shintaro/Morimoto for me.

5 year mediara something?

Sweet potato cake with sweet japanese red bean whipped cream, with some of the beans, and a sweet potato chip.

The sweet potato cake is ok and so are the beans. The bean whipped cream is excellent though, and so is the sweet potato chip. The wine thing is good too. By the end of this dish the sweet potato cake has grown on me and is nice and moist, sweet but not overbearlingly. This was a good dessert. I finished the whole thing, and I'm not a very big eater.

Cliff Notes:

I like Nobu better. 2 very good dishes, 1 good dish, and all the rest were ok. There was no dish that was bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow I am surprised you did not like the Omakase at Morimotos. I had the one in NY about a month ago. We are not big drinkers to obviously we left off the wine. It also seems like our dishes were different than yours with the exception of the lobster. We were given uni over foie gras over a large oyster for the fourth course which was amazing, did you get that as well?

[Xaston]

Everything I got I mentioned.

We went back the next night and got omakase again with a different menu (except they served the same dessert). No uni/foie gras/oyster for us. There was a foie gras dish on day 2 that was pretty good, but it wasn't with uni on an oyster.

[britspin]

Go to second (third, fourth?) the WD-50 recs. Went there on first trip to NY and it was outstanding. Had the tasting menu, and while not every dish was a success, the whole meal was utterly memorable. The deep fried mayo and the shrimp and basil macaroons will live long in the memory, as will the noodle soup (you squrt the "noodle" into the soup as a liquid, where it sets immediately). Also Wylie Dufresne was in the kitch, seemingly having a great time, and had a ten minute chat with us at the end of service. Really nice guy.

I also want to go to Tailor, when next in NY though my immediate dining priority in London is a trip back to St John, which I've been looking forward to for ages.

[MrMetropolitan]

our meal had: toro tartare (there was no tempura), hamachi over micro greens, a white fish with a vinagerette, the oyster dish i mentioned, a tea course, lobster, kobe beef with some sort of wine reduction with potatoes, and then desert was a kind of pound cake served with peach gelato and red beans and some type of wafer crisp which was great. I would go back again too because I liked it that much.

On another note, everyone is always talking about steak houses and I would like to give my opinion. I have been to the majority of good to great steakhouses in Manhattan. It seems the majority of steak houses in the area very closely resemble Peter Lugers with similar appetizers and steak choices. This gets old after a while even though it is good none of these places are really groundbreaking so to put them in the class of a place like Gotham is an insult to such restaurants. One steak house I have found to be semi-different is Quality Meats http://qualitymeatsnyc.com/ which does deviate from the standard shrimp cocktail, sizzling bacon, porterhouse + sides you are usually ordering at steakhouses in the area. The other steak house I really like is Frankie and Johnnie's http://www.frankieandjohnnies.com/ . F&J's has the best on bone rib eye I have ever had. Another tip if you go here, while it is not always on the menu you can ask for the Lobster Fra Diavlo which is amazing there and makes a great appetizer.

[El Diablo]

X,

"I like Nobu better. 2 very good dishes, 1 good dish, and all the rest were ok. There was no dish that was bad."

I felt the same way. Here's what I wrote previously after my visit there:

"Dinner ended up being Morimoto. We sat at the sushi bar and had the omikase. It was good, but nothing extra special. Overall, that was a letdown. A few dishes were incredible (steak w/ mashed potatoes, toro, soup course), but it was definitely mixed and somewhat inconsistent."

"I'm a huge Nobu fan and was really pumped about Morimoto, but had a very underwhelming (and pretty expensive) dinner there."

Also, here's a previous thread w/ other sushi reviews.

[yad]

I went to Gary Danko last night with the woman. Only the third real high-end dining experience I've had (other 2 were L'Espalier in Boston and Chez Panisse). It was fantastic:

We got to the restaurant about 20 minutes early. Sat at the bar and had a drink while waiting for our table, and wound up getting seated 10 minutes early.

The way Gary Dankos works is you choose 3, 4, or 5 courses ($65, $81, and $96 respectively). If you choose 5 courses you get appetizer, fish entree, meat entree, cheese course, and dessert. We decided to get one 4-course and one 5-course, skipping the meat on the 4-course meal (we just generally don't eat much meat).


This was the menu:

Autumn Menu
Caviar Service ~ 1 ounce. Black River Osetra $95 or Golden Osetra $125.

Appetizers
Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Salsify and Lettuce Cream
Lobster Salad with Persimmon, Chestnut Mousse and Pomegranate Seeds
Treviso and Romaine Salad with Banyuls Vinaigrette, Anchovies and Parmigiano-Reggiano
French Red Pumpkin Soup with Braised Rabbit Terrine, Pomegranate, Walnuts and Lavender
Seared Ahi Tuna with Avocado, Nori, Enoki Mushrooms and Lemon Soy Dressing
Seared Foie Gras with Caramelized Red Onions, Seckel Pear and Huckleberries
Risotto with Lobster, Rock Shrimp, Fall Root Vegetables and Sage Oil

Fish and Seafood
Pan Steamed Shellfish with Thai Red Curry and Jasmine Rice
Pancetta Wrapped Frog Legs with Sunchoke Purée, Potato and Lentils
Striped Bass with Potato-Chorizo Risotto, Pearl Onions, Niçoise Olives and Sauce Verte
Herb Crusted Yellowfin Tuna with Parsnip Purée, Maitake Mushrooms, Shallot Confit and Flageolet Beans
Seared Sea Scallops with Butternut Squash Purée, Roasted Cauliflower, Pistachios and Sour Cherries
Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms, Edamame and Tarragon
Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers

Meat and Game Birds
Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Quince
Herb Crusted Loin of Lamb with Beets, Polenta, Escarole and Raisin-Pinenut Relish
Beef Tenderloin with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Potato Gratin, Cipollini Onions and Stilton Butter
Quail Stuffed with Porcini and Foie Gras with Sweet Potato, Brussels Sprouts and Pomegranate Gastrique
Guinea Hen Breast with Hen Sausage, Bacon-Butternut Squash Risotto and Apple-Sage Compote
Moroccan Spiced Squab with Chermoula and Orange-Cumin Carrots

Savory Tart of Seasonal Vegetables with Quenelle of Goat Cheese and Mesclun Greens

Cheese
A Selection of Farmhouse and Artisanal Cheeses Presented Tableside

Desserts
Trio of Crème Brûlée with Cookies
Saffron Caramel Pear Tart with Noyau Ice Cream
Huckleberry Buttercake with Oranges and Spiced Vanilla Cream
Chocolate Caramel Peanut Torte with Peanut Butter Mousse, Coffee Ice Cream and Caramelized Banana
Chocolate Cream with Passion Fruit Mousse and Black Tea Ice Cream
Non-Cholesterol Grand Marnier Soufflé with Blackberry Sorbet
Seasonal Sorbet or Ice Cream Sampler with Cookies
Baked Chocolate Soufflé with Two Sauces



So to the meal:

Amuse-bouche was a small piece of seafood sausage sitting on fennel/mushroom cream. Sounds strange, but it was really excellent.

Appetizers: Woman had the oysters. These weren't on the shell, but in a little bowl with the salsify and cream and caviar. Absolutely spectacular. These are not flavors I am usually a huge fan of, but they really worked fantastic in this dish. Really one of those dishes where you "taste the sea." I had the lobster risotto, which was good but not fantastic. It was certainly perfectly creamy with a nice delicate balance of the flavors, but the rice grains did not have the perfect firmness.

Fish: We started by sharing the scallops. These were fantastic. With the accompanyments it was a really earthy, autumn dish. Very unusual for scallops, but it worked perfectly.

Fish and Meat: We had the tuna and the venison. Oh, now I see that the venison that we had is not on the menu I just cut and pasted from the website. It was juniper-crusted venison with braised red cabbage, cranberries, and some kind of strange fungus. That was really fantastic. The meat was perfectly cooked and perfectly complemented the sauce. The tuna was also great. Nowadays it seems like tuna is invariably done in an asian style so it was nice to have something different. This was also great. Like the scallops, very earthy, but in quite a different way -- sharper flavors but at the same time a bit heavier on the root vegetable feeling.

Cheese: We had both ordered the cheese course, but at this point we were getting pretty full and still had a ways to go. So we downgraded to sharing a single cheese plate. Gary Danko is famous for their cheese, and it did not disappoint. My favorite was a semi-firm French goat cheese, while the woman slightly preferred a firmer swiss sheep's milk cheese.

Dessert: We had the pear tart and the chocolate souffle. The souffle was merely decent -- actually not quite sweet enough (and I tend to like less sweet chocolate flavors). I didn't really want to get it, but felt almost obliged. Should have listened to myself. The pear tart, however, was fantastic. A perfectly crispy almost crackly-paper crust with a great balance of pear and caramel and saffron, and then intensely almond-flavored ice cream to accompany.

Petit-Fours: They brought a whole big plate of petit-fours at the end, which were also great. Favorites were some kind of fruit jelly (normally I hate these, but this was spectacular) and a tiny little passionfruit cream tart.

Wine: We got a bottle of fairly obscure california Pinot for $85. This was the only meh point of the meal. The wine list contains some spectacular choices, but the really good stuff is prohibitively expensive (like $350+). I wanted to try an Amarone but they had nothing under $400. So we wound up with one of their lower-end wines, which was OK but no great shakes. It would have been fine as a wine you bought at a wine shop for $15-$20, way overpriced at $85.

Service: Really spectacular from the moment we walked in the door. It seemed a bit stuffy for the first 5 minutes or so, but that was probably more us than them. After that it was excellent. They are perhaps slightly overly fussy (e.g. when I got up and looked around for the bathroom, I had not glanced left for half a second before someone asked me "bathroom, sir?" and directed me to the right place. When I got back, my napkin had been picked up from where I had dropped it on the table, and neatly refolded). But overall fairly unobtrusive while at the same time extremely attentive.

Overall: Despite the criticism about the wine, overall the meal was fantastic and worth every penny. Total came to $330 after tax and tip, and I'd definitely go back.