the ulterior epicure

1st Course: Maine Peekytoe Crab Salad
Daniel, New York

I was young, both figuratively and literally, the first time I ate at Daniel. That was five years ago.

My friend and I were treated like the dishwasher’s stepchildren.

I exaggerate, of course. But Daniel was clearly a place for fancy pants that I’ll never get to wear.

Service aside, Daniel’s food wasn’t very memorable. I mean, for the small hill of cash we laid down, we shouldn’t have walked out of the restaurant with holes in our stomachs. Hue and I walked back up to his place on 85th and stopped in at the Hot ‘n Crusty for some giant, fresh-out-of the oven cookies for a satisfying midnight snack.

Continue reading ‘review: maugre expectations…’

Santa Barbara Sea Urchins
Eleven Madison Park, New York

The sidereal has turned.  The stars have aligned.

In almost every respect, Eleven Madison Park is the new kid on the constellation.

In the months since my last visit in May, Eleven Madison Park has been awarded four stars from Frank Bruni, the former restaurant critic of the New York Times, and picked up its first Michelin star.

So, I’m not going to tell you anything here that you can’t learn from many other sources, including this blog: Eleven Madison Park is great.

Is it perfect?

No.

But the restaurant that Executive Chef Daniel Humm has created with restaurateur Danny Meyer and a team of young, upbeat, and hard-working restaurant staff members has, over the last three years, proven itself worthy of joining the most elite circle of New York restaurants.

Continue reading ‘review: raining stars…’

Steamed Garoupa Fillet with Morels
Lung King Heen, Hong Kong

Pleased to let me arrange our entire eating itinerary, my friend Mr. RBI flew all the way from the U.S. just to eat with me during my first three days of my trip to Hong Kong. It was his first time in Asia.

Being a party of two, there was no way we could cover any decent amount of a menu as lengthy as the one at Lung King Heen, or really, any Chinese restaurant. So, the tasting menu – as loathe as I am to admit it – really did make sense for us, especially if it was representative of the menu as it had been two weeks prior to my arrival. It hit all the highlights: shark’s fin soup, abalone, garoupa, etc.

A last minute change in the tasting menu prior to my arrival, however, left me faced with a tasting menu that sounded much more French than Cantonese. A mycophile I might be, I wasn’t flying half-way around to world to eat morels, chanterelles, and porcini at Lung King Heen. The “Mushroom Tasting” wasn’t going to fly.

Continue reading ‘review: from the dragon’s perch…’

Daniel, New York

I talk so rarely about the friends with whom I eat.

They are saints.

They’re patient: delaying gratification until my camera has sufficiently captured the scene.

They’re generous, inviting me to wander all over their plates at will with my fork.

They’re accepting – they embrace (even if they don’t fully understand) my strange obsessions (I’m thinking of a situation involving my friend Houston and a plate of lievre a la royale).

And for reasons that remain a mystery to me, they pass up perfectly normal, if not low-key dining options in order to accompany me on my multi-course, mega-calorie, and many-houred meals.

They deserve a spotlight.
Continue reading ‘travel: the wizard of roz…’

“Porcupine” Milk Custard Buns
Tim’s Kitchen, Macau

If you’re the type that reads this blog with any regularity, then it won’t take much to convince you that there are some people who are born with a higher (indeed, abnormal) affinity toward food. In fact, I’m a strong believer that this predisposition is prenatal.

To wit: when my mother was pregnant with me – this in her third trimester – she developed an immense and intense craving for Chinese salted fish, a pungent (some would say, awful-smelling) preserved seasoning of sorts used most commonly in Cantonese cuisine. My mother is not Cantonese. Neither is my father.

So persistent was my demand for this stuff that my mother woke my father up at 3 a.m., demanded that he drive her to the airport – in a snow storm – so that she could board the earliest flight to Chicago where my aunt picked her up and took her to Chinatown, where she bought ten bags full of salted fish (if you know anything about this product, that’s enough to last a life-time).

And wouldn’t you know it? I happen to love the stuff.

Continue reading ‘review: a preternatural prenatal yen…’

Tea-Smoked Bresse Pigeon
Man Wah, Hong Kong

If the little dish of fried walnuts was the fantastic opener to our meal at Man Wah, the Kung Po Bean Curd (HK$110) was the headliner. The tumble of fluffy cubes of tofu – thinly glazed with a crisp, fried sheen of spicy sauce and commingled with blistered red chiles and crunchy cashews – earned a salivating assortment of descriptions including fiery, savory, and comforting.

A surprisingly impressive Peking duck service followed, and a fantastic eggplant dessert closed out the evening on a high note.

Man Wah surprised me.

I guess it shouldn’t have, as it came highly recommended by a number of locals with good taste.

Continue reading ‘review: gnawing on brains…’

European Ham Assortment
Pierre, Hong Kong

Conventional wisdom dictates that if Pierre Gagnaire’s not in the kitchen, don’t go.

I violated this rule, and I paid the price.

But I did so in the company of a veteran and devotee of Gagnaire’s restaurants – he’s been to every one of them: Paris, Bangkok, Hong Kong, London, and Tokyo (which just closed), and has met the man in all of them.

It was comforting to know that Yong shared my disappointment in our meal at Pierre – Gagnaire’s one Michelin-starred restaurant atop the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.

Continue reading ‘review: farrago…’

Terra at Encantado Auberge & Resort
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Dining at Terra, I’ve been told, can be a gamble. While Chef Charles Dale has good intentions, they don’t always translate on the plate.

I’d agree.

Terra is the flagship restaurant at the Encantado Auberge & Resort, tucked away in the hills outside of Santa Fe. Being one of the closest dining options to the Santa Fe Opera, and the opera being in its final string of performances for this year’s season, the restaurant was heavily trafficked while we were there.

It was booked solid for the early dinner slots the night we had tickets (the last night of the opera), so we decided to go late the evening before.

Continue reading ‘review: where’s my huitlacoche?…’

Alex at the Wynn
Las Vegas, Nevada

I have a friend who works in the kitchen at Alex at the Wynn.

He had been begging me to visit for quite some time.

Truth be told, I wasn’t really hot on Alex before I went. The food seemed pro forma in the reading. I mean, what am I to do with one more Franco-neo-Italian meal?

But the spring menu looked quite good (bastilla!).

Sadly, the restaurant went through its annual closure just before my trip to Las Vegas. With it went the spring menu. In came the summer menu, debuting just two days before my arrival. It didn’t look nearly as exciting (to me) as the spring menu did.

But I’ll tell you, you wouldn’t know that they were still working out the kinks in the new summer menu based on the meal I had.

Continue reading ‘review: impresario of sauce…’