Cafe Boulud

The year is almost over and in case you don’t follow me on foursquare, facebook, and twitter, I don’t want to keep you in suspense: I finished all of the Michelin restaurants in New York (with two weeks to spare!) I visited Cafe Boulud near the end of my adventure:

My mom and I managed to get to the restaurant even though it was SO cold the day we went and I didn’t realize it was so far from the subway. It was also the first time (in a long time) that I’d been up that far on the east side (my usual limit is the 59th Street Bloomingdales). The restaurant was packed even though it was pretty late in the evening and the waiter brought us to a table where we sat next to each other, which was a bit odd, so my mom decided to move across from me.

We started off with an amuse bouche from the chef:

And one by one – a risotto ball:

Fluke sashimi with pomegranates and citrus:

And cured salmon with beets and horseradish:

And three different types of bread: olive (my favorite), cranberry walnut, and country bread:

The menu at Cafe Boulud is split into different categories: classical and country cooking, seasonal flavors, inspired by the market, and world cuisine. We tried a bit from everything, starting with the Linguini razor clams, fines herbes, pouilly fumé baby squid, roasted fennel:

The kitchen was nice enough to split the order onto two plates (and gave us both very generous portions); my mom is a bit picky with seafood but really enjoyed the dish and thought the razor clams were really delicious. I liked the pasta and the creamy linguini sauce that was finished with a white wine sauce.

For my main course, I ordered the venison with pumpkin flan:

And my mom ordered the lamb rack with eggplant, kataifi wrapped shoulder, and grilled haloumi cheese:

The venison was a little gamey for our tastes but my mom’s lamb was really delicious, especially the shoulder that was wrapped in a noodle-type wrapper that was gently fried (actually, it reminded me of one of my favorite dim sum dishes, the bird’s nest that has a layer of taro and then a pork filling). I enjoyed the pumpkin custard/flan but the venison was a little too heavy for what I was in the mood for (not at the fault of Cafe Boulud, I just realized after the pasta and amuse bouche and generous serving of bread that I didn’t want to fill up on meat).

We decided to pass on dessert but the restaurant was generous enough to bring us out madelines, their signature dessert:

And some wonderful candies:

Our favorite was the passion fruit gelee, which had such a concentrated passion fruit flavor that my mom and I almost had to fight for the last bite!

We both enjoyed Cafe Boulud; I thought it was a lot more casual than Daniel but the food was just as delicious. If I lived somewhat close to the restaurant, I’d definitely stop by more often, especially since their breakfast menu looks and sounds delicious!