Dressler

Only 60 more days until the end of 2010 and I still have quite a few restaurants to visit on the list of Michelin-starred restaurants! Luckily, I only have 15 restaurants left…well, 15 restaurants that I don’t have reservations for yet. ACK! I need to start going to restaurants more often than twice a week (three this week: Sushi of Gari, Kajitsu, and Picholine!)

I haven’t visited Brooklyn that many times this year but made a special exception to visit Dressler for another Michelin-starred dinner. Cliff was visiting from San Francisco (to celebrate his new job and to work on a Youtube project!) and we met up for dinner with our other friend, Erika. Dressler is located in Williamsburg (almost across the street from Peter Luger’s):

The restaurant shares the same owner as DuMont and DuMont Burger and chef helped create the menu at all of the restaurants. We were excited to have dinner and decided to order a bit of everything to share. We started with a little bread:

For an appetizer, we ordered the pan roasted diver scallops with cauliflower, chanterelle mushrooms, and a veal reduction:

The scallops were delicious but the accompanying sauces and mushrooms were too salty and overshadowed the sweet taste of the scallops. I had a chance to recreate the dish with the chef and it turned out a lot better (less salty and the flavors tasted a lot cleaner, but when we visited, I wasn’t a fan of the dish).

For our entrees, we ordered the bacon wrapped heritage pork with anjou pear, spaetzle, and red cabbage:

The pork was my favorite entree of the evening; the combination of the subtly sweet pear and red cabbage with the savory pork and spaetzle was a very hearty bite and a perfect fall dish.

We also ordered the organic king salmon with cauliflower, parsnip, baby brussel sprouts, butternut squash, and apple cider:

The salmon was Cliff’s favorite dish and was a little undercooked for me (although if my mom had gone with us, she probably would’ve loved the way it was cooked). I liked the crispy skin of the salmon and the edges that were cooked medium rare, but I though the center of the salmon was a little too raw.

Our final entree was the Hudson Valley chicken with with escarole, housemade dumplings, hen of the woods mushrooms, bacon lardons, and pearl onions:

This dish was entirely too salty (even the escarole was too salty!) but I brought some home after dinner and my brother thought it was really good. I think it was too salty because we were eating a lot of salty things that evening and eating another salty entree was just adding fuel to the fire.

For a side, we ordered the St. Louis style ribs with a bourbon glaze:

The meat fell off the bone and had a very sweet glaze (maybe a little too sweet) but I liked the ribs enough to eat more than my fair share 🙂

For dessert, I wasn’t really in the mood to order anything but obliged to help Erika eat whatever she ordered. We ended up getting the honey bamboo panna cotta with almonds, bee pollen, and raspberries:

The panna cotta was hands down the best thing we’d eaten at Dressler; subtly sweet, custardy, and very creamy with a combination of crunchy toasted almonds and semi-tart raspberries. It was very delightful (when I returned the next week, Chef Polo informed me that they took it off the menu for the winter!)

And the three of us after dinner:

I enjoyed dinner at Dressler and I thought the service was really great, but it felt more like a good neighborhood restaurant, not a Michelin-starred restaurant. Their drinks are also great (I had a pear margarita that wasn’t too sweet and had fresh pear puree) but I think the service and quality of food are more aligned with Bib Gourmand than a Michelin-star.