Jewel Bako

To tell you the truth, I really didn’t want to visit Jewel Bako again during my Michelin adventure. I’d visited in the past with Joe (it was one of those last minute meals we had when I helped him move into his first apartment) and neither of us were really impressed with the fish or the restaurant (in fact, I specifically remember that I thought it smelled like a cat’s litter box!) I couldn’t find my original photographs and a bunch of people told me to give it a second try, so I ended up giving the restaurant a second chance. I had to go earlier in the month because I wanted to give it a fair shot; if Jewel Bako was up against Masa, I’m sure it wouldn’t have gotten a generous rating.

My date and I were actually planning to watch a movie before going to the restaurant so we could sit at the sushi counter but then we were both running late from work and decided we could only do one thing: eat or watch a movie. Of course eating won out (I mean, when does it not?) but we couldn’t sit at the sushi counter, instead, we sat at one of the tables in their optical-illusion like room. Neither of us were in the mood for the omakase so we decided to order a la carte and started with some miso soup:

And some edamame with sea salt:

We ordered the selection of sashimi to share:

Out of the blue fin tuna, yellowtail, salmon, fluke, jumbo sweet shrimp, and scallops, my favorites were the scallops with lime zest, tuna, and jumbo sweet shrimp.

I’ve become quite the scallop fanatic and ordered the scallop roll in addition to the spicy tuna roll, the blue fin tuna roll, and the unagi roll for us to share:

The scallop makimono roll included yuzu zest, avocado, scallions, and chive oil and while I thought I would be a big fan, I thought the scallions and chive oil overpowered the delicate flavor of the scallops. The spicy tuna roll was alright – it came with yellowtail, scallions, and cucumber, and the other small rolls were nothing special (I mean, how can you mess up eel and blue fin tuna?)

For dessert, we ordered the green tea ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate shortbread cookies with chocolate sauce and chocolate covered almonds:

Probably the highlight of the meal; the chocolate shortbread cookies were just the right amount of sweetness with the green tea ice cream and chocolate covered almonds.

Overall, the meal was enjoyable and I did have a good time on my date but I just don’t understand how the restaurant is consistently on the Michelin list; the service was okay and the cuts of fish weren’t anything extremely special (also, I was a bit annoyed that the servers kept the soy sauce container and determined how much you would get). I don’t know if I’d recommend this restaurant to someone visiting from out of town but it’s definitely a neighborhood spot I’d probably order take-out from if they delivered/it wasn’t so expensive.

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!

Soto

I’ve walked past Soto many times after work or on my way to La Palapa on 6th Avenue and never realized it was a restaurant because it has an unmarked door and the windows are too small to get a good peek inside:

I made a late reservation for Friday night – 10:15 – and I was pretty hungry by the time I arrived at the restaurant. The restaurant is medium-sized; around 8 seats at the sushi counter, 7 or 8 tables behind the sushi counter, and another room with larger tables. The menu is quite large and has a combination of cooked foods and sushi – since we were so hungry, I took care of the ordering.

We started with fresh water eel from Taiwan with pickled cucumbers and seaweed:

And then made our way to the uni tempura with uni powder:

My date was on the fence on whether or not he liked uni to begin with but I thought this might be a good dish to ease into the somewhat acquired taste of uni – fried yet still very delicate and the dish still captured the original briny taste of the sea urchin.

Next, the most special dish of the night, steamed lobster with uni mousse:

The lobster was tender and chilled and made such an interesting pairing with the uni mousse. The lotus root wrapped around the lobster and uni added just enough crunch (without stealing the spotlight from the delicate flavors of the uni and lobster). The uni was slightly sweet and it was another great dish for someone that’s not incredibly into the texture of uni.

My least favorite dish of the evening was definitely the tuna tartare roll:

The roll comes with spicy tuna tartare, asian pear, cucumber, avocado, sesame, pine nuts, scallions, and a white kelp wrap and had so many different flavors that it was confusing and not tasty at the same time. We were both starving when we arrived at the restaurant and the table next to us ordered the same thing so we followed suit. I thought the pear and pine nuts really destroyed the taste of the roll and really regretted ordering it.

Another hot dish from the kitchen was the braised black cod with Japanese vegetables:

We both enjoyed the dish and when we were reviewing all of our favorites from the meal, this was consistently at the top of both of our lists.

I also ordered a couple pieces of nigiri:

The toro was probably my favorite but I’m also a sucker for anything with yuzu zest and sea salt (the scallop pieces on the right).

Soto’s dessert menu is pretty basic but we ended up ordering mochi because my date loves it:

Overall, I thought the cooked foods were much more impressive than any of the nigiri or rolls we tried; I definitely plan on returning and eating a lot more uni.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you’re enjoying the holidays with your family! We are spending the holidays in New York but here are some family pictures from Thanksgiving in North Carolina:

Laura visited North Carolina with us over Thanksgiving and my dad was also in the US for a conference in Chicago – it was nice to have so many people spend time with us during the holiday:

I’ll be back later this week with the wrap up of my Michelin adventure!

Michelin Update

I just confirmed my reservation for Saturday’s dinner at Masa!

Earlier in the week, I was talking with a coworker about dining at Masa and how I still had a few restaurants to go to before the end of the year. I said I initially wanted to make Masa my last Michelin meal of the year but since I didn’t plan well, I still had Cafe Boulud, Gilt, and River Cafe to visit after my Saturday visit to Masa. WELL, I went home and decided that I could do all of them if I just ate out every single night…so that’s what I’m doing! Last night I dined at Cafe Boulud, tonight I’m heading to Gilt, and tomorrow I’m going to River Cafe before my late dinner at Masa.

It might be a good thing that I can’t take photographs at Masa because by the time I head there, I will probably have grown at least two extra chins.