Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

So, a recent gap of six whole days between leaving IBM and starting at BAH allowed me to visit my favourite American city, New York. For four days, all I did was shop & eat :)

It was brilliant - there are lots of things I wish there had been time for (MOMA, ice skating at the Rockefeller centre, winter views around Central Park, walking across Brooklyn Bridge .. but I am definitely going back there again :) And thanks to local residentes Niki and Sarah (who were also kind enough to let me stay with them - thanks!!) we discovered some local gastronomic delights:

Ruby's
Where: 219 Mulberry St near the cnr of Spring St
A little piece of Australia in the Big Apple - a decent latte and sticky date pudding! Definitely a hole in the wall place which wouldn't sit more than sixteen people - I ate here last time I was in NY and it's as good as I remember :) Plus it's walking distance to the young designers market ..

Bourgeois Pig
Where: 122 E 7th St btw 1st Avenue and Avenue A
Fondue heaven. A Sarah&Niki gem with Moulin Rouge style music and lighting, comfortable sofas and delicious champagne cocktails. We sampled the Italian five cheese and the white and dark chocolate - both were excellent.

Momofuku
Where: 163 First Ave btw 10th and 11th
This noodle bar was rated in every guide I saw about food in NY. Simple food done with quality ingredients such as Berkshire pork. I loved the communal eating table, ramen noodles, sake recommendation and attentive service.

Room 4 Dessert
Where: 17 Cleveland Place btw Spring and Kenmare
BA's inflight magazine mentioned this restaurant as a place which only served dessert - a concept I had to witness for myself. It was perfect. You sit at a long bar and choose from smal desserts served in glasses, or mini smorgasboards with inventive names like choc'n'awe. There are dessert wines, wines and cocktails to pair with each dessert and our service was absolutely amazing, possibly some of the best I've ever experienced .. this is definitely a must-visit.

Gramercy Tavern
Where: 42 East 20th St.
Wow. On my last night in NY, Niki managed to score us a last minute reservation to Gramercy Tavern. I loved the old school charm of the place - a top restaurant that feels like it has been around for several generations (and in a good way). Plus we spotted Jim from the American version of the Office :) The three course meal was excellent - and again top marks for service when Sarah couldn't decide between two desserts and they brought both of them out for her! The finishing touch was a breakfast muffin for the next day to complete the experience. Yummm!

Fat Duck

Fat Duck
Where: High St, Bray, Berkshire, SL6 2 AQ
Website: www.fatduck.co.uk (read the philosophy section - very interesting!)

Some religious restaurants experiences are months in the making, and some just .. well .. happen. Renee (an old school friend of mine) had suggested going to Fat Duck while we were sipping drinks at Level 42 a few weeks ago and we'd all said we were really keen to go there.

However, knowing the months-long waiting list at these places I was expecting that it would happen sometime in early 2007. Ren, the organising superstar, called and asked for any slot in the next two months. There was nothing .. but they promised to get back to her if anyone cancelled. And luckily for us, someone did! A table of six, Saturday lunch booking was available - Ren texted on Thurs and by some twist of fate we were all free!

The Fat Duck is (on some lists) the #2 restaurant in the world - and it is in a small town in between London and Oxford. We caught a train out to Maidenhead (trains were very delayed and resulted in our party of 6 becoming a party of 5) and explored a little before catching a thrill-chasing taxi to the restaurant.

From the outside, it is quite an unassuming place. It would seat less than 100 people, and was all muted walls, stunning flowers and low ceilings. We ate for five hours! (it was quite surreal emerging into twilight). One of our keepsakes was a copy of the menu (why don't all tastings restaurants have this?) which has made the blow-by-blow detail below easier to recreate :)

Course 1
One of the things that Heston Blumental (the chef) is famous for is being scientific and being experimental. So the first dish we had was a palate cleanser which had green tea and lime in it which were 'prepared' with liquid nitrogen. Being instructed to 'delicately' place something the size of a walnut in your mouth and eat it at once, and immediately, set us off laughing as the nitrogen meant we all had 'smoke' coming out of our noses (the term dragon lady came to mind!) It looked like a mini meringue so you didn't expect it to be cold - was very refreshing.

Course 2
Beetroot and orange jelly. Interesting flavours as the orange jelly was savoury and a little bitter, and the beetroot was sweet (the opposite to what we would have expected).

Course 3
Oyster with passionfruit jelly and lavender. This was absolutely delicious! I love oysters - and the sweetness of the passionfruit and lavender was subtle enough to let the taste of the sea come through. I also lucked in as Ty didn't like his so I got to have two of them .. mmm :)

Course 4
Pommery grain mustard ice cream with red cabbage gazpacho. The colour of this food was fantastic - the red cabbage gazpacho had a fluorescent purple colour I've never seen in a food substance before (not even artificially!). The ice cream did taste like a strong mustard and worked well with the cabbage - who knew ice cream could be this interesting?

Course 5
Pea puree, jelly of quail, langoustine cream, and fois gras. This was served with a bit of toast (oh, incidentally, the white bread at the restaurant was great) and looked very simple from first glances before you had a spoonful and realised there were so many layers to it. It was very rich, so the serving sizes were perfect.

Course 6
Blumenthal's signature dish - snail porridge. When I had read about it, I had imagined a bowl of congee with snails in it, so reality was far different (and better) than expectation. Firstly, the colours of the dish were standout - green congee with joselito ham, snails and what I think was chicory on the top. This was loved by everyone - I think my second favourite course.

Course 7
Roast foie gras. This came with almond fluid gel, cherries and was topped with chamomile tea. Very very decadent and rich flavours.

Course 8
Sardine on toast sorbet with mackerel and marinated sesame ginger. Sadly I am not a "fishy fish" fan so this was my least favourite dish - it was still very well put together and the sorbet did taste like sardines on toast.

Course 9
Salmon poached with licorice served with asparagus, vanilla mayonnaise and grapefruit. I loved this - the asparagus was tender, the salmon perfect and the visual representation made it even more appealing.

Course 10
Poached breast of Anjou pigeon, with pastilla of leg covered with pistachio, cocoa and four spices. Pigeon tastes nothing like chicken - which I was expecting it to be like! Very gamey - liked the foamy sauce and the pasilla.

Course 11
Mrs Marshall's Margaret Cornet. Little cones of heaven - who knew that a woman managed to freeze 1L ice cream faster than modern machines can today? This was an old recipe of hers with apple - we all wanted another one of these!

Course 12
Mango and Douglas Fir Puree - bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrent sorbet, blackcurrant and green peppercorn jelly. Oh dessert - universally loved! The blackcurrent jellies were tiny cubes (0.5cm cubed) which had huge flavour with the peppercorns! Loved all of it - the plates were very clean at the end of this course!

Course 13
This is where we entered 'breakfast' mode (admittedly we had been eating for about 3.5 hours at this point :) So we had parsnip flakes with parley milk to start with, and some sherbet.

Course 14
Another signature dish - scrambled egg and bacon ice cream, treacle, tea jelly, french toast. A gas cooker was brought out and prepared using 'eggs' (which had somehow got scrambled egg mix on the inside) and liquid nitrogen instead of heat! The product looked exactly like scrambled eggs, and tasted like them too (albeit at ice cream temperature). The treacle was luxurious and the french toast was sooooo good. This was my favourite dish. Having tea on the side in a jelly form was very cleansing (and I imagine, possible to recreate at home? would be a perfect dessert to any asian meal).

Course 15
Earl grey Hot/Cold. Wow. One cup. No barriers. And yet, somehow, earl grey on the left was cold, and earl grey on the right was warm so when you drank it you had temperature sensations. The liquids had different viscosities which might explain how they separated them. Very very impressive.

Course 16
Petits Fours. To finish off, we had coffee and tea (I sampled the orchid oolong which actually really smelled like orchids) and petits fours - nothing is done by halves so there were whiskey jellies, violet tartlets and mint and pistachio chocolates. Pure heaven.

Ultimately, it was an amazing experience. The food was not only well prepared and thought out, it was challenging - eating foods that were unusual, or unusually prepared. A far cry from the comfort food that Blumenthal is now exploring on TV :)