Momofuku Ko(ma)

Last sunday I had a pleasure of trying out the much talked about and hyped 12-seat bar-style seating restaurant by David Chang, Momofuku Ko. All the hype made me a bit skeptical, but intrigued. A foodie friend of mine went (twice actually) and had gave it good reviews so I was further convinced should at least check it out once. Even if it wasn’t fantastic, it is at least a very well known landmark on the culinary geography and an interesting experience to boot.

After a relatively short period (2 weeks) of clicking refresh maniacly at 10am on the reservation website I managed to score 2 seats for Sunday night at 9:10pm. I went with a friend of mine who is also a big foodie, and I thought would be the appropriate company for a restaurant like this. They offer three levels of drink pairings: $50, $85, and $150. We opted for the middle road.

The full line up and more details after the jump…

Cleto Chiali Brut Rose NV
Spiced chicharron
Bisquit w/ black pepper butter and a mirin reduction
Seafood sausage w/ pickled red onions, pickled mustard seed, and a couple shaves of green onions

Marco Cecchini Tove 2006 (Fruili, Italy) - Tocai blend
Madai (Japanese Red Snapper) w/ poppy seeds and chives in spicy buttermilk

Masumi Okuden-Kanzukuri (Junmai sake)
Turnips, mustard greens, some sort of vegetarian caviar, and some sort beans in a bacon dashi broth

Vina Godeval 2007 (Valdeorras, Spain) - Godello
Smoked soft-boiled chicken egg w/ yolk running into the onion sous vide, served w/ fingerlig potato chips, tenessee caviar (?) and baby herbs

Fratelli Alessandria Verduno (Alba, Italy) - Pelaverga
Hand-torn pasta with matsutaki mushrooms, pine nuts, and pine needle oil

Calvet Thunevin Cuvée Constance (Languedoc Roussillon, France) - Grenache blend
Diver scallops pan-fried in butter w/ grilled black bass, diced radish (fine brunoise) in a pepperocini pureé

Marco Cecchini Verlit 2005 (Fruili, Tialy) - dessert white blend
Riesling gelee, lychee, and pine nut brittle under a giant mound of freshly grated foie gras torchon

Ramirez de la Piscina Reserva 2001 (Rioja, Spain) - Tempranillo
Sliced duck breast w/ chinese green beans, water chestnuts, and a tart berry sauce

Reymos Espumoso NV (Valencia, Spain) - Moscatel
Pineapple sorbet on top of diced dried pineapples

Alvear Solera “1927″ NV (Andalucia, Spain) - Pedro Ximenez
Yellowcake ice cream, crumbled peanut butter, glazed strawberries, and a rasbery puree

Overall, the combination of textures and flavors were quite unique. I have never had this caliber of modern cooking before so it was great experience. Some of the drink pairings were a bit diappointing though though. The Alvear PX didn’t really belong next to yellow cake ice cream and stawberies. Maybe next to the apple pie dish I read other people were served, but they should probably alter their drink pairings if there is a significant menu change that deems it.

My favorite moment of the night was definiely when “Hard Knock Life” by Jay-Z started playing at the same time we were served a rather luxurious dish of shaved foie gras torchon. Yes, definitely a very hard knock life being enjoyed by the patrons tonight.

The venue itself is interesting and unlike most others of its caliber because you can see the food you are going to eat being prepared right in front of you, whereas at places like Le Bernadin you have a whole ensemble of staff between you and the kitchen. Its definitely not for someone that likes the formalities of fine dining, but if you like tasty food you should probably come here at least once.

Here is the detailed dish by dish review :

• Chicharon - Very bland and disappointing considering the its fried pork skin. I expected quite a bit more.
  Bisquit - Amazing. The butter had just the right amount of pepper and the sweetness from the mirin reduction was great.
• Seafood sausage - The most interesting thing about this was the pickled mustard seeds. Nice textural continuity with the other dishes that had caviar. The actual sausage wasn’t that interesting to me and just served as a base to the crunchy onions and mustard seeds.
• Medai - The combination of fish, poppy seeds, and spicy buttermilk was great. The poppy seeds seemed to give continuity with the previous mustard seeds and upcoming caviar, and fine brunoise radishes.
• Bacon dashi soup - Disappointing. The only thing I really liked about this dish were the surprisingly potent mustard greens and the vegetarian caviar which provided interesting texture. The beans were fresh from water and did not integrate well into the soup at all. The turnips were… well, turnips… I like the dashi broth I can get at Izakaya 10 any day over the bacon version here.
• Smoked egg - An amazing and interesting take on breakfast. A runny egg w/ salt (aka: caviar) some herbs, and potatoes, and some sous vide onions. I love runny yolk and the combo of velvety yolk, crispy fingerling potato chips, caviar, and onions was an amazing textural composition as well as flavor. It also looks absolutely amazing. I didn’t really get much smoke out of it, but it was still a winner.
• Torn pasta soup - I liked the pine nuts and the pine needle oil, but the pasta was mushy and the mushrooms were too raw for me.
• Diver scallops & bass - The scallops were nicely browned on the outside (in a healthy dose of butter mind you) and rare on the inside, but the bass should have probably been served with the skin off because it was peeling and unappealing visually and texturally. I did like the pepperccini puree though and the clean flavor of the radish was a nice balace. In the end, I really prefer scallops raw and this didn’t manage to convince me otherwise.
• Duck - I generally like duck and this was cooked perfectly medium which was nice. The skin was unfortunately not crunchy at all though which I was really looking forward to. The water chestnuts were a great fresh compliment to the richness of the duck though. Overall, this was good, but not any more amazing than I usually find duck.
• Pineapple sorbet - The taste and texture of sorbet was great, but I think the dish could have been much better if the chewy dehydrated pineapples had a bit of salt or pepper in it to give the sweetness of the sorbet some constrast. It also would have brought this up from something I can probably put together with bought ingredients to something that would take me some time to figure out.
• Deconstructed cake - The yellowcake ice cream was fantastic and tasted great with the PB crumbles and the tartness of the fruit. It was an amazing way to end the meal off. My one really big complaint is I have no idea why they paired it with a PX when the moscato before went along amazingly with this dish. I wish I would have saved more of the moscato and then had the PX on its own at the end of the meal.

Sadly, there were no photo’s allowed otherwise I could show you the amazing presentation that dishes had. Now even though it was pretty inconsistant I would still try to check this place out at least once. I might try again, but wait until spring when they have a whole new fleet of ingredients to use.