An place full of beautiful food and some great tastes. Another modest entrance into a lovely setting with casually dressed waitstaff. Everyone starts with a 8 appetizers some of which made you long for larger bowls of them. The pork belly was one of them, full of complex tastes and melt in your mouth deliciousness. Also the radishes were a surprisingly tasty spicy taste with totally crisp texture. The cashews were addictive and the veal with nuts was a lip licker. Then our tasting started and the asparagus were good but not a wow, breaking the mood. But the fish with leek and ginger amped the level back up to a flavor explosion. The langoustine made me think of what ‘sweet and sour’ dishes could be if done well. Yum! The pork was very tender and appeared to have been cooked in a sous vide to keep the nice pink color. It was excellent with the spicy side salad it was a winner. The beef tasted more like a cut of pot roast and although it was tender it was overdone and needed seasoning. The duck was served on a waffle (Germany’s version of chicken and waffles?) and you wanted to eat every bit of it. The side broth didn’t seem as rich as it should have but the side terrine was spot on. The palate cleanser, frozen pear, was good enough to be a course in itself. The star of the desserts were the white chocolate bits, but at that point your palate had had a full night already.
Table set uproom
opening sparklerOpening sequence(start at 12:00 and clockwise): radish with Japanese mustard, cauliflower with red curry, cashew nuts, lilly blossoms, pork belly Szechuan style, hamachi crudo, jelly of veal with nuts, prawns in centerBoiled green asparagus, butter and green Thai chili with coriander coconut cream and mangofirst platesteamer to the tableinsideadd the brothSteamed Pikeperch, butter, spring leek and young pickled ginger with stock of 10 year aged Kamebishi soy sauceLangoustine and wasabi Cantonese style: stock made from fish sauce, mango & carrot; langoustine turned over in starch flour and eep fried in wok, marinated with wasabi manyonnaise and deep fried green riceclose uppresentationCarrot raw and cream, pickled papaya, sour tomato, trevisano salad and basilSmoked pork chin, jus from smoked paprika, nuoc mam jellyFrankie hung out with the pig(?) pillowManny’s dry aged beefshoulder, morel stock, braised beetroot, as jelly & meringue with morel mash, pearl onion pickled in port vinegar, green Thai pepperclose upPeking duck: breast, 5 spice waffle, apple & leek, jus of duck feetclose upduck and waffleduck liver terrine with pickled cucumber & ginger-leek creambrew presentationbrew of tongue, heart, stomach, winter melon and bamboo mushroomsome of art in restaurantFrozen pear with honey and fennelmore artRaw gariguettes strawberries, woodruff jelly and woodruff meringue, rhubarb-strawberry stock, ice cream, pondicherry pepper oilextra treatswhite chocolate treatsraspberry jellieslychee like fruitWe didn’t leave any white chocolate for FrankieEntrance after dark