It is Restaurant Week in New York (January 24th till February 6th). What is Restaurant Week you may ask? It's an occasion that happens twice annually, where participating restaurants, usually mid to high class, lower their prices to a standard price for the given time period. This Winter's Restaurant Week prices are $24.07 for Lunch and $35 for Dinner.
For this event, I've chosen to dine at my culinary idol's participating restaurant. The Maze by Gordon Ramsay is located at the London Hotel between 6th and 7th Ave, 54th Street in Manhattan. The 'screaming chef' is highly noted for his exceptionally exquisite dishes, as well as being the star of the TV series, Hell's Kitchen. Gordon Ramsay has earned 12 Michelin Stars over the years, placing him the world's 2nd for most Stars.
Up ahead are ALL of the dishes offered for the Restaurant Week event. Get ready for some food porn!
Photo credits to Alvin
Pre-Starter
Lightly salted '???' Bread with butter.
Not bad really, beats any bakery near me, that's for sure. It also goes well with the squash soup further down this post. (They provided 12 slices for my table)
Appetizers
Hubbard squash soup,
ragout of braised duck, black truffle
This, I would say is probably the best dish I've ever tasted in my life. The squash soup was seasoned perfectly. And in addition to that, the hints of spiciness in the soup worked really well with the braised duck and truffle. The duck, honestly, blew me away. It was simply immaculate. The combination of the two ingredients made this dish fit for a king. Tres Magnifique.
Marinated beetroot, ricotta, pine nuts,
Cabernet Sauvignon dressing
This sweet, yet sour creamy goodness was the prettiest of the dishes we had. The beetroot provided the sour delight, the ricotta changes the acidity to a nice gentle sweetness from heaven before the dressing kicks in for the wine aftertaste. I'm not much of a fan of the taste of wine, but this was an exception. It lifts the flavor.
Butter lettuce salad with Pommery mustard vinaigrette
tarragon, pickled red onions
I did not sample this dish. Sorry, was too busy 'gluttonizing' on my squash soup. What I'm assuming though, would be that it'll be pretty acidic, obviously due to the vinaigrette and pickled red onions.
Entree
Roasted Amish chicken breast,
braised red cabbage, bacon, thyme jus
The Amish chicken, oh my god, the chicken! It melts in your mouth with it's juiciness engulfing your pallets with its spot-on seasoning. The best chicken I've ever had! All those Peking Chickens in those fancy restaurants around here or in Malaysia's 5 star hotels rate no where close to this. It's an experience I can't describe since I only sampled a small amount from a friend. I did not have enough to fully analyze it. But I tell you this, there is no need to analyze, it's flawless.. This chicken's life was definitely not wasted. =)
Classic bouillabaisse Marseilles
with fennel garlic crouton and sauce rouille
The bouillabaisse may be the entree with the least portion, but this seafood delight is packed with absolute flavor. The gravy is infused with the taste of mussel and clam, and that my friends, is the key to this dish being as delicious it is. See, it's not all about having 10, 20 fancy ingredients in efforts to make it taste good, but giving the main ingredients its say on your tongue is perhaps best.
Aged 10 oz. rib eye, sautéed broccoli rabe, country bread
This beats Applebee's 50:1! I don't know what's in that sauce, but it's minty and yummy. The mid-rare steak cuts as smooth as butter, or a little rougher, but smooth nonetheless. The bread is lightly salted, and could be applied with optional butter, but it being so good, it deserves the 'You can even eat it on it's own' title, and not Gardenia. The broccoli is salted with what seems to taste like salted fish. Not sure if it is, but it does taste like it. Anyways, the steak was tender, juicy, and well seasoned.
Carnaroli risotto of sunchoke,
Honshimeji mushrooms and mascarpone
My risotto! Reason why I chose this was because I simply never had a risotto. It's a famous dish that's always cooked up in Hell's Kitchen, and I'd like to have tasted it, which I did. It's a creamy dish. The rice was interesting, I love it's texture. It has a little crunch, a feedback, but not undercooked. The mushrooms don't really compliment the rice as I hoped it would, but it went well with the cheese topping. It's an overall good dish, but I prefer the Amish chicken though. =)
Dessert
Valrhona chocolate fondant with green cardamom caramel
sea salt and almond ice cream
Now, 5/6 of the party ordered this for dessert, including me. There's only 2 choices, and majority chose the fondant because it sounds more attractive. Seriously, would you go for Custard, or a Fondant(pronounced Fon-Dohn, with a Frenchy accent)? Fondant sounds high class, even though the dish is somewhat a souffle. But in my opinion, the dessert started off delicious, the sea salted almond ice cream was exquisite. The chocolate fondant however, it started off great, but down at the bottom consists of the green cardamom caramel, which is gingery, and I don't really like ginger. So, sadly to say, that was a turn off for me.
Vanilla custard with citrus fruits
brown sugar oats and mandarin sorbet
Ah yes, the word which lost to the fondant, the custard. I should have chose this. I sampled it, and the sweet and acidic mix of the custard and sorbet went incredibly well together. The nuts were somewhat hard (That's what she said!) according to my cousin, Alvin. But everything else complimented each other well.
Bill for 6
USD208.61
Final Say
"Orgasmic!" 9/10
"Look at Chester, he looks like he's about to cry," Ryan Chong, after I had my first spoon of squash soup.
Most of you who are Starbucks fans would know that Starbucks is celebrating it's 40th Anniversary. A celebration which is celebrated with an introduction of a new cup size, a new logo, new pastries and a new beverage, the Cocoa Cappuccino. This post would be a short review on the experience I personally had with both Hot and Iced versions of the drink.
