What better place to start than Jean-Georges, one of the only restaurants in New York that has garnered a three-star Michelin rating and a four-star New York Times rating. It belongs to the chef of the same name (the guy with the throat-clearing last name of Vongerichten), who, according to some, helped bring nouvelle cuisine to the Big Apple.
The lunch yesterday was great. We got to meet the man himself, though briefly, and took a tour of the huge kitchen both upstairs and down inside the Trump building overlooking Central Park. As a budding chef, I was tremendously impressed by the cleanliness, order and layout of his kitchen.
Oh yeah, and the food was pretty good, also.
The five of us at our table got to pass around several plates, including some amuse bouches and a complementary first course sent over from Jean-Georges. The sea trout sashimi, in trout eggs, lemon, dill and horseradish—the free first course—was easily the stand-out dish. It was amazing, with a great presentation and good tart taste.
The only real downer was the amuse bouche, a trio of fresh mozzarella with pickled rhubarb, a crab fritter with mango sauce and some kind of herb shot. I liked the herb shot, but fellow classmate Bruno thought it was just blended herbs…which it was, and it looked like it. The mozzarella was kind of blah, and I didn’t care for the rhubarb. The crab fritter was ok, but too much going on, with the mustard and mango.
Other standouts include the Parmesan-crusted confit of chicken leg (chicken, when cooked like this, is my favorite dead animal aside from fish) and the goat cheese gnocchi with caramelized baby asparagus.
Here's some of our group in front of the sign (you can barely make it out, though). Food pics to come tomorrow.
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