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| - Came here after braving through snowmageddon and expecting an awesome meal. This place is too loud, feels like a bar. Sadly, it's an overrated gastronomy cuisine with bad service and horrible decor. Seriously, this place is like a McDonald compared to Alinea (unfair comparison, I know).
Drinks: No menu? Erm... Then, how do I know what you're good at? They also have very limited wine menu. Don't know whether that's because of winterlicious or that's just how they usually are. The attitude of the server did not help either. He just said, "You can order whatever drink you want." No recommendation, suggestion, none, nada, nothing at all. Then he just walked away and didn't come until we flag him to order food.
Appetizer: Pickled Irish organic salmon + creme fraiche + avocado + puffed tapioca + yuzu vinaigrette
Horrible plating. The chef just threw some avocado randomly, lo and behold it's a deconstructed cuisine. However, out of all the others that I ate that night, the taste and texture are the best. The salmon is poached so that it's cooked around 1/4" on the outside and raw on the inside. So, it's like eating boiled salmon and salmon sashimi at the same time. The yuzu vinaigrette taste very fresh and surprisingly taste really good with what seemed like an avacado puree. The puffed tapioca adds a nice crunch.
Main: Braised pork belly + fermented black bean + lily bulb + maitake mushroom + chicharon
A decent meal. I was a bit afraid when I ordered this because it's supposed to be topped with fermented black bean. I ate natto before and could not stand the smell. My friends all ordered the other two mains, so I was convinced to get this one. This one feels like it had more care in its plating compared to the appetizer. In terms of taste, it taste like a regular chinese braised pork belly that my dad used to make topped with black bean sauce in a regular jjangmyun (korean black bean noodle). The weird part about it, is that for something that's called 'braised', the pork belly doesn't really fall apart and melt inside my mouth. The chef probably tried to retain that fatty goodies inside the pork. Eccentric choice, but not too creative. I think even though they're trying to sell 'eccentricity', food should taste good first and foremost. The chicaron tastes like it doesn't belong there. I know that they're both pork and the chef probably want to balance out the softness of the braised pork belly with something crunchy, but when I ate it together with the pork belly, the bitterness just ruins the nice fatty belly and it's amazing sauce.
Dessert: Pumpkin pie + candied kumquat + crystalized sage + ginger toffee + lemon sour cream ice cream
The dessert feels like the cheapest out of all the food that I ate that night. The kumquats and crystalized sage look and taste like something you can find in china town. The surprising minty spiciness don't mix very well with the pumkin pie/ginger toffee/lemon sour ice cream. It is interesting when I noticed that the kumquats and sage had a hard and tough texture, while the other three were very soft. An interesting play of texture.
Overall, this place is just too pretentious and tries too hard to be Alinea. Seriously, before doing what you called 'gastronomy', you should think about them as food first and that people are going to eat them.
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