My fiancee and I went to Momofuku Shoto tonight and highly DOES NOT recommend it to anyone.
For newbies, Momofuku has three levels, the noodle bar, the family restaurant and then the tasting menu - Shoto.
For two of us with only one person doing wine pairing it came out to (tax and 18% tip) was a little over $500.
Now we tipped 18% because we always tip a minimum of 18%...more if the service and food were excellent.
The service was good. Waiters were prompt. The ambiance was nice. It was kind of nice to see the chefs make the food but then you can get that pretty much at any Japanese restaurant. The washroom was disgusting. Seriously, if you are going to charge customers that much then keep the standard of the place to the same as other comparable restaurants in the city like Scarmouche, Splendido or Canoe to name a few.
We had gone to Kaji - a similar format Japanese restaurant before with a tasting menu for 100 or 120 and the food was great. So we had high expectation for Momofuku Shoto and were extremely disappointed. I had to drink 2 liters of water to rinse my mouth of each course. I portions are small as tasting menus are and neither of us could bare to finish each. Even the desserts were disgusting. I would not go back and definitely would not recommend this restaurant.
I had read great reviews and heard the hype about the Momofuku in New York as so was excited. We are foodies and often seek out the new restaurants to try out. The review on Globe and Mail by Chris Nuttall-Smith is unbelievable inconsistent with our experience. I wonder if he was served a different meal altogether. Joanne Kates who did the review column before Chris Nuttall-Smith was the most accurate - she gave them a crappy review.
Each of the dish we had were either not seasoned correctly or are way too sweet or way too spicy. I give them credits for the presentation of each dish - very colorful and well decorated. But the flavor was horrendous. I was hoping out of all the dishes, I would like at least one...but sadly none. The lamb dish was the worse.
Never again...this restaurant honestly needs to close down or change big time.