Left out in the Cold - Review of Jean Georges

My visit to the iconic namesake restaurant of Jean Georges Vonreitchen on New York's Central Park West began with the promise of dinning excellence. Sadly, this promise was broken quicker than the oath of most politicians. The entrance to the restaurant, which is located in the Trump Tower on Columbus Circle, is beautiful. On your way to the formal dining room, you walk through the bustling bar filled with a mixture of both old and young "see and be seen" types mixed in with tourists from the hotel. The dining room has a modern-ish decour that has a somewhat classic scheme built into it. The colours are black, white, and gray and the "spider" light is one of the coolest lights I have seen in a while. You never get a clear feeling of who your actual waiter is, as numerous people serve you, present dishes to you, and fill your water glass throughout the evening. The experience is meant to be made an evening of and as such you are never rushed to decide. Start to finish, we were there for over two hours.

We began with red wine. Karen had a Cabernet from Napa Valley that was big bold and slightly sweet. I had a Shiraz that was slightly sweet and excellent. The amuse bouche was a triangle of fun. There was a beautiful chicken stock with a hint of lemongrass flavor, which clearly demonstrated JG's love of asian tinged french cuisine, a wonderful seafood spring roll, and a salmon sashimi with kumquat. What a way to open the taste buds. To have a plate like this to start is perfect, not only because the flavors all vary but also because each has a very different texture component - the liquid slightly sweet broth, the crunchy spring roll, and the melt in your mouth fresh sushi all truly get the taste buds' attention.

We opted for the 4 course prixe fixe menu. I choose the Bluefin Tuna Ribbons with avocado, radish, and ginger marinade and Karen began with the peekytoe crab dumplings in a celeriac lemon meyer tea. Wow. Both were excellent. The Tuna ribbons melted in your mouth and the ginger marinade went marvelously with the fish while the radish and avocado added both flavor and texture. The Peekytoe crab dumplings were stuffed with beautifully soft and sweet crabmeat and the lemon tea broth stepped this dish up to another level.

For the second course, I had the Nishiki Risotto with porcini marmalade and five herb gremolata and Karen had the Seared Gulf Shrimp with silky pumpkin, ginger and basil. Well, these elicited another round of you have to try these from Karen and I. The risotto was silky smooth and the porcini added a rich flavor that was complemented nicely by the herb and olive oil mixture that rimmed the bowl. The shrimp were slightly spicy and paired deliciously with the sweet pumpkin-ginger puree and crunchy-spiced pumpkin seeds. This course left us excited for the third and final savory course of the evening. If this is what Jean Georges did with his starters we thought, then his main courses had to be amazing.

Well, it turned out that line of thinking was wrong. I had the Duck Breast topped with cracked Jordan almonds and amaretto jus, which was ceremoniously sliced tableside by one of our many servers (thanks but I think I can cut my own dinner). And Karen had the Roasted Beef Tenderloin with crispy potato blintz and apple jalapeno puree. Okay, now both meats were cooked to the perfect color but where was the juice and the heat? Both meats seemed to have the lovely meat juices that come in perfectly cooked meat drained from them and were lukewarm at most. As if to tease us, the sauces on each and the crust on my duck were perfection as were the sides. But, how did they screw up the proteins themselves so badly? What a disappointment.

Both Karen and myself were excited for the dessert course. What delectable sweets would Johnny "the tatted bad boy of pastry" Iuzzini present us with? For those of you who don't know the Modus Operandi of Jean Georges' dessert, it consists of a quartet of desserts with a flavor theme served on a sectional plate (a "fourplay" if you will). I opted for the chocolate theme (such a surprise I know) and Karen chose the caramel adventure. The chocolate plate included a chocolate egg cream, the JG signature chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream, aerated chocolate mousse sponge with blackberries and whiskey, and a warm chocolate gnocchi. The egg cream was not at all up my alley and neither was the chocolate sponge, which had a strange resemblance to the 80s astronaut food packs. The lava cake was a masterful execution of chocolate lava cake but was nonetheless a chocolate lava cake in a restaurant world oversatured with this particular dessert. The gnocchi was very good and left me wanting one more bite of it with its fruity sweet flavor. The Caramel Plate included a vanilla soda with a caramel bubble, a warm caramel tart with a crispy olive-hazelnut praline and caramelized bacon, caramel curd with dehydrated sponge and roasted pineapple sorbet, and a chocolate pop filled with coffee-cardamom ice cream. The caramel bubble in the delicious vanilla soda had a texturally unpleasing film that prevented Karen from even caring about the burst of caramel flavor in her mouth. The warm caramel tart was delicious and Karen really liked the praline but I thought it tasted too much of olive oil and not enough of hazelnut. The caramel curd was both Karen's and my favorite dessert, as it had a great texture and was a much better use of the dehydrated sponge. The pineapple sorbet went fabulously with the caramel and sponge. The chocolate pop was also very delicious, although the cardamom in the ice cream was a dash too much. The petit fours arrived at the table in time to end the meal on the right track. There were 3 plates of petit fours - a plate of three different flavors of homemade marshmallows, a plate of 3 different flavors of french macaroons, and a plate of chocolates. The homemade marshmallows were banana, which I really didn't like, cranberry, which had a nice tart flavor, and vanilla. These were perfect in texture and I would take all but the banana in a big cup of hot cocoa any day. The french macaroons were mocha (okay), gingerbread (out of this world), and pomegranate (very good). There were four chocolates and each was excellent. My favorite had a thin layer of marzipan. There was also a lemon ginger one that was refreshing. The other two were very good but must have been forgettable, because I can not recall what the flavors were.

All in all, a very nice evening. If it had not been for the third course, I would certainly return. But, with all the other restaurants in Manhattan, its doubtful I will make an effort to return to this one.