I'm Sho Sure Sho Shaun Hergatt is Worthy of Two Stars

Sho Shaun Hergatt is located just down the street from the NY Stock Exchange in the Setai Hotel. You take an elevator from the lobby up to the second floor and when you exit you have this awkward walk down to the hostess stand as you both stare at one another until you’re at the right distance to say something. The space is beautifully designed with a bar at the entry and tables to the left. The night we went it was practically empty and every bite we had made me more and more confused as to how this could possibly be the case. Chef Shaun Hergatt’s style is Asian inspired French cuisine with a focus on local ingredients and interesting techniques. In this venture, Chef Hergatt managed to present some of the most interesting and spot on flavor combinations I have had in a while. So much so that my sister and I left our dinner here saying that it deserved two stars on the 2012 list that had yet to be released at the time we ate there. So when the new list was released a few weeks later, neither of us was surprised that it had been upgraded to two.

The night we went was the debut night of the new five course tasting menu. The chef came out after our third course to ask us about portion size and whether we thought it was too much, too little, or just perfect and whether we were enjoying the food. It’s nice when you have that special touch of a restaurant caring what people think about their food. The service at Sho was very good and seamless.

The amuse bouche was two parts. The first was a pea puree with this fabulous coconut foam on top. The fresh pea flavor just popped with the coconut and tasted like spring. The second part was these fried potato balls rolled in black truffle and stuffed with a tiny bit of foie gras. These balls were amazing, which shocked me because I’m typically not a huge fan of foie gras.

The bread was this extremely nice rustic country bread that they made in-house. It has that crisp, crunchy crust and soft airy interior that rustic breads should. This came with a choice between plain butter and a sage butter. I wanted to love the sage butter, but it was not as flavorful or stunning as it looked and sounded.

Karen’s first course was a beet roulade with a horseradish “marshmallow” that was really more the consistency of a crème fraiche and had this wonderful tangy/spicy horseradish bite. The beet roulade was a puree covered in a dehydrated beet and served with baby roasted beets. I love beets and this was such a new and refreshing twist on beet preparation. My first course was the salt pressed ocean trout with pear. This was a very nice presentation of raw fish with very nice flavors. Definitely something I would order again.

For her second course, Karen had the celeriac espuma with crispy potato, black truffle powder, and truffle cream. I had the coxcomb, which was veal tongue ribbons, chicken skin, and mushrooms. Both dishes arrived with the garnishes in a bowl and then waiters ceremoniously spooned a foam atop each. The celeriac was very good but it was very rich. The mushrooms on the coxcomb plate were unremarkable. But the veal tongue ribbons were so tender, deliciously salty, and rich that I was totally blown away and didn’t even pay any attention to anything else.
For the third course, Karen had the nova scotia lobster with garlic chives and a chili coconut sauce. The lobster was cooked earth-shatteringly perfect, but the component that really won on the plate was the coconut chili sauce. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it was the best coconut curry sauce I’ve ever had, managing to find the ideal balance between heat and sweet. I had the sous vide amadai with baby clams and turnips. The amadai was a beautiful piece of white fish that was simply prepared and wonderful. But, there was no question that Karen’s dish won this round.

For the fourth course, Karen had the beef cheek wrapped in ham with leeks. I couldn’t believe how meaty, rich, and fabulous this was. It tasted like the most perfectly braised piece of meat ever. My fourth course was cracked soba risotto with an egg yolk, parmesan, and these delightful crumbs sprinkled over it. The egg yolk oozed all over the perfect risotto. I can’t remember ever having such delicious risotto.

For the firth course, Karen had the caramelia custard with dark chocolate and buttermilk sorbet. This was extremely good but it couldn’t come close to my strawberry dessert with fresh strawberries and strawberry meringue. My dessert was no where near big enough but the flavor was so amazing I couldn’t complain. The meringues dissolve on your tongue with a slight snap when you bite into them and the strawberries were perfectly sweet.

After our meal, they brought carrot cake French macaroons with a cream cheese center and warm donuts covered in cardamom sugar. These absolutely sealed Karen’s and my vote for this restaurant to have 2 Michelin stars. The carrot cake macaroon was spicy, tangy, and just AMAZING. The cardamom donuts, which tasted like fall, were extremely good.

I’m sure you couldn’t fail to notice that there were a lot of “bests” in this meal. It was truly amazing and well worth a trip. I think I’ll try to go for the three course prix fixe lunch sometime. I was happy to see that in the 2012 guide Sho Shaun received 2 Michelin stars. There is no doubt in my mind that it completely deserves these.

Weird Wallse

Wallse is Viennese cuisine by Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner located in the far western reaches of the West Village. The space has a definite European feel to it and is bright and bustling. There was something about the evening that made me want to start off the night with one of the delicious sounding cocktails. Most likely it’s my inability to resist Pimms that did it. The Charlie Chaplin with Gin, Vermouth, Pimms and bitters was a fabulous little cocktail that I would definitely order again.

The bread was unremarkable, which as a cardo addict is a huge disappointment for me. Luckily, the appetizer we ordered, Pan seared scallops with bacon and Mache sauce, was ridiculously good. The sauce is a green sauce made from Mache lettuce and it has this almost nutty flavor to it, sort of like a more interesting and richer spinach. The scallops were melt in your mouth tender and the perfect example of exactly how a scallop should be cooked. The only complaint I have was that there wasn’t quite enough bacon but I suppose there will never be enough bacon in the world for me!

For the entrees, my friend had the boiled kavalierspitz (beef shoulder) with root vegetables and apple horseradish and I had the weiner schnitzel with potato-cucumber salad and lingonberries. My friend’s entrée was okay but nothing special. The beef was nice and tender but the flavor had something missing and the horseradish sauce needed somthing as well. The weiner schnitzel was very good and I really liked the potato cucumber salad. The breading was perfect. Funny enough, these dishes were the same orders that my sister and I had placed when we ate at Seasonal Weinbar & Kitchen. So I couldn't help but compare the execution of the dishes between these two places. Hands down, Seasonal won on both.

The post dinner petit fours were probably among my least favorite I’ve ever had. The flavors of both were just not the sort of sweet I like to end my meal.

I’m not so sure that Wallse is worthy of a Michelin star. The service the night we went was very bizarre. Our waitress was incredibly awkward and each time she came to our table it was weird. Also, the food was good but it didn’t have anything that made it extraordinary or worth a return trip. If I lived in the neighborhood, I would maybe go again. But I would not find the need to travel out of my way to go back. I do have to say though that the mache sauce on the scallops was the most memorable part of the meal.

Hopefully this will be the last restaurant on the Michelin list that falls short of my expectations of what a Michelin restaurant should be.

Marc Forgione - Menu as Fiction

Sometimes the descriptions of dishes on menus are more beautiful than the execution in a sort of menu as fiction or embellishment of the truth way. Unfortunately, Marc Forgione is one of those places. I read the menu before I went and fell for the story only to be let down when I went and found out what the true story is. Of all the spots on the Michelin list, this is one that I was whole-heartedly looking forward to and had such high expectations for. So maybe the fact that I didn’t adore it is partly my fault because I had anticipated it becoming one of my favorite restaurants in the city. Here’s the thing…I didn’t hate it and saw enough promise that I would be willing to go back and give it another shot. I’m not going to run and do it immediately, but I do think at some point I may try again. There wasn’t anything we had that wasn’t good, but there wasn’t anything we had that was transcendental and the menu makes the food sound as if it will be.

The space is very cool with cedar wood and brick walls with hanging candles lighting the rather dim dining room. It’s sort of oddly barnyard or cottage cozy in a way. The restaurant has a very fun cocktail list and a great wine list. We picked a nice white wine.

One half of the two piece amuse bouche of the evening was possibly the best bite of the night. The fresh tomato gazpacho was tomato pepper heaven in a way that made me sad it was only one bite. The other half was a stone fruit crumble that tasted rather like a yogurt granola parfait in an unremarkable you feel like you’re eating healthy food way.

The bread rolls arrived and they looked awesome. Warm rolls with herb butter and tops brushed with butter and sprinkled with kosher salt. These were very good but not quite soft and delicious enough to be the best warm dinner rolls I’ve ever had.

We ordered two appetizers to start a Crab, Watermelon, and jalapeno salad and an Eggplant Parmesan with burrata, eggplant, crispy fried bits, and tomato. All the flavorings of the crab salad complemented one another very nicely, but there was something missing from the dish that my friend and I couldn’t pinpoint. The Eggplant parmesan was disappointing. It was decomposed eggplant parmesan with cubes of eggplant that were rather boring and delicious bites of tomato and fun little crunchy fried pieces on the plate and “burrata” that was really mozzarella. And if you know me, you know that telling me I’m going to get burrata but then serving me mozzarella is a big no-no.

I ordered the Buddhist Duck Breast with LeBak Farms Corn Emulsion, Bacon, and Smoked Sea Salt and my friend had the Halibut with Lobster emulsion. The duck was perfectly cooked with a nice crispy skin and the dish overall had very nice components to it. But it felt as if it was sort of any easy throw together weeknight meal that I could’ve easily made at home. The Halibut was also perfectly cooked and the lobster sauce was very good, but it was almost exactly the same as a sauce that we learned to make in our second semester of culinary school. So again, it seemed a bit elementary. There’s nothing wrong with elementary food, but the menu reads at a higher level than the delivered food.

We ordered one dessert to split, the Banana Cream Pie Sundae with Salted Caramel. This was very delicious and a nice little way to finish the evening.

Like I said, the meal was good, but I expected amazing.