Aldea - Chef Mendes's Perfect Little Village

Aldea means village in Spanish and its cuisine, by Chef George Mendes, is inspired by the Iberian Peninsula. The restaurant space is long and narrow, with the bar area in the front and the kitchen in the back of the first floor. The decor is that vibrant mix of blues and whites that evokes the feeling of being on the coast somewhere. I instantly fell for it, as I love anything that feels like you're on vacation. The bar area is certainly one fit for bar dining, although the large white chairs are packed a bit tighter than I would like.

We were seated on the first floor, allowing me to peer down the hallway to the kitchen and get glimpses of Chef Mendes in action. I'm sure you all appreciate the actual Chef of a restaurant being in the kitchen, and seeing this Top Chef Masters contestant at work was a pleasant surprise (NB - he is far more handsome and younger looking in person than on tv).

As seems to be the trend at these Michelin restaurants, the bread basket offered three options. If available, I try to choose the bread that is the most unlike ones I've had at other places. So you can imagine that I jumped all over the bacon cornbread, while my more conservative friend opted for the plainer looking roll. I was saddened to find that the cornbread didn't actually have any bacon in it, but rather, it tasted as if it was bathed in cold bacon grease. This resulted in a wierd textured cornbread that was chewy and nothing like the crunchy, soft, and buttery cornbread that I crave. I presume my friend's roll was far better, as she devoured it and praised how delightful it was.

Aldea has a nightly 5-course tasting menu. The evening my friend and I went there was only one item on the tasting, the soft shell crab, that held my interest. Since we couldn't rationalize ordering a tasting menu that was batting only 20%, we ordered off the main menu. The regular menu is divided into the sections little bites, charcuterie, appetizers, entrees and sides. There was something about the menu that lead us both to focus on seafood appetizers and meat entrees. We ordered one "little bite", the bonita tuna rillette with caper and tomato on charred bread. Fact is, just writing the name of this wonderful little bite, makes me contemplate when I can fit going back to Aldea in my schedule just to have it again. The thin slice of perfectly toasted bread with a coating of olive oil was topped with the most tender flaked tuna. The flavor just popped with the salty capers and a mild tomato essense. Little bite also doesn't quite do it justice. It was a thankfully generous serving.

For appetizers, my friend ordered the shrimp alhinho with garlic, coriander, pimento and pressed jus and I had the warm maine lobster with artichoke, vadouvan butter, and vanilla pineapple. The shrimp had a bold spiced flavor and was very well cooked, but in the battle of the crustacean appetizers, the lobster just blew the shrimp clear out of the water. The tender lobster just melted in your mouth and the pineapple and vanilla made a very interesting addition to the plate that really worked well. Vandouvan is a french curry spice that is typically a combination of onions, shallots, and garlic with indian spices like cardamom, curry leaves, and fenugreek. In other words, it results in a hint of indian-spiced flavor with sweet and smoky notes. Yes, the vandouvan butter on the lobster was just perfect. And with the sweetness of the vanilla and pineapple the whole dish really burst with flavor. The lobster is absolutely another dish to add to the list of return visit musts!

I know I always order the pork dish on every menu. But after Public's disappointing pork performance the week before, I was a bit put-off and I was made more skeptical by Aldea's inclusion of clams on its pork dish. Luckily, my friend decided she wanted the pork, which made me feel more comfortable ordering the hanger steak. The hanger steak was served with smoked eggplant puree, garlic broccoli rabe and maitake mushrooms. The steak was nicely charred on the outside and tender and pink inside. I loved the smoked eggplant puree that leant such a rich, smoky flavor to every bite of steak. The broccoli rabe was sort of an afterthought to me. As it is, I'm not a huge fan of this bitter green, but I thought it was pretty generic in character. And for a restaurant that puts forth a lot of inventive garnishes, this seemed too obvious a side. Then, I tried the hertigage breed pork chop with manila clams, vinho verde, and caramelized turnip. With one bite, I realized that I would go back to ordering the pork almost everywhere I dine. This pork chop is not for those who are afraid of a little pink on their pork. Its cooked medium and is juicy and tender. Simply put, the flavor borders on the insane.

Towards the end of our meal, we found that we over-ordered on the savory front, which is much to the contrary of my normally dessert-focused mindset. In all honesty, at that point I felt like I made the ultimate rookie mistake, because all the desserts sounded marvelous. Well that and I didn't order the pork! But as I recapped all the food in my mind, I couldn't imagine cutting any of it from the evening's line-up. It truly is a restaurant deserving of a Michelin star.

I can't wait to return to Aldea and try out the dessert! And of course have the tuna rillette and pork chop! Seriously...I've been thinking about it All-dea.

With food like this, I wouldn't go Public

It's not that I didn't expect some disappointments on this Michelin journey. It's just that I was truly hoping to be only mildly disappointed. Perhaps its best that I got one disappointment out of the way. After all, Susan smartly brought up the fact that I probably should save a restaurant that I was really looking forward to for last so that finishing up doesn't feel anticlimactic. Like ending the mission at Kajitsu, the all vegetarian buddhist restaurant, might just be an ill-conceived plan. Anyway, that's besides the point. Let me tell you about my first and hopefully only disappointment on this michelin mission of mine.

Like all the restaurants designed by the AvroKo Restaurant Group (to name a few Stanton Social, Quality Meats, Park Avenue and Double Crown), the design of Public is a very detailed, well thought out concept. The concept is supposed to remind you of public institutions, but think much hipper library that you'd want to hang out at because it has adult beverages and good food. I didn't get that public institution feel from the design, but I did really think the space was beautiful. And, as the night I dined at Public was one of those gorgeous spring nights, I adored the garage-like sliding doors that are open on such lovely nights.

Public has some interesting sounding cocktails and I was really excited to try the one with Ribena. But, after I ordered it, the waitress told me they were no longer making that cocktail. I was too disappointed to pick another one, so I settled for a very nice glass of cava. The bread basket had some interesting choices. My culinary school friend that I went with opted for the dried cherry and aleppo pepper roll and I had focaccia. Both of the breads were the sort that made you thankful that bread was ever created and we both quickly finished our pieces. The cherry aleppo bread didn't have a strong flavor of either pepper or cherries but still had a nice texture. It was a very nice way to start off the meal, but sadly these were one of the most memorable parts of our meal.


Public is a global fusion restaurant with a focus on New Zealand and Australian foods. To start, I ordered the special appetizer of lavender cured ham with a frisee salad, candied pecans, and truffle oil. Both my friend and I tried very hard to get any sort of lavender flavor from the ham but after many bites realized we weren't tasting it because it just wasn't there. The ham on its own was tasteless, and a bite of all the components together was only saved by the truffle oil. There was nothing remarkable about this plate. It wasn't bad but it wasn't something I would feel any pull to order again. My friend had the grilled kangaroo on a coriander falafel with lemon tahini sauce and green pepper relish. The kangaroo was cooked perfectly. It had a very tender texture and just melted in your mouth. But, the coriander falafel overwhelmed the flavor of everything on the plate. As my classmate said, it just tasted like she got a decent falafel from a cart for lunch. In other words, just another unremarkable appetizer.

For my main, I showed my true pork loving ways and followed my pork appetizer with a pork main consisting of confit pork belly and roasted pork tenderloin with salsify, apple puree, and a sage shortbread. The pork belly was a big disappointment. I like pork fat and all but my pork belly was almost entirely skin and fat with maybe only a thin slice of meat to speak of. The tenderloin was the perfect pink color and gorgeously tender but it lacked any significant flavor. I was really looking forward to the salsify, because I so rarely get to have this root that I love. The salsify had a really nice caramely sweet flavor to it, but I found it to be a bit undercooked for my tastes. When all hope was lost on my plate, I found the saving grace. Below my tenderloin, was this absolutely delightful sage shortbread that just popped with buttery sage goodness. It provided the tenderloin that missing flavor it needed. My classmate ordered the lamb with caper piquillo salsa and cauliflower puree and said it was good but not amazing. She offered me a bite with the warning that it was very lamby tasting. In other words, she knew I would try it, shrug my shoulders, and say the same thing I always do when I have a bite of lamb..."tastes like lamb and nope I still don't like lamb". I figured that I would save both of us from this deju vu and declined a taste of her dish knowing it would not be the one that would convert me to lamb lover.
For dessert we had the yuzu-lime tart with coconut meringue ice cream and lemongrass sauce. It was a refreshing fruit dessert that was very good but again failed to elicit a wow from either of us.

As we finised our meal, my classmate mentioned that she's had brunch at Public and it was much better than our dinner. I just don't know if I can get over the disappointment of the dinner to go back and try another meal here. The menu sounded so promising to me, with lots of different global flavors paired to make lovely sounding dishes, but the execution of the plates did not deliver what I believed was promised on the menu. Huh...perhaps the restaurant did remind me more of a public institution than I first realized.

Aureole - Angels in the kitchen...

Aureole means halo in French and after eating there the other night I'd be astonished if each and every one of the chefs in that kitchen wasn't an angel. It was the ideal first restaurant on the road to visiting all the New York City Michelin starred restaurants. It is sadly so rare these days to leave a restaurant and think over and over again that the dining experience you just had is exactly what eating out is meant to be.

Aureole is located in the Bank of America building diagonally across from Bryant Park. The front of the restaurant is a bright bar room with floor to ceiling windows and the main dining room is in a separate area in the back. The dining room at Aureole feels comfortable at the same time as instilling a sense that the evening is a special one in a very nice restaurant.

There are a few different tasting menu options in the dining room, including a very affordable early bird, three course pre-theatre special for $55. The other two options are a regular three course meal, which has more choices than the pre-theatre special, or the six course tasting menu. I insisted that Karen and I have the regular three course option, because the pork dish wasn't available on the pre-theatre menu. I am sure it comes as no shock to you that I was willing to pay a premium to have the pork chop.

The amuse bouche was a potato vichyssoise with a thin slice of roasted peasant in the bottom and a tiny corn panna cotta on top. This was a brilliant start to the meal. A rich soup with a silky texture. The corn garnish carried the promise of both the delicious meal and the summer soon to come. And like both a fabulous meal and summer, I wanted more.

Then, one of my favorite parts...the bread basket. There was a sourdough, a foccaccia and a cranberry and walnut roll. I chose the cranberry and walnut roll and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I found a recipe on Epicurious for cranberry walnut rolls and made them this past weekend!

Karen started with the peekytoe crab with soy gelee, lime and pomegranate. I've never had crab paired with soy before and both Karen and I were amazed at how well these two paired. The crab was delicate and sweet leaving me insanely jealous of Karen's order. My first course was white asparagus with parmesan crumble, poached quail egg, ramp bearnaise, and iberico ham. Unfortunately, I have a few complaints about the dish...The quail egg was completely unnecessary and lacked flavor and I would have liked the asparagus to be a bit more tender. But the rest of the dish was a very good. I was literally vacuuming the salty parmesan crumble and the rich ramp bearnaise off the plate. There wasn't a speck of either left...all that was left was some of the useless quail egg. It was a bit of a shame that the asparagus wasn't a bit more tender, because had it been, the dish would have been a total wow.

For our second courses, Karen ordered the Alaskan Halibut with endive apple marmalade, parmesan, and vin jaune and I had the suckling pork with ramps and a mustard glaze. Both were absolutely amazing. The halibut was perfectly cooked and the tart apple flavor with the salty parmesan was genius on the fish. But to pig-obsessed me, it just couldn't come close to the heavenly pork dish. The pork dish consisted of two parts, pulled pork cheeks with a mustard sauce and crispy pork belly. The pork cheeks were melt in your mouth tender and the mustard sauce was insanely flavorful. The pork belly was the way pork belly should be, that is crispy and moist with a rich pork bacon flavor. All Aureole's sauces on its appetizer and main courses were stellar. If they bottled them up and sold them, I'd be first in line.

It was as if someone sent a note to Aureole on how to win my praise (hint it involves not only fabulous pork but marvelous desserts). Before we ordered dessert, a pre-dessert of fresh strawberry jam and creme fraiche was whisked to our table. The dessert choice of chocolate trio was an easy choice for me. After seeing how well the pastry kitchen treated fruit, Karen chose the muscat poached pineapple with coconut and passion fruit. First of all, the plating of the desserts, and every other course for that matter, was gorgeous. The chocolate trio was a milk chocolate mille-feuille, white chocolate mousse, and chocolate fondant. These were all very good, but the one that stood out as memorable to me was the mille-feuille. It was almost candy-bar like in its richness and crunch. Karen's pineapple was good, with the coconut sorbet being my absolute favorite part of the dish.

Then came the petit fours. The chocolate, pate de fruit, and macaroon on the plate were good but they didn't stand a chance against the caramel apple candy, which was by far one of the best candies I have had in a very long time.

Oh and it gets better. After we paid the bill, they brought each of us little chocolate and lemon loaves for breakfast the next day.

See...I told you they were angels.






Michelin Count - 15 down, 38 to go!

My Michelin Mission

Now that I'm done with culinary school and my externship, I've decided that I deserve a little time on the other side of a kitchen. And since its been awhile, I figure I'm going to make sure I do it right. So, I'm turning to the experts. I completed my externship at a restaurant with a Michelin star and I loved it. So maybe these Michelin folks know what they're talking about. I figured, why not find out what the other Michelin starred NYC restaurants have to offer?! On a whim, I checked out the 2011 list for NYC. I was pretty impressed that of the 54 on the list I've been to 14.

The thing is I'm in the mood for a good challenge what with all the free time I have on my hands now that I'm done school and the externship. Consequently, my new goal is to get to the remaining 40. In other words, I have a mission, a michelin mission. I'm going to do my best to tell you all about each of them!

You'll be happy to hear that I'm off to a good start with three on the calendar in the next three weeks. Aureole, Public, and Aldea. In June, I'm hoping to get to Marc Forgione and Blue Hill.

Shooting for the stars!

An Update Finally - Part III - Class Update

Class has been pretty good. I have to admit that, although I totally addicted to sugar and baking, the pastry module of school wass my least favorite semester we've had. I think perhaps its because I prefer the no frills baked goods to fancy pastries. The plating part of pastry was fun, but in general the pastry classes had a lot of down time and I wasn't wowed by most of the desserts we made. There were a lot of nights that we only made components of future dishes and no whole desserts. At the end of the module, we plated a series of desserts using some of the components we had made (including biscotti, sorbet, ice cream, puff pastry, and pie crusts). On the other nights, once we put what we were making in the oven, we'd all stand around looking at each other with an unspoken "now what?" look on our faces. In other words, everyone in the class was rather relieved when we finished with pastry late December. We did plate a series of very beautiful looking desserts:

Milk Chocolate Panna Cotta with a berry sauce, creme anglaise, whipped cream & biscotti

Banana Upside Down Cake with (melted) caramel ice cream and caramel decoration

Apple Tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice cream and caramel sauce

Lemon Meringue Tart

Chocolate Pastry Cream in Puff Pastry with berry sauce and whipped cream

An Update Finally - Part II (Christmas Feasts)

So this year, we tried a few new recipes over the Christmas holiday. A lot of them were big successes. I decided to share my three favorites with you all.

On Christmas, we made a crown roast of pork. I brined the pork in cider, water, salt and a little bit of sugar overnight and then pretty much followed the recipe for the rest of it. I really loved this, as did my dad. The stuffing needed a good deal more broth than was called for and I did cook some of it separately from the pork. I also cooked the onions with a bit more butter than the recipe called for because I love buttery onions. The only thing was that the sauce ended up pretty salty so I added a lot more broth and some water and let it reduce to dilute some of the salt. I think part of the problem was that the broth I used had a good deal of salt in it to begin with. So I'd be careful and make sure you taste the sauce as you're cooking it to make sure the seasoning is correct.

The Crowning Glory of the Christmas Table

The other fabulous addition that we'll likely make again and well we even made twice during the christmas week was pureed carrot and parsnips. This was such a simple side and it was really delicious.

My other favorite dish of the week was the salt crusted baked salmon. I can't even begin to describe how moist this fish was. Mom got an 8lb salmon that was caught the morning she bought it. Cooking the fish this way was really cool. I would definitely like to make fish this way again.

I seasoned the inside of the fish with some toasted spices (I actually would try different spices next time as I don't love coriander). As the fish bakes, the salt mixture hardens. Once the fish reached the required temperature for doneness, I took it out of the oven and then with the handle of a sharpening steel I smashed the crust. It took a good deal of force to break through the crust. The cool thing is that the salt took a good deal of the salmon bones out. This was a huge hit with the family. With the leftovers we made some fantastic salmon cakes as well.

Whole salmon baked in Salt

Both of these entree recipes and the parsnip and carrot puree are worthy of special occasions. They certainly made our holidays tastier!

An update...Finally (Part I - Marea)

I know, I know. I haven't posted in forever. It's not that I haven't wanted to, but it's just I've had a crazy few months. But now I have time to sit down and write all about the wonderful food that has filled these months! I promise that this series of updates will make the wait worthwhile. I'll start with the dinner we had for Karen's birthday in December.

We settled on Marea for her birthday. Ummm...go, go now. Everything was wonderful. It'll come as no shock to you that my sister, her husband, and I did the tasting menu. The tasting menu consists of four courses. For the first, you can choose crudo, oysters, or an antipasto. I had a mackeral crudo with butternut squash caponata and pine nuts. The thinly slice medallions of fish was so fresh and the caponata added a really nice sweetness to the naturally briny fish. My sister had the oysters (a total of six comes with the serving so she decided that she would have one of each on the menu). These oysters were so amazing that I've tried to convince a few different friends that we should take our chances for a spot at the bar just to get them. But truthfully, the most amazing thing about the oysters was that when they cleared our plates from this course they brought this little white circle on a plate. The three of us were extremely puzzled, until another waiter came over and poured hot water on top of the circle and viola. It magically grew into a cloth wet-nap for Karen to wipe her hands. Mo just kept repeating now that's class, as I sat there with my mouth open in awe as childhood memories of those little pills that became shapes flashed through my head. But don't let me get sidetracked, because the hands-down winner on this course was the lobster with burrata, eggplant, and basil. Delicately soft bites of lobster with silky burrata...worth every dollar of the $6 supplement for this dish.

The next course at Marea was the handmade pasta course. All of the pastas were extremely flavorful but had this nice, simple feeling. More importantly, each pasta had unique flavors that you wouldn't run into at your typical Italian restaurant. I had fusilli with a red sauce, octopus and bone marrow, Karen choose the rigatoni with shrimp, and Mo had the pasta with sausage and cheese. For the final savory course, we each had a different fish dish. Karen had the branzino that was cooked so perfectly and melted with buttery goodness in your mouth. I had the scallops with a chestnut ragu and porcini mushrooms. I loved the chestnut sauce with the scallops and the earthiness that the mushrooms added to the dish.

Sometimes, when a restaurant is this good, I worry that the dessert is not going to live up to the rest. Luckily, this is not the case at all at Marea. We had the Gianduja, the apple raisin bread pudding, and the pear tart. I think my favorite was the Gianduja, because I love the hazelnut chocolate combination. But, each of these desserts deserves a taste, or two, or three. After the desserts were cleared, they brought a plate of housemade truffles that were some of the best chocolates I've had in a very long time.

Since I went in December, I've been trying to come up with reasons to go back. I'm sure it won't be long before I come up with a good one. Like the oysters or the lobster with burrata or the truffles.

Feel free to help me out with a good excuse.