Momofuku Ko

Posted on Jul 14, 2014 in Restaurant Eats

We came here to celebrate a birthday and it was amazing!!

Getting a reservation was the tricky – you have to go online at 10am 10 days before the date for dinner or 14 days before for lunch and pray that no one has taken your time slot. They only have 2-3 time slots available for their 16 course lunch and 10-course dinner, with 1, 2, or 4 person reservation options.

The trickiest part is finding the place. It is a nondescript door with a little peach on it.

We got the 8:40 dinner reservation, which was perfect.

They have a strict no-food-picture policy, which was sad for me as I love taking photos of my food, but it made you focus more on each dish and enjoy your time with your dining partner.

Thus there are only a few pictures available, but I will go into GREAT detail describing most dishes. At the end of the meal they give you a menu card with the dishes on it.

The first thing I noticed was how clean and quiet the place was. It is small, about 200 square feet. The kitchen is open, and along the kitchen is a bar, set for the 12 seats they have.

We were promptly welcomed and seated. The host and hostess (Jenna) were wonderful! The pace of food was perfect, not too fast or too slow.

The amuses were: first,  sunflower seed panna cotta with freshly ground black pepper and dill flowers – it was amazing! You could taste every layer of flavor, it was the perfect start to the meal. Next, we got a lobster morsel with Thai flavors – it was good, nothing too exciting. The last amuse was a flaxseed cracker with soft tofu that was lovely and worked really well with the sake I was drinking.

Then the real meal started. Every dish was beautifully crafted. And each chef described the dished perfectly.

I didn’t love the raw scallop, though the tomato-basil liquid was amazing and I wanted to drink from the plate.

Next was my favorite dish of the evening – Slightly cured mackerel with pickled watermelon and a duo of sauces – black sesame and kimchi. Holy crap was that good! I could have had 3 more o them!! I usually hate mackerel, but this dish has totally changed my mind.

The soup dish was a cold honeydew melon soup with raw spot prawn, avocado, cucumber and macadamia nuts. The nuts really made the dish, otherwise I thought it was too sweet and lacked texture.

When the egg came out, I squealed like a little girl and yelled “YES!” I made the hostess (Jenna) laugh from my reaction. I was so excited! I had heard a ton about it and it totally lived up to expectation. It is a 60 degree egg with caviar, house-made potato chips and a vinegar drizzle that cuts through the rich-fatty goodness of the egg yolk.  They also serve it with warm bread and probably the best butter I’ve ever had. It was amazing.

The tortellini was fine, but not great. The halibut was perfectly cooked and delicious. The foie gras was just ok – the pine nut brittle and lychee were strange and the foie gras was cooked, frozen and grated on top which then melted in your mouth – a weird sensation but not totally unpleasant.

The beef was nice, but the puree was a bit tacky for me.

And finally the desserts: (1) celery sorbet (surprisingly delicious and refreshing) paired wonderfully with blueberries, sweet rice and the sake foam; (2) deconstructed carrot cake with white chocolate and slightly picked shaved carrots was a perfect end to the meal.

This place is amazing and I highly recommend it!

(the only bad thing is their wine/beer/sake list which is crazy expensive!)

One last thing – they have AMAZING books in the bathroom! I wanted to spend time in there and flip through all of them! Luckily my partner-in-crime also felt the same way and snapped some photos!