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Image 1: www.le-bernardin.com Chef: Eric Ripert
Tasting: $195 (8-course) À la carte menu: $125 (3-course)
Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday.
Image 2: This is the most highly rated seafood restaurant in NYC. From my seafood experience in Hong Kong, fresh seafood means very fresh - it should still be alive minutes prior to cooking.
Image 3:
First up, prawn in a lemon-ginger broth as an amuse bouche. The prawn was superb by itself, but it was destroyed by the powerful citrus and spicy broth. Not a good start!
Image 4: Foie Gras
The tasting menu began with a foie gras terrine topped by cubes of Japanese dashi jelly and a seaweed salad on the side. The jelly was a nice Japanese touch to the dish!
Heribert Boch, Riesling "Trittenheimer Altärchen" 1990
Image 5: Caviar-Pasta
A nest of tagliolini crowned with Royal Osetra caviar with a quail egg underneath in bacon carbonara sauce. Pasta was al dente, the seasoning from the caviar was beautiful, a simple but good dish.
Kistler "Les Noisetiers" Chardonnay 2004
Image 6: Spicy Langoustine Sambal with Chayote and Pear Julienne. This was the most disappointing dish ever! Something wrong with the langoustine texture, it was mushy like mashed potato! It made me question about the quality of seafood here! We had to mention it to the manager and he apologised saying that he would definitely figure out why and solve the issue in the future. We were glad that he took it positively!
Prager, Grüner Veltliner 2005
Image 7: White Tuna (Hawaiian Escolar)
Poached in olive oil served with grapes and saffron shallot in a verjus-lemongrass emulsion. Texture was good, firm and flaky, but it was bland.
Château Smith Haut-Lafitte Blanc 2000"
Image 8: Wild Alaskan Salmon Barely cooked salmon smothered in black trumpet and wild mushroom pot au feu. This was the best course of the meal. The precise timing and temperature was obvious to achieve such a delicate texture while retaining strong flavours of the salmon. Soft and moist flesh contrasting with the crunchy asparagus and creamy sauce. Amazing dish!Vosne-Romanée "Beaux Monts" Domaine Rion 2002
Image 9: Skate-Pork
Skate wing and crispy pork belly with gingered squash mousseline. The stringy texture of skate made it a very meaty fish. With the pork fat, this was like a meat course.Santa Duc, Gigondas "Prestige des Hautes Garrigues" 2003
Image 10: Egg as a pre-dessert
Milk chocolate pot de crème and maple syrup topped with caramel foam dusted with sea salt.
Image 11: Yuzu-Green Tea
An interesting Japanese-influenced dessert composed of yuzu cream covered in crunchy caramelized rice with pulps of grapefruit and a scoop of green tea ice cream decorated by a few pieces of airy, crispy meringue. Not a bad finish.
Tokaji Aszu "5 Puttonyos" Domaine Disznoko 1999
Image 12: A selection of petits-fours to conclude our meal. We were not satisfied with this meal. None of the courses were really memorable except for of course, the langoustine, of which we made a complaint of!