Eat Like Ushi

The Las Vegas buffet is one of the great food customs while visiting the city of sin. There is much debate regarding the best buffet in town. The best (and most expensive) is Sterling Brunch at Bally's which is known for oysters, lobster, champagne. Unfortunately it is Sunday brunch only, meaning you have to time it well.

Of the rest, the Bellagio and Wynn are widely regarded to be the pick of the lot. We chose the Bellagio mainly because we stayed there (as the rooms are much cheaper) meaning express entry into the restaurant. And on a Saturday night, this easily saved us more than 30min of queuing time.

The food selection is very broad, so ensures the ability to cater for whatever whims you and your group have both in life and specifically that evening. The quality itself however is average.

The best of the lot is the seafood - good sushi and sashimi, prawns, mussels, crab legs. The less good news is the meat - excellent selection and all cooked to a nice medium rare, but the quality was lacking meaning it was all quite tough to chew through.

Next time I would only eat here if I was staying at the hotel with a group of people each wanting something different to eat. Otherwise I would eat at any of the many quality Vegas restaurants for the same amount of money, some of which are on this blog!

With great anticipation and planning, I managed to book the fried chicken dinner at the only normal-sounding dining time of 6pm. They offer only one space per timeslot, the others being 530pm and 10pm (although I've since noticed there are a few extra ones added).

We had a nice camp of 7 hungry people. After perusing the salivating menu, we made a (potentially foolish) decision to get a few bowls of ramen to try, a pork bun each and a few other snippets. Two whole fried chickens is a lot of food and sadly we struggled to finish it all, but I am happy to have tried so many of their dishes.

From the starters, the Pork Buns (hoisin, scallion, cucumber) are deservedly world famous. They comprise of a lovely white soft flour shell, delicate pork belly and the typical complementary flavours usually in Peking duck. It is fantastic.

We also tried the Charred Octopus (pearl onion, mole, zucchini flower) and a daily special of Pig Tails, both of which were good albeit not particularly memorable.

The Fried Chicken appeared to us like a dream. A crispy buttermilk triple-fried Southern style and also a slightly spicy Korean version. The Southern style is a rich and tasty bird, as expected given the known fried chicken quality in the USA. I can't say this is the best version I've had, but it is certainly nice especially with some lovely vegetables and sauces in a perfect wrap. I honestly prefered the sweet spicy Korean fried chicken, which in my opinion had that additional flavour to make it particularly special and unique. 

Given the place is originally reputed as a ramen-ya, we were all excited to try the famous Momofuku versions. Between us we tried two staples: Momofuku Ramen (pork belly, pork shoulder, poached egg), Ginger Scallion Noodles (pickled shiitakes, cucumber, cabbage) which my companions liked. Personally I felt the broth was much too heavy on smoked ham hock flavour (like a typical ham & pea soup), which although tasty seemed a bit too unusual for a ramen base to me (given my ramen favourites have all been in Japan). A daily special of Lamb Ramen (piquillo, soy egg, shiso) was a different variation but seemingly more standard as the broth was more lamb meat flavour rather than smoked.

Nonetheless I highly recommend this place. If nothing else besides reputation, it is a place of taste experience and good social ability, and that is what food is all about.

Next time I would order the fried chicken dinner again. The pork buns are a must. Everything else (including the ramen) is optional. Just make sure to go with at least 6 very hungry individuals.

San Francisco has a wonderful food scene and likely my favourite of all the cities I visited in the USA. Given the coastal location, it isn't surprising that many of the local specialties involve seafood - Dungeness crab, seafood chowder, oysters etc.

With respect to the latter, Hog Island is a well respected company known for its sustainable farmed oysters.

The Hog Island Oyster Co restaurant at the Ferry Building along the harbourside is the place in San Francisco to eat them. They also branch out and import a variety from around the USA and even a few from overseas. Although we had a short wait in line outside, you are standing along the harbour and enjoying the world pass by, the sights in the distance, and the oysters being served up to the lucky guests earlier than you.

On our particular visit they had their usual Hog Island Sweetwater oysters and the other prevalent local Kumamoto oysters, as well as the respected Kusshi oysters from BC, and some I hadn't heard of before - Hama Hama and Blue Pool (Washington), Island Creek (Massachusetts) and even one from New Zealand!

If you feel inclined, there are hot options for oysters, of which we tried Casino (butter, Spanish paprika, bacon, shallots, thyme) and Lobster Butter (House preserved lemon, cilantro, lobster, butter). There are also a few serving sized dishes to pick from with clams or oysters.

All the oysters were fantastic and fresh, ranging from a light sweet flavour all the way to a strong ocean intensity. The cooked oysters were tasty also, although I always prefer fresh. We also tried the Clam Steamers (Manila clams with Corona beans and Mexican-style chorizo) which was a delicious heavily-flavoured clam soup.

Next time I would order whatever types of oysters you prefer - ask your server to suit them to your taste. The hot dishes are definitely worth a try if in the mood. The food quality and outdoor setting is worth a warm evening out.

Of all my USA pre-bookings, this was one of the most anticipated. I maintain that San Francisco is the food capital of the USA and The Slanted Door was one of my happiest meals there.

I am partial to *modern* takes on Asian food and this was the only well reputed one I could find online (the others being Fatty Crab in NYC but having very mixed reception).

Being a large group, the prix fixe menu was left to two of us to decide from with some suggestions from the waiter. After much salivary debating, the final selections were:

- chilled greenlip mussels steamed in wine and lemongrass with roasted chili aioli
- grapefruit and jicama, red cabbage, pickled carrot, candied pecans
- barbecued willis ranch pork spareribs with honey-hoisin sauce
- mesquite grilled lamb sausage and kusshi oysters with chinese black olive and preserved lemon relish
- grass-fed estancia shaking beef, cubed filet mignon, watercress, red onion, lime sauce
- organic chicken claypot, caramel sauce, thai chili, fresh ginger
- wood overn roasted alaskan halibut with sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and thai basil
- hodo soy beanery organic tofu, with lemongrass, shiitake mushrooms and roasted chili

The desserts to top off were a couple of wads of fairy floss and a decadent rich chocolate roll, both of which were fun rather than fantastic, but a nice way to finish off the meal.

There were no bad dishes in the menu, only good and great ones. All had rich South-East Asian flavours that I savour the most. The most unforgettable was the Pork Spareribs with Honey-Hoisin Sauce - they were intensely meaty coated with a rich caramelised sweetness (and the only dish I can ever compare to my favourite Longrain's Crispy Fried Pork Hock). I also particularly liked the Grapefruit and Jicama salad as it was a nice contrast to the generally heavy cuisine of the USA, and the candied pecans made it more memorable than the typical Vietnamese goi salads.

Next time I would order several servings of the Barbecued Willis Ranch Pork Spareribs so I could have more than one to myself and eat my stomach cravings worth. I feel anything else would be quite safe in terms of quality, however I personally wouldn't get spring rolls or rice paper rolls as I don't see how a upmarket restaurant could make these particularly better and worth getting over more traditional establishments.

I was lucky enough to dine at Eleven Madison Park at possibly the height (so far) of their acclaim - it was the night they became the first restaurant in the world to jump from one to three Michelin Stars. A few weeks ago it was also elevated to rank 10 in the world on Restaurant Magazine's 2012 list.

I picked this as my choice of fine dining options for NYC based upon it being the only restaurant that provided a different experience - all the rest seem to be variations on typical French fine cuisine. Eleven Madison Park has the exciting menu concept of picking a few ingredients and the restaurant will create a series of dishes. It is to be noted that the tasting menu negates this concept, but nonetheless I'm not disappointed in my choice.

Sadly all the detailed notes I had written on the night were obliviated when a Facebook album was deleted via iPhoto. However the photos remain and the memories of the experience still linger.

The main things that stood out were:
- not all dishes were delicious; some were a bit strange (the tomato tea, cucumber salad), but at least they were creative;
- the ingredients were the finest collection I've eaten together - matsutake mushrooms, white truffles, black truffles, caviar, sea urchin roe, thick slabs of foie gras...;
- the white truffle supplement of USD95 per person seems excessive, but my first experience with the explosive flavour was gourmet-life changing;
- the service and hospitality is impeccable (notice all the waiters only walk in one direction around the room) and being invited to the kitchen to watch and be served a liquid nitrogen cocktail was a fine touch;
- at the end they gave my partner a nice jar filled with housemade granola. 

Keep in mind to total bill for 2 with white truffle supplement and 2 glasses of wine was USD600. Added tip was USD120. This is not a cheap meal!

Next time I would order the tasting menu again. Although I want to pick from their matrix of ingredients for fun, the experience of the full courses is worth the money and all for the lust of food.

02-2016

Luck would have it that I decided to clear some space on my phone. I opened the deleted section of my phone's notes and found entries dating back to 2010. An entry popped up that made me smile "Eleven Madison Park" from 2011. All was not lost after all. Even though I can't quite remember dish for dish (with a couple of noticeable exceptions), at least this is something:

- Beetroot & goat cheese lollipop
- Tomato tea & parmesan
- Scallop ceviche & yuzu
- Raw tuna & black pepper on rice cracker
- Goat cheese croquette with vinaigrette
- Apple, sea urchin caviar, foie gras & dill
- Long island style clam chowder in a pot, clam with basil, clam with caviar, corn
- NYC flour bread with goat milk butter with dill, sheep & crispy faro milk butter and fleur de sal
- Cucumber with buttermilk dressing mustard seeds
- Foie gras terrine with pickled onion, plum & almonds
- Artichoke, sweet bread, truffle & jus
- Poached lobster, matsutake mushrooms, jus topped with fresh white truffle slices (probably the greatest dish of all time)
- Pork, butterscotch palms, scallion jus & plum
- Gooseberry EVOO, melon, peach & ricotta
- Egg cream drink, milk syrup, malt milk, EVOO & seltzer water
- Chocolate sponge, coffee cream, & hazelnut icecream 
- Petit four
- Liquid nitrogen passionfruit cocktail

01-2017

One day clearing out old travel documents stored for eternity, I came across the original menu from that night...