vip in the city

Ko yes!

Just returned from the tasting menu at Momofuku Ko — easily the most transcendent meal I’ve had in recent memory. After a couple weeks of obsessively monitoring the reservations website, where new spaces at the 12-seat counter go up 7 days in advance promptly at 10AM, I managed to snare a reservation for 2 at 7:30PM tonight. (Not even Bruni is exempt from the scrambling madness.) And just as critics Ruth Reichl and Ed Levine, bloggers like Kathryn Yu and Tina Wong (a.k.a. The Wandering Eater) and several other members of the food community have said it would be, it was divine.

Fuller description of our 2½ hour+ experience will follow — all my focus now is on processing this glorious meal… and catching up on tonight’s Top Chef — but in the meantime, here are a few photos of the twelve courses we sampled at David Chang’s newest venture.

Deep fried sweet shrimp heads:

Fluke sashimi with spicy buttermilk sauce, poppy seeds and chives:

Chef Chang, who wandered in and out of the open kitchen throughout the service:

Smoked coddled “hen egg” with Hackleback caviar, onion soubise, sweet potato vinegar, fingerling potato chips and fines herbes:

Seared scallops, with almonds, pickled radish and bacon puree:

Braised and deep-fried short rib, grilled scallion, pickled carrots, stewed daikon and mustard seeds:

Check out my full Momofuku Ko photo set on flickr.

Tags: David Chang, East Village, Momofuku, Momofuku Ko, tasting menu

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