Restaurant Week Round Up: NYC

New York City restaurant week is a spectacle to say the least.  The number of participating restaurants is overwhelming, with over 350 places offering lunch, dinner or both.  There is also probably no other city that has as many Michelin star restaurants offerings these $25 and $38 prix fixe deals.  This all generates quite a stressful situation for me, because with a dizzying number of options and limited time, there are so many ways to go wrong, but also so many ways to go right. 

Morimoto:

I decided to try out Morimoto at Chelsea Market for lunch.  Although, I usually don't visit chain restaurants and Morimoto also has a location in Philly, the restaurant week menu looked enticing, so I gave it a shot.  The prix fixe was actually the same as their usual lunch bento sets, except at a slightly cheaper price. 

Each bento set came with miso soup, mixed greens salad, pickled long beans, and pickled cucumbers. My friend got the Morimoto dry aged burger, which came with sweet potato chips on the side. It was a decent burger, but taste wise, there was nothing mind-blowing about miso russian dressing or the sake kasu soba ale cheese. 

I got the braised black cod, which came with a bowl of house-polished rice.  Although I wished the filet was slightly bigger, I finally understood why this was one of their most popular dishes.  The ginger-soy reduction glaze was sweet and syrupy, and the fish itself was cooked to the perfect tenderness.  

Dessert did not disappoint either.  Slightly obsessive about black sesame, I couldn't get enough of the black sesame profiteroles. The black sesame cream on the inside was smooth and nutty, pairing nicely with the crispy white sprinkles on top of the choux pastries and the acidity of the strawberry sorbet.

I usually find mousses to be boring, since most lack a contrast in texture.  This espresso mousse on the other hand had a layer of crunchy ground coffee bean and there were also streaks of chocolate shavings.

Overall, it was a good meal, but since it was similar to the usual lunch prices, it probably wasn't the best deal of Restaurant Week. 

Aureole- Liberty Room:

Aureole, a glistening and modern restaurant at the edge of Times Square, holds one Michelin star.  Since it's our goal to one day try out every Michelin restaurant in New York City (I know, it's probably never going to happen), my family and I picked Aureole for Restaurant Week dinner.  Like most high-end restaurants, Aureole is separated into two rooms: the main dining room is more formal (and more expensive), the outer Liberty Room is more casual and relaxed.  Similar to how Restaurant Week at Jean George only applies to Nougatine, only the Liberty Room of Aureole was participating. 

We went with two Restaurant Week prix fixes and also order a few items off the normal menu (these will not be featured, since this is solely a RW review).  One of the appetizers was the heirloom tomato gazpacho with octopus, cucumber, and fresno peppers.  It was light and refreshing, especially from the cucumber pieces, making it perfect for the hot summer day. 

The second appetizer was the cavetelli pasta with yellow pepper, fava beans, capers, and pancetta.  Although the pasta had a great chewy texture, the dish was too heavy and salty.  The yellow cream sauce felt thick and cheesy, and the combination of the briny capers and cured pancetta was a bit overwhelming.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed the roasted trout with wild rice, daikon and edamame in an herb broth. The trout was cooked such that the skin had a great sear without overcooking the meat, but it was actually everything underneath the trout that was the highlight of the dish. I loved how the wild rice absorbed all the broth, giving the rice so much flavor and depth.

The second entree was veal kielbasa sausage with english peas, crushed potato, and mustard sauce.  I usually don't order sausage because I'm not the biggest fan of its texture, so I probably wouldn't get this dish again.  The supporting components of the dish were enjoyable though. There was a sense of warmth and comfort from the mixture of gravy with buttery crushed potato and peas.

The best course of the meal was probably dessert (but then again, it always is for me).  We got the vanilla panna cotta with strawberry consommé and lace tuile.  Even though many restaurants also have vanilla panna cotta on their menu, this one was nevertheless delicious, especially since the sour strawberry consommé gave the simple taste of the panna cotta a much needed brightness. 

The peanut crunch with chocolate mousse, candied bacon, and caramel ice cream was the perfect marriage between salty and sweet. Although crunchy on top, the bottom of the peanut-caramel bar was indulgently gooey.  And of course, who can refuse candied bacon.

Despite the highlights of the meal, such as the roasted trout and peanut crunch, we were a bit let down by the ingenuity of the food at this Michelin restaurant.  However, I understand that it is mainly because they only offer cheaper options for Restaurant Week, so what we ate that day did not give an accurate depiction of Chef Palmer's true capacity. Although not mentioned in this post, we enjoyed the two items ordered off the regular menu much more. I guess you get what you pay for. 

Andanada:

Another restaurant, another Michelin Star.  Andanada is a Spanish tapa restaurant hidden in the basement level of a quiet Upper West Side street.  It's authentic yet modern, traditional yet relaxed.  You can tell from the conversations that all the employees are from Spain. 

The meal began with a treat from the chef.  We each received a mini glass bottle of gazpacho and chips with a mustard dip to share.  The gazpacho was interestingly translucent and extremely refreshing. 

After comparing the prix fixe with the normal menu, we felt that they only offered the cheapest items for Restaurant Week, so we decided to go with only one prix fixe and ordered the rest a la carte (once again, these will not be featured).  Our first prix fixe dish was the gambas al ajillo.  If you read my Philly RW post, you probably remember that I also ordered this dish at Jamonera.  I was disappointed to see the shrimps in Andanada's version to be smaller, though we were given more of them.  Taste wise, the two were comparable, although Andanada's was slightly more spicy.

We originally ordered the chicken dish, but unfortunately the server messed up and gave us the stuffed peppers with cod cream instead. Since the outside of the pepper is breaded, we had an inkling that this was not our order, but we didn't fully realize the error until we dug in.  Luckily, the dish ended up being quite good.  I loved how I could fully taste the cod in the filling and everything was surprisingly not heavy.

Our dessert was a melon gelee soup with cantaloupe pieces wrapped in thin slices of honeydew and topped with a lemon sorbet.  Everything about this dish was novel and innovative, and I loved how they purposed the honeydew into a type of wrapping.

As a sweet treat, we were given complimentary pine-scented truffles!

Our dinner at Andanada was similar to the one at Aureole in that neither prix fixe menus gave us a Michelin star quality experience. I was expecting there to be more courses at Andanada because tapas are so small, but we were only given three.  The three dishes we ordered off the regular menu showed glimpses of star worthiness, but if these Michelin restaurants want new diners to believe in the ratings, then they should be willing to invest more into Restaurant Week.