Actual IM conversation with my friend Kelly, Wednesday afternoon:
Kelly: oh shit there's an open seat at ko tomorrow 930
me: seriously???
me: TAKE IT
me: that is awwwwesome
"Ko," if you didn't know, would be Momofuku Ko, the third restaurant from David Chang (after Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam). There are only 12 seats, and it's nearly impossible to get a reservation. To snag one, you have to log onto the reservations site at exactly 10 am; and believe you me, I've tried. A lot. Those seats are gone before the clock hits 10:00:30. It's probably easier to work the Jeopardy! buzzer than to hit the exact, split-second timing on the Momofuku Ko reservations process.
But on Wednesday afternoon -- and I don't know if it's the recession, or the fact that checking in the afternoon means you're more likely to find a cancellation -- my friend Kelly scored that rarest of things: a reservation at Ko. And she was nice enough to invite me to share it with her. So the next night, giddy with anticipation, we went.
Interestingly enough, the majority of the 12 seats were occupied by men on what appeared to be man-dates. (It's hard to tell without interaction, but I don't think any of them were gay.) Maybe if you're a guy and you're not married or don't have a serious girlfriend, you wouldn't want to waste a Ko reservation on just a friend or a casual date?
They wouldn't let us take pictures, so when each dish of the 10-course prix fixe arrived, I did my best to type the description on my iPhone; but the combination of my horrid iPhone typing skills and the sheer number of ingredients in each dish meant that I did a very poor job.
At any rate, here's whatever I could capture of the menu. The meal itself? One of the best of my life, right up there with that time I ate at Chez Panisse for my brother's graduation. The food was so fresh, the preparation so well-executed, the flavors so clean and intense, the combinations of ingredients so unique and remarkable. It was dizzying.
My favorites: the biscuit, the poached hen egg, the fresh pasta with snail sausage and chicken skin, and the shaved foie gras with Riesling jelly and lichee. (Yes, I realize that's almost half of them.)
Biscuit with mirin and black pepper; chicharron; raw oyster with cucumber [and something]
Sliced Long Island fluke with spicy buttermilk and sesame seeds
Chilled dashi with snap peas and pea shoots
Lightly poached hen egg with caviar, onion, sweet potato chips and smoked fish
Fresh pasta with snail sausage, chicken skin and pecorino
Halibut encrusted with crispy ham shavings, over apple and cauliflower puree
Shaved foie gras with Riesling jelly, lichee and pineapple (?)
Aged sirloin with pickled shallots, brussel sprouts, parsley and black mushrooms
Guava sorbet and cream cheese
Funnel cake, black sesame ice cream, coconut and lemon
At the end of the meal, I asked the chef who was serving us our food what they do with the leftover chicken skin from the pasta -- secretly hoping, of course, that he would give me some. "We throw them away," he said. "Whaaatt??!!" I said, the taste of that glorious chicken skin still fresh on my tongue. "Oh my gosh, that's such a tragedy!" "Nah," he replied, "Without all the seasoning and other ingredients, they don't really taste that good. They taste like pennies."
I highly doubt that.
