Cafe Boulud - NYC

My fiancee and I were flying in to NYC to celebrate my father's 70th birthday. Our plane was hopelessly late, and we ended up not getting to the restaurant until 10:30. On the dot, once we sat they told us the kitchen was closing soon, but they wanted us to be able to eat. We ordered quickly, and knowing me, I picked the stuff that's a total pain in the ass to fix. I can't review other's food as I didn't taste it.

I started with the "Biscuit and gravy". It's described as pork, foie gras, black truffle, creamed spinach and sauce pergourdine. First off, this is the sign that I eat out at high end restaurants far too much- I was able to disect just about every spice and flavor in this dish and explain to other people at the table how their sauce was made once I saw it. FYI, pergourdine sauces are those made with black truffles normally, and also normally with stock of some sort- in this case possibly the best veal stock I've ever tasted in my life. The pork was mixed with the foie to make a sausage like texture with black truffles mixed in, all set above a bed of creamed spinach on a homemade brioche biscuit. Absolutely incredible. This leads me to the question- honey, can you make me this for breakfast?

For my main I wasn't famished, so I had an appetizer portion of their wild mushroom ravioli with chive batons and parmesan froth. With black truffles. Stunning ravioli. Perfectly light with the flavor of the mushrooms coming right through. The froth allowed for the perfect amount of salt seasoning while keeping the ravioli moist. The chive batons didn't add much to the plate other than colorful garnish, but they looked great on the plate.

For dessert I had a degustation of artisnal cheeses which franky I didn't get too much of as my table went for them They were great though with a focus on domestic cheeses, a lot of raw cow and goat milk cheeses.

All in all, this is one of my favorite places to eat in the country.

jpschust wrote:My fiancee and I were flying in to NYC to celebrate my father's 30th birthday.

Just how old are you?

stevez wrote:

jpschust wrote:My fiancee and I were flying in to NYC to celebrate my father's 30th birthday.

Just how old are you?

Sorry, mistake, my dad is 70

This year, my brother and I have decided to begin a new family tradition where we eat our way through our respective cities. I'm six months late in recapping our inaugural whirlwind tour of Chicago, I did manage to take some notes and snap some blurry photos of our dinner at Cafe Boulud.

Sadly, I forgot about my camera and neglected to take pictures of the Amuse & the Appetizers.

Amuse Bouche
Risotto Croquettes (?) (no photo)
I wish I could give a better description, but, for some inexplicable reason, I decided to pop the entire thing in my mouth at once, resulting in my saliva sizzling inside as I burned a hole in my cheek. Yes, I'm an idiot. What little I tasted before swishing it around my mouth with ice water was very nice, though.

Appetizers
Winter Squash Veloute (Cranberry, Ginger, Celery Branch)
This was maybe the best soup I've ever had - I sopped up every last drop with my bread. Rich, balanced, and silky smooth, the flavor & texture melded perfectly - it tasted like a spoonful of winter.

Sea Scallop Crudo (White Miso, Crispy Aromatic Salad, Warm Scallion Vinagrette)
Excellent, but... such little portions. There was aybe 1/2 of a scallop on the dish, total. I know, I'm a barbaric American phillistine, but... we just paid $22 for four razor-thin slices of scallop, pounded even thinner.

Belgian Endive Salad (Port Wine Poached Pears, Toasted Walnuts, Blue Cheese, Sherry Vinaigrette)
Delicious, but... it's a salad. And as a wise person once noted, salad is stupid. It served its purpose, though - we ordered it primarily as a light palate cleanser for the main courses, which it did admirably.

Main Courses
Wild Mushroom Risotto (Aged Parmesan Froth, Chervil, Olive Oil)

Atrocious photo, delicious dish. I didn't think the Parmesan foam added much, but the broth was very rich and paired nicely with the mushrooms, giving it a nice earthy balance.

Pomegranate Glazed Duck (Sweet Potato, Spinach)

This was my favorite dish of the night - is there anything in this world better than a nice, medium-rare piece of duck with crispy skin? The tartness of the pomegranate glaze cut nicely against the fattiness of the duck, but what I liked most is they didn't try to do too much. The duck was the star, and they let it shine.

Braised Short Rib (Potatoes, Glazed baby Beats, Horseradish Sauce Bordelaise)

Once again, I apologize for the horrible photo. That log with the exploded Peep in the middle is actually a beautifully braised short rib with a horseradish sauce on a black piece of slate which seems to have thrown off my camera's autofocus.

I'm relatively new to this whole fine dining thing, so I don't always describe things as well as I'd like. One of my biggest troubles describing the difference between something that's refined, versus something that's very good. There's some overlap, obviously, but I don't have the right words to make the proper distinction - not everything refined is good, and not everything good is refined. This short rib kind of gets at that difference.

A braised chunk of meat is one least refined foods I can think of. In this dish, however, the sauce from the braising liquid was as earthy and rich as you'd expect, while the meat itself somehow tasted lighter and more delicate. The horseradish sauce unified the whole plate, cutting into the richness of the meat and carrying the flavor into the potatoes and vegetables. It wasn't overpowering, but added just enough heat and acid that it helped balance out the dish. The potatoes, meanwhile, were my favorite component of the dish. Each little disk was nicely crisped on the outside, but chewy on the inside, like a savory potato cookie. A Potato Cookie. Meat & potatoes are a natural accompaniment, of course, but this carried the idea on an entirely different level.

I still don't know how to explain what I mean by refined, but now, at least I can point to this photo of the Loch Ness Monster and proclaim, "Like that!".

Warm Apple Tatin (Puff Pastry, Graham Cracker Tuile, Bourbon Ice Cream)

The apple tatin tasted like an entire bushel of apples reduced down to 1/4 cup. It was apple, with an exclamation point on it - not just sweet, not just tart, but the entire complex essence of apples in a concentrated form. It was lightly spiced - I can't recall exactly what I tasted, but they mostly stayed out of the way and let the apples take over.

Vanilla Bavarois (Speculoos, Poached Pears, Chocolate Ice Cream)

I'm not sure how to describe this - it looks really simple, but the flavors were just really clean and well balanced. It was definitely a case where the sum was greater than the individual components. The poached pears might have been a bit superfluous, but vanilla was incredibly rich, and managed to stand up well against the chocolate crumbles & ice cream. I don't know what speculoos are - that might actually be a typo from the website, as I neglected to snap a photo of the menu.

Lemon Madeleines (no photo)
What can I say? Madeleines are my favorite cookie. Lemon is my favorite fruit. Lemon + Madeleine = A Very Happy George. I think these were meant to go with coffee, which we skipped because we wanted to hold on to the flavors still in our mouths. The incredibly light & airy madeleines were perfect in that regard.

Looks lovely ... and refined.


Speculoos are cookies - picture here: http://www.brussels-belgium-travel-guid ... uloos.html - though they might also mean the spread made from the cookies.

Wondering if the cookie crumbs were speculoos crumbs or is you can even have chocolate speculoos? (I think of them as always just being ginger spicey.

Siun wrote:Speculoos are cookies - picture here: http://www.brussels-belgium-travel-guid ... uloos.html - though they might also mean the spread made from the cookies.

Wondering if the cookie crumbs were speculoos crumbs or is you can even have chocolate speculoos? (I think of them as always just being ginger spicey.

Ah, that makes sense. Yes, I do believe the crumbs were the speculoos, so apparently you can have chocolate speculoos.

ETA: Or, they just changed the recipe during service from the one on the website.