January 22, 2011 - Per Se

Per Se at Columbus Circle (Upper West Side) in New York, NY
http://www.perseny.com/

Our friend Andy was in town and he wanted to go to a nice restaurant. After some OpenTable searching, we noticed there was an opening at Per Se. Andy (and Kuau, and our other friend Ben, for that matter) is from the San Francisco Bay Area, where Per Se's sister restaurant, French Laundry, is located, and he's been interested in going there for years. So Per Se was a good substitute.

We thought we'd be able to order the "salon menu," which is closer to an a la carte, four-course menu, rather than the elaborate and quite expensive nine-course tasting menu. However, after we were seated, we found out the dining room is only for the nine-course tasting menu. Andy was sold after looking at the nine-course menu, but the rest of us wouldn't have minded saving a few bucks and getting fewer courses. The maitre'd and our waiter very nicely decided to accommodate us and allow three of us to order a 5-course menu similar to their lunch menu, while Andy got the tasting menu. We were pretty pleased, since usually a tasting menu has to be done for the entire table.

Also, Ellie got a stool for her purse, so that it didn't have to rest on the ground or sway in the wind on the back of a chair. Our other friend Ben was jealous, so our waiter good-humoredly brought him a stool as well for his 2-oz. wallet.

More...

We had two amuse bouches -- the first was a fried cheese ball, which we unceremoniously devoured. The second was kind of like a salmon hand roll with smoked salmon and creme fraiche. (The waitress joked that we shouldn't try to lick it like an ice cream cone because the salmon would plop off the top, which she said had happened before.) As Andy said, it was "very good."



Our first "real" course was "Oysters and Pearls," described as a "sabayon" of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters (from Massachusetts) and sterling white sturgeon caviar. There was a pretty generous serving of caviar, and the oysters were off the shell and supposedly "cooked," although it seemed like a pretty light cooking to us, not that we were complaining. The sabayon kind of was like a very creamy soup with tapioca chunks, which doesn't sound very good, but managed to taste delicious. The caviar added the perfect amount of salt and the oysters had a light, smoky flavor.

We were finally served bread (which we had been eyeing for quite a while now, since it was like 10:30pm). The house made bread, apparently called Parker House bread, was served warm with two kinds of butter: a salted one from Vermont, and a sweet cream butter from California. The bread was, as Ben said, "very good." To be more accurate, it tasted homemade and warm and perfectly soft and went awesome with the butter.

Andy got two extra courses at this time, while the rest of us got decorative plates so we didn't feel left out. He got a "salad" (the lettuce was in little jelly blocks, with accompanying jelly dressing) (that sounds gross, but he said it was "very good") and a fish. He liked the fish, but we thought it was pretty unexciting.

Next we all got a course of "butter poached Nova Scotia lobster." It was a perfect dense little bundle of lobster, seemingly all tail. The accompaniments were a little random -- they didn't really go with the lobster, although they were good on their own. Still, we had no complaints, and in fact Kuau went so far as to say it was "very good." The lobster was just cooked so perfectly and tasted so delicious, with a wonderful creamy-buttery sauce, that it didn't matter what it came with.

The next course was a " 'jambonnette' of Cavendish Farm's quail," with polenta disguised as cornbread, glazed turnips, and fried broccoli rabe.






Our last meat course was a "degustation of Millbrook Farm's venison, with Hadley Orchard's medjool date 'marbles' " and some other stuff, like apple and carrot sticks, and a brussels sprout. The venison was given to us as a truffled sausage, a pate-mousse?, a rack, and some weird thing (the rightmost one in the picture). The pate-mousse square was used to hold up the rack, which was pretty awesome. The rack was barely cooked, so it was really tender and juicy.

Andy then got a cheese course. Next, as a palate cleanser, we got some sort of lemon-lime sorbet/soda/foam. We thought only Andy was supposed to get this dish, but they ended up bringing one for each of us. When Ben tasted it he literally said "Oh God, it's delicious!" in shock. Kuau laughed at him, but then tasted it and had almost the same reaction. He now describes it as "fizzle foam."

The desserts (pictures below) were "Opera": candied Marcona almonds, Manjari chocolate mousse, almond ice cream, and "whiskey tonic"; and "Florida cocktail": ruby grapefruit "biscuit," Buddha's Hand soda, candied Cara Cara oranges and Okinawa brown sugar ice cream. Both of the ice creams were ridiculously good.

We were just about perfectly full, then we were approached with a selection of mignardises. Our waitress brought over sixteen house made chocolates of eight different flavors. We chose assorted flavors, and Kuau was mildly concerned that it was a small selection for a mignardises course. Ellie had no qualms though, as the maple-filled chocolate was "very good."

Luckily for Kuau, another waiter came along with a bowl of chocolate covered hazelnuts and another bowl full of house made sugar candies (which were basically tiny hard candies of assorted colors). Finally, a cute storage container came out with cinnamon as well as passion fruit chocolate macaroons. Another level contained house made caramels (we rose to the challenge by taking all of them home, since they were wrapped). The last level had three different kinds of truffles. One was a chocolate covered peanut butter marshmallow truffle. Another had coconut, and the last was the richest piece of chocolate created on earth. Really, on earth.

Finally, we were given bags upon bags of cookies to take home. Literally, they gave us each a bag, then upon finding that Andy had left his bag at the table, they met us at the entrance with four more bags and pressed them upon us until we said "what the hell" and took them all.

It was that kind of service that made the meal even more enjoyable than it already was. Though the pricing at Per Se is a bit exorbitant, the service charge is included, and post-meal tea and coffee were included as well (which made us wish we had ordered more tea and coffee, incidentally). The service was not stuffy at all (in direct contrast to certain restaurants), and the waiters joked with us the whole time. Our waiter who helped us create a 5-course menu even encouraged us to include the lobster, quail, and venison in order to "get our money's worth." Overall it was a pretty great experience and -- though I find myself surprised to say this -- I would totally like to go back.

Maybe to the salon this time.