Whenever I think the food's going to be interesting, I invite my friend Andy Battaglia. He writes music and book reviews — mostly music reviews — for The Onion and is a true sensualist, delighted by anything that makes his senses go "Whoa, what was that?"
So he was the obvious choice to be a guest at Megu, a high-end creative-Japanese restaurant in Tribeca.
It's a pleasure to watch Andy's delight at eating food such as teriyaki foie gras skewers. He's also my source of knowledge about music. Tonight I learned that house music originated around 1985 in black gay bars in Chicago's South Side — specifically at a place called The Warehouse. Shortly thereafter, techno was developed in Detroit.
An important difference between those genres, he said, is that the source of gravity in techno is below the music; in house, it's above the music.
What I ate:
Snapper sashimi salad with pine nuts, garlic chips and walnuts prepared tableside and topped with sesame oil
"A very special egg" — mango of a shape and texture that resembled an egg yolk, floating in a sweet, clear sauce, served in a porcelain spoon
An amuse-bouche of chicken with scallions
Snapper with shaved white truffle and ginger slivers in snapper consommé
Tuna "no ten" — forehead meat — mixed with 30 percent o-toro — belly meat — in wasabi-lemon soup, caviar and tuna marrow mousse, drizzled with a mixture of soy sauce and daiginjo sake.
Foie gras teriyaki skewers topped with sesame, served on a charcoal grill
Spanish mackerel cooked sous vide with a sauce of parsley, olive oil and garlic, garnished with a salmon-and-rice beggar's purse, cantaloupe with akemi tuna, and apple gelée with caviar.
Sea urchin pasta in its shell
Baked onion with potato and udon, topped with a yuba — crispy soy milk — crêpe, and served in a temple-shaped porcelain bowl.
Chocolate soufflé filled with strawberry and red bean cream, served with green tea ice cream
Green tea crêpes dusted with macha and drizzled with green tea sauce.
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2 comments:
Excellent question.
I had raw, thinly sliced snapper with a salad of finely shaved vegetables, including carrot and a Japanese radish called daikon, pine nuts, thinly sliced pieces of fried garlic, and walnuts. At the table, the waiter drizzled it with hot sesame oil, cooking the fish slightly.
Next I had a slice of mango in a clear, sweet sauce
That was followed by a small pre-appetizer of sauteed chicken and scallions
Next came snapper with thinly shaved pieces of white truffle and slivers of ginger in a clear broth made from snapper
After that we were served finely diced raw tuna in a thin sauce made with lemon juice and wasabi -- a Japanese root sometimes compared to horseradish. On top of that was caviar, and the bone marrow of tuna whipped into a mousse. The tuna was drizzled with soy sauce mixed with sake.
Next we had fatty duck liver cubes dressed in teriyaki sauce, stuck on a skewer, topped with sesame seeds and grilled. It was served on the little grill on which it was cooked.
Then we had Spanish mackerel that was vacuum packed in plastic with a sauce of parsley, olive oil and garlic, and cooked in water at a temperature below the boiling point.
The Spanish mackerel had three garnishes. One was a little omelet with salmon and rice placed in the center. Then the edges of the omelet were gathered together around the filling and tied together in a little package. Sort of like that change purse I bought in Florence.
The second garnish was a small cantaloupe ball topped with a thin slice of salt-cured tuna.
The third garnish was a square of apple aspic topped with caviar.
Next we had pasta topped with cooked sea urchin and served in a sea urchin shell.
The next course was onion, scalloped potatoes and Japanese rice noodles, all baked together and then topped with soy milk that had been cooked down until all the liquid had been evaporated, making it crispy.
For dessert we had a chocolate soufflé filled with a sauce made from strawberry and sweet red beans. Next to the souffle was ice cream flavored with green tea.
We had another dessert, too: crêpes made with green tea, dusted with green tea powder and drizzled with a sweet sauce made from green tea.
I hope that helped. Give my love to Mom, Todd, Courtney, Helen, Tahirah and Harrison.
Say hi to the dogs.
The portions were small.
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