Restaurant Week: Aureole and Eleven Madison Park
- By Robyn Lee
- Jul 29, 2007
- Comments
There are a few semi-universal factors to dining that may help you gauge the level of satisfaction you'll receive at a restaurant. For instance, does your waiter come by at reasonable time intervals to take your order and give you your food, or does he slink away as soon as you squeak, "I would like—" and only tends to your needs at the start of a new lunar phase? Is your menu contained within a leather-bound, gold tassled booklet or is it viewable under the clear vinyl covering of your table? Does your butter come in the form of a large block resting in its own specially made butter tray or are you given a bowl of plastic, hermetically sealed single-serve butter buckets that each contain just enough butter to inefficiently spread upon one small piece of bread, resulting in a mass grave of empty butter buckets strewn upon your table?
- buttah
Aureole is serious about their butter and they know their customers are too. Why else would they present you with a block of ultra-sweet butter in its own gleaming silver tray? Tina, Helen, Giulia and I excitedly stabbed the butter like a bunch of butter-hungry young females...since that's what we are.
- bread
But we don't like to eat chunks of butter straight; we like to smear the chunks into the holey crevices of a good bread roll so that the souls of carbohydrates and fat can wriggle together and become ooonnnee. Unfortunately, the cold butter resisted the not so mighty power of the butter knife and didn't lend itself well to smushing. I'd say the souls of my bread and butter were combined by about 50%.
- chilled pea soup
The buttering failure was forgotten when I tasted my chilled sweet pea soup (accompanied by a blop of lemon & pepper cream and some radish shavings). It tasted like...sweet peas! Say wut? Alright, not much of a surprise there, but peas in silky, liquid form is a nice change from normal, spherical form. The flavor spreads over every part of your mouth and no green stuff gets stuck in your teeth. Sweet. Unfortunately, the crab crisp, which looked like a very tall, possibly anorexic version of a fat stuffy spring roll (a supermodel to the common spring roll folk?) was kind of dry and didn't add much to my pea soup eating experience. I would've gladly traded the crab crisp for...moooore souuup...
- hot smoked salmon
Tina and Giulia ordered the hot smoked salmon with raw tomato tart and avocado...
- salad!
...And Helen got a salad of shaved country ham, grilled figs & bitter greens dressed with preserved lemon bits and aged balsamic vinaigrette. The bitter greens were too bitter for her tastes (and mine), but the grilled figs oozed with the tasty goodness of grilled sugar. Or just...sugar in general. If the salad were only composed of grilled figs (a MOUNTAIN of them!), then Helen probably would've had sparkles of glee in her eyes instead of faint disgust from tainting her mouth with the evil green leaves. But that probably wouldn't count as a salad.
- seared hake
My seared hake (with summer bean salad and mildly spicy salsa verde) tasted somewhere between "very good" and "perfect." My favorite form of fish is when the flesh is soft and tender on the inside with just the slightest crispy crust on the outside. And I mean very slight. Like a micronanomillimeter, if such a thing exists (pretend it does). The only times I've ever had fish like that was at upscale restaurants like Aureole because for some reason those are the only places with the magical ability to make it super tasty. I wonder how hard it would be to reach the same level of perfection in my own home, or if it would even be possible. Considering that I once completely mangled a cod fillet in my cooking class while trying to pan sear it (although my overly nice professor didn't balk at my disfigured fillet, she was probably restraining herself from wringing my throat or something), I'm gonna say, "not that possible."
- pasta dish
Helen ordered the "Garganelli Pasta with Wild Mushrooms & Caramelized Onions" with tomato confit, wilted arugula and goat cheese. My assumption is that it was good. Yeah. Um.
- roast chicken
Giulia ordered the roasted Amish chicken with scallion risotto. I don't remember much about this dish, but Giulia loved it.
- DESSERT, WOO
We all ordered the triple chocolate terrine with banana ice cream and caramelized plantains because WE LIKEY DA CHOCOLATE (and none of us was in the mood for the other dessert, lemon ricotta cheesecake). Although I really liked the chocolate mousse-y terrine, which was borderline too sweet (but only borderline, meaning that I could still comfortable eat it all), my favorite part was the creamy banana ice cream, held in place by a little mat of what tasted like pulverized cookie dust. If only they made a banana ice cream sundae...damn, that would've been good. Are sundaes beneath the ostentatious atmosphere of an upscale restaurant?
The caramelized plantains were disappointing, for they weren't really caramelized. Dumping caramel sauce on top of something does not qualify as caramelization. Sauce was tasty, stuff underneath was not. The plantains were so starchy that they reminded me of potato...potato covered with caramel sauce. Such a combination does not compute. If the chef had tasted the plantains, I hope he would've though, "Damn, this ain't right." Or something with a comparable meaning.
- Aureole
Overall I'd say Aureole was very good and a place I'd like to return to once I make a gajillion dollars. Sure, it's not dip-into-your-trust-fund expensive, but when one entree (outside of Restaurant Week) exceeds my normal expenditure for an entire meal, a red flag goes up. ...Says the girl who will spend a gajillion dollars on a trip to Italy and has her eye on a new Mac Book Pro...well. That's different.
Eleven Madison Park
Thank goodness for Tina; without her I wouldn't have even though of going to one restaurant for Restaurant Week. And because she likes to plan ahead (aka make reservations to lots of restaurants with the hopes that none of her friends' plans will change, except they inevitably do, which is where I come in and fill the void) I got to go to two places.
- Eleven Madison Park
I've been interested in going to Eleven Madison Park ever since I heard that it was awesome times ten-thousand. Roughly. At least everyone who had dined there seemed to have the same positive experience. Don't I deserve such an experience? DON'T I?! Probably not, but the restaurant didn't know that.
- we are reflected
Tina, Helen, Doug and I were seated around a large, roomy round table with one extra spot for Ariel, who was running a little late. I slipped out of my icy rain-soaked shoes, wishing that I had a fluffy towel to dry off my feet with but figured it'd be a little odd to ask, "May I have one of your pristine towels so that I may desecrate it with the soles of my feet?" (I only once went to a restaurant who was giving all their customers towels since it was raining sheets: Coral Sea Restaurant at EPCOT Center. Good times. Besides that we had to wring out our clothing.)
- butter puck's where it's at
EMP had the "big slab of butter in a pretty dish" thing going on. The dish was even nicer than Aureole's; it was a dish within a dish. I think the lining of the inner dish was dotted with holes to allow the butter to...breathe. Does butter breathe? [shrugs]
- salt and pepper
There was also a tiny dish of salt and pepper on our table in case we weren't pleased with the way our food was seasoned. I figured that the food should be correctly seasoned before coming out of the kitchen. Was the choice to season our own food some kind of dare from the chef? Like, "Use this salt and pepper and I shall smite you with my sauté pan." None of us found out since we didn't need to use the salt or pepper.
- olive bread
I started with an olive bread roll, thickly crusted with soft innards speckled with olive bits. Over the meal the bread guy came back a few times to offer us more bread. Bread serf, come hither with carbohydrate replenishment!...is not what I said or thought. I didn't want to ruin my appetite too much with the bread because, you know, if given the temptation (such as, if a large basket of bread is placed in front of me) I will eat lots of bread.
- tuna
I started with the "Big Eye Tuna with Cherry Lane Farm Asparagus and Montegottero Pistachio Oil" (all dish descriptions are being nicked from Tina, by the way), not so much because I love tuna but because I didn't want the other choices. Three little quenelles of chopped up tuna bits were topped with impossibly small quartered asparagus tips with amorphous blobs of pistachio oil drizzled around the plate. If I liked tuna more I suppose I would've...liked this dish more. Of course, it tasted good—I liked it enough to eat it all—but I don't remember much about it.
- pretty salad
Doug got a very pretty "Salad of Green Vegetables with Marcona Almonds" that made us go, "Oooh, pretty salad."
- strawberry gazpacho
Tina, Helen and Ariel got the "Green Market Strawberry Gazpacho with Poached Tiger Prawns and Guanciale." The response was mixed; it was good, but not awesome. Ariel complained that it was disarmingly sweet and strawberry flavored, this missing the gazpacho-ness that he was after, but that it was creative. ...A little too creative. I don't have an opinion since I didn't try it.
- roasted chicken
Tina and I ordered the "Roasted Chicken with Garden Peas and Morels" for our main course. Although I wouldn't say it blew my mind, I thought it was very good. I like moist, tender chicken with a layer of crispy skin, I like peas, I like potatoes the size of pebbles, and morels...well, morels are alright. I'm not sure I had ever eaten them before.
- salmon with FOAM
Everyone else ordered the "Slow Cooked Scottish Salmon with Mediterranean Vegetables" which unexpectedly appeared as a block of salmon sitting in a sea of white foam. Tomato flavored foam. Which tastes like tomato, but foamy. It was a bit of a surprise since tomato doesn't usually come in foam form. Like the chicken, the salmon tasted like it was perfectly cooked—just to the point of not being entirely raw, very moist and tender.
- it's dessert time, suckaz
Doug and I went with the "Almond Panacotta with Summer Berries" for dessert. I heart panacotta. Or most of them. They're somewhat solid like gelatin, but with the creaminess of pudding or mousse. While I liked EMP's panacotta, I didn't really heart it. It had the jiggle and many glorious specks of vanilla bean, yet something was missing. More flavor, more creaminess? Where's the luuuv? Ah well. I think I liked the minty raspberry sauce and berries more than the panacotta.
- apricot clafouti
Helen's "Apricots Clafouti with Almond Honey Ice Cream" looked pretty, but another dish I don't recall much about. I tasted it. It sent some kind of signal to my brain through the ol' taste buds. And that signal was... ....I'm blanking out...
- chocolate cake
Ariel bisected his "Moelleux of Bittersweet Chocolate with Passion fruit" and shared it with the rest of the table. I could smell the tangy passion fruit as the plate got closer to my side of the table. The small bite I tried tasted good enough (creamy, chocolatey), but again, not something I remember much about.
- HUMANS
We ended our meal with the touristy thing to do, which is TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS OF HAPPY SMILIN' PEOPLE. Top left is Ariel, then Doug in the right, and Tina, me and Helen in the bottom photo. These are some of the best people you could eat out with; every person has a difference sense of humor and approach to eating, but we all mesh together well in...warm, gooey harmony. LIKE CASSEROLE! A 60% Asian female casserole.
So we shall eat again. Maybe not at EMP, which I was surprised to find I didn't like as much as Aureole, but some other awesome place. Momofuku Ssam Bar is calling my name...
Comments
OMG! That's the funniest post I've read! ...Or just because I've been studying for LSATs for the past oh, 9 hours straight. My brain's fried to a burnt crisp.
Anyways, I'm sorry that EMP was not the experience that you wanted (or any of us, methinks). It was better pre-RW.
Ooh! We totally got to go to Momofuku Ssam! I still haven't tried it for dinner yet, even though I know a million plus people have done so.
All your pretty pictures!! I'm just sitting here, wishing, trying to figure out if I could somehow eat the computer screen...or rather all the FOOD that's staring back at me from the screen! :)
Great post- makes me wish I had more money to get some decent food. Where does the money go? *Hides choholate wrappers and hello kitty keychains*
And what is it with bread in restaurants ? Its gotten so bad that I request for it to be absent from my table, as once I see it, I have to consume the whole basket. And placing the butter in visually appealing dishes is so sneaky- those evil restaurants are always preying on us mortals.
I hate going to an expensive restaurant and not being blown away. But the upside there is that whether you enjoyed it or not, you still got to eat. Always a plus.
hey! robyn, i am extending an invitation for food. i haven't seen you in ages, and i think it's about time. i found an amazing pizza place in coney island, and they sell ralph's italian cream ice on the boardwalk, which i used to eat every summer in jersey and is awesome. come with me for foooood adventttuuuurreees!
oh yeah, and i really want to make those violet cassis macarons as a homage to laduree. my mother sent me some liqueur a la violette from france, but i'm still on the lookout for candied violet petals and violet flavoring (it's super hard to find, even in ny!) any suggestions, anyone?
Tina: 9 HOURS? ...What the hell. That's wrong. That's longer than a normal night's rest. THAT IS SO WRONG.
[pat pat] Be strong.
It was still a good experience. I had good company. BWAHAHA!
Definitely gotta hit Momofuku!
Kathy: Not much longer until you're here and can eat them in real life! Whoaa.
Tahlia: Aha, it's the deadly chocolate + Hello Kitty combination! Don't let them clear our your bank account, NOOOOO.
Oh god, I can't bring myself to ask for NO bread. I...I need it. [wimpers] As long as they don't give me a full loaf, I'm okay. Yeah.
Leena: I like to go to pricey restaurants with people I like so at the very least I know I'll enjoy the company. (Actually, that applies to any restaurant, but it's more important when I'm dropping major bucks on it.) And I usually enjoy the food...I suppose it's always good, I just hope for something MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME.
Sam: Oo, we could go fooding yeah! Coney Island is kind far for me though...I mean, when I think of going back home to NJ from the far reaches of Brooklyn, hehe. Do you have any other places in mind?
I found violet petals at Kalustyans, but they don't seem to have violet flavoring. .__. But it's NYC, it's gotta be...somewhere...
Question: What's your favorite Thai restaurant in the city? or boroughs? whichever.
Every summer I make a pre-return to podunk SUNY Bing trip to the city to visit friends, and I think if I eat anymore pizza and hotdogs I'll yarf. I demand good asian food!! And since there is neither good Thai here or at school and I haven't had any really good stuff in a while, I need help!
Thanks
Is it wrong that whenever I read 'aureole' a little voice in my head head 'areola' and I tittered a little bit?
Anyways, that salad has inspired me to grill some figs on my own. but on my disposable £5 bbq from sainsburys. so I'm not holding my breath. I would like to eat them with goat cheese and serrano ham... but that isn't really salad-like either. But if I call it a tapa and serve it on bread, everything's ok!
B
Hand to Mouth
Making Stock of the Situation
A blog for penniless gourmets
Ahh...that totally made me want to eat. But it's only 10:30 a.m. and I'm sure my boss would look at me funny if I requested to go eat something now and then do so again later...Oo;;
There is a baking/cooking shop that seemed to sell everything...and of course, I forget the name. I'll go ask my friend later and post it if I remember. ^_^
I tend to like off beat places for food...I don't know if I'm discriminating against pricey places or just cheap. Knowing me, it's most likely both...
Just forget the distance and go. Coney Island will be shut down for a loooonnnnng time soon so if you haven't gone there yet...go. Go now.(I sorta snuck some sugar in this morning...so now I'm wide awake...)
Thanks for the humorous commentary! Love your pics!
Just wondering, since you are an expert foodie and I am not (I unwittingly asked for ketchup to put on my steak - *hides face in shame*), whether a meal at a high-end restaurant is enough to satisfyingly fill their customers? I mean, the pics you took look yummy, but it just seems... SO LITTLE! Like a little hunk of food in the middle of a large, seemingly spacious plate. Is that considered stylish? Or is my brain missing something that I don't get?
I grew up with some kind of lacto-hatred, so I don't like butter or sour cream or buttermilk (shiver!) and so on, but in a restaurant once in Perugia, in Italy, about 10 years ago, we went in for lunch, late, dressed in shorts and t-shirts and backpacks, looking very AMERICAN, and no one was there except the proprietor, sitting there doing his accounts, and he rolled his sleeves down and put his tie back on and his jacket and was our waiter. Anyway, he brought butter in a stone crock, and my wife tasted it and said, "You're not going to believe this. This is the best butter I have tasted in my life." And I tasted it and it was fabulous, mainly, I guess, because it didn't taste like butter, it tasted like butter made sublime and platonic to the nth degree. Turns out that the somebody made the butter in the kitchen twice a day, in the morning for lunch and in the afternoon for dinner, and the butter was kept in these little stone crocks on ice so it never saw the inside of a refrigerator and could never pick up nasty refrigerator odors. I still don't like butter, but this was something different.
As always, I find your friends cute.
Is Doug single? heheheh.
Michelle: I don't have a *favorite* Thai restaurant (I tend to like...all of them!) but the best I went to is Sripraphai (blog post). It's a little out of the way in Queens, but worth trekking to. Otherwise there are so many Thai restaurants in the city, I wouldn't know what to recommend. :O
B HAHA, it's okay, I thought the same thing...areole vs aureole. We can't be the only ones. .__.
Oo, serve it on bread! Sounds tasty. I like to eat figs plain; can't really wait until their grilled, I must eat them ASAP.
Yuizaki: You could say you're eating breakfast (or second breakfast) cos...you need...the ENERGY! To work.
The only baking shop I can think of is NY Cake Supplies (took me a while to remember that!), and they seem to have violet petals, but no other violet stuffas. Hmm. ANY OTHER BAKING STORES NEARBY?
Oh, I discriminate against pricey places because it's harder for them to reach the high "awesomeness to cost" ratio compared to a place that sells, say $5 sammiches. :) Also, I'm cheap. I'll go to a pricey place if it's supposed to be really great though.
I've been to Coney Island once, I think during a creepy time...not an unsafe time, just in the early morning when it was cold and IT STARTED RAINING and yeeeah, ever since then I hadn't been itching to go back. I don't mind traveling far for food if it's a special thing, like one time I went on a group dinner to ...waaay out there. I don't even remember where, haha. That was some good food though. Hm.
Katie: Glad you enjoyed the post!
I don't judge what you put on your steak! It's fiiine with me...I don't even eat steak. Well, rarely. :\ As for whether the meal is enough to fill your belly, it depends. If you went to Per Se you'd get 50 courses (uh, or less) and would certainly come out stuffed. If you went to wd-50, you would get dishes the size of a...mouse or something. I think most food at high end places comes in the form of something small in the middle of a big plate (I'm not a big fan of that; the food looks so WEENY) so...being satiated may depend on ordering a lot of stuff. .__.
Not that you'd want to be stuffed anyway. And if worse comes to worse, you could like, eat a pizza afterwards. Ehe. Hm.
Koeppel: Thanks for sharing your story! I want some of this sublime butter action. Boohoo. There's a tub of Amish butter in my fridge right now, but I haven't really tasted it yet. Euuh.
Mahar: Ahh I'm afraid Doug is taken by the super awesome Marissa. THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHERRR!
whoa, foam.
i notice that at the first restaurant, quite a few of the dishes have elements that are the *exact same* shade of green. the chilled pea soup, plus the whatever that's on top of the salad, plus the risotto. odd?
Ach! Really? Darn. The cute ones are always taken.
Haha. Or straight.
Why are you going to Italy when you can go to Asia?! Bwech. :P
ok I have 3 things to say:
1. is it just me, or does your friend Helen order the most delicious-looking dishes ever?! like the salad with shaved ham and the Garganelli Pasta at Aureole. And the Apricots Clafouti at EMP. We must have similar food tastes or somethin!
2. The Salmon with FOAM reminded me of Marcel from Top Chef! Do you watch that show?
3. Lastly, your friend wearing the striped white t-shirt is kinda cute! haha :)
Fabulous photos Rob! I have to say I noticed a theme between the bread and the butter :) Also, the chilled pea soup is so intriguing! I've never had pea soup cold before, sounds amazing!
Thanks for sharing about all this delicious looking food.
Yes....that was the store I was trying to remember.
I'll ask my baker friend. She should know where to find this stuff.
Me too but I find alot of pricey places not living up to the whole our food is the best and there's no way you can go elsewhere now thing...
Lol. Well my friend actually wants to go to Coney Island before Coney closes up for a while. The amusement park will become some sort of huge entertainment complex. I don't know...as I don't like going there but...we'll see. I'd been there so many times when I was a kid...though.
I was lurking on facebook and noticed you have a trip to Toronto planned. I would love to meet up with you for some fooding.
Even if we can't eat together, I can suggest some places I used to haunt when I went to University of Toronto in--you guessed it, Toronto.
L: I wouldn't say they're exaaact...although...yes, similar shades. I guess tasty green things in nature tend to have similar...greens? They're all different ingredients, I think.
Green is tasty.
Foam is tasty.
Mahar: Funny, for us girls I think it's that all the cute ones are taken or GAY.
Dude I SO WANNA GO TO ASIA, but not on my own. Also, it's more expensive...why are you so far? Your continent! Boo. Hehe. If I'm lucky I'll go to Taiwan next year.
skiwi: I think most of the dishes turned out looking beautiful...or rather it'd be easier to say what wasn't so beautiful. I guess soup is rather meh looking. "LOOK, LIQUID IN ONE COLORRR!" Or perhaps she wanted to try the stuff that ...I wasn't eating! Hmm.
I don't watch Top Chef but I heard of this FOAM dude, yes. :D Did he really use foam in like...everything?
Yes, Doug is coveted by all! DOUG, EVERYONE LUVS YOU!!
Hillary: If you love peas, you'll love pea soup! I prefer to eat peas whole though. Or I'm too lazy to make soup. Yes, probably that.
Yuizaki: It's hard to live up to hype, that's true. I'd like to eat at Per Se someday, but I wonder if I'd be disappointed because I'll be expecting some kind of...near holy eating experience...but it's just food. Can it be that good? Hm. And then I'd be out of a big wad o dollars.
But I still wanna go. Hmmm. SOMEDAY.
I'm kind of disturbed about the "converting Coney Island into just another condo and mall-type complex because IT'S NOT LIKE WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH OF THOSE ALREADY." Even though it can be a creepy place, it has it's charm. An entertainment complex wouldn't be charming. :(
Angeline: Ah yes, I heard your lurk-age! ;) I will be asking about Toronto recs when my trip comes closer. I don't know what my schedule will be like yet, or if I'd be going to Toronto every day (I'm staying with a friend in Oakville), but it'd be great to meet up!
I meant to say salmon, not salad. The avocado stuff on top of the SALMON. I'm stupid. Not that it really makes a difference! I just felt like making myself more clear.
Well I gotta say the food at yr review of SriPraPhai in Queens looks a WHOLE LOT BETTER than either of these two fancy joints!
And that's all I gotta say..except if I ordered that plantain thing now I know to ask them to hold everything but the caramel sauce.
SO...question re: the Amish chicken? Did it taste better? Did it lay eggs by candlelight without electric blanket?
you know...just curious...
MMM. the food and your pictures look delicious! we ate at aureole in las vegas and it was so dark that my pics didn't do the food justice. but that is hilarious about the observation about butter.. i will have to observe and apply in the future. i guess i've always noticed if the bread was warm and/or varied more so.
lol @ steamy kitchen.
This was a lot of fun Robyn - even on a rainy day with food that was just okay.
My favorite part was the waiter's use of a special cloth - placed expertly in front of the glass - so as to prevent splashage while he was pouring water.
This place is the epitomy of over-the-top service.
Carol: Oh yeah, SriPraPhai deserves another visit. Mmmm so tasty...
Steamy Kitchen: It burst with the goodness of technological non-advancement!
joanh: Oh yes, bread warmth is another factor. But it usually isn't warm...wah. :(
Doug: OH YEAH, that was pretty cool. It would've been very unprofessional for any accidentally water spillage to occur. Then again, we were already wet...hm...
Well...I really hope your right.
My goal still is to transfer to NYU though, don't know what else to do and it's the ONLY thing keeping me going.
thanks for commenting, thought no one read my blog.
Well...I really hope your right.
My goal still is to transfer to NYU though, don't know what else to do and it's the ONLY thing keeping me going.
thanks for commenting, thought no one read my blog.