Hi readers! Second post on my foodie adventure, but this time I'm bringing a little New York experience to the table. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of taking a weekend to go to New York just for a little getaway. One of the experiences I looked forward to was this 8 course dessert tasting that had to be booked 7 weeks in advance at Dominique Ansel Kitchen (which is his second business meant for food and pastries made to order). Located in the West Village area, this tasting experience is very private with a max of 8 people, and the tasting happened in the heart of the place, the kitchen. Hosted by Dominique Ansel's executive pastry chef Karys Logue.
The evening started by leading up to the third floor where all the pastries for both locations are made. With the push of a button, the table where we would be dining is lowered from the ceiling and the legs are attached to the table, as space is limited in any New York place.
Right after being seated, we are welcomed to a layout of mini garden veggies to get are palate going. With a carrot, turnip, and 2 mexican gherkins it was served with compound butter that has been sprinkled with sea salt. To be honest....I just wanted to keep going on the butter. It was DELICIOUS.
The entire menu is based on the experience of Firsts. The menu is called "First Memories Last Forever" and the menu most likely will run until December before they decide to change it up.
The first dessert called First Word is meant to represent the first word we took as kids. It was a personal experience for some because they emailed us in advance to ask us what our first words were, and if we didn't know we got question marks which I think is still cool. All tastes are also reminiscence of things a lot of children would eat. Sweet pea ice cream, rice milk, gin, carrot cake, yogurt meringue are flavors tasted in this course.
Second course is called First Kiss; meant to represent a first kiss. Even the dish the dessert was served in was handcrafted in this shape so how to eat this dessert was left up to the taster. Certain diners got a more rough dish and some were smooth to represent different experiences. Inside this dish was roasted peanut water, cream soda pearls, fresh mint, and a raspberry filled with a gel and edible chocolate.
P.S. all the dishes were handpicked or handcrafted for the particular courses so every part of this tasting was thought out to the t.
Third course is called First time living on your own; because when you're living on your own the only thing Dominique Ansel made was carbonara pasta and he didn't even take it out of the pan to eat it from. This was clever and played a trick on our senses because I kept looking at it and felt like it should taste salty. This dish consisted of sweet corn that looked like an egg, crepes sauteed in brown butter, smoked toffee to look like bacon, lemon zest, and anise flavors.
The fourth course is called First Heartbreak. This was definitely an interactive course as we were presented with a box of matches, which we were to light the little paper on our plate to see how far our love would burn. Mine didn't burn that far but my foodie self was happy because I wanted to eat my petals. The bergamot ice cream inside the chocolate shell with piped marshmallow on top. Underneath the chocolate/ice cream goodness was a chocolate pain de genes which is similar to a molten cake. This by far was one of my favorites. The petals were made of marshmallow too or meringue (leaning more towards meringue).
This was the surprise tasting for me which is a sorbet that was used as a palate cleanser halfway through the dishes. Dominique Ansel uses a lot of asian flavors in many of his desserts in his bakery and kitchen, and this was a shiso sorbet. Very tart on the tongue but it was good to cut a lot of sweet notes we had before. It was really pretty that they managed to serve the sorbet in a flower and literally had to lick it out of there.
The fifth course called the First job was represented in a bar graph of all the different things we must juggle once we got our first job. The four different bars represented sleep, taxes, beer money, and caffeine. My favorite were the sleep, taxes, and beer money bars as they all tasted different. The caffeine was so strong on the coffee flavor. In my daily life I'm not even good with coffee on the daily so for the normal tastebuds it was probably delicious. Underneath the bars was a praline feulletine which was crunchy and amazing with the soft textures on top.
Course six called the First fine dining experience is meant to represent a beef wellington. Other than the fact that I wanna try the real meat version, this was definitely as close as I got to trying this dish. I loved the asthetic of this dish the most. The "meat" was a dark chocolate mouse which was super smooth, the sauce was a black currant and red wine reduction which was a bit tart and bitter. The wrap around the mousse was puff pastry, and a dollap of creme fraiche to lighten all the heavier notes on the plate.
Course seven represents the First dance. With an elderflower center covered in a strawberry gel, it was dipped into liquid nitrogen to freeze solid, then the executive chef Karys piped beautiful mascarpone tutus on it. It was meant to be a simple one pop bite. It was delicious and cold. I could use 10 please!
Last course of the tasting was another refreshing palate cleanser called the next first, which is to send us away saying that there will be many next firsts in our lives which I thought was very touching and sentimental to end on this note. Visually stunning already with the custom plating, there was a sake granita with hints of shiso with a lychee type of "panna cotta" on the bottom. The cherry was also soaked with three different types of liquid. I was so full at this point I was about to POP!
Overall it was an amazing experience and I would love to try a different menu if they offered one. With the intimate experience and a love for desserts, I would recommend it because I have never experienced something like this before.
As a little parting gift as well, they gave us taro chips that were fried in duck fat with salt. I wish they gave me a bucket of that because it was AMAZING.
I hope you enjoyed my review on this experience and keep reading for some more tasty treats :) Follow me on snapchat: nitaaamin as I usually update something related to food when I go out.
