NY Restaurant Week at Nougatine

July 26, 2009

Sunday lunch at Jean Georges’ Nougatine

The complimentary bread wasn’t exactly the best start to the meal. The crust was tough to chew. Inside was tender.

For the dishes, my friend and I shared so I got to taste 2 three-course menus.

FIRST COURSE: tuna tartare, avocado, spicy radish, ginger marinade. All the layers of flavors worked so well together. The ginger marinade is so good. I am not a fan of radishes but I did taste one and it did have a nice kick that would add another flavor and crunch to the tartare. The presentation was gorgeous, as it was for all the other dishes.

FIRST COURSE: shrimp salad, avocado and tomato, champagne vinegar dressing. Always good to go with a friend so you can taste twice as many things. I picked this shrimp salad. Great portion size. Filled up the whole plate and could easily have been a light lunch on its own. I was a little sad there were only 3 shrimp.

The perfect bite of salad. The shrimp had a wonderful creamy sauce, combined with a slice of avocado, mixed greens, and almonds. Very elegant and simple. I wish I had more.

SECOND COURSE: slowly cooked salmon, potato puree, julienne vegetables, basil vinaigrette. The salmon was moist and tender. Beneath, not shown, is the bed of potato puree. The salmon, potato, and vegetable combination was very good. Though without the vinaigrette the dish would have been ordinary. The salmon didn’t have much flavor on its own so the vinaigrette really pulled the whole dish together. For those who don’t particularly like a very tangy, strong vinaigrette, this may not work but I loved it.

SECOND COURSE: roasted chicken, ricotta gnocchi, spring mushrooms, asparagus.

The dish shown deconstructed. The chicken had a fantastic crispy crust. Like the salmon, cooked perfectly. I was a bit sad by the gnocchi. Two sad little gnocchi. When listed as second on the menu I figured it was part of the dish but the portion was more like a garnish. Still tasted good. I found the mushrooms to be too tangy. When I combined it with the chicken it was a bit overpowering so I chose not to eat them with the other components.

DESSERT: vanilla cake, fresh strawberry salad, red wine sorbet. Again beautiful presentation. The meringue rolls on top were interesting. Light and crisp and the pepper adds a nice kick.

Tasted good but seemed like an upscale strawberry shortcake. A bit ho hum.

DESSERT: Jean Georges warm chocolate cake, vanilla bean ice cream. Perfection. The cake was warm and the molten part oozed out as shown below. The vanilla bean ice cream was great and the chocolate crumble below it was so fun. Reminded me of oreo crumbs but crushed finer and tasted better. Warm cake, cold ice cream, crunch from the crumble- amazing.