{"id":319,"date":"2010-04-07T08:49:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T08:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=319"},"modified":"2010-04-07T08:49:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T08:49:44","slug":"per-se","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2010\/04\/07\/per-se\/","title":{"rendered":"Per Se"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When we decided to celebrate Melody’s birthday at Per Se<\/a>, I did not expect one of NYC’s finest restaurant to be located in a mall. But one look at the signature blue doors from the French Laundry<\/a>, and we knew we were in for a treat. Without an advanced reservation, we went with the more affordable salon menu. Yet, even the bar area where we sat was imbued with an air of elegance with a sunny view overlooking Central Park. It certainly felt more suited to their Upper West Side patrons than the two of us there. The meal opened with a number of amuses – warm gruyere gougeres, salmon cornets, and carrot veloutes. The cornet is a Thomas Keller<\/a> signature dish, with a black sesame tuile shaped into a cone, filled with red onion cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche, and topped with salmon tartare (he got the idea while eating an ice-cream cone at Baskin Robbins<\/a>). Both the warm cheese puffs and salmon cornets were instant hits, though the soup was too heavy and foamy. My appetizer was a terrine of Hudson Valley moulard duck foie gras, meticulously assembled with poached field rhubarb, peas, sunchoke mousse, and mint leaves served with warm toasted brioche – an excellent balance of different flavors, textures, and temperatures. Melody had a hearty mascarpone-enriched yukon gold potato agnolotti with wilted dandelion greens, split peas, and parmesan cream with black winter truffle. The main courses included a Nova Scotia lobster “gratin” with black trumpet mushrooms, potatoes, wilted ramps, and fava beans with “Gla\u00e7age de Homard”, and a Calotte de Boeuf with asparagus, radishes, and caramelized spring onions with Tellicherry pepper sauce. Apparently, the “calotte” is the cap of the rib eye that butchers usually discard (say wha?). This divine slab of meat came close to our Matsusaka<\/a> beef steak from Japan, and we figured out why – Snake River Farms<\/a> is a supplier of domestic Wagyu cattle. To finish off, we shared a “Banoffee”<\/a> (Devil’s food cake, chocolate “Marguise” and malt “Cr\u00e9meux” with banana-cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche sherbet), a dessert created by the British pastry chef to recreate something marketed in England by that name as a “classic” American treat. We were sent off our merry way with a mix of sweets and a bag of shortbread cookies to go. Despite our whopping bill, our experience left us wondering what the 9-course tasting menu would be like, and how we can save up the cash to eat it. And eat it we will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we decided to celebrate Melody’s birthday at Per Se, I did not expect one of NYC’s finest restaurant to be located in a mall. But one look at the signature blue doors from the French Laundry, and we knew … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}