NYC Restaurant Week Report: The Modern

July 16, 2010 at 11:48 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (0)

Our saffron tagliatelle entree

We are happy to report that New York City's semiannual Restaurant Week has begun, and the city is absolutely packing places to take advantage of the three-course $24.07 lunches and $35 dinners.

For our first dinner of Restaurant Week, we revisited one of our favorite NYC restaurants: The Modern at The Museum of Modern Art. We've only had lunches here before and that was around the time when the James Beard Foundation named it both Best New Restaurant and Best Restaurant Design, and Wallpaper Magazine called it the Best New Restaurant in the World, and so we were anxious to try their dinner service now that years have passed.

And to help you make your decisions about where to dine next week (because Restaurant Week is actually two weeks, lasting until July 25) or perhaps to sway you into hitting up the Big Apple next Restaurant Week (in winter), we're giving you the low-down on our best meals of the week, and this was totally one of them.

Next up: $35 dinner at The Modern--Bar Room.

Like Park Avenue Summer, The Modern offers up a huge menu for Restaurant Week; in fact, they do away with the regular menu completely and only host the prix fixe meals during these two weeks for weekday dinners.

Appetizers: If anything on a menu features goat cheese, we can't resist it. Thus, we went with the Warm Lamb and Goat Cheese Terrine with toasted pistachios and watercress. As with any terrine, we feel a bit like we're eating cat food for a second, until the flavors kick in. The uber-creamy goat cheese perfectly balanced out the chunkier lamb bits, and watercress freshened it up into an appropriately summer dish.

We also dug our fork into our friend's Roasted Long Island Duck Breast with peppercorn-crusted apples and toasted pistachio-truffle dipping sauce. It was awesome. Aside from the duck breast being succulent beyond measure, the surprise scrumptiousness of the apple slices makes us wonder why encrusted apples aren't seen around more often.

Entrees: Unable to choose between the Saffron Tagliatelle with Cider-Braised Rabbit, Wild Mushroom and Baby Zucchini and the Pan-Roasted Veal Sweetbreads with Caramelized Turnips, Pain d'Epice and Maple Jus, we left it up to our waiter. Being "a pasta man," he raved over the Tagliatelle and he wasn't kidding. However, we only got three strips of rabbit and definitely could've gone for more than that.

Of course we tried our friend's Colorado Lamb Saddle with lamb pancetta and roasted lemon chickpea coulis. While he offered his compliments to the chef on this dish, we were like totally head over heels for the simplest part: the chickpea coulis. Oh my god, can we make this at home? Probably not; the subtle hint of lemon with the mashed chickpeas was like what hummus wishes it could be.

Dessert: Chilled Strawberry Soup with Buttermilk Panna Cotta, Lemongrass Gelee and Pistachio Ice Cream, no doubt. It's summer, right? We expected soup and instead got a bowlful of all sorts of goodies. A bite of the panna cotta, a sip of the strawberry and a lump of gelee made for a very sweet dish, but thank god for the pistachio ice cream, which cut it and made everything meld quite well on the tongue. Although our picture of it didn't turn out, our friend had the Modern Cheesecake with Almond Crumble, Raspberry and 'Fromage Blanc' Sorbet. We wished there had been more actualy cheescake to it, but after a meal as rich as this, it's better for everyone if there isn't.

[All photos: Jaunted]

Jaunted

Select a Destination:

Restaurant Week / New York City / Museum Restaurants / Food Travel / Photo Gallery / New York Restaurants / Restaurant Week Report / → All Tags