Annisa in New York City

June 26, 2008

Before leaving for New York City, my girlfriend and I considered making reservations at a nice restaurant. And I don’t mean a nice restaurant, but a nice restaurant. Our typical dining establishments usually don’t have anything priced over $25 and we wanted to see what really fancy food actually tastes like. I’m talking about the kind of food that comes in really small bites on square white plates, or has one ingredient prepared three different ways, or uses foods that I’ve never even heard of.

My dad generously gave my girlfriend a graduation gift for this purpose, so we scoured the internet for the perfect restaurant. We eventually chose Annisa, a place that had great reviews and a tasting menu that would allow to try a variety of dishes, while remaining within our price range.

We ended up getting lucky with the location - it was only about 10 blocks from where we were staying in Manhattan. On Sunday night we set off a bit nervous - we’d never eaten at a place like this before and weren’t sure of our expected behavior.

I’d like to mention here that the service overall was superb. Our waiter (Greg, I think) was very friendly and helpful throughout the meal. He made us feel welcome and didn’t make us feel akward at all - even when we used the wrong silverware (or didn’t know what the silverware was supposed to be used for! There was some weird flat, non-sharp knife. I think it was for scooping and pushing, but who knows.) He even got us a menu with the dishes we ate marked on it which was nice (not to mention useful for writing this). There was also another woman who brought us most of our dishes and explained everything in excellent detail. Anyway, everyone there was great and made us feel very welcome.

We were seated immediately and glanced through the menu. We had previously decided to go with the seven course tasting menu. What we weren’t expecting was the customization that you could request. Greg asked us a series of questions that would allow them to tailor the menu to our tastes - allergies, rare/raw meats and fish, organ meats, etc. We responded that we were open to anything.

We also decided to order a bottle of wine with our meal and asked for Greg’s recommendation. It was here that my girlfriend really impressed me. Greg asked what sort of wines we liked, and Megan said, “I generally like fruity white wines, but also some chardonnays with an oakier taste.” Not only did she say that, but Greg knew what she was talking about!

Next, they brought our bottle of wine and an amuse bouche. Oh yes, that’s right, an amuse bouche. That’s how fancy this place was. The amuse bouche was a mini-pastry cup thing (like a cupcake paper, but edible) filled with some little round things with a berry on top. It was good - not too crazy.

Course 1: Tuna with Three Mints

This course came out as small portions of tuna prepared three different ways. (I’d like to apologize here for the poor pictures; the lighting was dim and I didn’t want to annoy everyone else with a flash.) The one on the left was a spicy fruit tuna tartar. It was tasty - fruity at first but then ending with a bite. The middle was a slice of tuna cooked on the outside but raw on the inside with a little salad of something on top. I was surprised how flavorful the vegetables were. The third preparation, on the right, was a cooked tuna with some sort of savory flavor. All I remember is that it was pretty good. Also, all three of them had some amount of mint, although I didn’t taste it much on the first preparation.

Course 2: Gratin of Sea Scallops, Sea Urchin, Seabeans and Kaisomen

I’m not sure what all the ingredients in the title are, but the dish was really good. This dish started with a thin slice of seared scallop and was topped with some different types of seaweed (and sea uchin and seabeans apparently), and then it had a rich flavored mayonnaise type sauce. I really enjoyed this dish. The mayonnaise sauce thing was very rich and delicious, and the seaweed topping stuff had much more flavor than I expected.

Course 3: Skate with Avocado and Radishes, Korean Flavors

This was probably my favorite dish, with the skate was prepared two ways. The one on the left was seared skate with little cubes of kimchi (a spicy Korean fermented cabbage), an avocado sauce to the bottom, and a tangy lobster sauce in the upper right. This whole thing was delicious, but I really loved that lobster sauce. I have no idea what was in it, but it had a deep, bright flavor with a slight tangy bite. The second preparation was a raw (I think) skate (tartar maybe?) on top of a some avocado - also delicious. The combination of Korean flavors and avocados was surprisingly excellent.

Course 4: Sauteed Filet of Brook Trout with Its Smoke Roe, Roesti Potato and Sorrel

This dish was good, but not my favorite because it had the strongest fish flavor of the three seafood dishes (and I previously was not a big fan of seafood - this restaurant may have converted me). On the bottom was a potato pancake and then trout was layered on top. There was some sort of green sauce on the bottom and then three small cubes of greenish/bluish Peruvian potato. Definitely good, but I think the fish taste put me off a little.

Course 5: Roasted Tenderloin of Veal with Fregola, Green Garlic and Anchovies

This dish had thin slices of very rare veal on top of fregola (a pasta apparently) mixed a few capers and whole cloves or roasted(?) garlic. I think the sauce on the side was an anchovy sauce, but I’m not positive.  I’d never eaten veal before but I enjoyed this dish. The fregola, another first, was a nice base to highlight the veal. It was really good and a nice change of pace from the seafood dishes.

Course 6: Cheeses Extravaganza

This dish was a selection of seven cheeses in order of strength of flavor. It was served with some sort of dark bread with nuts. This dish was a lot of fun, but I’m not sure if I’d order it again. I enjoyed the first four cheeses, especially the third (although unfortunately I don’t know what it was). The fifth started to get a little too strong, the sixth I couldn’t finish, and the seventh, while better than the sixth, I still didn’t enjoy. Even though I didn’t love all the cheeses, it was fun for Megan and I to watch each others’ reactions as we tried these cheese that we otherwise never would eat.

Course 7: Dessert

I love dessert, and these were great. It was really nice that they brought us two different ones. The first was a circle of very thinly sliced apples stacked up, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and sitting in a pool of an amazing caramel sauce. I was impressed how nicely the apples were done and originally thought it was some sort of piped icing.

The second dish was a lemon bread pudding. I normally prefer chocolate, sugary desserts, but this bread pudding really grew on me and I loved it by the end of the dish. It had the perfect combination of sweetness and tartness, and the bottom half of the pudding was soft while top was nice and crunchy.

Ending Bites

Just in case we hadn’t eaten enough, they brought us each three final bites of food. One was a chocolate mint, which was good. The second was a candied ginger which we enjoyed; it really popped in your mouth. The third, and best, was a tiny pineapple popsicle on a toothpick. The flavor in that popsicle blew me away. I don’t know how they did it, but it was great.

Conclusion

Overall the meal was incredible. I don’t know enough about food to appreciate the technique and skill that was put into the dishes, but the amount of flavor was pretty astounding. It really was different than anything I’ve ever eaten and was the perfect place for Megan and I to eat our first meal of haute cuisine.

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