In a perfect world, my plane would have landed in Newark at 4:30, and we would have had enough time to drop off my bags before making our way to our 7:00 reservation at Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50. Instead, my plane was 40 minutes late, and the deadlock of the Holland Tunnel and utterly Bangkok-esque jams of people and cars in the city brought us to our table at about 7:40. Luckily, my brother got there early and held the table, the staff were extremely gracious about the lateness, and I was able to check my suitcase in the coat check room… with at least 3 other pieces of baggage. Ah, home again in New York.

In all, I liked WD-50, and I want to go back to explore more. For all that I’d heard about its “challenging, arty, intellectual” cuisine based around molecular gastronomy, it wasn’t as challenging as I expected. The flavors are familiar for the most part, but I think there are two main “challenges” to the cuisine. First, the combinations of flavors seem to be put together by people who have a different frame of food reference than the rest of us. Sure, you can often identify the lineage, but I’m still stumped by a dish like this: “rack of lamb, banana consomme, chinese broccoli, and black olives.” Second, the forms of the food are often changed — usually through pureeing, paper-ing, foam-ing, cutting, or congealing — and the menu usually does not tell you what form they’ll take. Half the trick of eating at WD-50 is figuring what you’re eating, if you can’t remember the list of elements from the menu — this is especially true if something is bland or a combination of flavors. But, the waiters are extremely patient people and willing to offer explanations. And like in the TV show Lost, not everything has the most complex answer… sometimes meat is simply meat.
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This bread was made with bread flour dough that’s rolled extremely thin, and is sprinkled with sesame seeds; it was also nicely salty. I adored it. It was crispy and tasty, and you could eat it without getting too full. I also liked the box it was served in.

Pickled Beef Tongue, Fried Mayonnaise, Onion Streusel. I have mixed feelings about this dish. Everything on the plate tasted good, but it was out of balance. Since the beef tongue was sliced so thin and delicately, the rich fried mayonnaise (perfectly hot; crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside) and the pungent tomato-molasses sauce (tasted a lot like prunes) ruled the dish. Maybe the dish needed less fried mayo (or smaller cubes) or more pickled beef tongue (or sliced slightly thicker). In any case, here’s an article and recipe for this dish.

Squid Noodles, Zucchini, Grapefruit, Sansho Sour Cream. This was great. I was expecting some molecular foodplay with the noodles, but no, the squid was simply cut into very thin, noodle-like strips and briefly sauteed. The thin strips of zucchini were a perfect match, but it was the flavor of citrus that ruled the dish, with little bits of grapefruit to occasionally heighten it. The sansho sour cream seemed a bit heavy in consistency to go along with the delicate nature of the dish, but the herby/peppery flavor of the sansho worked well.

Btw, back in the day, I had a Shrimp-Stuffed Squid at Dufresne’s 71 Clinton Fresh Food that was fantastic.  I trust his squid.

Ocean Trout, Tomato-Chickpea, Cucumber, Pita Puree, Falafel Spices. We believe that those fried sticks on the left were the tomato-chickpea element, and those were the favorite from the dish — almost cheesy in their comforting crispy/moist way. The fish was one of the fishiest that I’ve ever tasted.

Beef Sirloin, Red Pepper Tart, Water Spinach, Whipped Horseradish. The beef was very good, and worthy of any beef-eaters enjoyment, but I liked the red pepper tart most — it was downright smoky, and just so good-looking. The horseradish was more like a foam… meh, was foam really necessary here? I liked the water spinach — turgid, with a slight undercurrent of fish for me.

Pork Belly, Peach, Maitake, Mustard Greens, Miso Crumbs. I was a bit disappointed by the pork belly. Instead of the meltingly tender pieces of pork belly that I dream about from Grace, this was more like pieces of humdrum pork with thick layers of fat on top. Adequate flavor and texture, but nothing more. What I did like in this dish was how the peaches (diced, dried on the outside, juicy on the inside), maitake mushrooms, mustard greens, and miso crumbs were served together as sort of a warm salad melee full of great flavors and interesting textures. On the left, btw, is a mustard greens reduction. It was good as an occasional pure sauce for the pork.

WD-50 has a full tasting menu that the whole table must order, but I had my eye on the dessert tasting menus — they had a 3 course and a 5 course… but it turned out that they were “chef’s choice” and the whole table had to order it (or else the timing of everything would get messed up). So, I struck out on my own and simply ordered 3 desserts.

This is a good time to talk about portion sizes. They’re pretty small. Depending on the dishes you choose, you can have a light 3-course meal. So, yes, I had an appetizer, a main course (admittedly, I gave away about 3 pieces of pork), and 3 desserts, but I wasn’t full by the end.

And I had read about Sam Mason’s desserts at WD-50, but I recently found out that Alex Stupak from Alinea in Chicago had taken over in August and Mason is apparently opening his own place in Soho.

Soft Chocolate, Avocado, Licorice, Lime. The light green dots are avocado, the one dark green dot is mint, the dark crumbs are cookie crumbs, the line in the middle is licorice, the ice cream is lime, and those white shards are lime curd. This worked very well. Avocado and chocolate… Somehow that works, maybe because of the sugar in the avocado puree… and the more-alike-than-normal textures on this plate… and the ameliorating cookie crumbs… and the way that lime acted as a middleman on my palate, even though I don’t think I ate all three together at once. The couple bites with licorice worked, too. And the soft chocolate was just that — I believe sorbitol is used to make it pliable…

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Black Currant Cake, Black Sesame, Shiso, Merengue. This was another stand out. I really liked the black currant glaze on the pieces cake…

The black sesame, piled on the edge of the plate, could be added to the black currant elements at will, and it somehow cut the edge off the black currant so that it was mellowed. Yet, also sprinkled on the plate seemed to be confetti of black currant paper, which was very strong in flavor, and in a way, was the opposite of the black sesame. The shiso sauce didn’t taste like much — it didn’t add even a bit of the minty/basily flavor that I expected and think would have matched well. The dots of marshmallow-like meringue were great hits of sweetness… but I don’t know why they were called “merengue” on the menu.

Peach Puree, Soy Milk, Strawberries, Buckwheat Ice Cream. This was my least favorite dessert, although I think it’s quite pretty in vaguely Spring or Ile Flottante sorts of ways. If the description sounds like a health shake or a healthy breakfast gone wrong, then you can imagine how this turned out. The disc of peach puree was like a congealed peach applesauce, and it didn’t taste more exciting than that… Why would one eschew the luscious texture of a perfect peach in favor of the drab mealiness of a bad peach? The ice cream started out nice and earthy, but then ended with a ferocious kick of buckwheat, with a flour aftertaste to boot. The soy milk was just that — water-y, not saucy. The strawberries and foam islands seemed like they’d wandered in from another plate — they just didn’t fit in taste-wise or texture-wise.

Chocolate Cream, Pecan, Beet, Kola Nut. This tasted great, and I really liked the plating, too. The chocolate cream was true to its name — creamy chocolate hemispheres surrounded by an assortment of complementary friends, including those flags of flavor-intense beet paper. Oddly enough, I’ve made a chocolate beet cake and a chocolate cola cake with pecans in the past couple months, so this this made me feel a l’il vindicated… even if I’d never thought to put them all together and I didn’t use kola.

Shortbread, Jasmine Ice Cream, Banana, Saffron. The shortbread was a kind of very moist… substance… that was very good in a dipped-in-milk way. The flavors all came together very well in this dish, except for those strips of orange peel that disrupted the mellow balance. Another striking plating, too.

Drinkwise, I was disappointed by my Royal Blush (vodka, lime juice, cherry puree, champagne), which just tasted like sour juice, but I loved the Rye & Quince (Rye, Angostura Bitters, Quince-Lemon Syrup). The quince made the aroma and flavor extraordinary. It was also a strong drink, so I was able to pace myself after the juice-like Royal Blush. Edit: There was also a great Red Rice Ale, which is good to know b/c their beers aren’t listed in the menu.

Also, the bathrooms were cool — the wooden doors were set into a wooden wall, and you’re instructed to “Push the wood” for a stall.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm and is filed under New York, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.