It seems rather appropriate that my 600th review is for the legendary restaurant wd-50. While I didn't plan for it to be that way, I did finally make it here because of the news that they were the latest victims of ridiculously high rent and closing at the end of November. There was no way I could let this place close without me getting in a review. While I can't say it lived up to my high expectations, I'm still glad I made it here before it closed its doors.
Before we actually made it to the restaurant, Holly, Janet and I had kind of decided that we would do the smaller tasting menu (6 courses at $95), since the full one was 12 courses and $155 without wine pairing and that seemed a bit extreme. But of course, once you get there, you feel like there's no point in coming here without getting the full experience. I'm incredibly upset that I forgot to take the print out they gave us with the menu description, so I apologize if this review is a bit lacking, since, let's be honest, it's a bit difficult to remember all 12 dishes over 2 weeks after I ate there. But I'll give it my best try.
I had been expecting the meal to be full of Wylie's famous molecular gastronomy tricks with lots of foam, steam and weirdness. The first dish seemed to fit that bill, it was an oyster with its "shell", preserved lemon, snow pea and hazelnut. I put the word shell in quotations because it was an edible shell, so not the actual one. The actual oyster was quite briny and fishy, but that didn't really bother me too much. It was a bit of a mental block to get into eating the shell but it good first introduction to the world of Wylie. The next dish was my favorite of the night: egg yolk, potato stuffed ravioli with caviar. Oh my, this was absolutely delicious and it was then that I realized what I don't like about tasting menus. While it's awesome to get to try a bunch of different things, everything is only 1-2 bites, so when you find a dish that you actually like, you're so bummed out that there isn't more. And that's exactly how I felt about this dish. I felt teased by only have 1 small bite...I wanted 20 more of them. Next course was a cold soup of avocado, English pea, and peakytoe crab meat. It was smooth and creamy and the crab was excellent but in general, I'm not a huge fan of gazpacho or cold soups. The 4th course was charred chicken liver with injera and melon. While I usually don't mind chicken liver, it's not really my favorite thing in the world and it was no different here. It was exactly what you would think good chicken liver should taste like.
The next dish was a shrimp and grits with pickled jalapeno and it tasted exactly how it sounds. It was a solid dish but there wasn't anything super molecular gastronomy about it. Dish six was probably my least favorite of the night, it was bloodless sausage. It was designed to look like a blood sausage but instead it was made with flour, beets (to give it color) and forbidden rice. It was just really dry and flavorless and I probably would have preferred a real blood sausage at that point. Next was the black bass with parsnip, pickled ginger, nori and mustard. Again a good solid dish but nothing crazy about in presentation or taste to it. The next two dishes were the protein dishes of the night - a milk braised pork collar with fried sunchokes and a cured duck breast with curds-n-whey and sweet potato. I really enjoyed both dishes, especially the crispy sunchokes. Again - solid dishes and both were incredibly moist and tender but also pretty small bites. We finished the meal with four different desserts: a sheet of rhubarb flavored ice, an apple tart with pomegranate, and pistachio (our favorite dish), an ovaltine cake with cardamom and sheep's milk and lastly bites of cookie dough and root beer chews (the cookie dough was great but the chew was just weird but I guess that was what I was looking for!).
Despite the fact that they were all pretty small bites, I was full by the end of the meal - which was great considering how expensive the meal was. The service was impeccable, although almost a bit too attentive. They changed our silverware after every dish, even if we hadn't even used them. In the end, I'm definitely glad I went to this legendary restaurant and I do hope that it re-opens somewhere else, but for all the hype and price tag for it, I'm not necessarily dying to go back. Total bill: $284/pp with tax, tip and a few drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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