I should try and visit a 3-hatted restaurant every year. It’s expensive but so worth it! This time it was a visit to Momofuku and its 13 course degustation. It’s the first time I’ve seen both “reduced” wine and juice pairings, which means I could enjoy some tailored drinks. I found their choice of music to be rather amusing, but hey, it worked if it was meant to be the essence of America… or something. Forgive me for not remembering the names and types of drinks paired with the food; I’m no master of memory… yet!

Smoked eel

Freeze-dried apple

What I also found quirky about this place was that they encouraged the use of hands with some of their dishes. The smoked eel roll was eaten with hands, and it was kind of like eel-mashed potato. I’m sure there’s a name for that: the smoked fish in potato combination. It was paired with apple and celery juice, and some kind of fizzy dry alcoholic liquid.

Steamed bun

Pork belly

So this is the magical pork bun that is everywhere, which I didn’t realise until afterwards when I saw the same pork bun at Ippudo (and funnily enough, my work’s Christmas party). The bun was fresh and light, with just the right amount of sauce. I liked it, but found it odd to make a degustation menu. That being said, it was a pretty perfect pork bun.

Potato

Trout roe, parson’s nose

This was one of my favourite dishes (the most favourite being further down) because it had all sorts of fried and tasty goodness. Confit potato, which were nice and creamy, with trout roe – I didn’t expect the outside to be so tough but the inside was nice and not fishy, as I’ve previously found salmon roe to have a fishy taste. So the roe was really nice and the saltiness went well with the potatoes and the parson’s nose. And of course who doesn’t like fried fatty chicken skin! This was paired with a sweet riesling, and I believe a cucumber juice. The juice had the most amazing colour! I now want to juice cucumbers and soak them in their skin.

Crab

Chickpea, amaranth

This dish is something I compared directly with the mud crab congee from Quay as the two were similar in concept. This was a very zen looking dish, with a healthy amount of mud crab. The chickpea soup-thing was something my brother and I disagreed on; he didn’t like it as it tasted like blue cheese, for me, it tasted like crab broth, but was a little too salty. So I guess we disagreed on the flavour, but agreed that it wasn’t as great as it could be. The toasted amaranth was really nice as the toastiness worked well. Plus I like amaranth.

Beef

Radish, fermented black bean

I loved this one as not only was it super tasty, it was also the “surprise” dish, reminiscent again, of Quay in its unexpectedness. On the outisde, it looked just like radishes and black powder. We were told to mix this before eating as the whole thing included wagyu beef, watermelon and black bean. Watermelon you say? Yes! Watermelon! Hence it was paired with watermelon juice! It was also paired with an amazing red rice sake that tasted so good and was the absolute most bestestly perfect pairing with this dish, as it felt like I was eating this with red rice. When the beef dish was mixed together it was the most awful looking black mess but tasted so good – the watermelon added texture and was refreshing.

Cauliflower

Pickled kohl rabi, smoked yolk

What a simple cauliflower dish! Roasted cauliflower… I can do that at home, right? And there was some tasty pickled kohl rabi. I’d say this was the most homely dish (even moreso than the pork bun), except for the fact it had one amazing feature: smoked egg yolk. That’s what those shavings are, and really tasty. It reminded me a lot of smoked fish roe, the kind that has the texture of the smoked yolk and is also finely sliced.

Marron

Poor man’s orange curd, asparagus

This was the winning dish. HALF A MARRON. NOT ENOUGH. SO TASTY. This was a gorgeous piece of crustacea glazed with buttery goodness. It was so tender and just cooked. Oh marron how I love you! It didn’t need the asparagus or the orange curd thing, but those two paired well. Did I mention the marron was amazing? If I remember correctly this was paired with a nice tangy grape juice, and some really dry chardonnay that I didn’t like. THE MARRON.

Peas

Oxtail, custard

I love peas. When I saw this dish I immediately liked it for the peas. It came with oxtail and a citrus custard. I didn’t particularly like the citrus flavour in this dish, but peas!

Lamb

Lettuce, violet mustard

The juice pairing provided for this dish was beetroot, and finally a red wine came out! The beetroot juice was surprisingly sweet and quite delicious, and the red was a grenache that was really nice. So of course, it was officially red meat dish time. My brother had previously mentioned that this was a very Australian themed degustation, and so when guessing what it would be, we dismissed beef, so I thought it would be venison, or kangaroo. We completely forgot about lamb! This was a delicious lamb and I was surprised that they kept all the fat on the cutlet – however it was actually nice and didn’t smell like the awful lamb fat that I didn’t like. The sad looking vegetable was a lettuce, and both the lamb and lettuce went very nicely with the violet mustard. I wasn’t sure that I’d actually tasted the violets, but it did have a nice colour.

And I thought it looked pretty when we lined up the three red drinks – grenache at the front, grape in the middle, beetroot at the back. All the rich red colours!

Goat curd

Blackcurrant, mint oil, sourdough

It was now time for dessert, and this was the cheese dish – goat curd, blackcurrant sauce, mint oil, and sourdough crumbs. The mint oil was interesting as it didn’t have the same “coolness” that fresh mint provides, but mixed in altogether it was nice and by the end of it, I felt like I was eating yoghurt. In any case, the cheese pairing called for… pear! So the juice pairing was pear and fennel, and the wine was perry.

Pear

Jerusalem artichoke, sunflower

What I noticed at this point was that the desserts were all not super sweet, instead they were a tad savoury, like this one. The sunflower seeds formed part of the paste, which I liked. A very simple dish with a chunk of caramel hiding on the inside.

Rum baba

Ron Zacapa, vanilla creme fraiche

This was an epic dessert. We were presented with shiny silver caviar dishes, and then they were opened one by one to reveal a yeast cake soaked in sugar water. Then the waitress placed an entire bottle of rum on our table, with a side of vanilla creme fraiche.  AN ENTIRE BOTTLE OF RUM! There was a story to the extravagance of this dish; that it was once served to the king of Portugal (if I remember correctly) as just the sugared yeast cake and the creme fraiche – and he hated it! So he threw a bottle of rum at it and then said it was the most delicious dessert. And it was pretty tasty!

Sugar glazed pork

So that was actually the end of the degustation, except we got one last little treat – some sugar glazed slow cooked pork – to be eaten with hands. It was a nice finish to the night… and we got some kimchi samples too!

Overall it was a great experience, which differed from Tetsuya’s and Quay by how interactive it was – the chefs here presented each dish in person and explained it, and the fact that three of the dishes were eaten using hands. The theatrics – just short of that of a bombe alaska – of the last dish was also a standout. The pacing of the food was also decent, though by the end of it I still wanted to eat some Messina gelato, whereas in the other two degustations I’ve had, I’ve been so full that I absolutely could not eat anymore. So this is 3 hats for both food and fun!

i lucky peach syd