New York City: Masa (October 2018)

Masa - Our Most Expensive Meal Ever!

My spouse and I dined at Masa for dinner on a Saturday evening in mid-October 2018. Masa is open for lunch on Tuesdays through Fridays, and dinner on Mondays through Saturdays. A few weeks before we dined, we emailed the restaurant to make a reservation, and they sent us an email reminder a few days prior. Although we specified in the email that we wanted to sit at the sushi counter, when we arrived at the restaurant, the host planned to lead us to a table. Fortunately, there was space at the counter, and we were seated in our desired spot. (Had we sat in the dining room, we would have been so disappointed! We love to interact with the sushi chefs and watch them work!)

Masa is located on the fourth floor of the Shops at Columbus Circle/Time Warner Center, an upscale shopping mall and office building at the intersection of West 59^th Street and 8^th Avenue. Other high-end restaurants are located on the same floor, including Per Se (where we ate in December 2009), Porter House (where we ate in August 2016), and Bar Masa (where we ate in December 2011).

Guests enter Masa by walking through a traditional noren (a fabric divider) and then through an intricate wooden door. Inside, the restaurant is spacious, divided into two areas: a small dining room with traditional blonde-wood tables and chairs, and the sushi counter (with 10 or 12 high leather chairs). The stunning sushi counter is a work of art – a solid piece of Hinoki Cyprus that is sanded daily for a super-soft finish. (Its estimated worth is a whopping $260,000!) Behind the bar, a seasonal tree provides a focal point, and a wood-fired grill is located near it. Three sushi chefs work at the counter, which displays huge blocks of ice to keep the fish cold. We were fortunate to have the chef/owner Masayoshi Takayama (“Masa”) as our chef.

Masa grew up in Japan and learned his craft from a sushi master at Tokyo’s Ginza Sushi-ko. He moved to the US and opened a small restaurant in Los Angeles that he named after his mentor. In 2004, he opened Masa and Bar Masa in New York. (A second location of Bar Masa is located in Las Vegas.) Chef also owns NYC’s Kappo Masa (where we ate in December 2017) and Tetsu.

Dining at Masa has been on our bucket list for years, but we felt that we had to wait for a really special occasion (like our joint 50^th birthdays!) to justify the astronomical price tag ($595 per person, which includes gratuity but not beverages or taxes). Masa holds the distinction as the most expensive restaurant in the United States, and one of the eight most expensive restaurants in the world! We had been working ourselves up to Masa after dining at other Manhattan Japanese restaurants like Kura (January 2015), O Ya (January 2017), Jewel Bako (May 2017), Brushstroke (August 2016), and BONDST (October 2017). Masa has held three Michelin stars for many years, as well as three stars from the New York Times, and five stars from Forbes (formerly Mobil).

Masa serves Japanese cuisine in an omakase format, whereby there is no written menu and no choices for diners to make; the chef selects what he will feed you from seasonal products that are flown in daily from Japan so that the fish is fresh and never frozen. Because photographs are forbidden (we think not for the proprietary nature of what is served but because Chef wants his guests to eat the food exactly when he presents it without pausing to take pictures), we are relying on our memory of what was served.

We began with seven (7) composed dishes:

1. Kegani (hairy crab) and uni on delicate cucumber salad

2. Caviar-topped toro tartare with toast

3. Suzuki (sea bass) sashimi with ponzu vinaigrette and shiso flowers

4. Crab leg with broth

5. Roasted sea urchin summer truffle

6. (Optional $150 per person supplemental dish of Waygu beef with truffles, which we did not purchase)

7. Matsutake broth

Next we received about 16+ pieces of sushi, each crafted one at a time and placed in front of us by the chef himself:

8. Toro (two pieces)

9. Shima aji (striped jack) nigiri

10. Hirame (fluke) with grated turnip nigiri

11. Tai (sea bream) nigiri

12. Kinme dai (golden eye snapper) nigiri

13. Ika (squid) nigiri with Himalayan salt

14. Amaebi (sweet shrimp) nigiri from Hokkaido

15. Kuruma ebi (Japanese imperial prawn) nigiri from Okinawa

16. Mirugai (geoduck) nigiri

17. Suji (grilled toro sinew/collar) with shaved green onion nigiri

18. Saba (mackerel) nigiri

19. Another type of saba (mackerel) nigiri

20. Grilled shiitake mushroom nigiri

21. Anago (seawater eel) nigiri

22. Uni handroll

23. Toro handroll

And then we finished with three (3) sweet/dessert courses:

24. Lotus root with shiso and ume

25. Pear slices served alongside soba-cha (buckwheat tea)

26. Matcha mille feuille (green tea layered crepe cake)

After we finished our meal (two hours passed so quickly!) and paid the bill (gulp!), Masa invited us to come behind the sushi counter and have a photograph taken with him before we left. It was an amazing ending to a fantastic meal!

New York City: The Aviary (March 2018)

The Aviary (March 2018) - Look for the Bird Symbols on the Menu for the Most Theatrical Drinks

My spouse and I visited The Aviary for drinks and dinner on a Saturday evening in late March 2018. We used the www dot tock dot com reservation system to purchase our spots to dine and drink. (Tock requires you to pre-pay for your reservation, in amounts from $20 to $200+, depending on the experience that you want. Although you cannot cancel after you book, you can transfer/sell your spot to another guest.) The Aviary is open daily for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, and in-between.

The Aviary is located on the 35^th floor sky lobby of the Mandarin Oriental at Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side. (The space was previously called the Lobby Lounge and MoBar.) The Aviary was designed by Chicago Chef Grant Achatz and modeled after the original Aviary in Chicago. (The New York outpost opened in 2017, whereas the Chicago version dates back to 2011.) The glass-fronted “Drink Kitchen” creates craft cocktails that feature molecular mixology with names like “Cloche Encounters of the 46 Kind" and "Science AF", and “How Snoop Dog Uses Lemongrass”. 

The restaurant seats about 95 guests, and nearly every seat has stunning panoramic views of Columbus Circle and Central Park. Sister speakeasy The Office seats about 45 guests but does not offer the same views. The Aviary space features trendy tables, booths, and banquettes at which you can enjoy your drinks and food. Because we booked the “Kitchen Table”, we expected it to be in the actual kitchen (or bar) as we have experienced at other establishments. However, at The Aviary, you are seated at one of two high-top tables in the far corner of the dining room, just adjacent to the mixology kitchen. The height of the tables permits a better view of the action, although you are removed from it.

At The Aviary, you can order drinks and small plates a la carte, but you can also choose one of their tasting menus: 3 drinks with food for $110 per person, 5 drinks with food for $165 (with about four choices for each course), or you can splurge on the 8-course Kitchen Table experience like we did for $215. (We think that our menu included 10 courses rather than 8.) All prices are assessed an automatic 18% gratuity. When you order from the menu, take note of the tiny bird symbols next to the signature cocktails: the number of birds indicates the theatrics of the drink, and the farther away from the menu option (in other words, the farther the “bird” has to “fly” signifies the most surprising presentations. Our Kitchen Table experience included the following drinks and food: 

1.        “In the Rocks” (a hollowed out ball of ice formed by freezing a water balloon in a super chiller, then uses a syringe to inject it with alcohol, then placing it atop a granita, served with a slingshot device that is positioned over the glass to break the ice ball)

Osetra caviar with crème fraiche, foam, and colorful flowers (Bachelors Buttons, Yaris blooms, Coriander blooms)

2.       “The [insert our last name]” (a yellow-hued fruity drink made especially for us and served in a bird glass with two bites perched on its wings)

Crispy pork skin, tempura Hawaiian shrimp (togarashi aioli, yuzu picked pear)

3.       “How Does Snoop Dogg Use Lemongrass” (lemongrass swizzle stick, Peychaud’s, ginger beer snow, vodka)

Frozen corn custard (char roe, mango, yellow tomato tom yum snow)

4.       “Micahlada” (a spin on the Mexican Michelada [slightly renamed to reflect the creator’s first name, Micah], with soy, coriander, hot sauce, calamansi syrup, yuzu, Japanese whisky (Suntory Toki), Evil Twin beer Bushindo [a Berliner Weisse-style])

5.       Gin and Tonic (chartreuse, almond, house-made tonic, green apple and cucumber ice coating the inside of the glass)

Kampachi ceviche (Thai green curry, coconut, hearts of palm)

6.       “Heart of Stone” (a glass porthole bottle filled with whiskey, port, and a potpourri of spices, tea, and fruit, meant to be sampled every few minutes as the infusion grows more intense)

Tempura maitake, octopus croquette (caramelized onion, pickled ginger, bonito)

7.        “Wizard’s Staff” (an allspice, pineapple, passionfruit, and tequila cocktail served in colorful ceramic tiki cups over ice that is flash-frozen [with liquid nitrogen] fresh passionfruit juice, allspice berry smoke)

Pork belly curry (banana, cashews, iceberg lettuce [the iceberg is compressed in salt and sugar for more texture], a red dollop of Fresno chili/red bell pepper for heat, and avocado puree)

8.       “Science AF” (blueberry, lemon, honey, ginger, scotch that are infused using high heat, steam, and a bubbling vacuum device)

Black truffle explosion (parmesan, romaine, black truffle), Foie gras “sandwich” (pistachio meringue, allspice gelee, and a paper-thin chip of dehydrated apple gel)

9.       “Cloche Encounters of the 46 Kind” (graham meringue, cinnamon, mocha chai, Maker’s Mark 46 bourbon)

Okinawa brown sugar ice cream (matcha, white chocolate, puffed rice)

10.   We did not have time to try the last bite and drink because we had to leave for the theatre, but multiple staff members told us that we could return at another time to finish our Kitchen Table meal. Be sure to allow enough time; our 5:00 pm reservation had us seated by about 5:20 (after a quick walk through the drinks kitchen/bar), but even two hours were not enough to enjoy the full experience.

Service was outstanding, with staff members working seamlessly together. Also worth noting is that although only one of us could drink alcoholic beverages, the mixologists graciously created a comparable non-alcoholic experience for the other guest. Nearly every non-alcoholic drink seemed to be a visual mirror image of the alcoholic variation, which shows the time and effort invested to please their customers. The non-drinker did not feel at all slighted by the “virgin” drinks, which isn’t always the case at other bars. The cost was the same for both the non-alcoholic and alcoholic variations; although “splurge-y”, we felt that the menu was appropriately priced for the quality and variety of items that we received and their fantastic presentations. Do not come to The Aviary and order a glass of wine – you will miss out on the whole point of this bar/restaurant.

We enjoyed our time at The Aviary, and plan to return with friends so that we can share the unforgettable experience.