GASTRONORMOUS

Where: wd~50
When: February 2, 2008
What:
Popcorn soup, shrimp, jicama, tamarind
Coffee gnocchi, coconut, cipollini, sylvetta
Scallops, black trumpet, cranberry, pecan, spice bread consommé
Parsnip tart, quinoa, hazelnuts, bok choy
Toasted coconut cake, carob, smoked cashews, brown butter sorbet
Neyers Zinfandel, Pato Vineyard, 2005, Contra Costa County, CA

As a special birthday treat for my husband, I took him to wd~50, the Wylie Dufresne restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The restaurant is acclaimed for its gastronomic innovations, using molecular science to transform the ordinary into the unexpected, and sometimes slightly absurd (cubes of fried mayonnaise have gotten a lot of press; molé capsules, pizza pellets, and perfect pearls of tofu are other gastroddities).

The dining room is lovely—modern, yet warm and cozy. We were seated in a booth near the glass-paned fireplace. We immediately noticed Wylie himself standing back by the kitchen. The stars were surely aligned for a pleasant dining experience.

The meal started with sesame flatbread. To call it flatbread is a bit misleading; it is actually a gossamer-thin cracker; fragile sheets that broke apart in our hands and melted in our mouth. I think the flatbread might have been better sprinkled with something other than sesame–next to the delicacy of the bread, even these small seeds seemed clunky and incongruous. Maybe they could coat the bread with the molecular essence of sesame seeds rather than the seeds themselves, as that is their thing?

My husband’s soup was a vision not so much of the molecular gastronomy of which Dufresne is a champion, but more of a preference of engineering over naturalism. The shrimp were unrecognizably pressed into perfect discs, but were succulent none the less. The base of the soup itself tasted of creamy, buttery liquefied popcorn. And the jicama too denied its nature, cut into perfect crunchy squares, a good foil to the creamy broth and chewy shrimp.

The gnocchi appetizer was a disappointment for me (not as much for the hubs). The combination of coffee, the (overly-) charred cipollinis, sylvetta (wild arugula), and the lime dressing in which it was tossed made for an acrid, bitter, sour mess of a dish. The intense creaminess of the accompanying coconut foam (there is that molecular gastronomy) foiled the unpleasant flavors somewhat, but not so much that I had any desire to eat more than two bites of the dish (the hubs finished off the gnocchi component of the dish, though).

The parsnip tart was actually an architectural rectangle of a dense puree of parsnips with a cracker wall along one side of it (i.e., no real crust). It was beautifully presented with sautéed baby bok choy (not a vegetable I would have thought to pair with it, but it worked well here) and a cascade of quinoa pilaf spilled over the side. The dish was delicious, the parsnip puree was dense and smooth, slightly sweet, and paired well with the nutty quinoa and fresh bok choy. My only complaint is about the cracker “crust,” which was sweet; I think the sweet parsnips would have benefited from a savory (and herby–thyme would have been nice) counterpart.

My husband was nuts over the scallops. As everything else we were served, the dish was a sculptural wonder–the scallops sat on their edges with the mushrooms, nuts, and cranberries nestle around them. The scallops were perfectly cooked and buttery-textured. The artful puddle of consommé was infused with the essence of spiced bread (bread!), just another of the amazements that were almost beginning to seem commonplace coming from this kitchen-lab.

The Neyers zinfandel was unusual for a California zin. It was a lighter style than most I have had, it actually didn’t have many characteristics at all of a California zin except the whopping 15.6 percent alcohol content (yipes!). Despite the high alcohol content, the wine was pleasantly light and fruity with soft spices, and paired well with our food.

Along with the toasted coconut cake we ordered, they brought along an unidentified dessert with a candle stuck in it in honor of my husband’s birthday. It was quite a surprise as I hadn’t told them that we were there for his birthday. They must have heard me toast him, which is amazing (All I did was stand on my chair and loudly pronounce, “Happy Birthday, husband!” after clinking my glass several times to silence the restaurant–how did they know?). The candle glowed from within a cylindrical dark chocolate tuile that sat atop a cocoa-crusted passion fruit custard. It looked like a miniature hurricane lamp realized in chocolate–beautiful! The coconut cake was sublime–dense, chewy, and slightly sticky, it tasted of fresh coconut rather than powdery flakes, and wasn’t cloyingly sweet as one often finds with coconut desserts. The cashews added an unexpected savory, smoky element. The sorbet honestly didn’t taste of much of anything at all, but was pleasant enough for us to gobble it all up.

The service was attentive, though timing was a little spotty at first. Several attempts were made a drink orders before we were ready, then once we had looked at the wine list the waiter was nowhere to be found. Another small complaint is that the waiter was rather patronizing when I asked about two bottles of wine. I am no sommelier, but I know the basic differences between a syrah and a zinfandel, thank you! But I guess one can’t expect a waiter to have a psychic ability to detect breadth of wine knowledge. All in all the service was good, certainly as good as you would expect eating in a restaurant of this quality.

wd~50
50 Clinton St
New York, NY 10002