The Grand Feast consisted of a lineup of some of New York's most amazing Asian restaurants, including Morimoto, Ma Peche, and Kittichai to name a few, as well as an impressive array of alcohol, ranging from sake to gin. For me, this event was the perfect opportunity to sample the cuisines of a number of restaurants I had always wanted to try, all within the span of 3 hours!
Though there were quite a few dishes that left much to be desired, overall the food offering was satisfying and at times, pleasantly surprising. One of the first dishes I ate was Spicy King Crab from Morimoto, basically featuring fresh King Crab meat with a simple spicy sauce smeared on top. When I first ate this dish, the only thing I could think about was how much the sauce reminded me of the sauce used to make spicy salmon rolls and how it was overwhelming and masking the crab. However, after I took my next bite (using a more proportional amount of sauce to crab meat), the sweetness of the crab meat was finally able to shine through, mixing with the sauce to produce a sweet and spicy mouthful of flavor, with the roe in the sauce providing a surprising and fun crunch to offset the tenderness of the meat.
Next up was the Pork and Black Pudding Pie from Public. This mini pie was a nice surprise, with the flaky pastry bundled around a moist and flavorful pork filling. This pie reminded me a lot of Australian meat pies - except much better (no offense to those who like Australian meat pies!).
My favorite dish of the evening was the Fluke Tartare served by Ma Peche. This was actually the only dish I went back and got seconds for, but then again, it was also tiny. The tender morsels of fluke were mixed with black rice, avocado, and blood orange, creating the perfect mouthful of sweet and salty. Not only was this dish refreshing in taste, but the composition of the dish was also refreshing in appearance, with a vivid mix of contrasting colors, sizes, and textures. I regret not going back for thirds!
Bar Boulud presented their "L'Imperatrice," a Pandan rice pudding with jasmine gelee, fresh julienne of champagne mango, and orange tuile. I can't say that this was the absolute best mango and rice pudding I've ever had, but at the end of the day, it was still a good dessert with satisfyingly simple and straightforward flavors. Keeping true to Asian cuisine, this dessert was not too sweet and could easily rival the mango rice puddings served throughout Asia.
Unlike most of the restaurants represented at the event, Shun Lee stuck with a very traditional and classic Hainan chicken over rice. The chicken was moist and light in flavor and was served atop a bed of steamed rice, which was the real star of the dish. The rice was infused with the flavors of ginger, sesame, and chicken and was, simply put, delicious.
Red Farm presented us with a Lobster, Shrimp, and Black Olive dumpling. The dish was simple - it was basically a traditional shrimp dumpling, like the ones served at dim sum, with the added bonus of lobster filling and olive flavors. Simple and pleasant, it was hard to dislike this dish (unless, of course, you were allergic).
One of the most interesting dishes of the evening was a sea urchin and cauliflower panna cotta with a Fiji water dashi served by 9 Restaurant for Fiji Water. When I first saw this dish, I didn't know what to expect. I had been trained to only view panna cotta as a dessert and with that in mind, I was quite scared that the sea urchin would overpower everything with its oftentimes overwhelmingly fishy flavor. But fortunately, the sea urchin flavor was not too heavy and mixed nicely with the light panna cotta and the salty dashi.
Another of my favorite dishes was the Minchi served by David Wong of IFT, Macau. Minchi is a traditional dish from Macau and is basically a stew of ground pork and beef with fried potatoes served atop a bed of rice. This dish reminded me a lot of the Taiwanese ground pork/minced pork belly stews I grew up with and particularly appealed to me because it was really a perfect balance of sweet and salty flavors. This was actually the first time I had ever eaten minchi and I was absolutely delighted by the contrasts of tender stewed meat and crispy fried potatoes. This dish is basically the epitome of Asian comfort food; I will definitely be experimenting with this recipe soon.
After walking around and sampling as much of the food as humanly possible, I was able to enjoy the other great aspects of the event - the alcohol and the chefs! I quickly dashed around the room in search of all the amazing chefs that had dreamed up our feast for the evening and found Daniel Boulud, Masaharu Morimoto, Todd English, Angelo Sosa, and many others in attendance.
All in all, the LUCKYRICE Grand Feast was a great and memorable experience and a must-attend event for every Foodie out there. Thank you LUCKYRICE for putting together this spectacular event!
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