Momofuku Ssam

When J and I were up in the tri-state area, we did make two trips into the city. One trip involved the Shake Shack (no surprise there, and I think I already wrote about that). The other was to have dinner with a good friend D who I never really see anymore. D is one of those old friends that you could not talk to for years (happily, we are not quite on the level of not talking for years, just months) but when you get back together, it's still very comfortable and you fall back into conversation naturally.

In choosing where to go, I finally decided on Momofuku Ssam (admittedly, I planned this out before we even left town to make sure it was open, you didn't need reservations, etc). David Chang has been pretty hot in the news recently and we've across many mentions of him in blogs and magazines. We even caught him showing Martha Stewart how to make his famous pork buns on her show back when we got that channel. (Actually, I also got to see Judith Jones which I really enjoyed so maybe I should try to get J to bring that channel back. I really enjoyed the show when she had the live reindeer on it for xmas.)

Anyway. David Chang is pretty modest, saying that he's just doing his own Korean interpretation thing and not really understanding why he's getting all the hype he is. He seems pretty down to earth. He just opened Momofuku Ko recently, and, if you keep up in the food world, you know that it is impossible to get a reservation at this place. You can only make reservations by an online system which was broken when it first launched. Now it's fixed, but my blogs seem to feature a mention at least once a week which includes mentions of more power-hitters in the food world who haven't eaten at Ko. This also includes Frank Bruni, which is kind of amazing that even the NYT critic is left trying to make a reservation using the online system. Still, you have to respect that kind of equality.

So we met D at Ssam and grabbed a table. I am a big fan of tasting menus, and this was no exception. We decided on the smaller tasting menu (five courses for $45) and also the wine pairing. If it had just been me and J, we would have opted for the $75, 8-course tasting menu with the wine pairing, but I'm not so upset about it.

Ssam itself is a pretty small place, darkly lit but still welcoming. Rich woods make it cozy and warm feeling. There's an open kitchen in the back and a long table on one side that looks like a bar, but I think that is actually a long plant raised table. I liked the space a lot.

My disclaimer is that we went almost a month ago and I've been putting off doing the write-up.

French Onion soup: The amuse was a small espresso cup of "french onion soup". The onions came with a thick and rich "soup" that was more like a sauce. Intensely onion, intensely good. It was topped with a creme fraiche-like topping and a wee bit of caviar. Very good. I was psyched for things to come.

American Country Ham, Castell Roig Cava, Brut N.V. (Penèdes): The first course was a huge plate of ham. Huge. It came with two kinds of ham, one that was more cotto and one more proscuitto. It came with bread and what looked like mustard, and I kept expecting to be mustard, but really it was a red-eye gravy interpretation. Kind of bizarre. I can't recall which ham I liked better now. They were both okay. The cava was cleansing and crisp. Tasty.

Steamed pork buns & seasonal pickles: The famed pork buns. J said that he was awesome. Rich, meltingly good. I think mine was not so good. The pork, which good, was like any other pork belly I had had. Nothing extraordinary really. Beyond the hassle of making and steaming my own pork buns, I think I could replicate this at home. My pork was a bit stringy for pork belly, not luscious. The selection of seasonal pickles was very good. A large assortment of different tastes and textures. J is a big fan of pickled items and he was very pleased.

Steamed clams & mussels, Danu'Sio'Grüner Veltliner 2006 (Kremstal): as it says, steamed clams and mussels with a kimchi broth. I think there were rice cakes at the bottom of the bowl. I remember being surprised he used rice cakes in two dishes.
The eating utensil of choice here are chopsticks. I'm sure you could ask for a fork, but they aren't readily available. With this dish, you also get your own Chinese spoon. Now, D is a good friend, so really, no issues with the double, triple, quadruple (you get the idea) dipping, but when you have one family-style dish in the middle and just your eating implements, this would be a weird dinner for unknown folks or clients.
Aside from that, I really enjoyed the dish. The kimchi broth was spicy but not annoyingly so. The tasty was light and good.

Spicy pork sausage & rice cakes: yep, what the dish says, but sauteed together. I really didn't like this dish. It was incredibly spicy and the tastes just didn't meld to me. While I don't really like very spicy food, there are some dishes that I'm happy to suffer through the pain of because the taste is so well worth it. This one wasn't.

Marinated hanger steak ssam, Iporos, Rioja 2004 (Crianza): Two hanger steaks (much like I make at home, if I do say so myself) cooked to a beautiful medium rare sliced thinly and eaten with rice in lettuce leaves. Very good but with our recent massive exposure to both hanger steak and Korean food, I have to admit that it was good, but not impressive.

So overall, I did enjoy my meal mostly, but I have to say that I left Ssam feeling a bit disappointed. David Chang doesn't claim to be doing anything extreme, just putting together good food with his own twist. If I lived in NYC, I wouldn't really go back, choosing to go to other smaller but likely more ... authentic places to get my Korean fix. Or maybe good Korean is hard to find in the city. But that would surprise me.