Happy Noms

Author: Victor
Restaurant: 12 Chairs
Exec Chef: David Laris

Date: January 2, 2013

Notes:

I was in Shanghai for a few days to celebrate New Year’s Eve with some friends (drinking, partying, massages, and really and really good food = yay!), and I figured that I’d try a fine dining restaurant in Shanghai while I was here. The two fine dining restaurants I really wanted to try in Shanghai were 12 Chairs and Ultraviolet. I’ll try out Ultraviolet on my next trip to Shanghai!

The entire restaurant is one table with 12 chairs; it’s supposed to be an intimate dining experience where you get to know your fellow diners over the course of the meal.

Conceptually, the food is interesting, and the chef mixes together different flavors that should work. In execution, however, the dishes were kind of mediocre. The meal kind of made me appreciate how so many restaurants in NYC have great execution/cooking.

Food:

Amuse-bouche:
Smoked Fine de Claire oyster over toasted sourdough bread and mayo. With bacon foam.

1.
Cod parfait, celery jelly, lemon and dill vinegar, and Keta (salmon) caviar.

2.
Atlantic salmon in beetroot cure, pickled purple cauliflower, frozen sour cream, and horseradish.

3.
Forest mushroom, truffle carrot, and mascarpone.

4.
New Zealand lamb rack, lamb consommé, macadamia nut custard, goat’s cheese, and aged vinegars.

5.
Lobster tail cooked with Japanese kombu (kelp) sauce and topped with corn soup.

6.
Dalian scallop with feva, pancetta, and mint.

7.
Sous vide pigeon with Japanese pumpkin purée, port-braised prunes, and apple foam.

8.
Olive-oil slow-cooked Australian beef sirloin, triple-fried potato, baby onion, and morel mushroom.

9.
Blueberry, kiwi, and elderflower foam.

10.
Carrot cake, cardamom crème anglaise, chocolate ganache, and orange oil.

Petits-fours:
Left: Rose macaron.
Middle: Chocolate truffle.
Right: Madeleine.

The rose macaron was HORRIBLE. It was nearly as bad as the macarons I had earlier that day in Nanjing dong lu, and those macarons were the worst I had had in my life. I guess I have to go for the 30 RMB macarons to get decent macarons in Shanghai :(.

It makes me really, really sad that a meal at a restaurant like this had such a horrible ending :(.