To celebrate the successful demolition of the chimneys in our house, my husband and I decided that we'd visit Journeyman, a tasting house in Union Square that we've had our eye on for several weeks. It had recently reopened after the chefs returned from a trip to Europe seeking new inspiration, and we were excited to see and taste all they had to offer.
We were presented with a lovely menu, with several tasting options, divided into 5 or 7 courses, and omnivore vs. vegetarian dishes. We both selected the 7-course omnivore selection, pairing it with wine for him, and house-mixed sodas for me.
The amuse bouche was a beet and duck consomme, with a small nugget of mustard seed ice cream and a cube of jellied beet. The broth was light and refreshing, though I wished it had been a little warmer. The jelly cube was delightful and fun, sweet and earthy in true beet fashion. The ice cream was frankly astonishing. The blast of mustard seed was intense, but the heat of it coupled with the coldness of its form factor simply blew my mind.
The appetizer was an allium plate, with a stripe of bright green leek cream sauce down the center of the dish and 3 small scoops on top. One scoop was a goat cheese mousse, the second was a foam, and the last one was another ice cream. They were topped with incredibly slender strips of green onion, and some crunchy thing whose name I did not catch. This plate was very good, but I don't actually remember a lot of details about it.
The halibut dish that came next was brilliant. The fish was moist, flaky, and so sweet and tender that I melted with every bite. The sauces that accompanied the fish were also interesting and delicious. There was parsley, chamomile, spinach, leek, and at least one more which I can't remember anymore. I enjoyed the onion ones best, but they were all very tasty.
Seared scallops topped with scallop ceviche sounded so good when it was described to us that when we actually got to tasting them, we were disappointed. The scallops were a uniform middling-cool temperature, that we are culturally trained to disdain, for fear of food contamination or disease proliferation. Obviously we did not take ill from this meal, but the cultural bias is difficult to overcome. Otherwise, the scallops were tender and sweet, though the ceviche did not quite have as much punch as I would have preferred. The tomato-dashi broth poured around it was also a luke-cool thing, much to my chagrin. I really wanted a stronger cool-warm contrast: slightly more chilled scallops in a just barely warm broth.
Foie gras is always delicious, with its creamy richness and sense of indulgent decadence. Unfortunately, the lavender brioche was so buttery that it covered up a lot of the fatty sweetness of the liver, and the berries, though properly tart and delicious to cut the fat, only served to bury the flavor of the foie gras even more thoroughly. I wish the bread had been a little more austere, but still, foie gras is a treat any day of the week.
The rabbit roulade with liver mousse on the side was delectable. Tender, moist, and so very flavorful, the rabbit meat was a pleasure to all the senses. The fresh spring vegetables that accompanied the meat was also beautifully done, tender and well spiced without overshadowing the meat. The liver mousse was a touch on the salty side, but the inherent sweet richness of liver made up for it.
Steak was the main course, served with two scoops of lentils, a wedge of fennel bulb, and maitake mushroom. Everything was wonderfully flavored, and I especially enjoyed the contrast between the moist, tender meat and the earthy, slightly crisped maitake. There was pureed beets and beet foam as well, but I was not as much of a fan of the contrast between the strong sweet flavors against the savoriness of the rest of the plate.
After we finished our main course, we were served an egg cream. If this was intended to be a palate cleanser, I'm afraid it didn't quite do it for me. I can't remember what was in it, but the taste was so sharp and piercing that it cut through all the previous very pleasant flavors and displaced them, lingering unpleasantly in the mouth until it was itself displaced by other things. Even though we were served a very small amount, I still could not bring myself to consume all of it.
Finally, for dessert, we got a delicious sweet sandwich. On the bottom was a moist, fluffy cake. In the center was a sort of rhubarb custard, and to top it off was a delicious meringue. If it had been just this, I would have been pleased as punch, and no more words need be said on the matter. However, they added a ring of lavender cream around the rhubarb, and it was so overwhelmingly sweet and aromatic that I could not taste the tartness of the rhubarb at all. In the end, I was so baffled by the lack of rhubarb that I took the sandwich apart, carefully removed the ring of lavender cream, put the sandwich back together, and ate it that way. Call me barbaric, but I thought it was tastier that way.
Overall, for all that we found things we thought they could have done differently, we still really enjoyed our experience. It was definitely a journey worth remembering, and I look forward to more inventive, delightful, tasty things from Journeyman.
