Last Wednesday, I had the honor of dining at David Chang's Momofuku Ko. After 3 years of starring at the X's on the reservation site and walking by the mysterious doors on First Avenue, I was so happy to finally be on the other side!

Sadly, I quickly found out that they don't allow ANY photos inside (no exceptions the waiter said, but he did help us take this pic above). Since I am an obedient girl, I didn't take pics and the best I could do was try to write down the explanations of each dish. I am not sure when they started this rule though, because I did some google searching and a ton of other bloggers took pics in there (maybe I should've broken the rules!).

The photos I included below were my FAVORITES of the night, although most of the dishes were very delicious! I don't think I appreciated the creativity of the desserts as much though. Though I like goat cheese sorbet and rhubarb, the desserts were a little too vegetable / salad tasting for me.

Lastly, although I had an awesome experience and the food was delicious, I don't think I'll be going back -- at $170 a person after tax/tip, it's definitely a once in a lifetime experience. Also, the atmosphere isn't fancy/luxurious enough where it can be a special occassion place (like Restaurant Daniel or Le Bernadin or something). I do recommend coming at least once though if you can afford it and want to go on a 10-course tasting adventure with David Chang -- every dish was so surprising and creative!

Thanks again to Cisco for getting the reservation! And scroll down to the bottom on our new tip on how to get a resservation without having to log on every morning at 10am.

Amuse bouche

(came in little spoons)

Ricotta with radish and cucumber
Oyster mushrooms with crispy black rice and goat cheese
Fried pork skins (Cisco kept talking about how these were the best fried pork skins he ever had, including in the Phillipines!)

Course 1: Diver scallops with avocado purée and frozen cucumber juice on top

Course 2: Seared branzini with white asparagus and white miso yogurt, black sesame, horseradish and tomberry

Course 3: Chilled dashi (soup) with uni, cucumber , melon and pork fishcake

Course 4: Smoked, poached hen egg broken with Hackleback caviar, soft cooked onions and fried fingerling potatoes

This dish was my favorite and SO delicious -- the poached egg was perfectly tender and went so well with the caviar and onions and the potato "chips" gave the dish a more crunchy texture too. LOVED.

Course 5: Homemade macaroni with octopus, chorizo and spring onions, garlic and English peas

Course 6: Roasted halibut with pepperocini puree and roasted burned onions

Course 7: Shaved Hudson valley foie gra with lychee, pinenut brittle and jelly riesling

This the famous David Chang dish that everyone talks about -- I've heard both spectrums of feedback on this dish, from making one want to throw up, to being so delicious they want to lick the plate. I personally LOVED the dish. The foie gras is definitely pungent, but it went so well with the lychee and frozen riesling wine jelly! I finished my friends' plates off after mine =P

Course 8: Deep fried short rib with scallions hash, ramps, spring onion lavender oil and pearl onions

Course 9: Green tomato sorbet with dried oregano and dehydrated green tomatoes

Course 10: Poached rhubarb pistachio marshmallows and goat cheese ice cream

To leave you, here is a photo of all the cool cookbooks in the bathroom!

Photos from this article about the books in the bathroom!

Has anyone else dined here before? How did you like it?

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Momofuku Ko

163 1st Avenue (Between 10th and 11th Streets)

New York

(212) 500-0831

Website: http://www.momofuku.com/ko

Yelp Reviews

How to make a reservation: Usually, you need to go through the Momofuku Reservation site and create a new account and log on to make reservations. The system opens at 10am every day, showing availability for the following 7 days. It's extremely hard to get a res this way and I tried for 3 years -- I got it once due to a cancellation, but no one to go with so I gave it away.

Anyway, Cisco suspects that Momofuku Ko gives away a bunch of reservations to the American Express Concierge service -- so just try calling them to get it! I haven't tried it msyelf, but Cisco is going again next week for his friend's birthday, so I think it works! Let me know if you try this =)

NYC: Momofuku Ko