Tailor

This one's going to be a long one.

This past Thursday, the family ventured to Tailor with a friend visiting from Hong Kong. Tailor is Sam Mason's much anticipated restaurant whose endeavors from concept to opening has been captured in his ongoing blog.

I had the pleasure of experiencing Chef Mason's genius when he was pastry chef at wd-50 a couple of years back. His whimsical approach to desserts led to an interesting conversation with him about how he managed to get cotton candy into a chocolate truffle. And I do remember his lemon curd as one of the best desserts I've ever had.

We arrived at Tailor (525 Broome Street) without a reservation but hopeful about getting a table. The dining room was busy so we were ushered downstairs to the bar area. Neither wd-50 nor Tailor are for the faint of heart and this became evident immediately as we looked over the cocktail menu. After quizzical looks, we asked the waitress for recommendations and ordered the Crumble (brown butter rum, pink clove and scrumpy...whatever that is), the Waylon (bourbon, smoked coke, and preserved lemon) and the Paprika Punch (rum, bell pepper, lemonade and molasses). Wow!

The flavor sure were interesting. The pepper was a little too strong for Maria so she and I swapped the Punch for the Crumble. Not being much of a mixed drink person, the Paprika Punch made for an eyebrow raising experience but didn't change my sensibilities much.

At that point, the hostess notified us that our table was ready. Our drinks were brought upstairs but we had to settle the tab separately. I suppose that since the bar is downstairs that they don't have any way to move the tab but it would be a nice touch.

The dining room has four 4-tops of the left, three 4-tops with a larger table on the right and a community table in the middle. Our table was quite large. I'm not quite sure what was playing but the music was oddly hypnotizing and made some of us quite sleepy. Nevertheless, my excitement over trying this inventive menu kept me wide awake.

On reviewing the menu, I noticed that they had a tasting menu. As far as I'd known, that hadn't been available. The waiter confirmed that they had decided to serve a tasting menu at the last minute. And he emphasized that it was "just a minute ago". Not sure how that's possible if we're eating at 8pm and the menu was pre-printed. The waiter was also a bit confused when I asked if the whole table had to order the tasting menu. He suggested we order some from each side of the menu, that is the Salty and the Sweet. That had nothing to do with my question so I'm not sure what he was talking about.

We ended up ordering the full suite of six savories since we just had to try everything. A server came with what looked like a serving of gelato. Of course it was the butter but my daughter was very confused for a second. The bread service was of two varieties: a green olive bread and a walnut raisin. Both were excellent. The server told us that it came from a bakery just around the corner. I'll have to figure out what that is since the bread was really good.

The amuse bouche arrived at that point. It consisted of plums, cocoa nips, and mustard and beer foam. I did have the server replace my daughter's amuse with one without the foam. Even if I was ok with the alcohol, I don't think she would have liked it. The amuse did have a great balance between the sweet and salty but I'm not a fan of beer so it wasn't a win for me. However, from a strictly textural perspective, the plums, cocoa nips, and foam did provide a nice contrast.

The savory portion of the menu was brought out 3 at a time. First, we had the peanut butter foie gras with chocolate powder and finely diced pear. It's pretty amazing to taste a mousse with the combination of foie gras and peanut butter flavors. It's definitely the most interesting preparation I've had the pleasure of having. This was definitely one of our favorites.

With that came the snapper sashimi with olives, watermelon, and pistachio crusted avocado ice cream. Really interesting combination! The varied flavors and textures really came together to make each bite an experience. This wasn't a favorite but it's hard when there are other excellent dishes to compare to.

Also with the first wave came the peekytoe crab with pineapple, pine nut puree, and a basil sauce. Included was a thin ham "chip". My daughter loves this dish, which surprised me since she's not usually a fan of crab. However, I think the combination with the sweet cooked pineapple and the ham really made a mix. But I think we all wished there was more of the ham to go around.

After clearing out the first set of dishes, we eagerly awaited the next. Bread was offered again and accepted. Oddly enough, one server replaced my friend's utensils while our waiter took my fork off my plate and back onto my mat. Very strange. But onward.

Duck tartar with marjoram pesto and pickeled cherry jam...although I'm not sure where the cherry jam was because I didn't see it or taste it. The waiter also said that there was pork sausage in the tartar. I couldn't tell but I'd think it would be a problem in NYC if a dish had pork but didn't have it listed. This was the one dish that didn't seem to have that sweet element. I love duck so there you go.

Our favorite of the night was the pork belly with miso butterscotch sauce and artichokes. I couldn't really taste the miso but the pork and sauce was so good we had to order another. The artichoke wasn't strong enough to alter the taste of the dish but provided a counter texture to the pork. Our absolute favorite.

Last was the passion fruit poached char with coconut, lime pickle, mushrooms, and what looked like little dumplings. It wasn't the prettiest dish in the world but the sweetness of the sauce with that char, dumplings and mushrooms were excellent.

Finally done with the salty side of the menu, we moved to the sweets. Here we ordered the soft chocolate with sesame ice cream and a spicy mole crisp. This was a great taste combination and my favorite among the desserts even though I'm not usually partial to chocolate. Unfortunately, the chocolate "twist" did look a bit like a you-know-what in the opinion of my 10 yr old. That put her off a bit.

We also had the caramel panna cotta, with crunchy coffee "soil", corn sorbet, and a couple of caramel popcorns. This was the only dish that I felt the balance was way off. I thought the corn sorbet was too strong and overwhelmed the rest of the dish. We ended up leaving the sorbet well enough alone but gobbled up the rest.

And last, we had the blueberry, black olive cake with yogurt sorbet. I ended up eating this by myself. I think the rest of the table was experimented out. I enjoyed the olive cake a lot but the sweetness of the blueberries were stronger...probably why it's in the dessert section.

So ended our meal. My friend and I were satisfied but could have easily eaten more. I'm hoping Chef Mason expands his menu soon. Overall, the food was very much fun but probably not somewhere the family would want to do more than once in a blue moon. I'm inclined to try every time the menu changes. Service however was inconsistent. While our water glasses were never empty and bread was brought regularly, the issue with the tasting menu, the oddity of the silverware (not really a big deal), and the fact that no appearance of the petite fours that I've seen described makes me consider the restaurant still in its early stages. I'll be back to check it out again.