MOMOFUKU DAISHO, TORONTO
Monday, February 15, 2016
It was nearing the end of winterlicious and I had only gone to one winterlicious dinner! So we opted for a lunch one, and it seems that among the few we places at which we wanted to dine, just Daisho had an open table for 1200.
We took the stairs up to the third floor, passing by the milk cold room (and making a note that we should make a stop there after we've had our meal). The bright bright room filled with natural light was a huge plus for making the dining area feel open and optimal for food pictures (actually, any pictures in general).
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| Pink lady apple wedges kimchi'd, arugula, maple labneh, pork jowl bacon |
We both chose to start with an apple kimchi salad. The spicy kimchi was great with the sweet and crisp apple wedges. Argula kept it fresh, jowl was crisp and contrasted nicely. The smear of labneh was too thick for out liking - both of us used it sparingly. We spent a while debating what type of apple they used to make into kimchi. Was too sweet to be granny smith but was so crisp, maybe golden delicious? Turns out it was pink lady, a type of apple I've never had until that day. Good
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Chicken + pork 'spam', coconut rice, fried egg, spicy sauce, shittake mushroom, napa water kimchi, cilantro, fried egg
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Chicken & pork sausage rice bowl. The sausage is shaped like, might I even say, a crispy an fried spam, and had a 78% resemblance to a level-upped spam. Rice is not the Asian kind but the Western kind that doesn't stick together. Sauce is like a thick soup consistency. Very filling and moreish. Okay
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Rice cake, mussel, yuzu, thai basil, sake, steamed bun
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Mussels with a steamed bun. The bun though. It is not your typical asian steamed bun, and I feel that it is a western style dough that has been shaped and steamed, yielding a fine crumb which disintegrates very quickly upon dipping in the mussel's broth (but dipping it in the broth was the intended purpose of the bun, no?) Mussels were plump and fresh; the portion was on the large side. Lots of fried shallots, and lemon-grassy (fresh tasting) taste. Tastes like the kind of flavours my mom makes (south east asian). Would have been significantly better if they replaced the steam bun with any other bread, baguette would have been great. Okay
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| Chocolate |
Chocolate mousse. But where is the goddamn mousse? Oh, its hiding in the form of a chocolate ganache. Then why has it been called a mousse? We felt quite fooled. Was the chef playing a joke on us? (Haha, I laugh in reply) There are deep fried bananas, freeze dried bananas, an ice cream whose flavour I do not recall, and some chocolate sauce. The mousse made the dessert moreish and decadent. Though I never liked chocolate desserts to begin with. So can't really judge this one.
Vanilla custard - is more of a vanilla foam (they siphoned the custard I'm guessing?). Topped with crushed brittle that doesn't taste like it's been infused with any flavours (ie it tasted like sugar). And was that micro basil leaves on top? Was a nice touch. Especially enjoyed the cooked saucy orange bits which refreshed the dessert bowl. Cake bits were almondy - was it a madeline? genoise? Would be nice if that was less sweet because the bits of honeycomb/brittle was sweet enough. Okay
Being only my second winterlicious meal for this year, I can't really make any solid assertion but both times I found the appetizer to be significantly better than the main and dessert.
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| Vanilla |
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| Americano |
Wow, haven't blabbed on this much about food in a while. All three courses were a hearty portion, and much larger than what I would expect for winterlicious, and any lunch for that matter. We had to take an americano and a walk afterwards to keep the itis from kicking in hard at work.
PS
We got crack pie and chocolate malt cake truffles to go and eat back at the office for a midday pick me up.
