Dinner at Restaurants I Can't Afford Dinner: WD-50

One of my oldest college buddy, Paris, was in town for the New Year and we decided to treat ourselves to the tasting menu at WD-50. I know, you're thinking we're like 5 years too late on this, but whatevs, Wylie was in the kitchen cooking our food!

Our bread basket turned out to be a wooden container of super thin sesame crisps that I'm sure were created using some sort of dehydrating machine with numbers in its name. Deliciously crunchy and plentiful! I was able to snack on these throughout the entire meal. Thank you servers for not removing this from our table. I hate when the bread basket is taken away. Hey you, I'm not done with that!

Amuse time! Peekytoe crab, celery root, golden raisin and miso. So tasty, I didn't even mind the raisin.

This is the bottle of wine we had. The restaurant is running a recession special of 50% off a bottle with the tasting menu, so this turned into a very good deal.

Everything bagel ice cream with smoked salmon threads and crispy cream cheese. This was brilliant - probably my favorite course of the night when take inventiveness into consideration with flavor. The cream cheese had the texture of a thin sheet of white chocolate. I made each bite a combo bite with a shard of cream cheese, sprinkling of smoked salmon and portion of ice cream.

Foie gras, passion fruit and Chinese celery two ways (thin shavings atop and crunchified at the base) . This is view one.

View two to show you the passion fruit innards. I loved the crunch of the celery crumbles but I think I'm just not a huge fan of passion fruit. Too sweet for my tastes. Still, a good accompaniment to the richness and unctuousness of the foie.

Scrambled egg ravioli, charred avocado, seared kampachi and tiny, tiny home fries. I love the way the chef balances textures. Without the crispy potato bits, texture wise, this would have been too one dimensional a dish.

Cold fried chicken with buttermilk-ricotta, tabasco reduction and caviar. The ricotta was a great stand-in for rustic, mashed potatoes.

Langoustine, red pepper threads, black sesame and shiso.

Beef and bearnaise turned out to be nothing like what I was anticipating. These were crazy rich but light as a feather bearnaise dumplings in a very beefy broth. Silly me expected a piece of steak!

Lamb loin, black garlic romesco, soybeans and pickled garlic chive. This may have been my least favorite course of the evening. The lamb was a bit undercooked for my tastes. The silvery bit was left on the meat, making the chewy bites even chewier, nearly impossible to break down.

"Caramel apple" was apple ice cream with caramel on the inside.

Caramel apple insides.

Hazelnut tart, coconut, chocolate and chicory foam.

That's not a scallop! It's a caramelized brioche with dried apricot, buttercream ribbon and lemon thyme foam dollops.

To finish the evening, cocoa packets which reminded me of the old sample packs from Kiehl's and chocolate shortbread covered milk ice cream.