= The Amouse Bouche is served on a plate with three circles, on which three little plates were placed on top, and a glass, the indication being hte juice in the glass is made from ingredients from the other three. The first was a braised beet over rice cracker (very good), then a 'golden halibut', which was interesting and funky, and finally a raspberry and cucumber thing over a rice cake (very good), with the juice being mostly beet and raspberry. I will admit I did have a hard time understandign some of the Ryunique waiters - on me, not them - so especially on this dish, I don't have the best understanding.
= The first real dish is another take on Golden Halibut, so called due to its golden color. The dish was halibut tarter over a roasted cucumber, with radish and micro-greens. This little cucumber could be then dipped into a great lime & honey based sauce. The dish was simple but truly effective. Even the Golden Halibut tartare itself truly tasty.
= The next dish I will admit was better in concept and look than taste - not that it was bad but it's primary component was a local version of purple sweet potato which just isn't all that amazing of a tuber. The dish itself is crafted to look like a dragonfly, an important animal in Korean culture. The base of the dragonfly was the sweet potato, with caviar as the head, and radish and potato greens making up the legs and antennae. The wings were dried rolled-out sweet potato, which looked great, but didn't have all that much taste.
= This next dish was incredible really. It was two uses of a potato baked in a makeshift underground steam oven (similar to what Central did in Lima), and the potato itself had the most amazing smokey smell along with a truly great taste. The potato served as a topper to baked milt fish (also great), and the soup was based from the same potato. There was fish roe in the soup as well, and it was topped with black truffle. Truly this was an amazing dish.
= The next dish was interesting, named a 'surf and turf' as it mixed cooked dried Pork Belly and raw scallops, topped with a mung bean film and then a foam based of tiger bean. The tiger bean is probably something that isn't exactly my taste but the rest of the dish was incredible. The mixture of hte crispy pok belly and the raw scallops was pure bliss.
= The next dish rivaled the] potato and fish dish as my favourite. It was a perfectly cooked (and I mean perfectly cooked) seabass with the crispiest of skin, with a crafted chestnut puree that was shaped like an art-piece, topped with shaved radish and grated fish roe. The sauce that tied it all together was also incredibly sweet. It all mixed together into something divine.
= The final main course was called "pork and citrus" and it was largely that. It was probably the simplest dish of theirs, something that I could make a reasonable attempt at, but what this had going for it was jsut perfect taste. The pork melted in your mouth, a level of cooking on what seemed to be sliced tenderloin that I've never been able to approach. The citrus elements were super fresh and tangy, and combined really well. The pork head jus helped add some pungency. The dish was super tasty, if surprisingly "simple"
= The first desert was a granita made from Korean Melon (really tasty, far better than any normal melon) and a seaweed snow which they added in top. This was more of a palate cleanser before the rest of the deserts, but even then was super tasty.
= The second desert was awesome, a walnut based ice cream that was great on its own, but accompanied with sliced, pickled cherries (great combo of sweet & sour), and something that the menu called butterbur, which was almsot like a honey-like sauce they poured on top. It looked great, it tasted even better.
= The final capper was a dish they called "Cracked Corn", which had basically corn in five different preparations. It had pods of roasted super sweet (and truly, super sweet) corn, wiht a corn mousse, the husks used to create corn crackers that they shaped into a broken ("cracked") ice cream cone, and finally the stringy part of the husk roasted and tossed on top. This was a great way to end what was a great meal
Mingles
= Four quick bites started the meal, first a fish tartare ball topped with caviar, then a seasonal clam with more caviar (this isn't just to be fancy, caviar seems to be a certain specialty of Korea. The second two set of quick foods were even better, a seaweed column with fish inside it cooked beautifully, and lastly a beef tartare small patty, with a dried mini octopus on top. Four great bites, great start.
= Corn is apparently a more crucial ingredient in Korea as well, as Mingles had their corn dish, this as a starter, with truly super sweet corn pieces, with a light, spicy sauce on top, and a even sweeter corn puree. The other touches, like fresh fruit, and seaweed chips, just added a few more great elements.
= A simple soup, but so damn good, for the next dish. The morel was and fish were poached perfectly. The beef tendon cooked with more taste to it than you normally get, say in a pho. The broth itself had a mushroom stock base which was excellent as well. On the whole it was a great light dish.
= The only annoying part of this dish is they made a point to tell me the fish was from Jeju, and that was a bit sad because the fish was great. Granted, the fish I probably would have had were I to have been able to go to Jeju probably wouldn't have been as good, but whatever. The dish itself was great, the fish cooked to perfection, with not much else adding to it, because not much as was needed.
= This was a truly great dish, a sticky rice with crab, a mushroom puree, a king crab quinelle, and a roasted king crab cutlet, all side by side, all delicious. The little dab of Gochujang didn't add much and probably isn't needed, the other four elements tasting good enough without it.
= They're version of surf & turf was so damn playful, and very much an example of just how restaurants like this do things just that little bit better. The surf element was an oyster dumpling, with the oyster stuffed with shrimp and pork neck. I don't even know what that means, how does one stuff an oyster and then lightly fry it? The turf element might have been even better, a whimsical little skewer of a very traditional korean cut of beek fillet. Just great stuff all around.
= The main dish was incredible, a lamb done in three preparations, each better than the next The weakest of the three was a perfectly made ravioli stuffed with lamb. The most interesting one was a lamb rib very lightly cooked and topped with a green almost pesto-like paste that was very Korean. The most traditional element was probably the tastiest, a perfectly cooked lamb tenderloin with a gochugaru based sauce. It is ridiculous how well places like this cook lamb.
= For most of the tasting menus I've done in my life, desserts are generally the weakest, or at least most forgettable, parts of the meal. Not so with recent ones, and very much not so here. The first one was a dashima granita (some Korean fruit), with a korean melon carpaccio on top that just melted into the rest of the granita. I have no idea what these Korean melons are, but they are phenomenal.
= The final dessert was three preparations of fairly normal dessert items, but done in a korean way. First was a creme brulee made with deonjang (a fruit, I think?), then a puff stuffed with gochujang paste, and finally pecan ice cream but with some Korean element that escapes me now.
= The final element was a set of petit fours, in this case petit fives (five items) that were all quite nice. Some were fairly basic (a chewy ginger candy type thing), but some were insane (a green herb donut like item that was very pungent), and some were just straight up cool, like a korean style macaron. Ijn the end a great way to end the meal.
