Decided to do my birthday dinner at EMP once we heard that meat was back on the menu! The space is beautiful & much bigger than I expected. They are serving a 9 course meal:
- Bread w/ onion butter & onion broth (tastes like an onion roll)
- Leek salad & steamed collard greens dumpling (dumpling not pictured but was delish)
- Scallop ceviche w/ beet & grapefruit (why is grapefruit so sour?)
- Soba noodles w/ white truffle (so warm and truffle was perfect)
- Choice of poached lobster or butternut squash w/ Thai chili (we got one of each; i liked the squash better)
- Hasselback Potato w/ whipped potato & “land caviar” (this was a wild combo. Dense but super good)
- Honey-lavender Duck 🦆🦆🦆
- Coconut ice cream w/ passion fruit doughnuts
- Weird sesame dessert not pictured
- They also gave us a ton of granola for breakfast that my partner said is fantastic
Overall – everything was very tasty & pleasant but nothing really blew me away. Soba noodles were my favorite course; it was warm and the white truffle was delicious / not over powering. & the dumpling that came with the leek salad was also a star.
I am a self proclaimed duck lover and that’s what I was most excited for but I was underwhelmed. Maybe just a me thing, but I love the duck at Portale and when I order it at other restaurants that people rave about duck (same with Torrisi) it just doesn’t do it for me.
Again everything was good, I just wouldn’t run back for how expensive it was ($365/pp before drinks / tax / tip). It got an 8.5 on my Beli.
by Sportchamp1110
Dining and Cooking