I have long been intrigued by the menu at the
Restaurant at the Setai - a curious amalgam of several Far Eastern cuisines - but there was always something keeping me away.
Honestly, it was the prices. Intrigue will only get me so far through the door to try "small plates" that are mostly priced in the mid $20s and main courses that are generally double that or even more. The Restaurant would participate in Miami Spice and occasionally offer other more reasonably priced programs, but I could never get my timing right. So even though the eclectic mix of Asian dishes was alluring, and Executive Chef Jonathan Wright had some solid credentials (Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons in England, Bradley Ogden's Lark Creek Inn in California), I never made my way in.
Intrigue finally got the best of me when I saw that the Setai was offering a "Menu Gourmand," featuring twelve courses from their menu for $120. Somehow, twelve courses for $120 seemed much more reasonable than perhaps three courses for probably about 3/4 of that, and so I paid my first visit to the Setai last week. The "Menu Gourmand" features:
Blue Fin Tuna Skewers, Shiso Ponzu, Asian Pear and Kaffir Lime Salsa
UNI TEMPURA
Sea Urchin, Shiso, Wasabi and Ginger Tempura, Oscetra Caviar, Ginger Yogurt
TORO HAGASHI
Seared Tuna Belly, Warm Salad of Capers, Mushrooms, Olives, Garlic Emulsion
SI CHUAN MANG GUA
Hot and Cold Foie Gras with Mango, Szechuan Pepper, Spiced Bread
SOBA SHIITAKE
Warm Mushroom Salad with Soba Noodes, Truffle Vinaigrette, White Truffle Ice Cream
POT AU FEU
Slow Cooked Duck Egg, Peking Duck, Foie Gras, Sweet Braised Onions, Teriyaki Broth, Bonito
DONG GUA TANG
Clear Ham Broth with Winter Melon, Iberico Ham, Chicken, Crab Meat, Ginger and Straw Mushrooms
SHAN BEI JUN XAI JIAO
Scallop and Black Truffle Har Gao, Truffle Emulsion
LANGOUSTINE
Scottish Langoustines, Orange and Earl Grey Emulsion, Fennel Salad
PORK BELLY
Braised then Crisp Fried Pork Belly, Turnips, Kimchi and Roasted Peanuts
Jivara Ginger and Caramel Crème with Jasmine
Passion Fruit Souffle, Bitter Chocolat Sorbet
Most of these dishes come from the "small plates" section of the main menu, which also features a selection of dim sum, several different fish, shellfish and meats prepared in a variety of Asian styles, as well as noodle and rice dishes, curries and tandoor items. Though the menu credits the cuisines of India, Singapore, Thailand, China and Malaysia as its driving forces, a keen observer will note a clear Japanese influence as well. But this is perhaps better described as a "grab-bag" approach rather than a "fusion" menu - as our waiter noted, the individual dishes tend to be uniquely of one particular culinary style, rather than trying to blend them together.
The restaurant itself is an unusual space, with an open exhibition kitchen and several long wooden tables jutting out at right angles from it, as well as a number of regular tables, some of which look out onto Collins Avenue. There was, however, not a lot of action going on in that exhibition kitchen, with one cook at a sauté station and another at a wok station moving in an unrushed fashion to tend to a quiet dining room. We were started with some crispy rice crackers and some pungent achar-style pickles, along with a silver bowl of toasted peanuts mixed with some small, crispy, salty dried whole fish. An unusual and promising start; but unfortunately, for several of the items that followed, smart and delicious sounding combinations were marred by flaws of technique or seasoning.
Though the "Menu Gourmand" indicates that it is served "Share Style," in fact most of the dishses were composed individual plates like this one: a cube of the lean, red flesh of a bluefin tuna ("akami"), in a puddle of shiso-inflected soy-and-citrus ponzu sauce, topped with a fine dice of Asian pear brightened with Kaffir lime, and crowned with a bit of caviar and a sprig of micro-herbs (shiso?) (apologies, by the way for the terrible quality of the photos, I'm still working on how to get decent pictures in low light). It was a nice, clean taste to start the meal, though the cube was a bit large for one bite and unwieldy to handle in any other way given the plating.
The next course offered some of my favorite things: uni, shiso, ginger, caviar. Though advertised as a "tempura," however, what came out was more of a fried dumpling, the thick casing obscuring the delicate flavor of the sea urchin. It was a shame, because I think the other components could have complemented it well, particularly the ginger-infused yogurt it was resting upon. I will confess I rarely if ever find that cooking improves uni, but if you're going to do so, it deserves more delicate treatment than this. Nobu, for instance, does an uni tempura featuring similar flavors where the uni is wrapped in shiso, then nori, then gets a very light tempura coating before being fried. Though really, even that is unnecessary.
Hagashi toro is supposed to be among the most lush and fatty of tuna cuts, typically, I believe, taken from the top of the tail. Here, a generous portion (one of the only dishes that was actually served share-style)
[2] was seared and plated with a warm salad of shimeji mushrooms, capers and olives, along with a creamy-textured garlic emulsion. Unfortunately the tuna was seared so far as to be predominantly brown rather than pink, and consequently lost most of its unctuous fattiness. As a result, my favorite elements on the plate were the mushrooms and the silky garlic pudding.
The next dish offered a combination of foie gras and mango in hot and cold forms - the hot, with seared foie over a crescent of mango fruit; the cold, a cube of foie gras torchon with a cube of soft mango sandwiched by thin crispy spice bread. The torchon was lovely, the combination with mango a tropical variant on the long-running and effective theme of playing foie against fruit. The seared foie was peculiarly bland. The traditional pairings were played out even further by serving the dish with a shot of
Choya umeshu, the sweet and tart Japanese plum wine playing the role customarily played by Sauternes in this composition. What I couldn't detect was the promised szechuan peppercorns, which might have brought a different element to the party.
Calling this a "pot au feu" suggests stronger "fusion" influences than the Restaurant's mission statement lets on to. Within the bowl were a soft-poached duck egg (presumably slow-cooked in an immersion circulator), slivers of roasted duck, cubes of foie gras, enoki and shimeji mushrooms, some chewy grains (barley? farro?) and slow-braised caramelized onions, all in a dark, sweet soy and bonito "teriyaki" broth. There were some great flavors here and I really loved the composition of elements in this dish, but unfortunately they were all overwhelmed and obscured by the overly sweet broth.
