Great Food A Millennial Perspective: Daniel

Daniel in my opinion is as close to a perfect meal as a person can produce. Daniel Boulud is the chef and owner of seven award winning restaurants and the Feast and Fêtes Catering Company. In Manhattan, New York Daniel Boulud’s restaurants are Daniel, Café Boulud, db bistro moderne and Bar Boulud.

Daniel Boulud was born March 25, 1955 in Saint-Pierre de Chandieu, France. At fifteen years old, Daniel Boulud earned his first professional recognition: He was a finalist in France’s competition for Best Culinary Apprentice. Boulud worked in France under Roger Vergé, Georges Blanc and Michel Guérard and later in Copenhagen.

Daniel has been named one of the ten best restaurants in the world by the International Herald Tribune. From my experience at Daniel this award is well deserved. The service at Daniel you can’t even describe in words. All the servers are perfectly synchronized and it’s not like they have to try and do this, it just comes naturally. At So many fine dining restaurants the servers try so hard to be perfect and it causes a really rigid environment. Any time you thought you might need something a server had already anticipated it.

It’s easy to see why Daniel was awarded two Michelin stars. Every part of the meal from the service to the preparation techniques are perfect. First of you get the complementary Amuse-Bouche and Mignardises just to push you over the edge. The main entrées have the sauces poured over them table side. I liked this part though; the servers brought out all the dishes with domes on them. It was almost like Christmas because you had to wait to see your food.

For dinner we chose to do the Six Course Burgundy Tasting Menu. Though I can’t drink, so I just had the six courses which actually became like ten, when it was all said and done. The great thing about this prefix menu is there were two choices for each section. I like this format though because everyone doesn’t have to eat the same thing at the table.

The food was indescribable in words. Every dish had so many bold flavors you just had to slow down and think about all the work that went into it. The Amuse-Bouche was fantastic, the smoked trout just melted in your mouth and the crab was also very good. The Foie Gras Terrine with the Marcona almond crust was delicious. The Foie Gras was served with bread service and the kumquats were the perfect pair to the dish. The Paprika Crusted Maine Lobster Tail was spectacular. The lobster was accompanied by a broccoli purée, which I’d never thought about before but it was very good. The lobster literally tasted like macaroni and cheese, which I couldn’t figure out.

The post meal service was just the right size. The warm petite madeleines were very good and had powdered sugar sprinkled over them. The one bite confections were all very different. From the coconut cream pie to the lemon meringue pie they are had very independent flavors.

At the end of the meal the Matrie’d asked me if I would like to go on a Kitchen tour. Of course I said yes and we got to go see the Kitchen. During the meal I had noticed so many employees in the restaurant, so I asked him how many they had working at once. He told me every night they have around twenty five cooks and eighty people in the front of the house. This explains why they have such extravagant service. A really cool thing about the kitchen is there is an office sitting about 30 feet in the air and you can observe the whole kitchen from there. I hope in the near future I get to dine at Daniel again.

Choux