We had such a busy day at NYIGF (trade show) today! We drew such a big crowd to our Nagatani-en donabe booth. One of the highest compliments we received from new buyers was, "Your donabe is the best find in the entire show!" Wow. I was talking all day long, so my throat was hurting at the end of the day. But, no problem.
After the big hustle at the show, we had a dinner plan to look forward to. We scored a reservation for Bo Ssam dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar in East Village tonight. Our friends joined, so there were 6 of us. I gave them an advance warning advice that they should be extremely hungry for dinner tonight.
The dinner began with Sarataga Springs Lager (Coney Island, NY) draft beer. It felt like my entire body was absorbing the beer. Nice.
Appetizers...Corvina with kumquat, mitsuba, and green peppercorn/ Fuji apple kimchi with maple labne, jowl bacon, and arugula/ and P.E.I. Mussels with apple cider, jalapeno, and pork jowl. They were all very nice, but I was especially impressed by the apple kimchi. I want to make my version at home!
Time for the main course...Bo Ssam was huge! The set included Bo Ssam of whole pork butt, dozen fresh oysters, kimchi trio, rice, and lettuce. The meat was prepared 24 hours in advance and cooked for 8 hours in the low heat oven. The meat was so tender that it came right off by gently picking with tongs.
I tried it with many different ways...like with pureed kimchi, or sometimes with kimchi and rice. 6 of us (5 guys and myself) just kept eating and eating, and we could barely finished maybe 70% of the entire meat. It was indeed a huge meat, and very tasty.
Wines of tonight...2007 Julien Courtois, 'Ancestral' (Soings en Sologne, Loire) (different clons of Gamay plus Cot)/ 2007 B. Kosuge, Syrah 'Dry Stack', Bennett Valley (Sonoma)/ 2007 Ar.Pe.Pe., Rosso di Valtellina (Lombardia)
Desserts....Grapefruit pie with candied grapefruit and grapefruit cream/ Pear sorbet with pumpkin, cornflake crunch, and blue cheese.
I stuffed myself so much that the food was up to my head. We had a fun time with nice dinner.
