Aldea – NYC

As some of you know (from my previous post), I, Karsen, got to go to NYC without Anya. During my visit, I was able to see Jeremy Lin and the Knicks, the Spiderman musical, and The Museum of Natural History. In addition to that, I was spoiled by the delicious food that NYC has to offer (keep looking – I’ll be posting some of the most delicious food including Sushi Gari, Gray’s papaya, Papaya King, Momofuku’s Milkbar desserts, Flushing restaurants, an amazing Brooklyn Brunch place, among others). Anyway, my last dinner in NYC was at this amazing Portuguese Fusion restaurant called Aldea. It has one Michelin Star.

This is an unassuming (assume was one of my spelling words) place. Here’s the sign outside the restaurant:

It’s a small restaurant but serves food with BIG taste. Here are pictures of the atmosphere. I’d describe it as calming and peaceful.

In fact, we dined here with Eric Jojo. He had a long day at work as a lawyer.  This is his calm and serene look after arriving at Aldea.

This is a picture of the talented and young chef.  His name is Chef Georges Mendes.  Because he has already achieved michelin status, I was surprised at how young he was.

We had a nice server and ordered drinks first. Mommy ordered wine and I ordered fresh lemonade. This is what they looked like.

We decided that we wanted to order the Chef’s tasting menu. Mommy didn’t want the venison so they made an exception for her and served her the Arroz de Pato (which is a duck confit and rice dish).

Of course, like all fancy restaurants, this one came with different fresh-made breads and amuse bouches.  The next four pictures are of the different kinds of breads that were offered.  I liked the olive bread.

This was the platter of bread we had to choose from and the other pictures are of individual breads.

The first amuse bouche was the pina colada bites.  It was sweet and as you would expect, tasted like a combination of pineapple and coconut.  Popo, you would love this!! 

The second set of amuse bouches included pistachio soup crostini, Salted cod bacalao (a traditional portuguese dish), and Oysters in ginger sauce.

This is the pistachio soup crostini. The soup was creamy and the pistachio is a nice unexpected touch.

This is the Salted Cod Bacalao. I popped the bacalao in my mouth and it was an explosion of flavors!

This is the Oysters in Ginger. The sauces in the oyster were spicy and had a touch of saltiness (like sea salt)

Believe me, our bouches were amused!! And all of this came before our first course.

For our first course, we Rhode Island Sea Urchin and Littleneck Clams. Chef Georges Mendes came out to serve us and to tell us that the clams were absolutely fresh! They were, of course delicious. The sea urchin (known as uni in sushi restaurants) was melt in your mouth.

Our second course was the cured foie gras with pear puree and maple syrup.

We had the foie gras with little bits of toast. The sweetness of the pear puree and maple syrup went very well with the foie.

Our third course was the whole milk ricotta gnocchi. This was mommy’s favorite dish of all. It came with the most delicious blacktruffle, brown butter, poultry jus. I think that must be mommy’s favorite combination for sauces. She can’t get enough of that.

The fourth course was the venison loin (for Eric jojo and me). And mommy had the arroz de pato.

This was the dish I liked least because the meat is chewy for me.  I want to clarify that it was not over- or under-cooked.  I am a lazy eater and like melt in your mouth meats (i.e. foie gras, pork belly, braised ribs). In fact, I wound up eating mommy’s rice and duck confit dish. That was delicious.

Our next course was really a palate cleanser. It was a Lemongrass gelee with passionfruit granita. This was very refreshing.

Our final course was the ginger parfait with brown sugar ice cream and pomegranate pearls.

Just when we thought we were done with dessert, we were treated to another set of desserts.

This was donuts with three different sauces – caramel, chocolate, and caramel peanut butter.

These donuts were the best of all the desserts. All of us liked the donuts better than the ginger parfait. We were told by our server that this is their signature dessert. Of all of the dipping sauces, I liked the caramel sauce best, but the others were still very good.

I rate it 5 smiley faces. It was DELICIOUS!!

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

I recommend that everyone dine here.  Chef Mendes is sure to have another michelin star soon!!!