Chef Christian Meilinger’s restaurant, Chef Meili, knows how to make people feel like a celebrity. On Christmas Eve I went to his restaurant with 8 of my friends to indulge in roast goose, turkey, duck confit, and gluvine.
We started with gluvine: warmed mulled wine spiced with cloves and oranges. It, as my friends said, tasted like Christmas.
We also had the house Austrian wine: medium dry with hints of currants and black cherries. It was also a refreshing addition to the meal.
First course was the beet soup with horseradish threads. Beet soup? The consensus at the table was that it was “divine.” The slightly tangy and sweet beets not only had a brilliant shade, the taste was bright in the mouth like a red balloon flying up towards gray clouds. The horseradish threads accented the dish with a inquisitive bite and a realization that “horseradish” was definitely misnamed- this root vegetable was more like a fine fennel with a tidbit of licorice.
The main course brigade came like Desert Storm. We had turkey, duck confit, and roasted crispy goose. We had saffron mash potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin/vegetable medley. We had cranberry sauce, red cabbage slaw, and gravy, Gravy, GRAVY.
It was all…divine. But, I must admit, the roasted crispy goose won first prize and it’s taste has embedded itself in my taste library. This goose’s skin was like crispy, braised unagi- the elusive flavor that encapsulates taste buds, yet eludes words, is what the Japanese call umami. This goose has it. The meat was richly flavored, like the savored dark meat on the thigh bones on turkey. The taste was like a mixture of duck, turkey, and- strangely enough- mackerel. Call me crazy but the slight fishy taste made me curious about the life of the goose: what kind of life did it lead to be so delicious? I imagine it lived a full life filled with literature, exotic travels, and wonder.
And we finished off the meal with more wine and gluvine and pumpkin pie and nougget mousse with sour cherries. The nougget mousse is always a firecracker and each bite is like a the single trumpet blare in a Mozart-layered symphony.
It was all divine.
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You had a lot better experience than my group did yesterday. The food was very good, but the service was severely lacking, especially when it came time for dessert.
After we finished our meals we were sitting there waiting seemingly forever. Finally we flagged down our waitress for our dessert order, assuming that they were making desert for the person in our group that ordered the Christmas set menu, without asking the others if we wanted dessert too (we did).
The hunch proved correct, when they brought out the nougat mousse at least 15 minutes before the other desserts. Even if it really does take thirty minutes to warm up the apple strudel and put some ice cream in a bowl with some fruit (I was pretty disappointed with the desserts), I would have expected them to hang on to the nougat until the rest of the dishes were ready.
I can be quite forgiving and am usually willing to chalk a lot of it up to having a bad night, or being extremely busy or whatever, but there was no excuse for the sous chef to totally ignore my girlfriend when we were on our way out and she tried to be friendly and compliment him on the great food. Even if he had trouble understanding her, is it so hard to just smile?
I’ll go back to Chef Meili and give it another shot one of these days, but they’ve got a lot to make up for.
I feel that Chef Meili wasn’t really prepared for that many people to come out and the Sous Chef is a shy person- he is not as personable as Christian is. I had the same problem when I introduced myself to him. Service is a fault that many restaurants have in this country. Meili’s wait staff is not trained to give proper service and, as I have noticed, he doesn’t have any regular hires. Most of the people are people he hires part time and he handles most of the service himself.
Steve, where was your party? We were the loud 10 top in the back of the restaurant. I had asked him to do something family style because it was going to be easier than trying to do things individually. That’s possibly why our service was better. Also, we just kept ourselves drinking all night and so time melted away.
Next time, we’ll have to get a couple of people and go together. How about Villa Sortino’s?
Dan
Yeah, I realize that he’s running the place under-staffed, so I expected to wait a long time for our various dishes, but a couple of the details just really rubbed me the wrong way, and I think the problem was mostly the waitresses as opposed to the chef himself. I’m not saying he’s a bad person ^^
My friend that was visiting from Mokpo seemed to really love the place and didn’t have a complaint. My girlfriend thought it was good but kept mentioning how should could eat ten meals at a Korean restaurant for the same price, lol.
We actually went on a different day than your group (Christmas night at 7).
I’d be down for checking out Villa Sortino’s some time. Actually I half-expected to run into you at the Toque Christmas brunch buffet (which was all-around fantastic, by the way. We had a group of five and everyone was very pleased).
If you’re ever south of the river, there’s an amazing cafe/sandwich shop in Apgujeong you have to check out. An espresso made from fresh roasted coffee beans and the best damn sandwich I’ve had in Korea will set you back all of 12,000 won. It’s called Cafe Buchella (부첼라). Here are maps to the two locations:
http://local.paran.com/company/cp_view.html?Tel=02-517-7339&KY=2043476&Title=%BA%CE%C3%BF%B6%F3%BD%C5%BB%E7%B5%BF%C1%F6%C1%A1
http://local.paran.com/company/cp_view.html?Tel=02-3411-4944&KY=214648&Title=(%C1%D6)%BA%CE%C3%BF%B6%F3
Oh yeah, speaking of coffee, I found the raddest coffee shop ever at Gangnam Station. I’ll do a write-up of it soon.
I told my girlfriend what you said about the Sous Chef, that he’s just shy, and she feels a lot better about it. Thanks!