After all the hullabaloo over the meal Trump and Romney had at Jean-Georges’ restaurant the other night, I thought it’d be fun to do a “Julie and Julia” with the menu. It was a complete waste of time and money. Do NOT ever use a single one of 3 Michellin Star Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s online or video recipes. None of the dishes from that meal are correct. Not saying Jean-George is a big fat liar who’s too full of his pompous jerk self to post an honest ingredient list but... excuse me, but 1/4 C of sugar for a chocolate cake is blatantly obvious.
Mr. b is always laughing as I don’t like following recipes but this time I did with the exception of substituting chicken wings for frog legs and doubling the cake sugar to 1/2 C knowing full well even that wasn’t enough. Who passes up chocolate cake?!? Well, my garbage can doesn’t since that’s where the cake ended up.
The garlic soup with 4 heads of garlic to 4 cups of broth? Yes, that’s heads. But, hey, I was determined so played along with the chef’s famous recipe. The kitchen sink drain got the pleasure of that dish and I burped garlic for two days. BTW, we used to get frog legs (not sold in stores here) fresh from our stock tank so I know substituting the accompanying chicken wings didn’t change the concept of the dish.
The steak, well, anyone with two taste buds to rub together knows to let the steak speak for itself. It’s supposed to be the star. That’s why Georgie boy charges $25 extra for it. It isn’t supposed to be drowned in sauce, especially a sauce with a dozen ingredients. That’s just over the top frou frou, hence the pompous.
Speaking of sauce, not everything needs sauce, “Chef”. There was also sauce on the cauliflower and scallops and the carrots had a glaze. The cauliflower and scallops were boring with no taste despite having a capers and raisin sauce which was the color of baby you know what.
For our next night’s dinner, it was out with fancy smancy recipes and back to my old homecooking. I steamed the remaining 95% of the unused portion of the cauliflower as a low carb mashed “potato” dish with an appetizing buttery color, thank you very much. Roasted some carrots with olive oil and salt and pepper without any sauce so they tasted like... carrots. And grilled the remaining steak without sauce so it tasted like steak. Also, made a little tossed salad for something fresh. Mr. b said, “Now, that’s a GOOD dinner.” Guess our palates and wallets aren’t sophisticated enough for Jean-Georges.
Jean-George should be ashamed and return each of his stars. The cooking shows, Good Morning America or whomever and Epicurious and the various foodie magazines should ban him from their guest list. He shouldn’t be allowed to make dog food, imo. And, yes, $138 plus $25 extra for the steak is waaay too much even if the REAL honest to goodness edible recipes were used. We all know the customers are paying for the name of the chef, the building and most importantly for “being seen” rather than the food. With steak on sale here (I’m sure Georgie boy gets his discounted) for $4/lb, an 8 oz steak with all the side dishes and dessert, my cost, including pantry items. was $5 and change per person.
Aaaack! The cauliflower and scallops with the caper-raisin sauce is one of my favorite recipes! But I got it from the Washington Post many, many years ago.