PrintMatsugen: Jean-Georges Vongerichten Presents Fresh Soba and More
Matsugen
241 Church Street New York, NY 10013 (at Leonard Street; map); 212-925-0202
Service: Knowledgeable (which isn't easy given the intricacies of the menu) and attentive, with a refreshing lack of downtown attitude and cool
Setting: They have warmed up the all-white, Sleeper-like design of Richard Maier considerably
Compare It To: Nobu, Soto, Bar Masa
Must-Haves: Inaku soba with goma-dare (sesame sauce), sea urchin with yuzu jelly, Kurobuta pork loin shabu shabu, grilled Kurobuta pork belly, grapefruit jelly
Cost: This will vary wildly depending on what you order. It could be anywhere from $60 to $125 for three courses, including a glass of wine, tax, and tip
Grade: B+ overall. (Meals can range from an A to a B, depending on what you order)
There are so many misconceptions floating around about Matsugen that I feel compelled to debunk all of them before proceeding any further.
Misconception No. 1: Jean-Georges Vongerichten is the chef at Matsugen.
Fact: He didn't even consult on the menu, although because he was asked, he contributed his now-legendary molten chocolate cake recipe (albeit this time accompanied by green tea ice cream). Matsugen is the first mainland U.S. restaurant opened by the Matsushita brothers, high-end Japanese restaurateurs (three of whom are currently working here) who own restaurants in Japan and Hawaii. Vongerichten absolutely adores Japanese food, thinks very highly of the brothers and their restaurants, needed a concept to install at the old 66 space, and made a deal as a restaurateur to bring in Matsugen. If Matsugen were a movie, Vongerichten would be an executive producer or maybe the producer, not the director. The first title card of the Matsugen movie might read Jean-Georges Vongerichten Presents.
Misconception No. 2: Matsugen is a noodle bar.
Fact: Wrong, wrong, wrong, as my son used to say when he was seven. There are some truly amazing rough-grained soba noodles made in-house served at Matsugen, but most of the menu is not noodle-based. In fact, most of the menu at the restaurant looks surprisingly like your neighborhood Japanese restaurant. There's sushi, sashimi, tempura, and shabu-shabu. No ice cream tempura, thank God.
Misconception No. 3: Matsugen is ridiculously expensive and overpriced.
Fact: There are a few very expensive items at Matusgen (Japanese Wagyu beef, seared fatty bluefin tuna), but that's because the ingredients themselves are very expensive. If you order carefully, you can eat very well here for less than $60 a head. It may not be the most exciting meal of your life, but it may be the most authentic contemporary Japanese meal you can get in this country.
Now that we've gotten all of this out of the way, let's get to the food.
Vongerichten has already blogged about his favorite dishes at Matsugen, so I figured I'd follow his lead the first time I ate there.
Homemade tofu.
I had the homemade tofu ($9), which was as creamy as the richest savory panna cotta you could imagine. Not the most exciting dish to hit my tastebuds here, but that's not the point. Anyway, the dipping sauces helped a lot.
The Tokyo clam chowder ($8), made with fresh soy milk, was light and clammy and totally original. It's not New England clam chowder, it's not Manhattan clam chowder, it's not even Rhode Island clam chowder (made with a clear fish and shellfish broth). As the menu says, it's Tokyo clam chowder.
The lobster salad ($24) with carrot dressing was refreshing, just sweet enough, and had a fair amount of slightly dry lobster meat.
Sea urchin with yuzu jelly.
Vongerichten didn't blog about the sea urchin with yuzu jelly, but he should have. It was creamy, sweet and tart, and tasted like the sea. It was certainly one of the best dishes I had here.
He raved about the coarsest soba, inaka, only served cold and with goma dare (sesame sauce), and he is spot on. The coarse noodles have little nubs of grain that provide an incredible nutty flavor and also a handle for the goma sauce. This dish is simply a must at this restaurant.
The hot soba noodles (get the seiro, or medium husk noodles) with duck and scallions ($20) were delicious, but they were more about the insanely flavorful broth than they were about the noodles. The broth was deeply ducky, so much so that the few pieces of duck breast floating in the bowl were unnecessary. Hot soba noodles topped by fried tofu with scallion ($14) are another worthy hot soba alternative, though once the fried tofu hits the broth, it might as well not be fried any more.
Kurobuta pork shabu shabu.
Eating Kurobuta pork shabu shabu ($52) allowed me to taste this wonderfully marbled pork in a whole new way. It's an expensive dish, but it is mighty tasty, and the elaborate rituals and interactive preparation that are involved in eating shabu shabu make it a worthwhile experience.
Fresh grapefruit jelly.
For dessert, the fresh grapefruit jelly ($10) was insanely delicious. Fresh grapefruit is mixed with yuzu jelly and then put back into three large sections of grapefruit skin. Think of those fruit jellies that come in colors not found in nature and imagine them made with insanely delicious fresh grapefruit. I would like to have one of these sections with me at all times.
Kyoto-style pickles.
My next meal at Matsugen was less successful. The Kyoto-style pickles ($12) were great, but couldn't the portion have been a little bigger?
Vegetable tempura was no better than the tempura you would find at your neighborhood Japanese restaurant.
Two kinds of sushi roll, the sea eel with cucumber ($8) and toro with scallions ($12), were very solid but not quite up to the level of the best sushi bars in town. Of course, the sushi here is not as expensive as it is at those places, either.
Grilled Kurobuta pork belly.
The Kurobuta pork belly grilled on lava rocks was deliciously piggy. Each chunk of pork had the perfect ratio of flesh to fat.
A cold soba dish made with the ultra-smooth (rin) soba noodles and fresh grated white yam ($14) were dull and uninteresting.
Conclusion
What's the verdict? With the unfortunate demise of Honmura An, the great Soho soba emporium that closed a few years ago, we needed a replacement, and Matsugen is a worthy one. It's great to have this quality of soba noodle again in New York. But the art and craft of soba noodles are subtle and understated, and given the fact that Matsugen is in fact a multifaceted high-end Japanese restaurant, it needs to deliver more than transcendent soba.
But if you order carefully, you can eat a grade-A meal here: The coarsest cold soba noodles with goma-dare sauce, the sea urchin with ponzo jelly, the Kurobuta pork shabu shabu or the pork belly, are all seriously delicious. Order the tempura and the fine soba noodles and you'll find yourself in "B" territory.
I think a diner's experience at Matsugen is going to be all about expectations. Don't go expecting much in the way of culinary fireworks or the exciting cuisine of one of the world's greatest chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He may even be in the house when you're there (as he was both times I ate here), but he won't be in the kitchen.
Read more of Ed's reviews.
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14 Comments:
May I ask: How is Matsugen for the diner never eating in a Japanese place? Do they explain the do's and don'ts and how to eat the various dishes?
Fantastic review- Thank you.
SweetHeat at 9:16AM on 07/02/08
I found the service extraordinarily solicitous and helpful. The servers answered every question I had and even anticipated most of them.
Ed Levine at 9:20AM on 07/02/08
no price tag for the sea urchine with ponzo jelly? plus, I also wonder how pricing works as quality/grade level shifts. you mention the meal may be A to a B, depending on what you order... my assumption then also becomes the more you spend, the yummy dishes are available.
the question then becomes, how true does this ring for most restaurants? should we judge all restaurants based upon how much we're willing to spend per head? there will be people who will NEVER spend $52 for shabu shabu. and if i am not willing to spend the money for an A meal, should I even bother going even if they have A potential?
foodinmouth at 10:47AM on 07/02/08
I really love how the dessert plays off the orange slices you always get at the end of the meal in alot of Japanese restaurants. I'll have to add that uni to my list of sea urchin dishes I need to try...
Zach Brooks at 10:49AM on 07/02/08
I'm actually surprised by the soba prices, because I was expecting something outrageously expensive, but it's on par with the offerings over at Soba-ya in the East Village. (Have you been there yet, Ed? Personally my top pick for soba in NYC... I missed my chance to try Honmura An, and I haven't been to Sobakoh yet.)
But jeez, $52 for shabu shabu... I understand it's for quality, but shabu shabu I consider as comfort food, not high-end. Seems a bit over the top.
Emily Koh at 11:46AM on 07/02/08
How come there is no pic of Soba noodle?? This is a soba noodle place, not shabu shabu.
thebirdie at 12:36PM on 07/02/08
was it packed when you went? did you have to make a reservation? will i need to look for it on tablexchange.com?
hdthoreau at 12:47PM on 07/02/08
I'm fascinated by the sea urchin with yuzu jelly. I can't wrap my mind around how a citrus jelly plays off the ocean essence of sea urchin roe.
Love their spin on the ubiquitous orange slices for dessert.
wookie at 1:10PM on 07/02/08
There is a misconception on the shabu shabu. It serves two, thus the price for two is $52.
chrisvilayke at 2:34PM on 07/02/08
hdthoreau, it wasn't packed. You do have to make a reservation, but there is a great communal table where I happily dined with Serious Eats' Erin Zimmer.
You absolutely don't have to look for it on tablexchange. Even if they tell you they only have 6:30 and 9:30 when you call, just go and eat at the communal table.
Ed Levine at 3:23PM on 07/02/08
thebirdie, we took a picture of the soba noodles, but we didn't use it. Our photographer, the great Robyn Lee, went to shoot the roughest soba noodles, which I adored cold, but somehow she was presented with the medium noodles instead. Our apologies.
Ed Levine at 3:26PM on 07/02/08
Really excellent and helpful post that clears up the three main myths of this place.
I can't help wondering whether Matsugen's various anomalies might not work against it, though. I'll have to see for myself. But thinking out loud here, as one might given the details of the restaurant:
- If most of the menu looks like a regular neighborhood Japanese restaurant yet the neighborhood restaurant warhorses (veg. tempura, eel+cuc, toro+scallion, and cold soba) are done poorly;
- If JVG is executive producing this familiar sort of movie (see above) but not involved in directing the movie/the kitchen;
- If it is, in fact, not a noodle bar and offers only one good kind of soba (the inaka or 'rustic' or 'country') out of others, although the Matsugen
chain is known for their soba; and if the hot soba, which is much more difficult to pull off in terms of noodle-texture since the noodles are still basically cooking (ask any good ramen cook), is only tasty for the duck broth (which, can be had at Soba-ya as Emily_Koh mentioned)...
...then what, exactly, are people going to flock there for? I'm still going to try it out and there's plenty to try. But it would really only be by overlooking the curious facts above and knowing that a few random dishes are good: the rustic soba, the sea urchin and yuzu, and the grapefruit gelee. Again, just thinking out loud but I think still think there are various problems at the very core of Matsugen, which are at the level of conception.
Laetus at 7:35PM on 07/02/08
am headed there tonight!! definitely going to try that soba
ceforrester at 10:36AM on 08/15/08
so i went. first of all, if you are short do not sit at the communal table. my back is still sore from straining my body to comfortably sit in the chairs. seriously, the need something more comfortable. we ordered edamame and seaweed salad to start - a little boring, i know, but the seaweed salad was really excellent. edamame was good and had a nice little kick to it. we wound up going with 2 sobas and an order of the pork belly. pork belly was delicious - very fatty, but in a good way. got different sobas than what i had planned on getting - two hot ones - one with duck and scallion, the other with tamago. skip the tamago - boring boring dish. it lacked a depth of flavor, and i just didn't enjoy the taste of soggy egg. the duck and scallion on the other hand was much better.
downside (besides the chairs) was the service. it was truly awful. they were obviously training their staff, so i wanted to give them some slack, but they were totally inexperienced. waitstaff hovered constantly - interrupting the meal frequently to fill water glasses after 2 sips had been taken, then again to wipe up the water they spilled (you had to move your body for them to fill the water, so it was really inconvenient and annoying). one asked our neighbor to use the hot hand towel. and he said "you're telling me to use it this second?" "yes". can you believe that? it was just because he wanted to bus it right away. one waitstaff guy stood directly across from me and kept locking eyes as if to see if i would tell him to do something - it was incredibly unnerving and made me not want to eat. finally one of the more experienced people told him to back off. many more examples of bad service - but it was enough that i will not be going back.
ceforrester at 9:05PM on 08/15/08