Penny nicely offered to treat us to a meal at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, one of the hottest venues in the restaurant scenes in New York. With only a small amount of covers it can prove difficult at the best of times to get a seat immediately, especially as the restaurant won’t seat your table until the entire party is present and it operates a no reservation policy … unless you are a party of 6 or more and are interested in the bo ssäm ($200!), a whole slow cooked pork shoulder with a dozen oysters, white rice, bibb lettuce, ssäm sauce, kimchi and ginger scallion sauce. Let’s just say that you’ve got to like your meat cause it’s apparently a whole lot of pork-ola! Anyway, I guess I could understand the no reservation’s policy in such a small venue (about 5-6 tables and seats at the bar.)

We hadn’t made a reservation as we hadn’t thought there would be 6 of us but Audrey’s boyfriend Andres joined us to make a party of 6 anyway. In the end we probably waited about 20-30 minutes to be seated, which wasn’t too bad I guess in the scheme of things. We waited next door in the Momofuku Milk Bar – a really smart idea as it serves as a holding pen for those waiting to have a sit down meal at the Ssäm Bar, or as a dessert venue for the post Ssäm Bar meal (Ssäm Bar itself doesn’t actually do desserts) or even just as a stopping by point for those who simply can’t wait to sit down for a meal at Ssäm Bar and simply want to indulge in pie, cake or, more likely, Ssäm Bar’s famous pork buns.

Pickles, Pork Buns (two varieties), a Short Rib Sandwich and Veal Sweetbreads formed our starters. The pork buns lived up to their reputation and more. Incredibly juicy, incredibly tasty, incredibly more-ish, incredibly tender, they were gone all too soon sadly! We shared two serves of steamed buns – pork belly, hoisin, cucumbers, scallions – and one serve of bar bun – crispy pork belly, avocado, basil, smoked mayo – between us, but I think I could have quite easily had all the buns on the table to myself they were that delicious and worth going into a food coma for. The Short Rib Sandwich wasn’t too bad though the bread it was served in was curiously super tough. Veal Sweetbreads were interesting but not exactly what you come to the Ssäm Bar for …

For our main we had the Grilled dry aged ribeye (niman ranch) – shallot confit, served with some parcels of ravioli. In hindsight, though this dish was good, it may have been a better option to try a few more dishes on the menu – but that is purely to sample the menu as much as possible for us out of towners 😉 The beef was cooked perfectly but was missing any true standout wow in your mouth flavours.

Portions at the Ssäm Bar are not the American portions that I’m used to, especially for the price you pay but the food is certainly up there in taste. It reached #26 in this year’s Top 50 S.Pellegrino Best Restaurant in the World – looking at the restaurants surrounding it (e.g. it’s higher than restaurants such as French Laundry and Tetsuya in Australia) I’m not sure its so good that it justifies such a high entry but then again, I’m just an ordinary punter who doesn’t really know better.

After our meal we had enough space to head back next door for dessert at the Milk Bar. You can have soft serve (flavours include cereal milk, the flavour of milk after you’ve finished your cereal, old fashion donut, red velvet cake and horchata), milk, or mix the two up in a milkshake. Plus you can have interesting cookies including the compost cookie – so-named for its unusual ingredients pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, chocolate chips (surprisingly works with the sweet and salty balancing each other) and chocolate-chocolate cookie, or pies including crack pie (toasted oat crust, gooey butter filling) or the grasshopper pie (graham crust, mint cheesecake & brownie filling), or cake (including a very cute looking “birthday” cake.) I had both a milkshake and the grasshopper pie … and am now in a sugar coma. 😉 Good but very rich and very sweet.