yaokui: Restaurant Week Part 1 --- The Modern at Bar Room

Address: The Museum of Modern Art, 9 West 53rd Street

http://themodernnyc.com

Phone: 212-333-1220

Restaurant week has become a ritual for both of us as the best week to line up reviews for the blog. It had led us to discovery of many of our favorites which we've frequented often after the restaurant week. The madness started with me going through the list of participating restaurants, picking the ones I'm interested in, working on the schedule, making reservations with usually 2-4 additional seatings besides the yaokuis, and sending out invites to our unofficial yaokui club members. Who ever says eating well or food blogging is easy, I beg to differ. :-P

This was the second time we ate at The Modern at Bar Room during restaurant week. Strangely, we have eaten at the bar room four times, but we have yet to try the dining room. Perhaps it's good enough for us in the bar room, that's why we never see the point of paying more money at the dining room.We thought the Modern at Bar Room's restaurant week menu is one of the most generous in the line up of all participating restaurants. Most of the dishes on the regular menus are kept on the restaurant week menu, except for the lobster in a jar, which is my favorite dish there.

As usual, the kitchen sent out good quality food, with Upside Down Tuna Tart, Tomato and Almond Gazpacho (I'm addicted to this soup) and Buttermilk Panna Cotta dessert being the crowd pleasers. Unfortunately, one of my favorite dish at the Modern Bar Room - the beer braised pork belly was not prepared well; It was overcooked, a little dry and the skin was slightly burned. I also thought the fresh grilled shrimp was boring and should be taken off the restaurant's menu all together.

But I really shouldn't complain much; there were five of us, and we ordered dishes for six people and the bill was still below $70 per person (regular menu would usually cost less than $90 per person), including wine (another great thing about restaurant week here is the wines list below $40). Definitely much cheaper and better value than some other restaurants. We had dinner at Nippon restaurant the night before and ended paying way more than this.