bōm — Restaurant in New York

One of the greatest displays of culinary maximalism I have ever tasted. Everything was delicately crafted with fine dining staples that all lead into mind blowing steak courses.

The amuse bouche opened with toro and caviar. The toro course had soft, tender, well-marinated tuna enclosed in a crunchy shell of seaweed which made for a contrasting combination of textures. Didn’t really taste the foie gras, but the toro still made for a perfect first bite. The baesuk picked up the tactile theme and had apple, tofu, and trout roe balancing textures and flavors within a crisp shell. The richness of the caviar was highlighted by the sweetness of the apple; the softness of the tofu was enriched by the brittle crisp of the shell. Incredible first bites.

Continuing with seafood courses, the prawn was a delicate concoction with lots of moving parts meshing well with each other. The course was small, pretty, and presented in an elegant black bowl. The kimchi ssam bundled prawn, wagyu, and octopus together into one course. The wrapped ingredients lent themselves to a one dimensional flavor, but the textures worked together well. The ssam sat in a refreshing juice that was meticulously paired with the savory flavors of the beef and prawn, but the course following it had more complexity. Leading into the next course, the kerang jjim had such layered flavors with a generous amount of king crab resting atop an airy fluffy bed of egg. Closing the seafood courses was the fish, yet the highlight of this bite was the seaweed. Seaweed paired with uni trained the spotlight on the taste of seaweed without overshadowing the uni. The fish was solid, tender, and topped with scallion oil, and the touch of burdock was a great detail. As a whole, the seafood courses built on each other, each one adding flavors from a wide variety of familiar fine dining ingredients. Yet, the meat courses did what the seafood courses did for each other, incorporating familiar flavors to bring a perfectly balanced umami.

The meat dishes were where you can see the chef’s clear vision and acumen. You’re served a wet aged and a dry aged filet mignon side by side. The wet-aged filet is topped with uni that is sweet and fresh, and the dry-aged filet has buttery and flavorful caviar atop a perfect medium rare. The generous amounts of uni, caviar and salt perfectly season each steak, balancing the saltiness inherent in the two seafood pairings. After the filets, galbi with rice made for a soul warming bite. The freshly grated wasabi was refreshing, not spicy and made for the perfect midpoint of the meal. The last meat course was the 21 day dry aged rib eye served with a truffle puree and sweet potato. First thoughts were that there was such a deep flavor in the meat, then the sweet potato drew more attention. The edges of the potato were the consistency of a perfect McDonald’s fry with its crunch and texture. Following the meats was a fairly forgettable banchan course that featured wagyu in a light and flavorful clear broth but acted as a needed deescalation from the meat course highlights.

Desserts were strawberry sorbet with sour Korean strawberries and a deconstructed apple pie a la mode. The sorbet was a kind of palate cleanser and the dessert was decent overall. Everything in the meal was rich and sublime. Every ingredient felt at home in a fine dining context. Every meat was aged, cooked, and paired with its seafood perfectly. 10/10...

Walking to Bom you pass through Oiji Mi which is a Michelin restaurant as well with quite fancy ambiance but thankfully with a not too strict dress code. Bom seems to be a private dining room inside Oiji Mi.

Bom’s setting looks familiar with a large U-shaped counter seating and kitchen in the middle. There are grills at the counter where you can watch the chefs grill steaks and other food and periodically they wud show you various ingredients and pre cooked foods before serving you the finished dishes.

They have a telephone book of wines but I don’t like wine so opted for beer. To my surprise, cheapest beer there is about $40! They only have these large craft bottles of which I never heard of and so I randomly ordered. Unfortunately, beer was too sweet, so sweet that it kinda put a damper to the start of my dinner.

First few bites were very underwhelming and I was feeling this is one of those overrated Michelin restaurants, however, things quickly turned around when they served a lobster and egg custard like soup which I thought was the best dish of entire dinner. Feels a bit more for a winter menu but even during these hot July days, that tasted divine.

Next came golden eye snapper in a soup with a small but nice kick. The soup was magic and fish cooked very well.

Next came two tenderloins. The one with Uni did not work for me. Uni with steak? Nah. But steak with caviar? Yes! Caviar tastes great with anything since it’s almost like an expensive salt. Ditto for white truffles but there were none in this menu.

The last notable item was short rib in soup. Who wud think fully cooked short rib wud taste this good in soup? Go figure.

In all, Bom fully deserved their Michelin star and more. Service was really good as well. I did not like my seat directly next to the door but thankfully no one really coming and going through that door. But still, just bad Feng Shui. They give usual tasting menu intro for each dish but I found one intro to just be too long and so I started eating before the guy finished but this is not disrespect since it’s more disrespectful to the chef to not eat the food while it’s nice and hot as it’s meant to be eaten.

My one real complaint is that the beer menu needs to be more descriptive like if beer is sweet, just mention it. And wud it kill them to have some more popular and affordable beer selections lol? Having expressed my grievance, I will come back and look forward to their fall, winter, and...

I came here for dinner on a weekday and had the most amazing time. Located behind Oiji Mi (hence the name bom—"Behind Oji Mi"), this hidden restaurant is bar style and truly an experience in and of itself. The interior is elevated but still comfortable, and there's plenty of bar space for you to enjoy your meal comfortably. Our waitress, Maxine, and the somm who introduced the wine pairings to us, Milo, were both so wonderful and fun to talk to as we dined. They were also extremely knowledgable in the menu and their offerings, I learned so much thoroughout this experience and left very satisfied with the experience (not even the food) alone.

With that said, however, the food was phenomenal. The experience is 10 courses for 275$ pp, and you can choose to add the traditional or exploratory wine pairings to compliment your meal. We decided to do one of each pairing so that we could try a little bit of each offering, and I'm so glad we did. The wine pairing were so fun to enjoy and the selection was splendid. For the food, each course was amazing and you're started off with some beef jerky bites (probably the best beef jerky I've ever had). The first four courses are seafood heavier and so so delicious. My favorites were definitely the first (where you're presented with tuna, caviar, and roe on a Russian doll style) and the fourth course (the abalone with caviar was so good). The next three courses focus on their ribeye and wagyu, and those were so delicious. The fifth course with wet-aged ribeye and uni as well as dry-aged ribeye with caviar was hands-down my favorite course. I learned so much about the preparation of each meat and you truly could tell a difference, even in just the way they smelled. The eighth course is more traditional, comforting, and simple—rice, soup, and banchan and was a good way to end the savory portion of the meal. The last two courses consisted of desserts and were perfectly sweet. At the end you're given a box of cookies to take home (which were delicious) and two menus. One of the best dinners and experiences I've had dining in NYC and I highly...