pork belly and i had been wanting to go to menton for a long time, but of course, the idea of dropping 4+ benjamins stopped us coming there. recently, my life has changed a lil because the death of my car fred, but thankfully pork belly helped me out big time during this tough time. he’s been the best bf and so sa po ti fu to me and i decided to spoil him for this perfect occasion: his birfuday!!!!
so i made a reservation a few weeks earlier. all reservations were taken except for 5:30pm. i wanted to surprise pork belly, but he figured out we were going there since he can read my mind (or he expected too much).
we arrived there a lil before 5:30. menton opens @ 5:30 for dinner. the valet parking was $16 bux but we saw a street parking spot right crossed street from menton. money saved.
the interior of the restaurant is on the minimalistic side. very clean, spacious, modern, elegant, and lavish. we were seated by the window which is perfect lighting for my pictures.
the service was impeccable without being pretentious.
menton is one of Barbara Lynch’s restaurants. i have been to a few of her restaurants such as the butcher shop and B&G oysters. i love Barbara Lynch restaurants’ wine list.
as usual, i started off with a glass of riesling. although i loved the shape of the wine glass, i was a lil bit disappointed with the wine itself.
of course, we opted for the chef’s tasting menu. i believe it’s a 7-course tasting menu, but it ended up to be 10+ with some freebies. we also asked for more variety formats of our dishes which means they would make the same dish into two different dishes using the same ingredients.
free? pre-appetizers
wild alaskan salmon topped with caviar
macaron with goat cheese. i must say this is the best goat cheese ive ever had but i am still not a big fan of goat cheese.
honey croissant
this is the real 1st course of our meal. i forgot the name of the fish/shrimp, but this was my fave dish of the night. the ‘fish’ was so buttery. the white stuff was grapefruit. the combination of the grapefruit and the ‘fish’ was so harmonious and refreshingly delicious.
bread service.
the butter was so yum.
louisiana crawfish with potatoes. i was a little surprised when this dish showed up because i always consider crawfish to be ‘low-class’ food. i dun know why, maybe just because they grow in dirt? this dish didnt do it for me, but pork belly loved it.
this was served with the crawfish dish. tasted like fried cornbread but only fried to perfection.
french white asparagus. the white thing in the middle is egg yolk according to pork belly.
second format of french white asparagus
whole wheat pasta with parmesan cheese.
whole wheat pasta with bacon. omg the pasta is so good and chewy. the texture was fantastic. why cant all pasta be this chewy and delicious.
fois gras. the salad was perfect and refreshing. im not obsessed with fois gras because it is a lil bit too fatty tasting to me, but the salad helped to balance off the fatty taste.
seared fois gras de canard- this is the better version of the two. so buttery and smooth. melts in your mouth.
veal – super tender
fried version of the veal. i seriously dont know how can they fry food so well.
beef.
sorbet. ginger tasting. kinda weird i’d say since im not a big fan of ginger taste.
ta-daaaa. happy birthday to pork belly. i requested them to light a candle and write happy birthday on pork belly’s dessert plate. the dark chocolate tasted amazing. super smooth and rich. LOVE
the table was huge. we looked liked strangers since we sat so far apart. yes we were under dressed lol. since i didnt tell pork belly we were going to menton, he didnt bring any clothes when he flew down. other people were pretty dressed up. oh well who cares.
sorbet with some kinda puddling stuff?
pork belly said this looked like rice worms. it even came in the same container that you would raise your rice worms in. ew.
passion fruit sorbet
dark chocolate truffle. it’s rich and smooth but a lil bit tooooooo bitter which kinda lost the pleasures of eating desserts.
finally some finger nail sized french macarons. flavors: dark chocolate, lavender, lemon, and vanilla. lemon one was my fave.
the meal lasted about 2 and half hours and i dropped that 4+ benjamins! was the price worth it? in terms of the deliciousness of the food, i would say no. although they used the finest and most exotic ingredients, some werent the best tasting ive ever had. i would also like more seafood dishes. from a lot of reviews i read, they had seafood such as tuna, lobster, clams, but we only had one fish dish and crawfish. we felt some of the dishes were trying too hard especially the desserts. although they were exotic and different tasting, it also lost the pure satisfying fattening feeling that you get from eating desserts.
BUT if you ask me if the price worth it in terms of experience, the quality of the food, the efforts they put in, the service and everything else? i would say YES. the food was exquisite. everything was executed to perfection with the finest ingredients. ive never had a meal that consisted soooo many ingredients and details in one little dish. it sure takes a lot of efforts and care of the chef. every dish was truly a piece of art. i felt like it was a long journey @ a food art museum. like i mentioned earlier, the service was impeccable. i felt like there were 20 people serving us. one guy was just the water guy; our water glasses were never below half full. two guy were only taking our empty plates and set up our utensils for the next dish. two people were just bringing out our food while another person holding the tray on the side and they would explain to us what each dish was, etc etc etc.
i do not know if i would return in the future for the food esp with this kinda price tag. at the end of the meal there wasnt something that was so impressive that i would remember forever and crave for it later. i’d try it again for the experience if i had extra money to blow though.
354 Congress St
(between A St & Pittsburgh St)
Boston, MA 02210
Neighborhoods: Waterfront, South Boston
(617) 737-0099
http://www.mentonboston.com/
