Summer Associates Lunch Series - Asiate

Went to Asiate the other day and had lunch. The restaurant is located in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, with a pretty good view of central park if you can get a seat near the table. I liked this restaurant, went before. The cooking is French with Japanese influences, which I think, are always subtle in the dish, and is not really the typical fusion cuisine that you see all over the place. I think, the highlight of the meal was not really the food that day, but instead, was seeing Hugh Jackman. Don't know who he is? Well, many people at our table didn't recognize that name as well, but when you mention Wolverine, hey, everyone seems to know. He is a pretty good looking guy, tall, and always has this facial hair thing going. He was seated in a table next to us, but unfortunately, there were a column in between our tables, so we weren't close enough for me to snag some pictures of him. We didn't approach him either, since I guess none of us wanted to look lame at a high scale restaurant and have other people looking at us all weird. So, since there was no picture of him taken, I guess I have to settle a picture of the appetizer that I had.

I ordered the prawn as an appetizer, which is wrapped in rice paper that they will cut open in front of you. It is accompanied by XO sauce, which apparently is made out of seafood (shellfish mostly). I have a bottle (or 2) XO sauce in my kitchen. Probably not the same thing, but I like the taste of it and just drizzle a lot of it in some of the dishes I make myself. I thought the prawn was well made and very flavorful, and the XO sauce goes great with it. For entree, I ordered the duck. I guess the combination is kind of rich, just for lunch, and true enough, I was kind of sleepy afterwards. The duck was delicious too, soft and tender enough. The lunch menu also includes the Bento Box selection, which includes certain small portions that is created by the chef, and feature many food that looks like Japanese food, such as mochi, but with meat in it instead of ice cream, the small portion of the prawn that I had, and I think about 4-5 other dishes, all presented in a Bento Box. You also can get wine pairings with it. You can choose a glass of sake and either a red or white wine. My friend had a glass of sparkling sake, which I didn't actually knew existed. He seems to enjoy his food and wine, and said it was one of the best meals he had. The price for the Bento Box is decent too, about $55 including wine, which on many law firm's summer lunch budget, is within range or close to it that you probably can get away with it.

Oh yeah, one more thing, I guess in order to snag a table near the window, you probably need a large party, so go with a party of 5 or 6 or something like that.