Tasting menus have lately gotten out of hand. Some restaurants offer them exclusively, and the customer has to accede with zero control over the nature and number of courses, and substitutions are denied unless you can claim a life-threatening allergy. If everyone has to eat the same thing in a predictable sequence, tasting menus certainly make life easier for the chef.
Some tasting menus are simply too expensive for what you get, unfold too slowly, or have too many tiny dishes. Eleven Madison Park’s is currently $365 and is entirely plant-based, and Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare tops out at $500, while Per Se’s has risen to $390. Of course, wine, tax, and often, service, are extra. Who can afford these prices? Well, maybe not you or me.
Sometimes one stumbles on a tasting menu that is worth it, and almost affordable. Sixty Three Clinton ($92), Dirt Candy ($110) and Acru ($95) are examples of places I’d consider a good deal. Well, I’ve got a place to suggest that’s even cheaper, with a tasting menu that will more than fill you up, and modestly priced drinks as well.
Danji is a Hell’s Kitchen Korean restaurant founded in 2010 by chef Hooni Kim at 346 West 52nd Street, just east of Ninth Avenue. It was the first Korean restaurant in the city to receive a Michelin star in 2012, but in April, 2023 a fire closed the restaurant for a year-and-a-half, only to reopen late last December. I went two weeks after service resumed.
The $78 tasting menu contains nearly all dishes that might be characterized as “small” yet they’re bigger than I would have expected. The penultimate course of the seven-dish tour-de-force would by itself function as a full meal. Finally, booze is pretty much bargain priced. By the end, the tasting menu set me back $110, including tax, tip, and a glass of memorable wine. Here’s how it went down.
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