LUNCH -> 16 COURSE -> 3 HOURS-> A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE.  Will be sharing with you my experience dining at Ko as best as I can without any photo support!! They strictly prohibit any photos taken of the food. BOoOO! You would think that if you pay for food, it’s yours to do whatever you want with it.

First off, reservations are incredibly hard to get. There are just 12 seats. Chef David Chang makes NO exceptions and gives NO special treatment to anyone, not even his own mother. That’s just insane! Remember your mamas!! They’ve at least given you birth to live the life you live today!! Anyway, Chang set up a reservation system. (which btw -the system can be beat; find step-by-step instructions on how to score reservations here)

The invite extended, given in very short notice, was for a lunch date on a Sunday afternoon. I had planned my whole weekend meals around it in anticipation of consuming loads and loads of food. Except things never work out the way you plan sometimes… okay, fine…. MOST OF THE TIME, especially when it comes to food!!

The Plan:

Sat –>Eat breakfast
       –>Eat a light lunch
       –>No Dinner

Sun –>Absolutely no breakfast
         –>KO lunch!

What actually happened:

Sat–>No breakfast
       –>Ate pre lunch snack
       –>Ate huge lunch @ new chinese restaurant
       –>Ate dessert for dinner
       –>Ate late night 3am bar food (which includes whole fried chicken)

Sun –>Disgustingly huge breakfast
         –>KO lunch!

Amazing. I ate everything that was served to me at Ko, and managed to go to Momofuku’s Milk bar for cookies immediately after. (Go for the corn flake marshmallow chocolate chip cookies) SICK! I know.

Two take aways from this experience is 1) I never knew that I could LOVE raw fish like I did on this day. My view on sushi/sashimi has forever changed in a whole new way. We had 5 different types of fish, names I can’t even remember. They looked the same and it just tasted super fresh and high in quality. 2) Foie gras. The texture has everything to do with it. Salted and frozen the night before and then shaved. It melts the second it reaches your mouth and then you find it melting faster and faster, like when you scoop another serving, you’ll see the sides of your spoon where the foie is looking like it wants to melt. It’s similar to a panic attack, you just want it to melt in your mouth, not your spoon, not your lips, and def not your plate so at some point you’re freaking out internally and want to eat it faster and faster. Or maybe it was all in my head….definitely an exquisite dish.

This is the best I can do to share with y’all, at least visually, the 16 dishes served in order. Bear in mind that these sketches were done days after the lunch.

I was fixated on this bird in the sketch above, they started preparing it when we were seated. It’s duck that was being deep fried by hand (if that’s possible), meaning it was on top of a pot and the chef just kept spooning up boiling oil and pouring it over the duck repeatedly. Being able to watch this made the dish even more exciting to try 2 hours later! Really cool!

 Ko
163 1st ave
NY, NY 10003
(btwn 10th &11th)