This is another awesome Tasting Collective dining club event we attended. (You can read about the previous posts about Tasting Collective events here: Fish Cheeks, Win Son, FOB, Xixa, Huertas, Bessou, Maharlika, Traif, Lalito, Noreetuh, Traif #2, Txikito, Oka, Xixa2, and TabeTomo ). Tasting Collective is a dining club for food lovers, and they offer brunch and dinner at great NYC restaurants. They close off the restaurants for the club, so we get to have the entire restaurant and chef(s) all to ourselves. So, this is more than just eating food at a restaurant, but you get to have the background story and its passion from the chef(s), eating 6- to 12- or more course brunch/dinner created specifically for Tasting Collectives. There is a discount code at the end of this blog for those of you who are interested in joining.
This event was held at Houseman, 6-course Elevated Seasonal Dinner Series. The name of the restaurant come from the word “husmanskost,” Norwegian for “everyday food.”
The inside is a bit small, long and narrow like many other NYC restaurants. Almost half of the dining space was taken up by a rather beautiful bar with zinc bar counter. I liked the pop of bright red and blue colors against otherwise simple interior.
They had a good amount of tables, which I heard were made from reclaimed bowling alley maple wood. That reminded me of Shake Shack tables. Pretty cool.
The Chef of Houseman, Chef Baldwin came out to greet us with interesting background and history. First of all, chef was not always a chef, but he has degree in Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Yale University. Say what! Instead of art of sculpture, he went to create art of food. How interesting.
Let’s get to the food, shall we? The first course was Preserved Blue Fish with cucumber, tonnato and dill. Yes, that is tonnato, not tomato. Tonnato is a creamy sauce, often made with tuna, anchovies, lemon juice, olive oil, and mayonnaise. It had an interesting flavor of pickles. The preserved fish was firm and “meaty” which was nice. Having some hard-boiled egg in the dish was a bit strange, but worked perfectly to balance out the strong pickled flavor. A nice acidic taste that was almost like a pallet cleanser to start off the dinner.
The second course was Greek Salad with creamy feta. It was very refreshing, super fresh veggies with great crunchy texture. Simple yet well-crafted.
The third course was one of the most interesting dishes. It was Fried Whitebait with saffron aioli. It had some kind of fried citrus slices in the mix, which created great flavor of fish and the citrus. Nice amount of salt without being overpowering. I enjoyed the crunchy exterior, while the inside was soft and juicy. As for aioli, I didn’t really taste saffron somehow, but had nice mild flavor. The fish was very flavorful on its own, it really didn’t need the aioli.
The next one up was Grilled Tuna with pepperonata and purslane. This dish was awesome! Nice thick pieces of sushi-grade tuna, so fresh and flavorful. It had crunchy pistachios everywhere, creating additional texture and nutty flavor that went great with the tuna. I so enjoyed this one!
The last savory dish was Pork & Clam with spicy green curry. This was another very interesting dish. I’ve never heard of pork and clam mix, and it seemed like no one at our table had anything like it either. The green curry sauce was amazing, it didn’t scream “curry” but it had a nice kick to it. A bit on a salty side, but I enjoyed soaking it up with the thick fluffy toast. The pork was nice and tender, juicy and packed with flavor. Great dish!
The last but not least, the dessert! It was Malt Ice Cream with spicy peanuts and honey caramel. The ice cream was super creamy! The crunchy peanuts gave a nice contrast against the velvety ice cream. Caramel was nice touch to complete the dessert. I didn’t get any spicy flavor from “spicy peanut” but I enjoyed it just as is.
They have two unisex bathrooms there, and both with sliding door. At first, I didn’t realize they slide, so I thought the door was locked. I liked the drawings on the door, the characters are dressed in all sorts of men’s and women’s attire. Truly gender neutral.
The bathroom was large, clean, and organized. Having such large bathrooms at a small restaurant is kind of rare, but much appreciated.
We had a nice dinner here, we were blessed with really fun people at our table. Having dinner with a great company always makes the food taste better, thanks guys! The staffs were efficient and polite, they did a nice job taking care of us as a whole. Their regular menu seems simple yet interesting, just like the ones we got to try during this event. I would like to go back and try some other dishes in a future.
For those of you who are interested in joining this great dining club, Tasting Collective, you can use this link to get a discounted annual rate of $115 (over 30% off the normal $165/year) for the first year: https://tastingcollective.com/?invite_code=JUN4346
Houseman – 508 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013