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, TabeTomo and Houseman). 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 5- 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 Nowon, 5-course Inventive Korean Dinner Event. The name of the restaurant come from the Chef Jae Lee’s hometown in Korea. I like how you can read it backwards and still say Nowon! They offers iconic Korean soul food like Spam egg rolls, honey butter tater tots, his celebrated kimchi burger, chopped cheese rice cakes, and a jjajang clam dish.

It is not a large space, but cozy and homey. In the back was a fully stocked bar, and across from it is their bathroom. The interior was dimly lit, creating relaxing atmosphere. It has a huge mural, which depicts Chef Lee’s grandfather, a Marine General in the South Korean Navy who is reimagined as an ancient warrior.

This was our first Tasting Collective Event since the pandemic, and we were so happy! And so was the founder of Tasting Collective, super awesome Nat Gelb. He started off the event with joy and positive energy, and introduced the Chef and owner of Nowon. Chef Lee was a really cool Chef, and a great speaker too. He talked about his experience in the culinary world, and then gave us some information on the dishes we were about to taste. We were all very excited!

To celebrate our first event back, we ordered a couple of cocktails. I chose Tiger Bomb, made with Jinro Soju, Jasmine, Yuja Citron, And Mint Syrup. The name of this cocktail scared me a little bit, but it was really elegant and smooth. Nice and sweet, with floral notes, easy to go down. I enjoyed it.

My hubby who loves all things mule went with Seoul Mule, which is made with Ginger Soju, Lime, and Ginger Beer. It had a nice kick from ginger. Sweet, refreshing, a really nice drink! He enjoyed the candied ginger on the top too.

Now, the food. The first course was Spicy Cucumber Salad with tomatoes, soy garlic vinegar, tahini tofu, Thai chili, crispy shallots, and peanuts. Chef told us that this dish was inspired by cucumber kimchi dish he grew up eating. This is a vegan dish, the white sauce underneath is made with sesame paste and tofu. What did it taste like? Delicious! It was really refreshing, a nice pallet cleanser to start the course dinner. It had a nice kick to it from the chili, and I liked the crunchy texture from peanuts.

The second course was Roasted Kimchi Burrata with basil, housemade chili oil, and toasted sourdough. This dish had an interesting backstory to it too. It was inspired by kimchi dubu, which is a kimchi tofu dish. He mixed the traditional Korean dish with NY flare using Burrata instead of tofu. What’s more, this dish was kind of born out of pandemic, with the sourdough bread craze. Burrata was super fluffy, and it went great with kimchi. Who knew Burrata and kimchi go together so well? It was match made in heaven.

The third course was Cured Mackerel Kimbap with perilla, pickled daikon, cucumber, and soy pickled jalapeño. I was excited about this dish, as I love mackerel. Each piece of kimbap was a nice big size, but then I can never eat this gracefully without them falling apart… LOL. The flavor of mackerel was amazing! Even better than I wanted it to be. The combination of cured mackerel and pickles were really nice too. Very flavorful dish.

The last savory dich of this course was Big Bird Bun, made with double fried chicken thigh with honey butter tots, sesame mayo, soy pickled jalapeño, cilantro, peanuts, lettuce, and potato bun. This dish was my favorite of all. Sorry for the not perfect photos, it is not easy taking photos in a dimly lit space… But I tell you, it was super delicious! I already love tater tots, but their version with furikake and honey was just incredible! I want to have a huge bowl of the tater tots!!!! Chicken was amazing, juicy and packed with flavor! I am dreaming about them right now…

The last course was the dessert, which was Black Sesame Crème Brûlée with strawberries. I love black sesame, and I love crème brûlée, so I was very happy with this creation! It was nutty, sweet, velvety and smooth. What a great way to end the amazing dinner!

They have one gender-neutral bathroom, and as Charmin says, you can definitely “enjoy the go” in here… I mean, what kind of bathroom comes with a disco ball??? Go ahead and shake you booty (privately) in this party room!

We had an incredible dining experience here at Nowon. Everything we tried was above and beyond delicious. Chef Lee is constantly tweaking his menu to make it even better, which is awesome. Their menu is really enticing, and I want to try them all! I can’t wait to go back again and try more of their delightful dishes!

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 $125 (over 25% off the normal $165/year) for the first year: https://tastingcollective.com/?invite_code=JUN4346

Nowon – 507 E 6th St, New York, NY 10009