Faster, Pastry Chef! Thrill! Thrill!

P*Ong 150 W. 10th St. (betw. Waverly Place & Greenwich Ave.) 212-929-0898

I once attended culinary school for pastry, and an odd thing happened when I became surrounded by sugar: I began having lustful thoughts about savory foods. Bread kneading and chocolate tempering left lots of time for Swiss-chard wishes and caviar dreams. These salty daydreams began to merge with the sweet nothings floating in my head, and everything from parsnips to bacon became inspirations for food flights of fancy. For me, a trip to P*Ong, Chef Pichet Ong’s James Beard–nominated small-plates bistro in Greenwich Village, is like a trip to Disney World.

Like any skilled thrill seeker knows, always study the map and plot your course to hit all the experiences you desire. The map here is divided into three sections: savory, sweet-and-savory and sweet. My former classmate Dee and I began negotiating which dishes to try. We started off with the strange-flavor eggplant ($12), which isn’t strange at all but come from a traditional Chinese cooking style. Served here atop a bed of quinoa tossed with fruit and nuts, it called to mind a million couscous dishes you’ve already enjoyed; but it remained delicious nonetheless. The creamy porcini and polenta in a skillet ($18) is far tastier (and pricier) than any polenta dish has a right to be. Dee complained that she couldn’t taste any chocolate in the braised duck-and-chocolate pot pie ($18), and while I feebly suggested that it might use cocoa powder or nibs, my taste buds couldn’t find any trace of either. Nonetheless, the filling was delicious enough that had I been alone at home instead of a stylish bistro, the ramekin and I may have made it to second base. The pastry on top of the pie, however, tasted mostly of flour and was undercooked; it was a weird misstep for a restaurant helmed by a pastry chef. We didn’t know it yet, but that pie top was a bit of foreshadowing for the rest our journey.

Like a loop on a rollercoaster, the tangy Stilton soufflé ($15) worked in tandem with the shockingly green basil-arugula ice cream to disorient your senses. It might feel like dessert, but it tastes like a first course. Both soufflé and ice cream were light and airy, which was appropriate for a dish that reaches such great heights. Our appetites whetted for more thrills, we needed bigger and bolder. The foie gras Napoleon ($20) was so diminutive it hardly looked up to the challenge of withstanding a strong wind, let alone rocking our worlds. But don’t judge a restaurant by the size of its Napoleon: Both Dee and I literally gasped aloud after our first bite of this truly demented dish. Foie gras and chocolate are mixed with pineapple and red pepper jelly and layered between cocoa nib and hazelnut tuilles and given a dash of sea salt. You haven’t experienced anything like this before.

After such exhilaration, a comedown is natural, but with dessert on the way from a celebrated pastry pro like Chef Ong, we were prepared for more delighted gasps. I’ll admit we got the winter citrus composition ($12) mainly to find out what candied aloe vera was; it feels like Jell-O and tastes like white gummy bears. Dee gasped again at the fruit salad—but this time in horror: It was rendered almost inedible by the chalky grapefruit emulsion. We gamely turned our attention to the chevre and walnut cheesecake croquettes ($12), which is basically a cheese course in plated dessert form—and it was delicious. Topped with poached pears and served with an Ovaltine ice cream that Dee matter-of-factly described as tasting “just like Ovaltine,” the chocolate financier dish ($14) is perfectly composed in terms of flavor; but it was more like a crunchy hockey puck, when it should have been chewy goodness. While idly searching the citrus composition for any left-over aloe vera, Dee and I fantasized about the reactions we would have received in school had we tried to serve such an overcooked dessert. Like a trip to an amusement park—will your favorite ride be closed for repairs? Will you be able to stomach the new G-force thrill machine?—P*Ong is admittedly a hit-or-miss affair. The tasting suites, though we skipped them ourselves, offer some great deals: $63 will buy you eight courses, and $88 will you get you the 10-course suite, which currently includes both the Stilton soufflé and the foie gras Napoleon. And this summer, when friends try to drag me to Great Adventure, I’ll decline in favor of hitting up P*ong for one of those tasting menus. The thrills there are much more my speed.