17/11/2023
Last night, we had one of the best meals of... maybe ever. On the recommendation of a friend (and the 2023 Michelin Food Guide), we visited "MáLà Project".
Most of the menu at this restaurant centers around its namesake, the Sichuan Pepper. When eaten, Sichuan pepper produces a tingling, numbing effect due to the presence of hydroxy-alpha sanshool. The spice has the effect of transforming other flavors tasted together or shortly after. It is used in Sichuan dishes such as mapo doufu and Chongqing hot pot, and is often added together with chili peppers to create a flavor known as málà (Chinese: 麻辣; 'numb-spiciness').
We began with a bottle of a sweet, white wine that we hoped we be a nice pair to the spice level we knew was headed our way and then ordered a pair of appetizers for a "warm-up".
The first was a dish called LiángFěn of Happy Tears 开心凉粉 which is Cold Green Bean Jelly Cubes in Chili Oil for a mix of Sour, Spicy, and Cooling, Topped With Pistachios and Scallion. The second was an order of spicy popcorn chicken which was beautifully cooked and had a sneaky, subtle spiciness that would build so slowly, you wouldn't really be conscious of it until well after you'd swallowed.
And finally, it was time to dive into the star of the meal, the famous, MáLà Project Dry Pot. Basically, you have a list of many dozens of possible ingredients that you can choose from. Once you've made your selection, those ingredients are cooked and mixed together with Chef Zhao’s secret MáLà Sauce. Made from a complex blend of 24 herbs and spices cooked over six hours to create a deep, mouth-watering, sensationally spicy flavor that left us literally delirious.
The components we chose were:
- Eye of Round
- Pork Belly
- Funsize Pork Sausage
- Frog Legs
- Scallops
- Broccoli
- Asparagus
- Pineapple
- Rice Cakes
- Glass Noodles
The result was almost too much for us (we had been advised to only choose 6-9 items, but yolo), but we managed to finish. Every bite was beautiful and we agreed that if we lived here in NY, we would be at this restaurant FREQUENTLY.
And if YOU plan to be in New York anytime soon, MáLà Project is absolutely worth a visit.
The dry pot is priced according to the ingredients you chose, so for us, it came out to $70. The two appetizers were $12 and $15, and since we were there on a half-priced wine night, the bottle of wine was only $28. So altogether at around $68 per person, I would not hesitate to say this was a meal worth WELL above what it cost. And honestly, we would have been fine without the appetizers and the wine and easily could have cut the cost of the meal in half without them and still been very happy.
