Jean Georges For My Birthday - A Real Treat!

It's not very often that one can find a good reason to spend good money on haute cuisine (French, no less), but my mom decided buy me a birthday dinner this week. She requested for French, and I couldn't think of a better place for that than Jean Georges (on the 4th floor of Three On The Bund), the Shanghai offshoot of the famed Parisian namesake restaurant by the esteemed Jean Georges Vongerichten.

Coincidentally, we had a birthday dinner celebration at the same restaurant several years ago for Debra and myself. I still remember the wonderfully rich chocolate birthday cake we shared that night. And those dreaded work calls that kept interrupting our dinner. I decided I'll have none of that this time with my folks, so the phone stayed off throughout the evening (I wised up as I get older, one of the few benefits of aging).

For those in the know, Jean Georges is a mecca for some of the finest modern French cuisine available anywhere, and to have a location in Shanghai says a lot about the burgeoning fine dining scene over in China. If my memory serves me well, I remember JG's dishes typically leaned towards the slightly heavier, more traditional French style, but this time around it was much lighter, with more local ingredients thrown into the mix and a more delicate balance of modern flavor. Could have been the Sens & Bund influence down the street. That's yet another fantastic nouveau French eatery opened by the twins Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, the youngest chefs to be awarded three Michelin stars for their Montpellier restaurant, Le Jardin des Sens in. Touche, JG.

Anyway, I loved the food. I don't, however, feel like dissecting and analyzing this meal into its various components because what counts most during a JG meal is the experience in itself - from the excellent service by the local staff to the minute attention at every course to the deftly executed food presentations and finally, the taste that seals the deal. But I must mention the dessert sampler, which came in two variations - chocolate and passionfruit. The chocolate sampler presented itself with four variations of chocolate desserts, which included a mousse, ice cream and cake. The passionfruit sampler was the citrus equivalent with four desserts utilizing passionfruit as the main seasonal ingredient. Needless to say, we had eight desserts to sample between the three of us. That's what I call a real treat!