When I realized I’d have a free evening in Manhattan Friday night, as Irene would be busy attending the New Jersey Romance Writers conference, I decided it was long past time to check out Wylie Dufresne’s Lower East Side restaurant wd-50. I’d heard a great deal about it over the years, both from those who absolutely loved it and from those whose reactions were far more … mixed. But whether people responded positively or negatively to the experience, their reactions always seemed passionate. Which meant—time to find out for myself!

And so I used social media to put out a call for a friend who was enough of a foodie to also be willing to pay $155 for the restaurant’s twelve-course tasting menu. Fellow zombie author Kris Dikeman was the first to respond, and so at 7:00 p.m. we met at wd-50 for what turned out to be a mind-blowing meal. Amazingly, there was only a single dish we were not absolutely in love with … and it was the same dish for both of us.

The first thing to come to the table was a wooden box of extremely thin baked sesame crisps. They proved so light that in addition to enjoying them before the courses began arriving, I also used them as a palate cleanser of sorts between each course.

First up was a tiny sandwich of saffron-coconut ice cream, caviar, and poppy seed. A surprising way to begin a meal, but the mix of sweet and salty was a major wake-up call for my taste buds. You wouldn’t think the flavors would work so with each other, but they did. It was like eating ice cream by the ocean!

Next came cuttlefish, fennel, black garlic-feuilletine. The flesh of the fish was perfectly cooked, its flavor kicked up a notch by the ingredients which surrounded it. This was when I realized how important it was to make sure each spoon or fork contained bits of all the components. As good as any single ingredient was, it was in combination that the magic truly happened.

The third course—chilled egg drop soup, sea urchin, mushroom, radish—was the only one that while intellectually intriguing, left us cold. (Oh, dear, a pun. Unintentional, really, because that’s truly how we reacted.) The sea urchin was wonderful, dissolving on my tongue, but the soup seemed lacking in flavor. Perhaps it was only because of the unexpectedness of the temperature, but whatever the reason, both Kris and I were unmoved.

At the end of the night, we agreed, though, that for one part of a single dish to be the only thing that didn’t wow us a small complaint indeed.

And now begins a run of dishes, each topping the one that came before, each making us say, “This is my favorite,” only to be followed by another dish causing us to say the same—sweetbreads, cucumber-lychee, tonic, fermented black bean. I’ve been eating a lot of sweetbreads lately, and these were some of the best, particularly when married to that cucumber-lychee.

Next up—sea scallop, bernere granola, carrot, marcona—a ravioli as delicate as I’ve ever had and scallop as tender as you could possibly imagine.

Since I hadn’t peeked at any pics of what the menu would entail, only the names of the courses, I had no idea what pig tail, artichoke, olive oil jam, hazelnut would consist of. I’ve eaten pig tail before, and those times it was … cut up pig tail. This time it had been made into a terrine, and surrounded by, among other things, squid ink. Unexpected, but quite complementary.

This was followed by Mediterranean bass, celery, macadamia, grapefruit. Beautifully plated …

… but you really deserve to see the bass revealed once the celeriac was peeled back. The grapefruit and macadamia really brought out the flavor of the fish.

Next up—rabbit, spring onion, hibiscus, Thai basil ‘nori.’ The rabbit was wrapped in chicken skin, a first for me, transforming the rabbit into something new.

Then came the final savory course—cured duck breast, buttermilk nori, sweet corn, shiso. A totally unexpected mix of flavors, but one that made me smile.

And then began the sweet, starting with white peach sorbet, honey-milk crisp. The peach flavor was strong and true.

Next came tarragon key lime pie, Ritz cracker, cherry—delicate and smooth …

… followed by apple tart, Concord grape, sorrel, pistachio. Probably my favorite of the dessert courses.

The final dish was more mignardise than course—passionfruit purée rolled in demerara sugar + beer, malt, pretzel.

As my friends know, I don’t do alcohol, so they wondered how I’d take to this dish. Well, it’s really only raw alcohol I eschew. I have no problems with alcohol in sauces or baked goods, and in this instance, all was fine. The beer-flavored ice cream rolled in pretzels made for a perfect end note, though I decided to leave the passionfruit purée for my final bite.

I left wd-50 very impressed.

But I feel I’ve got to add some words of warning—I also left wd-50 needing to take a long walk. Not because I was stuffed from the food, but because of my chair.

While Kris was quite comfortable along the padded banquette, my chair opposite her was so hard that I had to get up halfway through the meal and walk to the restroom even though I didn’t really feel a need to use the restroom. Instead, it was because I could feel myself growing numb below the waist, and those parts that weren’t growing numb were in pain.

Yes, I found the chair that hard, a rarity for restaurants at this level. So I had no desire to linger, just an intense need to get up and start walking in order to get blood pumping to my lower extremities again.

That being said, don’t let this stop you from checking out wd-50. The food was well worth whatever discomfort I had to experience … and most of the time, transported me to a higher plane anyway.