You can’t say I didn’t put in the training. I set my phone to buzz mid-afternoon so I wouldn’t miss my slot, and at 2.58pm I limbered up for an intense, sweaty session full of adrenaline, elation and crushing disappointment.

There were, I knew, 600 other people intent on exactly the same goal at the same time. It was war. Only occasionally did reality bite. All this angst for a restaurant reservation?

When I agreed to review the latest hot dining ticket in Manhattan, I assumed getting a table might be tricky, but I was sure I could pull a few strings. Ha. Getting a table at Momofuku Ko resembles the selection at the beginning of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - the fastest digits win.

You can book only online. Seven days in advance. There is no phone. There are 12 seats; they do 30 covers a night, maximum. Pleas for special consideration because you’re flying in from London fall on deaf ears (“Yup, it’s tough,” was the brusque reply to my oleaginous e-mail).

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Momofuku Ko is one of the new breed of “counter” restaurants that remove the obstacles between customer and chef, both physical and human. That is, you sit at a stool at a bar, facing the kitchen, watching your designated chef prepare your meal. The idea originates with sushi bars, but was taken into the realm of haute cuisine by Joël Robuchon and his Atelier concept. Now it’s spreading across America, with Momofuku Ko as the standard-bearer.

What of the food? The chef at Mo’ Ko is David Chang. Of Korean-American heritage, he trained at New York’s French Culinary Institute and in Japan, has two Michelin stars and recently won Best Chef New York City (Five Boroughs) in the James Beard Foundation Awards. His cuisine is, according to one of his staff: “Asian with French influences, or possibly French with Asian influences.”

So, it is the Monday before I fly to New York, and I want dinner on arrival on Sunday night. I sit at my computer at 2.59pm, as I have for a week, knowing that reservations go live at 10am in NYC. Steady. Wait for it ... I click - and there’s a glitch, a shift in the matrix. My Mac freezes. My cry of anguish brings the dog rushing in. I perform the fastest reboot since the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella. A minute later, I select a place for one and the Reservation Grid, that hateful Grid, comes up showing the slots for the next seven days. It is a sea of red Xs. I have failed.

The same desperate scenario plays out the next day, although I use two computers. The reservations fill in 50 seconds. My God, I think, it’s only food. How good can it be?

“Best meal I can remember,” says a satisfied customer as he leaves. It is a week after my final flunk on the Grid. Like a Dicken-sian orphan, I am standing outside Mo’ Ko in the East Village, peering through metal-meshed windows at the Lucky Twelve. The room is far from opulent. Minimal, you might say, if you were feeling kind. Austere, if not. So how do the Luckies seem? Well, did you meet anyone who won the lottery to get Led Zeppelin reunion tickets?

Mr Satisfied describes the pork bellies with oysters and kimchi consommé, and the shaved foie gras, lychee, pine-nut brittles and grape-wine gelee, as “sublime - even at 100 bucks a head”. That’s the set price, about £55. Various wine/beer/sake pairings (at £28 , £48 or £56) are extra.

I ask how long it took to get in. “A month,” he said. A month? Chang’s veal sweetbreads might be the best in the city, but a month? Forget it. (Since my visit, Ko has started serving lunch: three hours, 16 courses, £90. It’s no easier to get in, though.)

HAPPILY, there is an alternative. Three, in fact. You see, Chang didn’t win the James Beard award for Mo’ Ko, which is a recent opening; he got it for one of his two other eateries, Momofuku Ssam (it’s a kind of Korean wrap). This is relatively easy to get into, except at peak times; the food here is less elaborate than at Ko, but you can still sit at the counter and watch the chefs.

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