The Nominees Are...

I am delighted to be nominated for this year's Best Food Blog: Chef category. While I certainly hope you will vote for me  I also hope you will discover new writers out there. After all, that's really the purpose isn't it?

The crew seemed steady on when I returned, and one of the large party while leaving said, "You guys really know how to do big parties". So things were back on track. For a moment though it was really like stepping into the bizarro universe.

The pineapple tart tatin is a bomb. No, not the bomb as some of our young waiters might say, a bomb, a flop, a dog. Perhaps if I called it a caramelized pineapple tart with coconut creme anglaise. Or just moved on. But I loved the little bit of powdered ginger in the crust and the caramel dripping down the sides of the tart and the contrast between the warm tartlet and the crisp, crunchy, tart-sweet raw pineapple with mint and pomegranate underneath. I think we'll try the name change first.

I took the 12 oz ribeye off the menu. Unfortunately not before I had to have a discussion with a "7th generation Texas cattleman" about what 12 oz looks like. I told him scales are the same everywhere, I cut the steaks myself and can vouch for their weight. He disagreed, claiming the steak to be more like 6-7 oz. He told me he preferred a thick cut and doesn't mind paying the $50-60 for a 16 oz cut. I told him most of my customers would mind, being somewhat more price sensitive. We agreed to disagree on the weight of the steak although I wanted to march him into to the kitchen and slap a few steaks on the scale. Of course his counter would have been that his steak wasn't that size at all, so I didn't.

I've been spending much more time on the floor lately. I go in, do prep, place orders, check in with the kitchen crew and then don clean attire. It's been a welcome break for the GM, illuminating for me and has given the kitchen a greater sense of autonomy. All good things but I think the waiters are missing their mother hen a little and I'm missing the clang of pots and pans. I'm also afraid of subtly changing the work habits of the waiters. The GM works very hard to provide a system and structure so they can be effective. I am less structured and am doing my best to maintain the systems she has set up but just as I know it only takes 3 times of someone else making one of my dishes to have it altered, I'm sure I have impacted the system in some way or another. Change doesn't equal bad of course, but you need to know what you're changing and why you're changing it. You also need to let the person who designed it know that you know you're changing it.

Now it's time to polish off the rest of the foie gras.

Comments

[H.Alexander Talbot]

I can relate to the steak. When we were in Maine, a long time ago, we served a broken down ribeye in two parts, cap and eye. Well a diner insisted we were serving filet mignon. At which point, I went to the walk in, pulled out a whole dry aged ribeye and placed it on a large white platter. I then brought the ribeye into the dining room to show the diner a thing or two. Well, I do not know my solution was the best, but it sure brought a smile to my face.
-Alex

[foodcrazee]

found ur blog via the food blog award, went thru ur blog and decided to vote for ya as u have asked for - chuckle. Keep it up. Kewl blog.

Abt the steak, its the same everywhere even in the restaurant i work for.

[meloukhia]

I did so love the ribeye, though. I felt a little pang when I noticed it was off the menu.

Also, I think diners are intimidated by the word "tatin." To me it sounds vaguely like the sort of thing you might find in a back alley in Amsterdam, along with morel jus. Although it sounds like the bomb, as in, fucking delicious. That description was total food porn.

[haddock]

Well, now I will no longer have to play coy about knowing you have a blog. Which is insanely well-written BTW.

Tart tatin in its original form is a classic French dessert made with caramel, apples and puff pastry. As is nearly always the case when we try to do a play on a classic dish, whether regional American, or regional French, we rarely sell any. In the European case often our customers aren't familiar enough with the dish to "get it". In the American case, they don't "get" a revamped S'mores because they haven't moved beyond the original.

Jeez, with more people discovering this it's getting pretty hard to remain anonymous.

Thanks for all the kind words, and for your continued patronage.