Tasting menu 97

I have jury duty tomorrow, something I am not looking forward to at all. Don't they know that a crazy chef should not make any decisions pertaining to anyone else. I can barley keep my shit together as it is. Here is the menu for the next 2 weeks

Pear, apricot, plum gastrique
Poached shrimp, goat cheese marble, vanilla

Smoked trout Bruschetta
Salt water caviar, frozen tomatoes, chili threads

Sous-vide lamb chops
Peppers from the garden, Colorado corn, chayote chips

Crème brulee ice cream with burnt palm sugar
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Tasting Menu 79

Next week will start to pick up for us again. I have a wine dinner on Thursday night that is sold out. We are hosting the event along with Buil & Gine winery in Spain. Xavier Buil is personally making the trip over from Spain for the dinner. It should be a great night. I am also getting ready for April 1st. The iapc conference is here in Denver this year. They have asked me to help gather equipment and organize the event. There are some great professionals speaking at the conference including Alex and Aki from Ideas in Food, chef Andonu Luis Aduriz from http://www.mugaritz.com/ in Spain and one of my favorite chefs Michel Nischan. After helping with the conference I will be teaching a molecular class at Cookstreet that night.

Plantain
Avocado, blue crab, strawberry caviar

Risotto
Bone marrow, blueberry sphere, lobster mushroom

Vietnamese spring roll
Cilantro wrapper, shrimp and pork, salty peanut ice cream

Honeydew consommé
Mascarpone noodles, plum ice

Potato terrine

I have been using pectin a lot as a fruit and vegetable glue. (thank you alex) I have also been doing a lot of sous-vide vegetables since I got my vacum sealer. The best temp is around 83 C or about 181 degrees Fahrenheit. (thank you chad) For this component we have combined both techniques to make this colorful terrine for our menu this week. Is this a terrine? No , not in the classical sense of being baked in a mold but the finished product resembles a baked and sliced product. To make it we mixed 15 grams pectin with 80 grams melted butter and .5 grams calcium bicarbonate. We then tossed the potatoes in the pectin mixture. I then layered them in a bag with salt and rosemary. They went into the vacuum sealer at #9 pressure setting and #8 seal setting. We cooked them for 50 minutes and then shocked them in ice water. The key was compressing the potato slices together after they finished cooking. This insured a tight seal between the layers.

Tasting menu 71

The restaurant is going to be going through some major changes this month. We have lost our GM of 6 years to some unfortunate circumstances. I had a good relationship with him but we did not agree on a lot of service issues. One being that he refused to have a expediter. The food would sit for 5 maybe 6 minutes before it was run. A lot of our molecular presentations must be run right away or we lose the textures we worked so hard to create. I had to take some items of our last menu because of the timing issues. With a new GM comes new ideas and a wiliness to work with each other to improve our guest experiences. I know I have been pulling this place in so many directions, hopefully we can settle it down and have fun and create

Poussin
Caul fat, goji berries, red pepper

Buffalo short ribs
Shitake wonton, mint, pickled watermelon

Tomato Brushetta Space Foam

Maine lobster tail
Chipolte, corn gnocchi, Cilantro tapioca

Banana foster ice cream sandwich
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 69

I have been getting some emails lately about how crazy my food is and that I am doing some kind of disservice to the culinary world. Why would you ever float food or why did you put a inedible garnish on a plate they ask? My answer is why not. As long as the garnish if functional like the chap stick compound butter. I would rather challenge my guest with new flavors or presentations then throw out the same shit year after year. Look, I was the chef 2 years ago looking into this crazy world and wondering if it had a place. After a few years of burning my hands in LN or making soda or even making Lego's my answer is yes. I am having a blast and the people that try our tasting menus do to. I know my customers will remember their meal, will yours??

Quail eggs
Chorizo, black vinegar, blackberry

Compressed watermelon
Olive salad. Snow crab, whipped feta

Line caught tuna and prosciutto terrine
Parsnip pudding, curry sphere, zucchini

White chocolate macadamia nut brownie
With coffee ice cream made tableside
With liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 31

We are getting ready to switch menus right now. I have implemented a lot of molecular techniques and technology on the new menu. We kept all of the descriptions generic so no one will be intimidated.We want the food to speak for itself. We are taking all tuna products of the menu. After reading about the almost extinct population of blue fin, the mercury scare, and the fact that a lot of yellow fin is being caught very young and raised in over crowded pens we have elected to take it off for a while. We have to allow fish to repopulate naturally and I think the best way is not to buy it. Will my one restaurant make a difference? No, but it is the responsibility of the chefs to take a stand. I have also checked all of my new seafood menu items on the Monterrey baywebsite.http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_search.aspx

Roasted parsnip
Edamame, asparagus, rice wine Dijon noodle

Alaskan king crab
Coconut, brown butter sorbet, smoked cashews

Mission fig consommé
Barramundi, spicy apples, goat cheese sphere


Tempura banana
Honey clove ice cream
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tatsing menu 20

I have a wine dinner on Saturday that sits at 80 covers right now. I am going to run the same soup for my tasting menu this week that is on the wine dinner menu. Valentines night is pretty well sold out too. We have 5280 week coming up at the end of this month. Business is really picking up. It has been really slow the first part of the year. Other chefs tell me they are busy but when I drive past thier resteraunts they are as slow as us. I never really understood people lying about their business. I guess you never want to show the other guy your cards

Tasting menu

Alaskan king crab
Frankincense, frozen yuzu powder, pomegranate


Organic chicken noodles
Saltine cracker consommé, root vegetable sou-vide


Sou-vide Tasmanian pepper tenderloin
Demi sphere, broken olives, tarragon


Blueberry basil puree
White chocolate ice cream made tableside using liquid nitrogen