Rialto Underground

I will be cooking a dinner at the Rialto cafe tomorrow night with the Chef Mike Schock . I opened the Rialto over 12 years ago as the opening daytime sous chef. It will be fun to see some old friends and to get back to cooking my food. My courses include:

Passed

New Zealand lamb wrap lamb rack wrapped in a mozzarella sheet with mint pesto

(we already have a good amount mint coming up in the garden)

Salad

Sous vide organic chicken in tasmanian pepper and black lava salt with crispy bibb, housed cured bacon and blue cheese jelly

Fish

Hiramasa kingfish new style sashimi with pickled mango, white soy paper, strawberry caviar, smoked air bubbles and "fried rice"

Sorbet

House carbonated Shiraz and clover honey served over haystack mountain goat cheese sorbet made with liquid nitrogen

Tatsing Menu 92

It has been a very hectic week at the hotel. We have been sold for rooms the past 8 days with another 7 ahead. The groups do not have many banquet functions so the restaurant is getting hit hard. I am feeling a lot more comfortable running the kitchen after my crash course the last 3 weeks. The chef is back so I can finally get some work done in the restaurant.

Curried grilled eggplant
Fennel foam, fried artichoke and fennel, coconut

Sweat pea and rosemary cream
Carrot caviar, grilled mussels

Basil and lemon Popsicle

Roasted leg of lamb
Mint, flexible potato, roasted garlic and onions

Peach cobbler with brown sugar ice cream
Made tableside with LN

Tasting Menu 91

My wife and I had a amazing meal at 1515 market last night. Gene the owner invited us in for some food and wine. The best plate by far was the seared scallop with huitlacoche puree. I have not seen the corn mushroom since I worked at the Rattlesnake grill about 1o years ago. It is a underutilized ingredient. Basically they leave sweet corn out in a warm environment. Eventually a mold or mushroom will grow on the outside. It has a deep sweet flavor to it that complimented the scallop dish perfectly. I would say it was one of the better meals I have had in a while.

Coconut Grouper
Watermelon pop rocks, mint from the garden, dashi gelee

Compressed heirloom tomatoes
Garlic, dandelion leaves, Tasmanian pepper caviar

Chorizo
Brioche, plantain, fried quail eggs

Tiramisu ice cream with frozen lady finger dust

Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tatsing Menu 86

Sesame monkfish
Green tea noodles, carbonated tobiko, white soy

Curry hibiscious vinaigrette sheet
First herbs from the garden, baby vegetables, fried asadaro

Blackened Ribeye
BBQ gelee, malted potatoes, black vinegar

Pineapple raisin carrot cake
Cream cheese ice cream made tableside with LN

Tasting menu 82

I have a mixology gig coming up that I am getting ready for. I am not a bartender by any stretch but I am going to lean on my experiences with flavor to execute the menu. We are doing coconut sorbet with spiced rum and pineapple bubbles, whiskey caviar and cream, carbonated blueberry vodka with compressed apples. The event is at the Curtis downtown and it should be a good time. We have some media friends coming up in the next couple weeks to play in the kitchen with us.

Oregano grilled clams
Potato confit, pancetta foam, nitro mirapoix

Carbonated cantaloupe consommé
Scallop ceviche, roasted apples

Black truffle popcorn

Sous-vide pork and goji berries
45 second parsnip cake, date power, garlic honey

Caramel banana bread pudding
Barley malt ice cream made with LN

CO2 Machine 2.0

We can now carbonate 2 different beverages at the same time

Tatsing Menu 81

If you have children or will in the near future you will get my take on fruit salad. A friend brought a Wiggles tape in for me and my wife after we had our first girl Taylor. She would play this video over and over. Anyway one of the songs is called Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy. Unfortunately the song has been burned into my psyche and now I cannot say the word without singing the song. We have this little Mexican taco fast food place by our house that serves a horchata drink on ice. I am having a few of the cooks help me with making the recipe but apparently you soak rice for a day, not cooking it at all. You take the remaining liquid and add sugar and vanilla. Some variations also have nuts in it. We will make the ice cream and then roll it in croquant, a puffed sweet rice.

Fruit salad “yummy yummy”
Lavender legos, yogurt crisps, mint

Southern grit French fries
Buttermilk aioli, greens, fried chicken

Pina Colada space foam

Smoked corn powder encrusted halibut
Lobster gnocchi, papaya pipette, coconut blanket

Horchata ice cream
Croquant, agave
Made tableside with LN

Tasting menu 77

It looks like it should finally calm down a little this week. I have been so caught up with keeping prep levels up that I have had no time to play or work on anything new. I am finalizing a class that I will be teaching at Cookstreet in Denver. It looks like we are shooting for a April 1st class. The weather has been nothing short of bizarre this year. It has been 70 degrees in Denver for the past 3 days. We have had no snow fall this year. Cold weather reminds us to cook in different ways. It's hard to be in the mood for a good casoulet when it is so hot out.

Carbonated grapefruit
Palm sugar cured line caught tuna, tarragon, taro

Duck prosciutto
Fried risotto, black olive jell, black trumpet mushrooms

Passion fruit and sage sorbet
Poached grapes, blue champagne

Spicy shrimp blanket
Artichoke dirt, corn gnocchi, shallot

Mexican vanilla ice cream with frozen caramel apple crunch
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 59

Last week sucked. Hopefully this week I will have a little more time to get some stuff done. I am doing a demo at my other daughters school today. We will make strawberry noodles with watermelon ice cream, blueberry pop rocks and fizzy whip cream. We had a great event at Strings on Sunday. It was nice to see Aaron and his crew. We ended up making foie gras tacos with Peking duck and hoison tomatoes. We have a lot of reservations for the tasting menu this week. If you are coming in late please specify that you want the tasting menu. We have been running out and I want to make sure I prep enough for everyone.

Last tomatoes from my garden
Prosciutto cream, hazelnuts, balsamic textures

Carbonated black plums
Berbere shrimp, yuzu, yogurt powder

Port Space Foam

Sou-vide New York and truffle salt
Pepper butter chap stick, stewed cipollini in duck fat, tarragon

Pineapple and candy ginger ice cream
With baby kiwi made table side
With liquid nitrogen

Yuzu soda and green tea ice cream float

Tatsing menu 50

I was wondering on my days off if other chefs have the same problem going out to eat as I do. I can never sit down and enjoy the meal. I think about operational shit like what was the food cost of that dish or wonder what the line looks like and how many cooks do they have? It is very annoying never being able to turn my brain off. This week we will be doing a lot of experimenting with our new carbonating machine. We have also been looking at doing a dish using superconductivity. I never thought I would here myself say that

Snacks
Yuzu soda with rasberry sorbet

Crispy chocolate wrapped curried peanuts

Pomegranate marshmallow

Oil poached snapper
Smoked corn pipette, crispy potato, potato foam

Scallion crème brulee
Unagi, Asian pear, king mushroom

Bing cherry flambé
Mexican vanilla ice cream made
Table side with liquid nitrogen

Carbonation

The best part about working in this hotel is having a engineering department. When my coolers down or I have a leak in the steamer they are just a phone call away. I asked them if they could help build a carbonation machine. This is what they came up with:

We used a propel bottle and screwed a tire pressure valve onto the top. We then fit a valve onto a hose that conected to a c02 bottle. You hook up the bottle and turn on the gauge to 20psi. You then turn the bottle over and shake until the slight bubbling noise has stoped. This means that the C02 has mixed into the liquid. You let the bottle rest for 5 minutes and then crack it open. Apple juice and orange juice were amazing. We are now going to make our own soda and carbonated liquor.