Tatsing menu 94

I am repeating the crepe course for a photo shoot we have for Denver magazine on Friday. We will run this menu for the next 2 weeks, I will be taking next week off. We have a few concerts planned along with some rafting and some quality time with the kids.

Heirloom tomato carpaccio
Fizzy capers, crispy silver fish, basil gelee

Lobster crepe
Black truffle caviar, mornay, salt water bubbles

Berbere and beer braised pork belly
Israeli cous cous carbonara, 148 degree egg

Flur de sel ice cream with frozen pretzel dust
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 73

As you can probably tell by the lack of post and pictures I have been crazy busy. I usually have a few hours a week that I can devote to experimenting but the last 5 weeks have lent me no time. I have agreed to take on the position of GM/Chef here at the hotel. It is a very unique opportunity for me to be apart of decisions that happen in the front of the house. This will mean that I will need to be even more organized in my efforts to better my restaurant. It will take a few months of growing but I am excited at the opportunity to gain more skills. I can finally concentrate on the ideas that I have had instead of running into road block after road block. We will hire a front of the house manager in the next few weeks with our new lunch and dinner menus after that. I wanted to improve on service and here is my chance.

Lump crab Benedict
Foie hollandaise, avocado, 148 degree egg

Sous-vide potato terrine
Pancetta, fig pudding, black pepper paper

Tempura vegetables
Edamame, frog legs, dashi noodles

Caramel apple cracker crust pizza
with cinnamon streusel and clove ice cream
made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 58

We have a very busy week ahead. I am doing a demo on Fox news in the morning. We have the legacy foundation event here at the hotel on Friday. We have a separate 125 person dinner that we are handling in a banquet room on Saturday. I also have the passed app course at Strings for Project pave on Sunday. We are beginning to work on some Fall menus this week.

Smoked olive oil poached line caught tuna
Black garlic pesto, macadamia nuts, pea shoots

Roasted plum vinaigrette sheet
Portabella, dry corn powder, mache

NY wrapped tenderloin
Blueberry, pumpkin au gratin, chocolate

Sugar poached egg on French toast
Lucky charms ice cream
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Coconut bubble gum

Tatsing menu 39

I am doing some early prep this week because we are cooking at Doo at the Zoo on Thursday. This event raises money for the zoo's programs throught the year. I have a pretty sick dream of jumping one of the fences and taking down a elephant with my french knife.I know that is sick but when you let a bunch of crazy chefs in the zoo what do you think they want to do?

Tasting menu

Oyster Carpaccio
White soy gelee, frozen olive oil, lime air

Pretzel consommé
Dijon chicken, charred onions, apple dumplings

Black truffle paper

Buffalo short rib ravioli
148 egg, cotija, sweet onion tops from my garden

Lindsor tort
Sour cream and mint ice cream
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 36

Have a very busy June coming up. We are doing Taste of the Nation at the Westin downtown on Sunday. You have 10 guest that you cook table side for and you can pretty much do anything you want. My celebrity sous chef is Mark Randall. He is a ex NBA player and played for the Kansas Jayhawks, my favorite basketball team. We are also doing a media event on the 10th and a charity event and Denver's zoo on the 19th.

Tasting menu


“Slow cooked “tenderloin
Cognac, grapes, buttered leeks

Homemade sausage
Feta jelly, crispy eggplant skin, tomatoes


Yuzu nitro foam


Hollandaise stuffed shrimp
Perrier batter, champagne caviar, truffle puree


Blueberry waffle
Maple ice cream made table side with liquid nitrogen

Easter prep

We have 800 reservations for Easter. I dread holidays because it is hard to work when your family is home missing you. I always notice when people work holiday's and try to acknowledge them. We all wish we were at home.

Salmon,scallop and edamame roulade made with activa

Soft poached eggs for our pastrami hash with mustard hollandaise

Sou-vide

I don't have a commercial vacuum sealer. I bought a food saver at target and it does an OK job with my sou-vide bags. It does not have enough pressure to compress which is the most interesting technique that I have seen with this piece of machine. I can still get a good marination using this sealer but have to come up with creative ways to package. This sealer will suck liquid out when the vacuum is on in turn giving you a leaky, non-compressed seal.

The way to do it is make sure everything is solid in the bags and not in a liquid form.

For the compressed tomato I froze my olive oil in liquid nitrogen giving me a solid texture and enabling the tomatoes to achieve a solid seal when vacuumed.

To do these carrots I made a compound butter with sesame oil instead of pouring the oil in the bag. Cilantro was added and cooked at 120.2 degrees for 45 minutes.

Thermal circulator

All right folks. Its on. I got my circulator today and started cooking immediately. I started with egg cooking. I cooked a egg at 144.8 degrees for 1 hour. I am speechless in describing the texture of the egg. It looks soft boiled but may be the purist thing I have ever tasted. Next was a piece of salmon Sou-vide in yuzu butter, dill and Tasmanian pepper. It was literally like eating butter. The salmon flavor was so faint on the back of your palate. Needless to say this will bring all of my cooking up another notch.