Fall Menu

The time is here and we rolled out the fall menu at bluezoo tonight. It was pretty quiet in the dining room but we had a ton of prep to do for some special events coming up and stocking up on new menu components. It's a little stressful knowing that we have a new menu running and I will be leaving to go to star chefs on sunday, back wednesday night(missing albert's inopia presentation so i can make the plane) for a function on Thursday, and leave Saturday morning for Seattle, but we have a lot of talented people that have my back and I'm confident they will get the job done.
There is always a lot that goes into a menu change. Tasting, testing, consistent sourcing, producing, re-writing prep sheets, station sheets, costing, butcher tasks, ordering guides, new purveyors and accounts, delivery schedules, and most importantly is the training of the foh and boh. You try to make the shift as smooth as possible but there are so many factors and components that you don't really know what will happen until it does. Trying to predict what modifications will pop up and how to prepare for them is always interesting. Allergy mods, which we deal with on a frequent basis can throw you off if you are not prepared.
Determining what you can get away with is another thing. There is always one or two dishes that chefs prepare for chefs and experienced foodies, not everyone will get thought behind it or the time and effort that goes into it. It may not be the best selling item on the menu but those are the ones you pay special attention to. Appealing to the masses in our environment is a must. In the end of the day bills have to be paid appropriately to be successful. Pick up times have to be sensible, adequate equipment must be in place. Then again five pan pick ups of an awesome dish may make you a culinary god on a good day and a schmuck on a bad one. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice, be flexible, and make adjustments on the fly. The ability, training and knowledge of your team will determine much of this. The "guiding light" has been our tasting menu. We get training, feedback and execution information on a daily basis. Without that this would have made things much more hectic. Hats off to the ladies and gentlemen of the zoo for making this happen without incident. Granted, we have our staples on the menu that never die, this is a half menu change that will enable us to perform during peak season. Here are our fall menu additions, come check them out.

apps
broken rockefeller....spinach, house bacon, mornay, egg yolk

beet salad....pickled beet paint, candied walnut, goat cheese fondue

entrees
miso glazed mero....hawaiian seabass, black garlic, shitake-ginger rice

ahi tuna....parsnip, glazaed seasonal root vegetable, olive soil

heritage chicken....fingerling macaire, porcini, charred watercress

beef tenderloin....chestnut, butternut squash, mushroom in various forms

king salmon....espelette infused carolina gold rice, heirloom carrot, parsley root

side
sea island red peas....ham bone braised, sherry vinegar

Of course our descriptions are vague and left to the imagination so we may entertain new presentations, cure boredom of producing the same thing everyday, and pretend we are not a restaurant within a giant corporate establishment.

VitaMix Challenge

I'm at a point where I needed some good news and today was the day. Caitlin from Star Chefs informed me I will be one of six chefs competing in the VitaMix Challenge at Star Chef 2010 International Chefs Congress. I will be representing the Southeast division of the United States. No complaints here. Judges are Marcus Samuelsson, who I've had the honor of cooking for before whether he knows it or not, Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, and Harold Dieterle of Perilla who beat out a former colleague in the finals of the inaugural season of Top Chef but deserved the win. By the way, not kissing up to the judges, just the way it is.
The competition, display "a unique application of a VitaMix blender". We are in desperate need of the VitaMix XL at bluezoo and it happens to be one of the 3 blenders we will receive if the competition is won. Our variable speed Vita-Prep 3 is amazing and I can only imagine what could be done with the addition of the XL. Almost every plate in the restaurant has a puree, powder or fluid gel and blender time has to be split between our 15 cooks and 5 bartenders. This is my third year attending and truly an honor to be more than just an observer.
New fall menu tastings and roll out by Friday, leave for Star Chefs on Sunday, Competition on Wednesday, haul ass back to the restaurant Wednesday night, VIP restaurant buyout on Thursday, leave Saturday at 5am for a five day trip to Seattle, red eye arrives at 7am on the 1st then straight to the restaurant for another 125pp party, no pressure. This is what we do and just what I needed to rejuvenate myself.
I've done competitions with ACF judges, won gold but hated it. No offense, but it's old school. This will be another story. I respect the ACF and what they do but this is truly in my arena of thought and execution. I hate to lose, as do most chefs, but I'm sure their will be lots to learn no matter what the outcome. I'm anxiously looking forward to this. So if you would like to see how to cook loup de mer in a blender, come see me at Star Chefs ICC.

Tweak

We've been working on the fall menu the last couple of days trying new recipes, techniques, and platings. Here is the first version of our "Broken Rockefeller". I can't tell you how many requests we get for this. I guess it makes sense, we have different selections of east and west coast oysters nightly and with all the requests for it why not put it on the menu but at least we can do it our way. We took all the components and broke them down then give the diner a version of the original for reference.



We start with mornay sauce that is gelled and pureed for a pudding effect. Next was the spinach and bacon. We start with a reduced garlic cream, emulsify in some bacon fat, then finish with spinach and blend until smooth. We breaded the oysters in corn flour from Anson Mills, some bacon powder and we're almost there.

Since plating this I have some more ideas to tighten up the plate, a parmesan component and a little more of the spinach bacon puree is needed for the fried oysters to be able to get the full effect. Some dots of the spinach puree around the fried oysters will help break that section of the plate up a little. We'll keep playing with it and see what happens, so far so good.

Meet the Chef's Chefs

I couldn't snap pictures of everyone but here is their food. Diana came up with a nice harissa puree with king salmon, curied carolina gold rice, zahtaar carrot salad and micro carrot tops that we have been featuring on our tasting menu.



Chris Spaulding did a nice job with this brined, smoked, sous vide, then finally grilled berkshire belly. Tomato and lardo emulsion, heirloom tomatoes, crispy wheat berries.



Lupe rolls the s@#t out of some pasta and had some nice "envelopes" filled with braised pasture prime chicken.



Brian Baxter finished the pasta with celery root puree, fiscalini, and malabar spinach.



With a new menu on the horizon we will be utilizing our tasting menu to test new dishes for the fall. It's a great way for us to tweek the dishes, have the line chefs contribute, and let them develop a sense of ownership in the menu.

the bluezoo team

It's great to see my guys really pushing everyday. Wanting to share what they do and create plays a factor in their food. We have a tasting menu that is open to our cooks interpretation. I step in and tell them what they have to work with and provide some on hand flavor profiles and direction if needed but these guys and gals are the ones that are making it happen. Many of my posts are about what they are doing everyday on top of their already hectic workload.
I am thouroughly impressed by their passion amd commitment everyday. They are what makes bluezoo a great restaurant to be a part of and they should be recognized. This is our team, and over the next couple of weeks you will be able to become familiar with them and the food they put out every night.

chef de cuisine
aaron christian

sous chefs
daniel de la rosa
erich seig

line chefs
Guadalupe Rangel
Andre Robberts
Brittany Hatch
Ashley Monteiro
Nathan Howey
Diana Saulibio
Brian Baxter
Jason Rodriguez
Chris Spaulding
Keola Dietz

Stay tuned.........

Chicken and Lobster terrine

Chef Rob designed a terrine mold with our plexi glass guy from Ice Magic for a dinner we will be working on in bluezoo in September. He wanted something like the terrine molds he was familiar working with during his stint in France. Traditionallly it would be a wooden box with a sliding top and removable sides to unmold the terrine. we went a step further and created this.



Here is a shot of the whole deal from the side.



Of course the commissioned piece was personalized for chef. We will have 12 more in the works as we will need 125 portions for the dinner we are preparing for. This was a test run for us and it worked great.



The first step is to line the mold with plastic, then layer your terrine, press until set, and remove the top of the mold.



Each wall of the terrine is equiped with a hinge to easily remove the finished product.



Our terrine has finished pressing and the top of the mold is removed.




Here is our buttermilk brined, sous vide poussin, slow poached maine lobster, savoy cabbage, and truffle cream terrine.



You don't see these around much any more but our last executive chef of the hotel was austrian so having one of these electric knives on hand was neccesity. It's the first time I've ever seen one or even seen one used and it actually worked pretty well. It's novelty with an actual purpose. We all laughed at it but ole' bessie did it's job.




Chef Dan Herman did the honors. I think he might be the only one in the hotel who has used one of these before but that is still yet to be confirmed.




Nice slices of layered poussin, barely poached sweet maine lobster, tender savoy cabbage, and the richness of the truffle cream. It's hard to go wrong with that combination.



This is the finished dish. Warm porcini cream, grape fluid gel, pickled fennel, micro chickweed, parisienne buternut squash, armando manni per me olive oil.

Kelp Rubbed Mero

We picked up some kelp powder from Terra Spice and we toying with the applications. We ended up using it as a rub for our Mero bass from hawaii. The kelp powder has a salty vegetal flavor that when well with the fatty mero.




Some cleaned and marinated mussels along with key west littlenecks, brunoise veg, j. le blanc olive oil, scallion, and sea cress(my new favorite garnish from chefs garden). The servers finished the dish tableside with a sauce of reduced cooking liquid from the mussels with a hint of cream. Clean and simple, quality ingredients exploding with flavor.