Purple Off

Another competition has arisen between myself and my sous John and we have gone to the polls to settle this. Above we have two very different methods of making braised red cabbage. This competition is very specific. Please vote by comments and If you want to be anonymous that's ok. If you know us please tell us your name. It's nice for bragging rights more than anything else.

Here is the question:
WHICH BRAISED RED CABBAGE IS MORE PURPLE, A OR B?

Please let us know. John lost last time and wants some redemption. To make this a little more formal we will close the polls one week from today.

Ups and Downs

It's been a long couple of long weeks and I have personally had some rough times. But things are looking up again. We had a great Graduation and Mothers' day at the restaurant and now we are looking at some great local produce as well as some fantastic fish.

Today I rolled out our new tuna and I am really happy about it. It's a play on salad nicoise. You can find it in just about any Paris bistro and is great this time of year. We lightly poached the tuna in Zoe extra virgin olive oil, local radishes and mizuna, tomato confit, piquillo peppers, our house tapenade and hard boiled egg with a broken mustard vinaigrette. I look forward to serving this for a while.


Here we paired miso with salmon, nothing out of the ordinary. It's simple and great. We dust the salmon witha spice mixture or coriander, black pepper and cardomom. Daikon, edamame, carrot, cucumber, Spain farm shitakes and sugar snap peas finish this dish. A while back we were trying to re-work a vegetarian option on our menu. I am not sure exactly how we got to this but we can't stop selling it. I am really happy with this dish and the flavor and colors really pop. We roast white and green asparagus and set it atop an essence of red pepper. A black beluga lentil cake and butter braised shitakes and oytser mushrooms top it all off.

Below we have some shots from Mother's Day weekend. Below Ricardo is shaving manchego for our arugala salad.

Kyle came in to help us for the weekend. He never looks as tough as he does in this picture. We never could have gotten ready without his help. Thanks again kyle. This picture really makes his nose look small.
P.S. That's what you get for taking pictures with my camera.

Francisco is reading up on the special menu for the weekend. All great line cooks prepare mentally as well as physically.

Things to work on/ New Ideas

• We need to get morels that look good
• I need a new knife
• Our plating can get better
• Our speed is really quite amazing
• Guilford County Grits are good and we need to utilize more
• Look at what we do with our crab cake
• Scallops need a facelift
• Post pictures of our Panna Cotta!!!
  

Posting Soon

We have been really busy getting ready for Mother's Day/ Graduation weekend here. I have a lot of pics but haven't had time to post. After this weekend I will post more.

Busy Bee Cafe

Three friends of mine have just reopened The Busy Bee in downtown Raleigh. They have put a ton of work into a place that will be amazing. I have not had the chance to visit yet but my trip is planned. Their menus look fantastic, with the chef they have it makes sense, and the decor from the pictures looks great. Go check them out. These are the kinds of local businesses that will make Downtown Raleigh a vibrant and exciting place. Congratulations, Woody, Chris, and Jeremy.

Keep Moving Forward

"Keep Moving Forward" is a quote from one of my sons favorite movies "Meet The Robinsons." It really is a great movie and one I don't mind watching 10 times in a row. But the line keep moving forward relates to an inventor who get excited every time he has a failed invention. So often we come up with dishes and I look at it and think somethings not right. More often than not it has to do with plating. Do we keep it high and tight, spread through out the plate etc. And often I get frustrated with myself for not being able to get the plate the way I want it to look. I was so frustrated the other night I hucked a spoon across the kitchen because I couldn't get my chicken to stay on top of the vegetables. I was also in the weeds and I didn't through the spoon at anyone just a wall. At the end of the shift I thought about keep moving forward. If you don't get the desired result keep moving forward. So I did and completly revamped our pan roasted chicken. I am much happier the dish. We are always refining, improving and revamping in the kitchen to make sure we are putting out our best.

Here is our new pan roasted chicken breast. We use Tanglewood Farms free range chicken from Winston-Salem. Leek and gruyere bread pudding, sugar snap beans, roasted garlic veloute and tomato fondue. It was a big hit this weekend.


We have been getting some fantastic NC coastal shrimp for about 3 weeks. They are super sweet. I have always been a fan of paella since I traveled to Spain when I was younger. We took the paella idea and revamped it slightly. We cook the shrimp sous vide in lemon, thyme and butter. The shells, and heads when we can get them, go to stock for the risotto. We serve the shrimp over a saffron,shitake, and chorizo risotto and top it with basil oil. I can't by enough shrimp to keep up with the demand.
Here are some shots of the guys and the pass this weekend.
Things to work on/new ideas

• Update dessert menu
• Floating Islands- on a caramleized white chocolate anglaise
• Death by chocolate- chocolate marquis, white chocolate and raspberry jelly, mexican chocolate pot de creme
• Cane Creek Braised pork shoulder- deconstructed NC barbecue, spaetzle au gratin and braised red cabbage
• Salmon, orzo salad, farmers market sorrel.
• Foam amuse bouches
  
• Hot Foie Torchon.
• Get to the Farmers Market- produce is starting to hit
• We need to get ECOS on Board
  

New Menu Layout

We have been making some changes in our menu style and layout and we have been really happy. Less is more is the theory. We have been running a two page menu with one side highlighting specials. We now only have one menu which we are printing on a regular basis, and changing pretty often so try and keep up. This allows us more flexability with what's in season. We can change on a dime if need be and we are having a blast with it. This week we are looking at 2 new items going on.

First is a wild stripped bass bouillabaisse broken down. We are going to grill the bass and serve it with a slightly spicy bouillabaisse sauce, rouille croquette, and french bean salad. I
ll try and get picture up soon.

The other is Braised Cane Creek Farms pork butt with spaetzle au gratin, braised red cabbage, and spiced cider gastrique A big twist on Alsatian food and NC barbecue.

We have also been getting amazing NC coastal shrimp fresh!!!. It's been a long time since I have worked with shrimp this good. We are cooking the shrimp sous vide with butter, lemon and thyme and putting it over a spin off of paella. A saffron-chorizo risotto with shitakes, and topping it with basil oil.

Truffle Fest Pictures

PREPARE TO BE OVERWHELMED. My wife took a lot of pictures. As I said before we had a blast as some of the pictures will show.

An obscene amount of truffles from day 1. This was the story for the entire weekend

More of the Same. People were using truffles like they were button mushrooms. Awesome

This is an up close picture of our Tea smoked duck from the first night. We served it on wontons with homemade black mustard. We cured it for three days and slow smoked it with Lapsang Souchong.

Chef instructor Jules Pernell from USC.

A large bowl of truffled ranch courtesy of Sam Poley of Durham Catering. Delicious!

My sous chef John Mersinger cutting up a lot of tea smoked duck.

The beautiful house were we served our smoked duck, foie gras, and truffled brie.

Cane Creek Farms Pork belly made by Amy Lynn Lafreniere of the Umstead Hotel and Spa.

A picture of two of our three passed hors d'oeuvres. The top one is foie gras tourchon, black currant jam and shaved truffle. The bottom is our tea smoked duck with housemade black mustard.

My ugly mug working in the kitchen at the Double Tree hotel in Asheville pre party.

John getting ready the first night.

Sam Poley's roasted salmon.

Bill Harrison from The Umstead.

Me again cutting crostini

A celebratory drink at 11am on saturday. John, Bill from the Umstead, and I after finishing the risotto competition.

Two pictures of the plate John and I put out for the competition. We tried to think of ways to use risotto that didn't involve a traditional bowl of risotto. So we used the risotto rice like sushi rice and served it with seared scallop in the center, Mache tossed with verjus and pickled truffle.

A picture of the photogragher, my beautiful wife, and Amy Lynn from the Umstead.

More Champagne after the competition.

This is John first thing on saturday morning stirring our risotto with a lot of love. He looks so happy to be stirring while I kept asking what was taking him so long.
(It didn't really take that long)

This is a quick shot of the crew from the Umsteads' plate going out to the judges. It looked amazing.

John and I with the man Franklin Garland. Franklin and his wife Betty, provided all the Truffles, and Accomodations for the chefs. We were really pampered.

The large bottle of Chimay going on Ice on saturday morning. If you look closely you can see this is a 22qt cambro. That's a lot of beer.

A bunch of picture of most of the chefs at the competition with Franklin and Betty Garland front and center.

Bill working hard to make sure the chimay gets cold!

Some of us awaiting the results of the competition. Yes that is Iron Chef Walter Royal all the way to the left. He was a judge and is a super nice guy.

Saturday night I am describing our scallop dish to 120 people.

Yes look at the date on that Medoc. I went out into the dining room to brag to my wife that I was drinking a 1996 Medoc in the kitchen. She in turn shows me this bottle of 1988. Both were amazing. This is a little nod to lavash lifestyle we were living for 3 days in Asheville.

John and I trying to look pretty at the last event on Friday. These great outfits were courtesy of our restaurant Owners Ed and Deborah Roach who were so kind to let us both attend the event.