R&R Part Duex

It's been yet another week since I've written and boy was it a long week.

We all have our ups and downs, our good nights and our bad nights, and quite honestly the best thing you can do is learn from it and take from it. I treat everyday as a learning experience and it just helps me gain a better understanding in our industry and help me grow stronger in my career. All and all, through the good and the bad, my executive sous chef said, its all part of learning and that's what you can do.

I can say I am the proud owner of a gnarly grease burn on my right arm. We stopped it and I learned how powerful burn spray and gel can be.

There hasn't been much to report in food wise...quite honestly we've been that busy lately and now we have round three of busy, the week of mother's day. We put on another brunch buffet but not as large in caliber as Easter  but still large.

It's been quite hard lately to get outdoors and enjoy some hiking because the weather has been off and on between cold and snowy and I find it best not to drive in the mountains when theres a large amount of cloud cover just to take photos. So the photography will have to wait another day. But I have found myself going to the library and spending my time there, reading up on places to travel too, restaurants to stage at and of course the everlasting search for scholarships.

Amongst more thoughts, are the great pondering of the future. I know I've brought this up many times before in conversations with friends, family, mentors, coworkers, and even in the blog. It is crazy to think about that next March I'll be graduating school and yes I do have some time to think and figure it out, I guess part of me wants to know now and the other part wants to know later. Thats why I have my list of goals and I'm going to start from there and just keep refining, learning and understanding my likes and dislikes.

But I'm off for the evening, hopefully soon later this week I'll be able to check out this diner that serves late nights on Thursday - Saturday and eat what is to be a pretty awesome breakfast.

-Garrett

That Was Quite a Week

That statement is definitely true. After working 10+ hours a day for the past week I can finally catch up on everything. So all in all, Easter brunch was pulled off successfully, yours truly didn't have to wake up early and make omelets instead he worked at night doing prep for the following week.

Things lately at work have been really good, on Friday, Zack and I banged out 80 covers smoothly for the most part except alot of confusion brought upon by the wait staff. Its just been alot of prep all week to put on the Easter brunch for 600 people. To fill up the rest of the blog page I've got photos of food from work because all of last week was somewhat of a really long blur.

Here is our trout dish. We take a whole trout, fabricate it but keep the two fillets together. Then we take Transglutaminase or aka Meat Glue (this is a natural enzyme that binds proteins together, theres nothing harmful about it and has no flavor) and we bind the two fillets together, therefore giving us a "whole" trout. The trout fillet sits on a bed of wilted napa cabbage and pickled currants and to the right we made a carrot puree and we have roasted orange and purple baby carrots and then braised thumblina carrots finished in reduced carrot juice aka carrots on roids. I fricken love this dish, it looks great I think and it tastes amazing.

 This was a special we ran on Friday, it was sea urchin flan. We made a custard base of bouillabaisse and sea urchin and poured it inside of the body of a cleaned sea urchin "shell" so to speak. The green sauce is a spring onion cream. What was awesome about that cream is we got local green onions in along with a whole bunch of other amazing produce (asparagus, baby braising mix and more!) To finish the garnish on top is uni and some baby tatsoi.

 This is grilled yellow fin tuna with a roasted spring vegetable fricassee and reduced balsamic vinegar. The big thing about this dish that I like is the fact I go through shitake mushrooms to find little ones (also called doubloons) and confit them in olive oil. The end result is a great tasting mushroom and an intense olive oil with an amazing smell. If theres something I think is great in this world, its mushrooms along with a long list of more things.

This is another special we ran on Friday featuring some local asparagus we got in. To the left is a mix of braised and roasted asparagus tips. In the middle, pan roasted scallops sitting on top of Meyer lemon whip (that stuff is so good) and then to the right is a piece of grilled asparagus with fresh herbs and orange and lemon zest.



Now this is was a total joke for Tim and I. We had a wedding on Saturday night and we had to put out a few kids meals. So we took it all to the next level and made the plating awesome. So a fanned corn dog with a beef tenderloin slider and a side of ranch dressing. It's oh so fancy.

To end this blog, I'm sitting here watching No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and right now hes in Sardinia. I'm looking at how they are eating food, eating family style, everything is from the area and it all looks amazing! The way of life and how food is Incorporated into everyday life is so important, so key and its respected so much. Its seeing that I have a greater appreciation for food and I want to experience food in Europe and cook it. The idea of food seems to differ so much from Europe to the US and to other countries around the world.

But something I want to get my hands on and try is bottarga.

Bottarga is dried and salt cured grey mullet roe and this stuff looks interesting but apparently it tastes amazing. If I get my hands on some it would be quite the culinary adventure.

But I'm off for the evening!

-Garrett

R&R

After a much need two days off from work, I'm feeling rested and good. It was nice to have two days off before Easter.

As for working Easter....last time I checked the brunch buffet has 600 on the books (I'm not sure if its gone up) and I'm working one of two omelet bars....I'm really happy for QFP....French Omlets for 600....I'm goin to crack out the chopsticks and make omelets like its no body's business (should be a min per omelet, I've got to get my timing down).

But that's really it before I head off to work later today, I do have something that I found funny today while reading Eater: How to open an insanely popular restaurant in a big city






I found this funny because of the new trend of "Pop Up" Restaurants among things.

I'm off for the afternoon, another day of learning at work!

-Garrett

Some Spring Menu Pictures!

It's about time already right! I've finally got some spring menu pictures, its only like three if I'm correct but yeah....its some more pictures!

Other than that we had a late night last night, I repacked alot of the fish we had in house and we did some nice scrubbing on the ye ole line.

Moving on, to the photos!

This is our Roasted Pork Chop. To the left is a corn and ham stew. Under the pork chop is a hash made from confit sweet potatoes and a corn pudding the we made from early spring corn. We got a case in the other day and for being early corn, it sure tasted good, it was actually sweet. The outside of the chop is coated in Sage-Apple Puree (Homemade applesauce on crack, I could eat the stuff all day long) and then a crust of dehydrated crushed up corn, smoked bacon bits, lemon and lime zest and minced chives.

This is our roasted lamb dish. Theres a potato cake on the bottom. Included are some roasted fava beans, fava bean puree, and roasted morels. Crusted on the lamb we make a roasted shallot puree and then this intense herb crust. We take sage, rosemary and thyme. Separate the three and fry them until they gain a deep emerald color. Then we take the herbs toss them in a mix of 1 to 1 sugar to salt. Stick them in the dehydrator and then wait 24 hours. Then we mince them together and we have awesome herb crust. We throw the lamb once its done and crusted under the salamander before we slice it to let the sugar caramelize ontop of the crust a little bit.

This is our halibut dish. Its almond milk poached halibut and to the left is braised white asparagus with green and white asparagus tips and some charred spring onions. The sauce up front is green asparagus puree that is then thinned with some parsley and chive herb oil. This dish is really clean cut and sells I do alot of these out of all of my dishes.

A little funny pic, I found a K16 Lunch Plate Wipe that fell out of my knife bag yesterday morning.

Now, my Executive Sous Chef let me use his Masahiro last night....I loved this knife....and I might get one....and maybe with some Shapton Stones.....who knows, this is just a maybe

I think if I had more photos, I would post them to be honest (To make up that I'm still tired and don't have much to say). But I'm off to sharpen my knives and get some stuff done around the house and "office" (the downstairs bar/basement I have turned into my office). Seeya!

-Garrett

Fatigue....It Only Makes You Stronger

I'm exhausted still in the midst of trying to wake up this morning. We cleaned late last night giving the line a nice little scrub down. That and service itself was just......ugh......that's the only word I have for service last night is ugh. Now I will say I feel like I did really well getting my prep done in a efficient and timely manner. I felt my speed getting faster yesterday as I was continuing to prep out my line. Today will be quite the day, for I have all my MEP to make a huge batch of ricotta gnocchi and alot of raviolis for the appetizer I posted a picture of the other day.

I do have another photo to post (they are slowly but surely coming along!)

This is our Yellowfin Tuna Tartare. It features Asian pear, black radish, a yuzu dressing. The white foam in the picture is actually a lime whip, in the center is cilantro foam and the yellow cubes are Asian pear gelee. I really like this dish because it has a real nice balance of overall flavor, the colors look nice and it features some stuff I've never seen before.

Black radishes I'm a big fan of after getting to taste them. They are interesting and I guess they aren't an heirloom variety of radish but whats interesting is just the flavor if them. Instead of being spicy like most radishes, these have a very simple and clean taste to them. Then in the back of your mouth it picks up a small amount of spicy flavor. I think that's another reason why I like our tuna dish so much because the clean flavor of the radish really pairs up well with the sweetness in the pears and the acidity from the yuzu dressing.

It was so cool, the other day we got in a case of thumbelina carrots (really small, round baby carrots) They are beautiful and are going to go on our trout dish at work (hopefully a picture very, very, very soon!) I'm off to wake up, find some lunch, get ready for work and go in for another day of learning!

-Garrett

A Little Tid Bit

Hey Everyone!

I was reading Eater and Wylie Dufresne gave a TED Talk talking about the egg but also the education of cooking and why hes doing what hes doing. Its more than just about cooking, its about the education and learning of how and why. Here's the link:

http://eater.com/archives/2011/04/12/watch-wylie-dufresne-give-a-tedx-presentation.php#more

I recommend everyone watches it!

-Garrett

Today was a Long Monday....Good But Long

Overall today was great but its been very long.

Woke up early this morning to make it down to Pueblo to meet up with Tim (who runs grill) to drive out to Canon City to visit a farm. Well, we followed the directions and made it there.....but no one was there like nobody so we called it a day and drove back home. It was kind of a bummer because just from looking around it was some really nice farmland and what they had growing looked good. Its alot different in Canon City than in Colorado Springs because Canon City sits on a watershed along the Arkansas River so the ground gets hydrated well. Therefore growing in the south is better.

Then instead of having my normal Monday off, I got yesterday off and I still have my Tuesday off so I was in work this evening. Our service tonight was a VIP Dinner for the club off of a limited menu off the new spring menu. I was very excited, like I've said before I really like our spring menu. I do have some what of a sneak peek for you all, a picture of our appetizer that we are running on the spring menu that we severed tonight.

This is our "Carbonara" Ravioli

My Executive Sous Chef Zach has played around with the French Laundry pasta dough recipe (Which produces a very, very, very, very, smooth and silky dough, amazing for this dish). We make our dough and the filling is actually an egg yolk. We separate whites from yolks and then freeze the yolks on a silpat in a sheet tray and then we can actually work with the egg yolks in a frozen state without them bursting on us. We then proceed to make ravioli in the same fashion. At service we hate them gently in basically poaching water so the pasta doesn't overcook but the yolk has a chance to heat gently to temp. So our ravioli then becomes somewhat of a poached egg  inside of a ravioli, its very cool and a very cool play on carbonara. The other components to the dish, under the raviolis we made a roasted onion puree and then charged it in a iSi siphon, then we shaved frozen bacon into curls and fried them off. A little bit of a fine herb salad, some shallot chips and Parmesan foam. The concepts of foams is very, very new to me but this is a very simple foam all for flavor purpose. We take Parmesan cheese, cut off a few chunks and then steep it in hot water getting this very, intense flavored water. We take alittle bit of that water and then add soy lectin (a stabilizer of sorts that makes foams) buzz it with a hand mixer and voila! Foam! Overall it is a really nice dish and a play on a concept and some things I've never seen before but theres more awesome-ness in store! 

I've got some more things I want to play with:

- Zach got some more sorrel in! I'm very excited!!!!!

- Wintermelon = Refreshing Flavor as I've been Told...so idea hit: Create a Sorbet of sorts????

- Concepts in Oxtail

- Ultimate Kansas City BBQ Sauce (To be the SAUCE BOSS!) and Moist Brisket

And of course more ideas and concepts I want to try.

But thats it for the evening so good night!

-Garrett