Grilled Island Creek Oysters

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Posted 05 Sep 2010 — by S.E.
Category At Home

Next Saturday one of the best blowout oyster events in the country will take place just forty five minutes south of Boston in Duxbury Massachusetts. The fifth annual Island Creek Oyster Festival attracts up to 3000 people to Duxbury beach where the folks from Island Creek Oysters serve an estimated 30,000 oysters over a seven hour stretch from 3 to 11 p.m. The festival is a fundraiser for the Island Creek Foundation, a foundation that supports multiple causes and serves as proof that my favorite oysters are raised by people with giving hearts. If you like Oysters, there’s no other place to be.

Inspired by the approaching festivities, I took some time today to purchase a couple dozen of Island Creek’s best as a warm up for next week. These oysters are delicious. They are healthy and plump, briny and sweet. Like many cold water oysters, they have complex, crisp flavors that inspire me when I work with them.

Motivated, I scan the garden and fridge to see what’s on hand for a quick snack. There are two beautiful organic cucumbers from Grateful Farms, three bursting ripe tomatoes from my garden, a handful of just-picked shallots, a fresh red onion (onions are great this time of year), and my out-of-control patch of fresh herbs out back. Just to be sure I am on the right track I step out onto my pack patio, shuck three oysters and slurp them down refreshing my memory of how good these oysters are. It’s cool outside and I decide the weather is perfect for grilled oysters.

Grilled oysters are fantastic. When grilling oysters the trick is to cook them flat side up over a blazing hot preheated grill just until they start to pop open. Once they begin to open up, remove them from the grill and shuck off the top shell while taking care not to spill the juice. Just to be safe, I like to keep a large plate under my hands to catch any juice that may spill. If done right the oysters should be medium rare when served.

 

With eight medium rare grilled oysters topped with mignonette ready, I sit down with an ice cold Boston Larger and a napkin. Halfway through, the warm-up act takes effect and I start to wonder what next weekend will be like. How much effort does it take to shuck 30,000 oysters? Will there really be 3000 people there? These oysters are so good that I am sure both estimates will prove correct.

 Grilled Island Creek Oysters with Tomato Water Mignonette

 8 ea      Island Creek Oysters, scrubbed clean with a soft brush,

 Grill over high heat, remove top shell.

 For the tomato water mignonette

 ½         tsp        minced shallots

1          tsp        Extra virgin olive oil

½         tsp        Salt

½         tsp        Red Onion, minced

¼         C         Cucumber, peeled, seeded, fine dice

½         tsp        Italian Parsley, chopped fine

            pinch    Black pepper, fresh ground

3          tbsp      Tomato Water*

 Combine all ingredients. Taste, adjust salt and pepper. Spoon ½ teaspoon of the mignonette onto each hot oyster and serve.

* For the tomato water, cut a medium size tomato into 8-10 pieces and toss with 1 tsp of salt. Place in a small bowl and allow the tomato to rest for 20-30 minutes until the salt extracts 2-3 ounces of juice.

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Craigie on Main Cambridge, MA: Time For A 10 Course Tasting Menu

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Posted 02 Sep 2010 — by S.E.
Category Fine Dining

The persistent recession we suffer from has me cutting back even when it comes to food. Rather than eat out for lunch, most days I brown bag it from home. Dinners out are usually two or three courses, up to five or six on occasion if I am researching a restaurant for this blog. It has been months since I have enjoyed a true multi-course meal of eight to ten courses and last week I decided to do something about it.

With another planned trip to Boston already on my schedule I decided to visit Tony Maws at Cragie on Main and made a reservation for the ten course tasting menu. I have been intrigued by Cragie on Main since visiting (although not eating) there during the TedX conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last May.

For nearly a decade now, Maws has been building a solid reputation as a culinary craftsman with a sustainability orientation. He is known as a chef’s chef and can usually be found at the chefs table just across from the restaurant entry expediting service. When I arrived just as the restaurant opened at 5:30PM, he was totally engrossed with sharpening a ten-inch chef’s knife as his kitchen crew finalized their station set-up. This is a chef with a deep work ethic and there is no question in my mind that he could outperform nearly anyone at any station in his kitchen. I can’t explain how I know culinary talent when I see it but I do and Chef Maws has it.

Cragie on Main is the second incarnation of Maw’s original venture Cragie Street Bistro, hence the odd name. It occupies the first floor of a triangular building on Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts one block from Lafayette Square. The large open kitchen is just inside the main entrance and divides the restaurant into a main dining room on one side and a large comfortable bar on the other. I am seated at a wonderful corner banquette for two with views of the entire dining room and kitchen. Within minutes the food starts to arrive…I will let the pictures speak for themselves. 

 Three Seafood Preparations:

Squid noodles, Nuac Cham, House cured Greek sardine with Banyuls reduction,

House-smoked Coho Salmon, Dijon-Miso Vinaigrette

 

Hiramasa Sashimi

Three melons, green tomato-shiso salad, soy vinaigrette

 

Miso and Herb Marinated Grilled Cobia

 Maine crab, roasted cherry tomatoes, pistou-dashi broth

 

 

Red Chile and Sesame Marinated Hiramasa Kama

 

 

Potage of Local Butter and Sugar Corn

Boudin noir crostini

 

Grilled Vermont Pork Belly

Hominy, huckleberry jus

 

Elysian Fields Lamb Three Ways: Spice Crusted Breast,

Grilled Tongue, Roasted Neck

 Roasted fingerling potatoes, Alisa Craig onions, Cubanelle pepper puree

 

 

House Made Sorbets

Peach and plum 

  

 Creamy Anson Mills Corn Grits

Demerara brulee, lemon-thyme ice cream, blackberry compote

 

Rhubarb and Hibiscus Mousse

  

 Chocolate Almond Nougat

Cragie on Main

853 Main Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
617 497-5511

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Tini ~ Providence, RI: An American Food Bar

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Posted 23 Aug 2010 — by S.E.
Category Fine Dining, Food Alert Trends

Tini is a terrific little restaurant located in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s the brainchild of Johanne Killeen and George Germon, owners of Al Forno in Providence and located in a space that at best is nine hundred gross square feet. When you deduct space for the kitchen, unisex bathroom, and back hallway, there’s roughly five hundred square feet left for the bar and seating. The place is tiny. Imagine a fine full-service restaurant with a great bar where you can sit comfortably and eat an entire meal with a friend. Now imagine that restaurant with everything else removed but the bar itself and you have an idea of what Tini is like. It’s a food bar; a restaurant bar without the rest of the restaurant.

My first trip to Tini occurred back in March with a group of restaurant industry friends. Since that visit I have watched the crew that runs Tini iron out the wrinkles that come with opening a new restaurant while consistently putting up great food. They added additional cool details including a back-lit sign outside and a fantastic custom lit stainless steel door handle with the restaurant name laser cut vertically into it. At night, the door handle glows neon blue from the light hidden in its hollow core. More recently, the crew placed four small tables for two and a couple large umbrellas on a custom platform on the sidewalk outside. The platform keeps the tables level on the gently sloping sidewalk and the additional tables add much needed seating to such a small restaurant (don’t worry, even with the additional seating the place is miniscule).

 

Due to its size, all nineteen of the indoor seats at Tini are located around a horse shoe shaped bar centered just inside the glass entryway. There are no printed menus at Tini. Instead, the menu scrolls on a large LCD screen located on the north facing interior wall. The menu usually features fifteen to twenty items along with one or two specials. Most items are less than ten bucks with many between six and eight dollars. Portion sizes are just right for snacking or for a light lunch. Two plates will easily make a meal. My two favorite items are the open faced smoked salmon and egg salad sandwich and the delicious house made French fries with garlic mayo and spicy sauce. The fries pair well with a cold glass of Gavi. Alicia, one of the servers at Tini consistently provides good food and beverage recommendations adeptly matching one of the nine wines sold by the glass to any food item you choose.

 

During my most recent visits, Alicia and I were chatting when I noticed George and Johanne sitting at the corner of the bar next to the kitchen door. Catching George’s eye, I waved, walked over and said hello. We spoke for a while and George and I shared a couple fish stories as he relayed his quest to catch a “keeper” striped bass this summer. I spoke of the scup a small group of us caught on Martha’s Vineyard earlier in the summer and we all agreed that this species is one of the tastiest (although bony) underutilized fish in local waters. Our conversation ebbed into a discussion of Tini, the food, and interior design. Johanne smiled as I told her that Tini now holds a top five spot on my all time “favorite restaurant bathrooms” list and shared how much thought George put into designing the restaurant (including the bathroom). Breaking away, I congratulated them for such a cool little place and both beamed with joy. It was a nice conversation.

 

Tini, in calling itself a food bar, has established yet another restaurant genre similar to the gastro-pub but on a much smaller scale. It occupies a space somewhere between a diner and the bar at a fine restaurant (without the restaurant). I am not sure how Johanne and George make their numbers with nineteen seats and eight dollar plates but I hope it all works out and will do my part when in seeking a meal in Providence. A food bar…now that’s cool! 

Tini

200 Washington St.

Providence, RI 02903

401-383-240

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Future Foodservice Innovation: Look to Where Food Sucks and Establish Integrity

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Posted 18 Aug 2010 — by S.E.
Category Food Alert Trends

I have a theory about culinary innovation that’s pretty simple but worth talking about. If you want to find the next area of innovation in foodservice, look to where food sucks. It’s not hard to do; there are lots of places where food is sold without regard to quality or integrity. When entrepreneurial chefs find these pockets of low food quality they transform them for the better and find success along the way. The food truck revolution of the past three years is an example. Food trucks used to suck. So are the phenomenal success stories of Chipotle Mexican Grill in the fast casual segment, Stonyfield farm in the yogurt category, and Amy’s organics in retail. Each of these companies established integrity within a category where it was lacking. The list of places where you can find food with integrity is long and getting longer. However, there are still some dark spots out there that present an opportunity for innovation and need fixing.

Recently, I had two food experiences while traveling that confirm my point. While riding the Amtrak Acela to Penn Station in New York I visited the dining car to check it out and get a snack. The set up was nice with approximately one third of the car dedicated to a small pantry, service counter and cashiers station and the rest of the car set with a small counter with seating and places to stand with food. It was nice enough except that there wasn’t a single item on the menu worth eating. Like an airliner, the dining car was outfitted to transport cold food cold and hot food hot but was ill equipped for fresh food preparation. Out of desperation I ordered a turkey sandwich and went back to my seat and unwrapped the sandwich. The turkey slices were compressed into a solid clump centered in a soft roll with a slice of tomato and a limp and bruised lettuce leaf. Needless to say, I didn’t eat it. It seems to me that the Amtrak folks and their designers and consultants place convenience over quality when it comes to food. Amtrak should be able to deliver a high quality turkey sandwich on board with very little fuss and a reasonable price. What a shame they haven’t taken the time to do things right. My prediction: someone’s going to figure out how to bring some credibility to Amtrak’s dining car or the dining car will die a slow death. Integrity with proper control yields financial success, convenience over quality yields failure.

My second example comes from a recent Southwest Airlines flight. That both these bad-food examples occurred while I was trapped on a moving vehicle is noteworthy. Travelers like me become captives with no other food options while on a train or plane. Is this what allows the people in charge of foodservice at these entities to set the bar so low? It pains me to bash Southwest, I actually like the airline on many levels and think they provide tremendous value to travelers. However, the food options on board their flights are weak. I avoid eating the crap they serve in most cases but couldn’t avoid it on a recent trip. By the time I deplaned at the connecting airport on this trip I was starving. The airport was small and regional with no quality food options (captive again!). Sullen, I walked to my gate, boarded my flight and was sitting in my seat before hunger surpassed my idealism. I pulled a Southwest menu out of the seat-back pocket and read it to see if there were any real options. Aside from peanuts, pretzels and Nabisco snacks, there were none. The flight attendant allowed me to select one of each and I sampled.

Studying each of the small packages, I notice that none make any kind of statement about food integrity. I wonder where the peanuts are from, whether they are conventionally sourced, whether my crackers are free of transfats, and whether my pretzels are organic (no) and lye-free (no). For more than five years researchers have been working to genetically engineer the allergens out of peanuts. Are these peanuts modified? I would love to know. No need to open the peanuts, my stomach is turning.

Studying the Nabisco Cheese Nips I notice the product has nineteen ingredients. All of them are generally regarded as safe (GRAS) but if given an option I will pass when it comes to eating the partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer), sodium caseinate (casein neutralized by lye), and acetic acid (flavor enhancer) in these nips.

My view is aligned with Professor Kelly Brownell at Yale and Professor (and rock star author) Michael Pollan at Berkeley when it comes to foods with more that a few ingredients. Pollan recommends only eating processed foods with five ingredients or less and Brownell questions whether foods with as many ingredients as my Cheese Nips are actually drugs or controlled substances in disguise. Again, I am left searching for food integrity. At this stage I toss all three packets into the trash when the flight attendant passes by. Southwest has made famous their meager food options as part of their cost containment and low price strategy. This is fine. However, if you serve a snack of any kind, make sure it has integrity. Find a sustainable, scalable source for these types of snacks with high food integrity or ditch them all together.

So that’s my strategy; I look for where food sucks and consider the discovery a revelation. If you are an entrepreneur, seek out where food sucks and you will find your next great opportunity. If you are a major manufacturer, develop products with true integrity and ditch the engineering. It is only a matter of time before the wave of integrity that is washing over American foodservice cleans out these last remaining pockets of bad food. Serve us food with integrity and we will come!

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Sra. Martinez: In Miami The Food is Hot!

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Posted 08 Aug 2010 — by S.E.
Category Fine Dining

It seems strange to have dinner in Miami with the sun still shining. Even though its 8:30PM, it seems so early that I feel like I am here for the early-bird special before heading home to soak my false teeth (joking here, I dont have false teeth!) It’s just too bright out to have dinner. I usually don’t even head out for dinner in this town until its dark, regardless of the time of year. However Sra. Martinez is starting to get busy and I think we may have beat the rush. We take a table on the outside patio, order a couple glasses of wine and settle in.

We selected Sra. Martinez because I am a huge Michelle Bernstein and David Martinez fan and I am curious to find out how things are going. Sitting outside allows me to fully absorb the beauty of the 1920’s era Post Office that David Martinez and Michelle Bernstein, aka Señora (Sra.) Martinez, converted into a hip tapas style bistro. The exterior of the building retains many of its original features including a majestic carved stone eagle perched above the main entry.  As I sip my wine, I notice my water glass coated in condensation. Taking a closer look I find the wonderful logo that Bernstein and Martinez created for the restaurant printed on the side of the glass. It’s a black outlined ellipse with “Martinez” in bold lettering and a small bright red pig in profile in the center. The umbrellas above each of the outdoor tables are adorned with this logo as well.

 

Memories of my first introduction to David flash through my mind. It was March 2005 and I was two courses into a twelve course dinner at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago when he and his delightful fiancé (now wife) Michelle Bernstein came in and sat at the table right next to us. Michelle and I had crossed paths over the years and I was delighted to see her but didn’t recognize the person she was with, David and I had never met before. She waved just before being seated and I reciprocated. At that moment Charlie Trotter came up the back stairs and over to our table to say hello to us. After a brief conversation I pointed Michelle out to Charlie (he recognized her right away) and walked over to her table with him. She jumped up to give Charlie a hug, introduced me to David and she and Charlie had a polite chat while I engaged in conversation with David. The main thing I remember about this first introduction to David was how gracious and kind he seemed and how much taller he was than Michelle. I also recall Charlie asking Michelle what she was planning to do now that she was on her own and Michelle relaying a vision of opening a restaurant of her own in the near future.

Five years later and Michelle and David have opened more than a couple restaurants, consulted, participated in multiple television shows and launched Sra. Martinez as their latest venture. One of the beautiful things about Michelle, other than her ballerina like grace and wonderful culinary skill, is the energy she gives off. She never sits still. She’s always on the go, there’s no holding her back. I already know, from talking with friends in town who know her better than I do, that she’s not at Sra. Martinez tonight. She’s cooking dinner for a small group of patrons who won the bidding for her services during a charity event a few months earlier. As busy as she is, she still has time to give back. David is probably here though and I decide that after dinner I will head inside to see if he’s around.

We decide to share four dishes and ask our server to pick them. Descriptions of two of the four dishes follow. The first is the Egg Yolk Carpaccio with Sweet Shrimp and Crispy Potatoes. This dish has received some publicity and I am curious to try it. When it arrives I am stunned. The dish is exactly what it claims to be, a “Carpaccio” of egg yolks. That is, a plate full of whipped raw egg yolks topped with sweet shrimp, crispy shoe string potatoes, and a drizzle of olive oil. My first thought is a knee-jerk fear of the raw egg yolks. Knowing Bernstein, there has to be more to this dish. I wonder if she cooks the eggs sous vide prior to whipping and plating them. My fear fades away after thinking about who’s in charge of the kitchen. I trust Michelle and she probably knows the exact farm from where these eggs were sourced and the names of each of the chickens who gave birth to them. Fear aside, I dig in and am not disappointed. The egg yolk flavor is intense, fatty and smooth. Each shrimp is just cooked and seasoned perfectly. Their buttery sweet flavor and texture offer an appropriate and complimentary contrast to the yolks. The crispy potatoes provide the final touch and make the dish complete. It takes a bold chef to offer this type of item and an even bolder one to pull it off so well. What a great item! 

 

We also tried the Butifarra; a dish consisting of giant white beans, Foie Gras duck sausage, and Port Wine. Bernstein serves this item on a large, narrow, white oval platter. The white beans are huge and the duck sausage rich with Foie Gras. After a quick flash in a sauté pan the sausages are deglazed with port wine, reduced with duck stock and topped with the white beans. As I eat this dish I sop up the sauce with a thick piece of bread, enjoying the light coating of duck fat that has collected on the surface of the sauce. This is another bold flavored dish and one that I assumed would be better in the fall than in summer. Again, Bernstein proves me wrong with this dish. Although bold in flavor and rich with Foie Gras and white beans, the dish works well in the heat of Miami.

  

After sharing two more dishes and a few more glasses of wine, we cash out our check and move inside. The restaurant is full now and David Martinez is at the bar. He has just finished visiting each of the tables in the dining room and smiles as he sees us. We let him know that we have already had dinner and just stopped in to say hello. He shares a couple anecdotes and tells us that the restaurant is doing great. Sra. Martinez is close enough to Michy’s (their other restaurant) for the two to easily travel between them. David was over at Michy’s for part of the night and will remain here at Sra. Martinez for an hour before returning back. He still has that same gracious and kind vibe that I remember from our first meeting and, after such a good meal, I think he has much to celebrate.

 Sra Martinez

4000 NE 2nd Avenue

Miami, FL 33137

305-573-5474

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Michel Richard’s Central: Home of the Lobster Burger

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Posted 02 Aug 2010 — by S.E.
Category Fine Dining

We arrive at Michel Richard’s Central at 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. in a flutter. The rest of our party arrived an hour earlier, ordered lunch, and they’re waiting for us while trying to delay service. We are en route when one of our friends at the restaurant calls and asks if she should order for us because the kitchen is closing in five minutes. We are running out of time. “Where are you guys?” she asks in desperation as we walk through the front door and out of the sticky heat that blankets the city this time of year. Wilted but in good spirits, we sit down and order with less than a minute to spare relieved to be inside where it’s air conditioned.

Our server arrives, takes our order (adding it to the one already placed by the others) and heads toward the kitchen. I take a few moments to catch my breath and soak in the dining room décor. The restaurant is brushed with natural light from the west facing bank of windows that run the length of the dining room. This natural light compliments the high ceiling and two toned light fixtures that hang along the center of the room. It’s a large restaurant with what appears to be over one hundred seats including several large banquettes with neutral colored leather upholstery. Tables and chairs are a natural maple and the Berber carpet is tan in color giving the restaurant a bright, earth toned natural feel. Sleek, contemporary, playful, (there’s a huge portrait of Richard’s bearded face on display near the wine cellar) and comfortable come to mind as I sit looking around what is now a nearly empty dining room. Although our server is not rushing us, our food arrives faster than expected disrupting my wandering mind.

 

Classic Beef Burger with Cheese. This burger is special. Richard makes his own hamburger rolls on site, the beef is fresh ground, shaped into a one inch thick patty and perfectly cooked, and the French fries are fresh as well. There is nothing like a simple item, perfectly executed, to make me happy. Classic Beef Burger $17

 Lobster Burger from Heaven. Richard takes a couple of split lobster tails and intertwines them, grills them over high heat, plops them on a disk of lightly oven dried tomato sitting on the bottom of a fresh baked bun, tops them with potato crisps, a little special mayonnaise based ginger sauce, caps them with a fluffy, egg washed bun and serves. This is not an inexpensive dish but it is absolutely fantastic. The lobster is lightly charred from a hot pan but perfectly cooked, moist and toothsome (not easy to do with lobster) and the sandwich is big enough for us to split in half and share. When I cut the burger it remains completely intact. This makes me wonder if the lobster tails were dusted with transglutaminase (meat glue), I am assured they were not! No matter…it tastes wonderful. Lobster Burger $29

The only other guy at the table with me orders a simple New York strip steak. It arrives grilled to perfection with a topping of maitre d’ hotel butter, spinach and arugula salad and a side of those awesome fries. I like the way the fries are served standing up in a cup, it keeps them crisp and the salt evenly distributed. He takes one slice out of the steak and it is exactly medium rare, piping hot, and seasoned. NY Strip $32

 

Being an oyster fanatic, we order our first dozen and share them. Nothing fancy with the presentation but they are ice cold, correctly handled and delicious. Unfortunately, I am still so enamored with the lobster burger that I forget to write down the types of oysters we are eating. I think they are Hama Hama’s and Dabob Bay’s but can’t quite remember, probably because I was eating them so fast. Dozen Oysters $32

 

The same is true of dessert. We ordered four desserts to share knowing that Michel Richard earned his stripes as a pastry chef before starting a mini restaurant empire. Before I thought to snap a few shots of these items, it was too late, we had wiped out all but one; the bread pudding. What a shame, it would be nice to share a photo of Richard’s signature “Chocolate Bar” dessert. Bread & Butter Pudding $8

 

We were in an out of Central in about an hour. The food was fantastic and the setting comfortable and relaxing. Better yet, our server never once made us feel rushed, was gracious the whole time we dined, and walked us to the door with a smile.

Central Michel Richard

1001 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20004

202-626-0015

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O Ya Restaurant ~ Boston: Seeing and Eating the Finer Things

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Posted 25 Jul 2010 — by S.E.
Category Fine Dining

Every once in a while I dine alone. The solitude is relaxing to me and my sense of observation is heightened when I am by myself. Being alone forces me to take things in at a slower pace and to view the world undistracted. Perhaps this is due to the hectic pace that runs like a raging river through my life. I love charging ahead each day with full force but realize that I miss the details of life from time to time. I am surrounded by people who live this way, the successful people I run with fully engage life. No one is sitting on the sidelines and we tend to run in a pack. Because of this, it’s rare for me to be alone, let alone, eat alone. When I do, my senses are heightened.

Tonight, to further enhance my experience I plan to eat at a restaurant within one or two miles of the waterfront hotel where I am staying here in Boston (again). From time to time when travelling, I walk from my hotel to a restaurant to soak in a city at street level. Walking, so long as the weather is good, helps slow things down as well. It provides heightened details about the neighborhoods and environment surrounding the restaurant that you can’t see, smell, or feel, when riding in a vehicle. For tonight’s adventure I select Tim Cushman’s O Ya which is exactly one mile from my hotel at 9 East St., in Boston. The sky is blue and sunny and I am heading that way on foot.

I leave the hotel at 7:00pm walking northwest on Congress street toward the city. The sun is just starting to dip below the Boston skyline and the city arteries are slowing down as rush hour eases. It is still 80 degrees out, so I pause for a moment and consider jumping on the Silver Line bus that runs under the seaport directly to South Station. East Street is a stones throw from South Station and riding would save me from the heat. The Silver Line station is absolutely deserted and strangely clean. This makes me uneasy for some reason so I head back up the stairs and out the door. To hell with the bus, I could use the exercise anyway.

After passing the intersection of A Street and Congress I notice a huge piece of graffiti by (now famous) Shepard Fairey pasted to a building. Fairey is the artist best know for riffing on an Associated Press photo of Barak Obama creating one of the most recognizable posters of the 2008 campaign and a heap of copyright infringement trouble for himself in the process. Four stories up next to a fire escape is a large four foot by six foot stencil of “Obey” Fairey’s 1990 ode to the professional wrestler Andre the Giant. If you drive down Congress Street you will miss this work because the building is set back behind a parking lot parallel to the street. There are thousands of these images stenciled on buildings around the world now, if you miss this one, there will be others. I click a few shots of it and move on.

A few minutes later I am on Atlantic Avenue heading south toward South Station. The stone façade of the station is speckled with sunlight reflecting off of a sky scraper across the street. Studying it for a moment, the light shifts and the building entrance, windows, and clock are lit by the reflection. What a beautiful image.

Crossing the street I am now just a minute or two from O Ya. I continue down Atlantic Avenue passing Essex Street and make a right onto East Street. O Ya is just ahead, hidden on the south side of the street. For some reason Tim Cushman and his team designed an entrance that is so completely understated that you could miss it. Located in a multistory brick building, O Ya’s street presence consists of a small sign and a door that appears to be made of graying slabs of rough hewn barn-board.

 

I enter into a small vestibule and approach the maître d’ station. The hostess greets me and escorts me to a table. I order a beer and scan the room taking it in. O Ya has an industrial feeling, loft like interior with concrete floors, exposed ventilation and brick. The dining room consists of a long sushi bar with eighteen bar stools on one side and, on the opposite wall, a long banquette with eight tables for two. Three large arched windows provide natural light. The wall above the banquette is painted a pastel green with natural colored wood trim and the tables are a lightly stained cherry. Wooden chopsticks on small ceramic rests are located at each place setting. My pair is made of Yew and rest on a green ceramic fish.

 

When my waiter arrives to take my order, I ask him to have Cushman send out four courses of what ever he feels like sending so long as it doesn’t have Wagyu or Faberge in the name. He smiles with delight and tells me I wont be disappointed.

1) My first course is the Diver Scallop with Sage Tempura, Olive Oil Bubbles and Meyer Lemon. Five pieces of scallop arrive on a pastel green square platter. Each is topped with a tempura fried sage leaf and a rich, lemony, olive oil foam. The texture of the scallop contrasted with the sage leaf is fantastic. The olive oil foam adds an almost heavy cream like richness to the dish with a wonderful lemon perfume finish.

2) Next, I have the Hamachi with Viet Mignonette, Thai Basil, and Shallot. Three, fatty, skin-on, perfect slices of Hamachi arrive. They are simply presented with a chiffonade of Thai Basil, the Mignonette, and a dusting of dried shallot and spicy red chili. The Himachi is pristine and the combination of flavors wonderful. Halfway through the first bite, the basil cuts in with the saltiness of the mignonette. After a few more bits, the chili kicks in for a nice warm, lingering finish. 

3) I have had these Fried Kumamoto Oysters with Yuzo Kosho Aioli, Squid Ink Bubbles before. They are tiny little oysters that are flash fried and served warm and sexy. The squid ink foam, when it arrives at the table, is almost purple in color and sits atop each oyster. Beneath each oyster is a small “button” of aioli that serves as a flavorful glue, keeping the oyster attached to the sushi rice. Excellent!

4) Out comes a Soft Shell Crab with Soy and Sesame mousse. Topped with a fine julienne of scallion, this dish is explosive in flavor. The soy and sesame mousse is so perfectly balanced and thick in texture that it coats my palate while I crunch on the salty, oceany flavored crab. As I dismantle the crab, small wisps of steam escape perfuming the air. Another winner.

5) Tea Brined Fried Pork Ribs with Hot Sesame Oil, Honey, and Scallions. I anticipated that this item would have some flavor overlap with the crab since several ingredients are used in both dishes but this wasn’t the case. When I took my first bit of the Pork Ribs I inhaled just before putting the fork in my mouth and got a full head of the complex flavor that made Frank Bruniof the New York Times swoon over this dish back in 2008. The tea Cushman uses in the brine adds such a depth to this dish and, surprisingly, the subtle notes of flavor from the tea remain fully intact after frying.

6) The festivities end with Soy Milk Blancmange with Chilled Thai Tea, and Thai Basil Seeds.  This is the one dish that I ordered on my own.  I chose it because the description was interesting and I have yet to find a soy cream of any sort that meets my expectation. When the blancmange arrived, I was a bit disappointed at the presentation but this changed once I tasted it. This was the smoothest, most flavorful soy dessert I have had in years. The basil seeds floating on top added such a wonderful perfume and crunch and the cream was spectacular. Heads up all you lactose folks. I would order it again.

Six courses later and I am ready to walk back to the hotel. The past 90 minutes went by quickly but I feel great. Portion sizes were perfect and O Ya is just as good as I remember it. Having a great meal like this leaves me resonating with a love for the culinary profession. I think I will take the long way home!

O Ya

9 East St.

Boston, MA 02111

617-654-9900

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Breakfast in the Rio Grande National Forest

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Posted 10 Jul 2010 — by S.E.
Category Travel

 

It’s  sunrise and we are awake after a wonderful night of sleep in a cabin located at an altitude of 9000ft just outside of Creede, Colorado. The air is brisk at 55 degrees as we shake off the sleep, head outside into first-light and load up our SUV.  A few minutes later we are bouncing along, kicking up chalky dust as we go, driving southeast along a dirt forest service road, the headwaters of the Rio Grande meandering along to our right, the Rio Grande National Forest and its thousands of Spruce trees passing by gently to our left. Sunlight hasn’t yet crested over the mountains but a soft light is already illuminating the valley. Within an hour we will be eating breakfast at one of the most incredible locations nature can provide. We are guests of a friend who scored us an invitation to a “crack-of-dawn” mountain breakfast in the Rio Grande National Forest that has been happening from time to time in this community for multiple generations. This is a locals only, invitation only, insider event and, from what I hear, they deploy into the mountains with their food and equipment like a finely tuned military unit.  The forest service road comes to an end in a mountain meadow at just under two miles in altitude. I turn and face back down the road amazed at the view; a rolling meadow giving way in the distance to mountain peaks nearly denuded of snow.

 

Ahead, a small group of cowpokes who arrived earlier have two propane camp stoves lit rendering clouds of steam, the smell of fresh bacon spreading through the air as it cooks. I walk over and introduce myself and find out that these four gents are all summer residents of Creede and three out of four of them are from Texas. Throughout the morning they will cook a dozen pounds of bacon, stoves propped up on a modular wooden table made for just this occasion. As we are talking, a group of women from Louisiana (summer residents too) arrive, set up their own camp stove and, after fifteen minutes or so, begin cooking beignets, lightly dusting the golden brown puffs with powdered sugar as they stack them on plates ready for service.

  

As the sun rises higher, the air temperature begins to heat up to a comfortable 70 degrees; the sky is crystal clear except for a few small clouds and turning a deep Colorado blue. Another group of women arrives and within moments they are cracking dozens of eggs into a large bowls in preparation for a major scramble. It is obvious that these folks have done this before. I wander over to the edge of the meadow taking it all in and find a stream about four feet wide flowing along at a good clip. The water is ice cold whooshing along and the river full of slippery rocks. The sound of arriving vehicles rises over the rushing water. We are getting closer to ready and more people are arriving.

 

I head back to the meadow, set up a couple folding chairs and wander over to the table. This is more than a community catered breakfast; it’s also a major potluck event. Bowls of fruit salad, fresh muffins, quick breads, green chili egg casserole (our item), corned beef hash, and crispy home fries have been kindly contributed. The bacon is up, beignets crisp and ready, scrambled eggs just done and on the table; it’s time to eat. We grab plates, get in line and take our time gathering small samples of nearly every item. The hot food is hot, cold food cold, and everything looks delicious. Behind us, the bacon guys cook more bacon, the beignet ladies pump out more crispy morsels, and the scrambled egg station is in full motion. Rounding the end of the buffet table, we head back to our chairs, take a seat and begin to eat, the sound of the stream providing white noise behind us.  As we finish our first round I can feel what little stress left in my body drain away as the sun grows higher.

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Facebook, Palo Alto, CA

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Posted 28 Jun 2010 — by S.E.
Category On-Site Dining

I am with a friend and we just spent 90 minutes driving north from Monterey up the 101 toward San Francisco, the pastoral garlic fields of Gilroy giving way to urban San Jose and Palo Alto. The sun is shining and the weather is dry, it’s a classic northern California day. Along the way we decide to stop in and see Facebook Culinary Overlord (an all around good guy) Chef Josef Desimone, have breakfast, tour his shop, and find out the latest culinary happenings at the worlds most popular social media juggernaut. Although I make it sound like the visit is impromptu it really isn’t, we decided to make this stop as part of our itinerary several months ago.

Prior to leaving home to make this trip I took time over several nights to read “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook” by Ben Mezrich a writer with a Harvard pedigree just like Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerburg. Although Mezrich paints a sensational picture of the creative genius and high drama that occurred during the birth of Facebook he also subtly reveals that Zuckerburg could potentially be a guy who likes the finer things in life like good food and wine (in addition to supermodels and long hours writing code). I wonder if this is true and what the typical Facebook employee eats. Maybe Joe will enlighten me.

Wall Art at Facebook HQ

With so much written about Facebook and Mezrich’s sensationalism finally dissipating, my attention is drawn to the food and food preferences of the young and elite class of geniuses that run this place. What does a Facebook employee crave for a meal after signing on another five million users in a week or getting hammered in the New York Times for some sort of security breach or advertising strategy? After a few minutes waiting at the front desk, Chef Desimone steps into the lobby to greet us and in we go. Josef is unlike any other onsite foodservice chef I have ever met. His statistics aren’t all that unusual; 3100 meals a day, operating hours from 4:00 am until 1:00 am, 53 employees give or take a few, generous but finite budget for food and beverage, the unit falling under the real estate division of the company. His approach to menu development, food safety, staff development, and culinary quality, however, are at the leading edge of the industry.

We are now walking through the wide central hallways of Facebook headquarters on our way to the dining room. Branching off of the main hallway are twenty foot wide workspaces with clusters of open cubicles populated with young, vibrant, totally engaged Facebook employees who don’t even look up as we walk past. Turning a corner at a hallway intersection an employee snack station appears to my right. Joe points out the selection of fresh fruit, healthy snacks, ice cold beverages, hot beverages, cereal, candy, trail mix and the like, explaining how he first deployed these types of snack stations while executive chef at Google and has refined and improved the concept here. I ask Joe what other things he does differently at Facebook and he spins around the corner with me in-tow heading toward another bank of cubicles on the other side of the hallway where his desk is located. As we cross over to the other side of the skylight hallway two employees walk past, both dressed like they just stepped out of a mid-town Manhattan night club. Interesting!

We get to his desk and Chef Desimone pulls open a file folder and starts thumbing through page after page of menus. Then, he logs into his computer and opens up a spread sheet. On the far left column are the months and days of the year for 2010; in the next column is a theme, in the third column a group of names. At Facebook “menus are like sandcastles” Joe says. Sandcastles I ask, startled? “Yeah, once you create one, it lasts for a day, then it’s done and you make a completely new one.” Joe goes on to tell me that at Facebook he never recreates the same menu twice. Every day he offers a unique, themed menu based on a country or event. He shows me a page from the April menu that includes themes, offered from Monday the 5th to Friday the 9th, titled “Major League Baseball Opening Day, Pasta Bar, France, Thailand, and Breakfast for Lunch.” Each theme includes detailed menus, recipes, and production schedules created by the team leader and individuals assigned.

We make our way out into the kitchen for a tour, talking as we go. Joe operates a large kitchen divided into sections according to production. Refrigeration and food storage lines the back wall adjacent to a hot line designed for bulk production (stocks, braises, bulk soups etc). In one corner of the space is a pastry production area and, rounding the corner opposite the bulk production line is another long hot line with a deck oven (he makes lots of pizza), wok station, fryers, griddle, and gas ranges. Across from this second hot line is a row of stainless steel work tables lined up end to end followed by the hot serving line. The kitchen is quietly busy and spotless. Every cook is professionally dressed and every one of them is wearing a hat. Joe’s kitchen isn’t just clean and organized it is wound tight like a Swiss watch. Seeing production in action prods our conversation back to menu planning.

The menu planning process which involves as much organization and discipline as it does creativity, is one of Joe’s key training and staff development tools. He knows every detail of what was served in the past year and what is planed for the weeks and months to come and scrutinizes every menu, giving feedback and assistance along the way. He assures that there is always something new and of high quality being developed by his staff members and, in turn, the staff members never grow stagnant. Everyone, including Joe, is constantly growing and expanding his or her repertoire.

This makes me wonder if the culinary attention span of the twenty-something engineers employed at Facebook force chef Desimone to go to such lengths. He relays that his intent is to constantly offer new and interesting foods while also providing an opportunity for Facebook employees to expand their food preferences and refine their palate. He sees his role as one of providing sustenance while also providing a type of culinary education to employees too. He does, however, repeat proteins on a regular basis due to demand. “I can offer any kind of chicken and they will love it, they love healthy fish and they kill pulled pork when I run it” Joe relays. Rotating menus aren’t a response to fickle eaters; they are a tool to keep eaters and employees engaged when the same group of cooks and consumers see each other five days a week.  Joe is one part conductor of an ever evolving symphony and one part jazz musician jamming as he goes, the same musicians (cooks) and audience (employees) at each performance.  He orchestrates the whole process while offering a regular core menu and group of accompaniments 20 hours a day.

Looking out into the dining room, with is long bank of windows with views of the first floor patio, twelve foot high ceilings, orange and grey chairs, white tables, and neutral toned carpet, the design is sleek and bright. We make our way over to the beverage and cold food station and he shows me another innovation, an allergen symbol system. If the menu item being served contains egg, the item description posted above it on the sneeze guard includes a graphic of an egg. If it contains dairy, the description includes a graphic of a small milk carton. This system continues for wheat, nuts, shellfish, fish, alcohol, spicy and hot products. He also places on asterisk on items that are vegetarian and contain no meat products and two asterisks on items that are vegan and contain no animal or animal by-products. As Joe explains the system, we walk over to the baked goods section (breakfast is still being served) and I notice one of the Facebook employees taking a muffin from a basket. I ask her if the symbol system makes sense and she agrees stating that it took her less than two minutes to figure it out. The system is simple, clear, and effective. Joe is smiling.

We pick up trays and head over to the hot line. I grab a spoon full of perfectly cooked scrambled eggs, a couple fresh sausages, some roasted potatoes and head for a seat. Three of us sit down to have breakfast and our conversation continues as Joe tells us about his professional background and vision for Facebook foodservice in the coming year. What makes his food so good is that it’s perfectly prepared using the best ingredients and loses nothing in quality due to the massive scale he contends with. Time is running short now so I ask Joe what Zuckerburg likes to eat. Joe, the consummate professional, smiles and explains the incredible relationship he has with the Facebook executive team and that Mark Zuckerburg’s food preferences are not up for discussion. He pauses for a moment in thought reading my face to see if I am disappointed by his answer. With a twinkle in his eye he leans over to whisper, the educator in him coming out again, and tells us that he continues to introduce Zuckerburg to new and exciting foods when ever he gets the chance. If asked, I bet Zuckerburg would tell me that Joe has never served him the same thing twice and that he’s learned more about food from Joe than anyone else in his life! Facebook is an ever evolving community of eaters and Joe does food right for them all.

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White House Chef Sam Kass: The Most Powerful Chef in America

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Posted 23 Jun 2010 — by S.E.
Category Food Alert Trends

Sam Speaks

On June 4th, 1000 chefs (including me) attended the launch of first lady Michelle Obama’s “Chefs Move Schools” initiative on the south lawn of the White House. This was an event associated with the “Let’s Move” program mentioned in an earlier blog post. The day started with a series of presentations on healthy eating and wellness strategies for public schools at the JW Marriott Hotel around the corner from the White House. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan presented along with others including Billy Shore of Share our Strength. At 10:00 am 1000 chefs departed the J.W. Marriott Hotel and headed west down Pennsylvania avenue cuing up at the east gate leading to the south lawn. Imagine the scene; 1000 chefs dressed in their whites walking in unison down Pennsylvania avenue.

JW Marriott

After crossing through the east gate and through multiple security checkpoints I enter the white house grounds at 10:30 am. For the next ninety minutes, I have the pleasure of walking around the vegetable garden planted on the southwest corner of the lawn adjacent to E-street, observing the new beehive up close, and interacting with dozens of colleagues, celebrity chefs, and friends. In addition to regular folks like me and my immediate companions, the festivities attract a cadre of world class chefs including Daniel Bolud, Marcus Samuelson, Tom Coliccio, and Sherry Yard along with television chefs like Cat Cora, Rachel Ray and 994 others of varying culinary backgrounds and pedigrees. By now, the launch has been widely reported in the press and from what I can tell “Chefs Move Schools” is gaining momentum. At 11:30 we make our way up toward the White House to take our seats. Through a series of lucky opportunities (and some good friends), I find three seats in the front row. Its 11:50 a.m. now.

Bee Hive

Looking up from my seat, I am overwhelmed by this place. As a major fan of American history, my mind is reeling. Leaning back, I scan over my right shoulder, catch the eye of chef Ellie Krieger of the food network and realize she is sitting just a dozen or so yards from where Richard Nixon made his final departure from the White House and his presidency on Marine One, hands raised waving peace-signs over his head as he stops at the helicopter door to smile before taking off for the last time. My skin is tingling. Turning around to face forward, I sit quietly reflecting and realize that slightly to the right in front of me are the twin staircases leading up to the south portico where Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated for his historic fourth term, the ceremony kept sedate in 1945 due to the ravages of war around the world and (most likely) FDR’s failing health. This is hallowed ground. I close my eyes for a minute to soak it in. I hear the door below the south portico open and then shut and I open my eyes again. An attendant has exited the ground floor and is carrying a small table with two glasses of water on it to the podium. I guess we are about to get started.

Cora & Samuelson

At 12:00 noon sharp, Ms. Obama exits the vestibule on the ground floor of the White House residence through the arched doorway just below the south portico onto the lawn to deliver her speech. There is a nervous excitement settling while she heads toward the podium. She opens her speech by commenting on the blazing heat. It’s above 90 degrees and we are all sitting, sweating in full sun, a sea of starched white chef coats reflecting the sun back at Ms. Obama. After a couple of additional comments she states “I have to say I wasn’t sure when I heard the goal of having nearly a thousand chefs on the South Lawn.  I said, right, Sam, sure, whatever. But you all pulled it off.  And I am just so proud and honored to have you here at the White House.” The Sam she is so proud of is Sam Kass, special events chef at the White House.  Kass is a Chicago native who graduated from the University of Chicago, was on the crew at Avec under Chef Paul Kahan, and, according to the Chicago Tribune, is founder of Inevitable Table also in Chicago.

 

The Obama’s recruited him to join the White House culinary team in January 2009 and since then he has been building a reputation as a culinary activist with a broad goal to improve the world through food. He has a heavy leaning toward local and organic foods and was the primary influence behind the now famous White House vegetable garden. Watching Kass throughout the morning and hearing Ms. Obama’s comments makes me realize that, as of today, Kass has brought culinary activism to a whole new level. He has joined the national ranks of chefs Alice Waters, Ann Cooper, Dan Barber and, more recently, Jamie Oliver. Along with being a historic moment in culinary activism, Kass has just become the most powerful chef in the country.

Jose Andres, Ellie Krieger

He has taken a page out of the Obama’s play-book and garnered the support of major grassroots organizations like Share Our Strength, Chef’s Collaborative, Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, The American Culinary Federation, Research Chefs Association and many others to attract in less than 10 days 1000 chefs (at their own expense) to this event. Hundreds of chefs are mobilizing and volunteering at schools around the country and Sam is the force behind all of this along with Ms. Obama. This is the first time I know of that a chef at the White House has leveraged his or her role to create grassroots change in foodservice; a real historic moment.

Garden

Over the years I have dined with and spoken to other chefs who have worked at the White House. Henry Haller was a true gentleman who quietly went about his business and refused to speak about any of the details surrounding the foods that particular presidents preferred or disliked or matters related to politics. Chef Roland Mesnier, although absolutely hilarious and fun in social settings, shares a bit more of the details that Haller was hesitant to divulge but never ventures into social change or other political matters. My discussions with these chefs were about food and about continually increasing the quality of dining at the White House. It never occurred to them that being a chef at the White House would be a source of power and cultural change. They never remotely touched on activism. Considering the popularity of cooking and food as entertainment today (I am surrounded right now by celebrity chefs) the level of culinary activism emerging at the White House seems to be a natural progression. Kass is a chef of his generation just as Haller and Mesnier were. Kass is blessed with a contemporary food and culinary culture (and an administration) that allows his culinary activism to be taken seriously. He stands on the shoulders of Haller, Mesnier and the others who came before him.

 

Ms. Obama continues to speak. She is talking about empowering chefs to improve school foodservice now and states “This has been a long conversation that Sam and I have had over the years, and I think it’s just pretty powerful to see what started out as a few conversations in our kitchen on the South Side of Chicago turn into a major initiative that hopefully will change the way we think as a country, not just about the health of our kids but about our health as a nation.” Her talk lasts another 30 minutes covering inspirational topics related to health and wellness and detailed statistics that show she (her staff) has done her homework.

 

Ms. Obama wraps up her comments. “So let’s move, let’s get this done.  Thank you all for the work you’ve done.  And I look forward to seeing you all in the months to come.  Thanks so much.”  She steps down from the podium and heads indoors while the secret service ushers us back out the east gate. Chefs continue to mill about taking pictures, talking, and basking in the moment, many are now sunburned and parched. Have we entered a heightened era of culinary activism? Perhaps, only time will tell. One thing is for sure, that Kass is taken seriously marks a watershed moment in the evolution of the culinary profession and a tremendous step forward for American Chefs. What a privilege to watch history as it happens.

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