THE CUT

8/20/11

I made scallop sashimi. I brined the scallops with parmesan water for 20 minutes. Served it with marinated torched fresno, pink peppercorn, sudachi, crispy bacon and olive oil.

Red Devil/Aka Oni Roll

So, my goal was to make the ultimate spicy tuna roll. I used beet tempura flakes, black rice, habanero marinated tuna, red bell peppers, cucumbers. I serve it with coconut miso yogurt sauce to calm the heat down. This roll was one of the top seller at Imperia.

10/3/10

9/29-10/5

-Peruvian purple potato gnocchi, sake kasu butter, shiro dashi, potato chips
-Autumn squash, dong po style kurobuta pork belly, quinoa, honey
-"Yam Pizza", shimeji mushrooms, mozzarella
-"Chawanmushi"Japanese savory egg custard, maitake, shrimp, uni, yuzu foam

-Bacon panna cotta, sweet corn broth, molten chocolate, carmel popcorn

9/18/10

9/16-9/22

-Thai style beef salad, sea lettuce, crunchy rice, mint
-Agedashi Tofu, daikon, ginger, eggplant, yuzu peel
-Grilled salmon, honey mascarpone, sake lees
-Blue crab salad, bacon tostada, pine nuts, cranberry, kimizu vinegar

9/12/10

On Wednesdays, Vincent(Chef de cuisine), Juan (Sous Chef) and I usually start out working on the lists. Ingredients, prep list, ordering, concepts, flavor profiling and etc.

The ingredients arrives.....

This heirloom tomato was locally grown. It was very juicy, but not watery like roma tomatoes. It was sweeter than a ripe cherry tomato and the skin was smooth enough that I didn't have to peel them.

We rendered Spanish style chorizo for the escolar special. To me, this has more acidity than the Mexican style chorizo. It also has the straightforward essence taste, more clean and less spices.

This was the 1st concept of the dessert. It didn't work out too well. The smoked granita was little too smoky to eat as dessert especially since I used shiso leaves to give it a little earthiness. It could have been used to combine with crudo, sashimi or even some gazpacho.

After walking around the building a couple of times, I got inspired by Asian style of eating for this dessert. In most of Asia we use rice as the main dish and eat different condiments around the table to mix the flavors on top of the rice. So, I made cumin cream to act like a rice and others for condiments. Cumin cream lessens the smoke on the granita and added sweetness and complimentary spice to the smoke. Pop rock added very cool after effect in your mouth.
I also wanted the dish to look like a zen garden.

Unconsciously summer reminds me of a barbecue. I've done many smoked specials the last couple of months. I first cured this escolar with spices, I let it hang out in the fridge overnight. I cold smoked it with applewood. It had a buttery mouth feel of escolar, acidity of grapefruit, sour flavor of capers and
umami from the chorizo and the smokiness tied everything together nicely.

At the end of Saturday night, we had some time to get creative. Vincent backtracked and decided to try out the concept we discussed about a month ago.

We wanted to make hard sugar spherification. For now, it will be difficult to mass produce. We will eventually take this concept and make a dish out of it. I can't wait!