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.