LindyChef

I had a very poor meal last Friday night at Crush. I had been looking forward to going there for a year and a few friends accompanied me to the restaurant. We had to wait 15 minutes for our table, normally not a big deal, but with the fact that they have absolutely no space for a waiting area bugged me as we had to constantly move out of the way whenever a party entered/left the restaurant (hint: reverse the hinges on the front door). As we waited I was able to look into the kitchen and saw that the staff was very relaxed and not too rushed, even though the restaurant was full, and that the chef was at the pass. Anyway, when we were seated the wait wasn't really acknowledged, and that bugged me the most. It took a long while to get service once we sat down and we ended up ordering the tasting menu. That's where things went bad. The courses: * First Course - Sunchoke soup with truffle oil. My prejudice for truffle oil aside, the soup was good, however two of the bowls had some large bits of green herbage stuck to the sides. Not a good sign since the soup had to be touched by at least the line cook, the chef and the waiter before getting to our table and yet they still served it. I made a point of telling the waiter about the dirty dishes at the end of the course. Not that big of a deal, except ... * Second Course - Yes, the salad course (bibb lettuce with a creamy herb dressing and proscuitto chip) had dirty edges on the plates as well. They had obviously been wiped down, yet the very sides of my dish had some dressing on them. The ribs on the bibb lettuce were turning brown and the salad had no seasoning. As a cook I felt bad about doing this, but I had to ask for salt in order to give the dish some flavor. As I finished the dish I noticed a fruit fly buzzing around my plate. In summer this would not be that big of a deal, but it's winter. I'm left to wondering how they have fruit flies in the restaurant in winter. * Third Course - Seared sea bass with creamed root veg and caviar sauce. This dish was the best of the savory dishes and I had no complaints. The sea bass had super crispy skin and the caviar sauce had a nice bit of saltiness. * Fourth Course - The famous short ribs with mashers and root veg. It was great except it was garnished with truffle oil which was totally unnecessary. * Fifth Course - The desserts were the most successful part of the evening. The spiced rum cake with the candied citrus was fantastic; the candied citrus managed to retain a wonderful sourness that worked well with the richness of the cake. There was also a great chocolate bombe (very decadent) and I had the mini donuts with the cinnamon sauce. Overall, I felt like the mistakes were pretty bad and the rest of the meal just couldn't make up for them ... dirty dishware is something that every member of the team should be on the lookout for and it felt sloppy when three different pairs of hands let dirty dishes get to the table. And to have the first thing you learn in culinary school, proper seasoning of your dish, be neglected in a salad that was made with old greens was just sloppy. After getting named one of the 10 best in F&W, I was expecting more, at least getting the basics right, but the impression I got is that the restaurant was coasting. To me it doesn't matter that we came in on a Friday night and had this experience; no matter when a customer comes they should get a great experience. They seemed to have enough staff in the kitchen to handle the rush, but FOH seemed to be dragging (we had long waits to order, for example). I know I shouldn't completely judge a place on just one visit, but since I'm just a line cook, I can't really afford to make another one, especially when the first one was so off.

Watched the Youtube clip. Please, this is a poor attempt at video editing. Anyone here with a DVR or TIVO can review frame by frame to disprove it. Didn't happen ← Didn't watch it on YouTube. Was just watching it now on my TiVo, saw it, couldn't believe it. Googled it, couldn't find it. Figured info might be on eGullet and lo and behold

I've eaten there a few times and I have to admit as a newbie to the restaurant world here in Seattle, Mark Canlis has been one of the people in the industry in town that has been very generous with his time and answering any questions that I've had for him. It's rare nowadays that a family buisness has someone running the operations with such competence.

Okay, I was no slouch in school, but still this topic makes my head hurt a bit, probably because it seems like there really isn't a text that I can go to that lists everything out. I know it's difficult to figure out exactly what's going on without starting simple first ... I'm getting my first set of chemicals soon and I'm very excited. Eventually, I want to work my way up to a creamsicle-like cocktail, with a vanilla/orange vodka garnished with vanilla flavored cream pearls, but I have some questions and I wonder if, with my understanding of things, a cream-based caviar would work? I've seen that other people here have had difficulty ... would reducing the cream and then using a reverse alginate bath have enough natural calcium to activate the alginate? In any case, if it works in theory, here's how I'm thinking of progressing to get practice: * Practice the regular apple recipe from Adria * Practice a reverse apple (calc in the apple, alginate in the bath) * Practice a creamsicle cocktail

I use strawberries all of the time where I work and, honestly, they keep better when stone dry, fresh and slightly underripe, however they are very delicate fruits ... they're not designed to keep and you shouldn't expect them to keep. The bakery has the advantage of getting a lot of fresh product that doesn't have to keep long because of their volume.

I do the peppers on a gas fired grill, although an oven would work just fine. The liquid I refer to comes from after they are pulled off the fire. When you're done with grilling, I was taught to put them in a container and cover the lid with plastic wrap (allowing the peppers to steam and help release the skin from the meat). Liquid seeps out of the peppers while steaming and into the container ... this is the liquid I refer to. I usually peel the peppers, although sometimes I'll leave about half of them with the skin on (it doesn't add a burnt flavor) ... I'll also sometimes roast the dried chiles over an open flame like you describe (one of the mexican cooks showed me this technique). I made some the other day that we served for family meal with tacos made out of "boche" (I think that's how it's spelled - pig tripe). Recently I did some with jalapenos, anaheims, serranos, and poblanos, along with a few red bell peppers, red onion and tomatillios. The flavor was tangy, a bit sweet and nice and spicy.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how restaurants are run and what is needed to make a successful restaurant from an operational standpoint. Although I am a cook, I come from a background that I think gives me a bit of perspective ... I graduated college with a business degree, then worked for a consulting firm creating methods and proceedures, and, before I got into the industry, I worked as a server technician and software consultant. Although it may not seem related at first, I have a good understanding of financials, I know how to create, implement and track methods and procedures, and I have lots of experience troubleshooting problems and developing creative solutions. When I turn that eye onto operations that I see, I have to scratch my head. Examples: * Very few restaurants I have come across have had defined checklists for prep and side work, be it front of the house or back of the house. There seems to be less discipline in those that don't have check lists and it comes across in the food and service, resulting in sometimes uneven experiences. * There tends to be an acceptance of poor facility planning. I have seen very few operations that try to work around poor design choices (entryways and allowing space for people to decompress when entering a space are a big one I've noticed). Instead of trying to work to see things from the customer's point of view and make the experience easier, they just tend to shrug and accept things as they are. * Our POS system does not have a test environment. When any manager (who has never read the manual, let alone been trained on the system) wants to make a change, they do it on the production (i.e. live) system. Fortunately, we haven't had any catostrophic problems with it, but the other day we started getting drink orders in the kitchen on the POS tickets. Turns out that someone had been fiddling with the POS system the previous night ... if they had done something to muck up the menu, we would have had major difficulties. However, haphazard changes are made on a regular basis, not even waiting until, say, end of the evening, to try and edit the live system. These are just examples, but they point to simple ideas and I wonder, with the restaurant failure rate being what it is, how much of an establishment's failure is a matter of a lack of formal education in the needs of the industry (which are quite large for operators - food knowledge, wine knowledge, people skills, operations knowledge, accounting and business skills, etc) or is it more of a question of talent? For years the restaurant industry was for the hedonistic types that couldn't get jobs anywhere else (ala Bourdain's world in Kitchen Confidential), but it seems to me that there is a new generation of restauranteurs that is much more intelligent, doing it for the love of food (and the warm glow that comes from the food porn on Food Network). Is this new batch of talent affecting how restaurants are run? Are they embracing a more disciplined, MBA style of business operations? Or are even somewhat uneven operations enjoying the rising tide of a greater interest in food?

Not necessarily ... each of the restaurants is run by a different chef and each has different standards ... my experiences with TD's restaurants have varied wildy in the quality of the fare that comes out of the kitchens.

You're right about using an American country ham ... curious, though, have you tried soaking your ham in water? Alton Brown describes how to do this in this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_15539,00.html Works like a charm.

I often make hot sauces for specials I'll run at the restaurant I work at. Typically I'll use whatever peppers we have in season, also roasting some sweet peppers, red onion and tomato with them. I'll then puree them with some dried peppers (we usually have anchos and chipotles), apple cider vinegar and s&p. I like to add the liquid the seeps out of the peppers after roasting (you know the stuff that seeps out of the peppers when you have them steaming in a covered container). It has a nice sweet smoky flavor to it and really perks up the sauce.

If you want ridiculous food phrases, just sit down at your typical upscale restaurant and open the menu ... quite a few I've come across have little grasp of the English language ... if the word passes the spellcheck test, it's okay (which leads to hilarious results). Additionally, the misuse of commas, colons and semicolons just bug the heck out of me ... posting on the internet is one thing, but on your menu, you should look polished.

I went there the other night and had a summer risotto with squash and oregano, garnished with a squash blossom stuffed with ricotta. I cleaned my plate, but what was most impressive were a couple things: the oregano was just the right amount ... many chefs can get overly zealous when using fresh herbs, and even my last bite of risotto (which was about 20 minutes or so after the first) was very warm, even though the risotto was served on a very wide plate (which tends to cool very fast). I was very impressed.

I can't comment about Cremant since I haven't eaten there, but I spent some time in as a stage at Lark. The general palate of the restaurant is oriented towards each of the seasons, so right now you can expect bright, vibrant flavors with little in the way of cream or heavyness to mask them. Lark does small plates, which makes it great because you can choose from a whole bunch of things to eat ... if you go, definitely get the cheese plate (awesome selections) with the crackers. There's a great sense of adventure dining there ... plus, from a line cook's point of view, I have the utmost respect for Chef Sundstrom and the way he runs his kitchen. Not only does he expo, but the expo station actually is a station that takes care of any of the raw fish preparations along with many of the desserts. To see a chef actually work on the line while running a restaurant is something that makes me smile. (Oh, and they do an awesome Manhattan). Check out their website (www.larkseattle.com) ... new menu items get rotated in/out on Wednesdays and it's always kept up to date.