Raw Bar?

[Dante]

So, if one were to, say, set up a small-scale raw bar for an event in one’s home, how would one go about doing it? Does anybody have any nice tips and/or tricks? I’ll admit that my knowledge on this topic is next to nil.

Sincerely,

Dante

[kalypso]

So, if one were to, say, set up a small-scale raw bar for an event in one’s home, how would one go about doing it?  Does anybody have any nice tips and/or tricks?  I’ll admit that my knowledge on this topic is next to nil.   

                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                  Dante

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Do you have an idea of what you'd like your menu to be for the raw bar? Since you're dealing with a highly perishable product and one that is suseptible to contamination as well as spoilage your source for the products and your own handling is important.

Most seafood is sold with certification tags, if your vendor doesn't give them to you, you need to ask. This is your protection that the seafood has come from reliable sources and not contaminated.

Your product needs to be maintained at temperatures under 40* F but above 32* F even during transportation between the point of puchase and your home. Most fish and seafood markets in my area will pack purchases on crushed ice if asked, yours probably would too if asked.

Purchasing, storage and handling I can help you with, someone else will have to help you with the set-up and execution part of it.

[rooftop1000]

I will take that baton...service set up - go to the garden center and find really cool low planters and bigass flower pot saucers, get some cheap flexable hose, a big plastic tub, duct tape and a few bricks. Extra linens or plastic table cloths for draping would be nice too.

Arrange your new "platters and bowls" on the bricks, duct tape hose sections to the flower pot holes and run the hose under the table to the plastic tub, arrange the linens to hide the bricks and hoses, add crushed ice and seafood, garnish and have fun...fear not that your ice will melt onto the floor

pretty scarey huh?

tracey

[Dante]

Do you have an idea of what you'd like your menu to be for the raw bar?

Nope- I've a vague notion involving oysters but beyond that my ignorance extends even to what else to add.

Since you're dealing with a highly perishable product and one that is suseptible to contamination as well as spoilage your source for the products and your own handling is important.

oh yeah- know that. I've gone through the NIFI sanitation course and such so things like that aren't alien to me.

and the co-op where I do almost all of my shopping is really good about such things too, and they always keep an eye to sourceing from good, local producers (I live in New Hampshire)

Purchasing, storage and handling I can help you with, someone else will have to help you with the set-up and execution part of it. 

Gotcha. and that was the area I mainly wanted to know about, but your reply helped too, as it made me think more consciously about the purchase- storage-and-handling end of things.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Dante

[Dante]

I will take that baton...service set up  -  go to the garden center and find really cool low planters and bigass flower pot saucers, get some cheap flexable hose, a big plastic tub, duct tape and a few bricks. Extra linens or plastic table cloths for draping would be nice too.

Arrange your new "platters and bowls" on the bricks, duct tape hose sections to the flower pot holes and run the hose under the table to the plastic tub, arrange the linens to hide the bricks and hoses, add crushed ice and seafood, garnish and have fun...fear not that your ice will melt onto the floor

pretty scarey huh?

The Alton Brown approach, eh? "Think like MacGyver!"

'kay, that sounds strangely viable (expecially as we have most of that right here already). thanx for the concept...

So, what about the food itself? What sort of things besides the obvious bivalves would work nicely? I'll make the addumption that I'd be going through the range of sashimi and ceviche, but are there other things I could take in to account and possibly incorporate?

Sincerely,

Dante

[johnnyd]

I "installed" a raw bar on a 33foot lobsterboat a few years ago. Everything was portable. I bought a stainless steel, insulated bar sink and a two-shelf unit from a used restaurant supply place, three rugged coolers and a couple decorative containers for lemons/limes and sauces. It is important for customers to see your shellfish and see how cold they are in a large container w/clean ice. One huge cooler for clean ice, one to store oysters, clams, 21/25 shrimp and the other for miscellaneous things like sushi rolls that a local japanese woman sarted making for me every morning ($5 - came in cute plastic take-outs) and beer for the shucker. I purchased high quality take-out containers for the shellfish and one-ounce cups w/lids fort my three sauces: regular cocktail, mignonette and oriental style.

I cooked off the shrimp in the AM and set up the sink and shelving at noon, then motored around the bay selling to the yachting crowd. I hoisted nautical code flags (Oscar, Yankee...) to signal I was in business, and got on the VHF radio public channel when things were slow. Strung some colored bulbs around and played reggae on a small boombox. Depending on business I'd stay open until midnight (surprising amount of biz then... ) then break down the gear and bungie-cord it all to the cabin walls.

The important thing about the New England raw bar is keeping to tradition - stay with littlenecks and local oysters (I carried a couple Maine varieties) and go for those five pound bricks of shrimp - about $45 - because not everyone likes raw shellfish. A certain amount of simplicity is needed but cleanliness is mandatory - I was wiping the cutting board clean all the time. Have a trash container right there so you can dump the shell debris immediately - I didn't have to worry too much about my customers trash: they returned the shells to whence they came but gave me or stored their plastics.

Also don't be disappointed if the novelty wears off and you don't see customers come back as often as you hoped. You will find that the only one in your crowd who can have oysters, clams and shrimp every day is you.

[Anna Friedman Herlihy]

Be sure to buy/obtain plenty of crushed ice!

I do plateaux de fruits de mer for dinner parties on occasions (basically a tiered raw bar), and the first time I did so, thought I could just crush up the ice myself (we have one of those sno-cone makers). Too time consuming. The next (and all subsequent) times, I just get plenty of extra ice (for free) from the wholesale to the public place where I get the seafood. Ice companies will also sell you bags of crushed ice, if your seafood supplier is not as generous as mine. Keep the crushed ice in a cooler or in the fridge--not the freezer or it will freeze solid and be unuseable (speaking from experience here)--easy enough to drain off the extra water before use.

I use high-sided metal serving trays (about 2" sides) with clean bar towels underneath the ice to soak up the melting water (otherwise you will spill a lot of water when you try to remove the trays).

If you are planning on doing lots of oysters and clams, be sure to enlist help if you're not an expert in shucking them (very time consuming!). And best to buy one of those kevlar gloves to prevent injury (although my husband, who's pretty good at the shucking, just uses a dishtowel and has never impaled himself).

I also second having a few cooked items for variety (and for those who won't eat raw). In addition to shrimp, I usually do some steamed mussels, and if going very fancy, some lobster tails.

[budrichard]

Other than a source of high quality product, your biggest problem will be opening the shellfish, particulary if you have no or little experience. Having it done by a fishmonger unless within an hour of consumption will led to a dryed out product.

My advice is unless you can assure quality shellfish and the opening of such, stick to shrimp, lobster, crab and mussels or similar.

A Kevlar glove is a must although i have seen shuckers use a heavy rubber commercial black glove.-Dick

[Dante]

It is important for customers to see your shellfish and see how cold they are in a large container w/clean ice.

Oh yeah- I understand that part, plus of course it's nice for presentation purposes too.

beer for the shucker.

A necessity.

I hoisted nautical code flags (Oscar, Yankee...) to signal I was in business, and got on the VHF radio public channel when things were slow. Strung some colored bulbs around and played reggae on a small boombox.

Sounds like a nice way to spend the day.

The important thing about the New England raw bar is keeping to tradition - stay with littlenecks and local oysters (I carried a couple Maine varieties) and go for those five pound bricks of shrimp - about $45 - because not everyone likes raw shellfish.

Good point.

A certain amount of simplicity is needed but cleanliness is mandatory - I was wiping the cutting board clean all the time.

Oh yeah. I've been through the NIFI sanitation course, I know the drill.

Also don't be disappointed if the novelty wears off and you don't see customers come back as often as you hoped. You will find that the only one in your crowd who can have oysters, clams and shrimp every day is you.

Which sounds nice enough as is.

FTR- I'm not doing this as a commercial enterprise. I'm not in the industry any more, but my household hosts events periodically, so I'm looking more at the private end of things.

Sincerely,

Dante

[Dante]

Other than a source of high quality product, your biggest problem will be opening the shellfish, particulary if you have no or little experience.

Agreed. I've got the gear (oyster, clam knives), but only minimal hands-on experience, and that about 15 years ago.

But at this stage, this is early recon- I prolly won't be doing it in fact for a while. In the meantime, I'm going to be down in New Orleans for a bit this December (my S.O. finally took the raw-oyster plunge for the first time when we had our 10th anniversary dinner at Pascal Manale's last October), and I've got a few buddies down there who could re-teach me -about one-third of the Mardi Gras Marching Krewe I'm in are either current- or ex-Industry.

Sincerely,

Dante