L2O Blog

Reservations and the First Service

I've had many emails and comments asking about when we will start taking reservations and when the restaurant will open. Well, the reservation lines open today at 10 o'clock in the morning and our first dinner service will be Wednesday evening on May 14, 2008. 

You can make a reservation by calling the restaurant at  773.868.0002 or by clicking here at OpenTable.

The restaurant will open on May 14th and we will accept reservations up to 90-days in advanced from today. Which means we are now booking through to mid-summer.

We will serve dinner only, Wednesday through Monday. We are closed on Tuesday.

Pan-Fried Bread

Pan-fried bread with butter is the kind of thing which is a bit prohibited, but that everybody likes so much. It is like a slice of toasted brioche in the morning with coffee and milk. As a kid I always woke up with the smell of toasted bread and coffee, and that is maybe the best trick for a mom to get a son out of the bed. I think in life you just carry things that have have given you a deep appreciation and then bring them back in different forms.

Stripped bass crusted over with a thin slice of pan-fried white bread was a good start. The other part was to be able to finish cooking the fish while keeping it moist and having the bread stay crispy. Placing the bass in a pan with the bread on top, with a braising liquid half way up the height the fish, and baking in a combi oven with 40% humidity at 140°C temperature, gave us what we were expecting. Garnish with Bouchot mussels, flavored with a fish bouillon made with saffron and katsuobushi, brought the other elements to the dish to make it rich and meaty in a very seafood way.

Mojama

Mojama is a Spanish delicacy of filleted salt-cured tuna. Even though the word mojama comes from the Arab musama meaning dry, its origins are Phoenician, in concrete from Gdr (Gadir, Cádiz nowadays), the first settlement they founded in the Western Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians had learned to dry tuna in sea salt to make it appropriate for trade.

Mojama is made using the loins of the tuna, and pressing them in salt for two days. Then the salt is retired, the loins are washed and then put to dry in the sun and the breeze (according to the traditional method) for fifteen to twenty days.

Being a seafood restaurant we intend to develop a seafood jamon (Spanish ham) and a house made mojama. The drying process is the crucial part as the jamon and mojama will take all the flavors from the air. We are thinking about drying it in a barn alongside an orchard or apple trees to get that fragrant aroma from the fruits.

Picutred here: the grilled and sliced Kampachi with its fat content and the raspberry with its acidity content compliment very well the mojama. You can add a drop of aged balsamic vinegar and olive oil to bring more depth.

Feedback

Today I’ll try and answer some questions and give a little feedback to your feedback on the blog.

The oyster post listed the oysters we were tasting that day. But yes, I do love Kumamotos and oysters from Hog Island. A few years ago when I was in San Francisco, we drove up to Hog Island. If you’ve never been it is a great experience. You get them fresh from the water and sit outside at picnic tables. But you have to shuck them yourself and it’s nice to bring some wine to go with them.

On the bacon in the Enviro-Pack smoker post, we did a dry cure as that's usually how charcuterie is made. Dry cure reduces the amount of moisture and helps in preserving the meat after the smoking process.

I am surprised by all the emails and comments that have been so supportive and encouraging about the work we are doing. The team appreciates all the feedback. We didn’t expect so many people would be interested in the day-to-day of the kitchen. The best part is hearing from people we’ve worked with in the past. I got an email from someone I worked with at Louis XV back in 1992 - salut Patrick.

We even heard from the father of one of our cooks. Mr. Romero, we’ll take good care of your son and give him a big push.

Enviro-Pack Cold Smoker

Today we fired up the smoker and cold smoked bacon with whiskey barrel wood chips. We are going to run it again tonight with more bacon, but for a longer time at a higher temperature. The Berkshire pork belly has been dry cured and air dried to received the last treatment: the smoking. The Enviro pack controls both the temperature and the humidity. Combine these with the curing and the time, and you'll get to the result you want. It is math, but also a lot of experience. Tomorrow we will smoke some white king salmon cured with Earl Grey tea and white miso, using apple wood chips. We are also planning on cold smoking raw fish and lobster, then cooking them during service to serve as a warm preparation.

Geoduck Clam

Native to the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, the geoduck clam is the largest burrowing clam in the world. They weigh-in at an average of one to three pounds at maturity, but specimens weighing over 15 pounds (7.5 kg) and as much as 2 meters (6 ft) in length are not unheard of. It has a life expectancy of about 146 years, with the oldest recorded at over 160 years. This makes the geoduck one of the longest-living organisms in the world. Scientists speculate that the geoduck's longevity is the result of low wear and tear. A geoduck sucks plankton down through its long siphon, filters them for food, then ejects its refuse out through a separate hole in the siphon. Adult geoducks have few natural predators, which may also contribute to their long lives. Geoducks are broadcast spawners. A female geoduck produces about 5 billion eggs in her century-long lifespan—in comparison, a human female produces about 500 viable ova during the course of her life.

The world's first geoduck fishery was created in 1970, but demand for the semi-forgotten clam was low. Today, they sell in Asia for up to $30 a pound or $65 a kilo. Its large, meaty siphon is prized for its savory flavor and crunchy texture. It is extremely popular in China, where it is considered a delicacy like abalone. In Chinese cuisine geoduck is mostly eaten in a fondue-style Chinese hot pot or raw sashimi style, dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. On Japanese menus, geoduck is called mirugai or mirukuigai. It also has a texture similar to an Ark Shell (Akagai). Mirugai is sometimes translated to English as "giant clam", though it is distinguished from "Himejako" sushi made from tridacna gigas.

Here we prepared it raw with citrus juice, wasabi, and grated sudashi lime.

Getting Organized

You can work for months on a project, but no matter how committed you are, it is impossible to finalize all the components together and bring them to life until you are actually plunged into the element. The feeling of the space itself makes you react completely differently. Something you liked three months ago is not working anymore. It is great to feel that way. It is just more work to be done in a short period of time.

Now as a small team, we are getting a sense of the space, the possibilities, and most importantly we have some finished dishes in the dining room. The overhead lighting is not finished yet, so we either have the spot light or are completely in the dark. This is when you realize how important it is to have good lighting in the dining room. I do not use a flash with my Leica when I take pictures, so when I look back at the dishes they are more real. When you look at it first live on the plate and then on the computer screen, you can dig deeper into the visual aspect and realize what doesn't work. For us, the aesthetic is the more challenging part. We have the flavor combinations and techniques to get us to this point. Now we need to educate the staff and build a program for production and consistency.

These dishes are in their raw stage and need more work: the caviar dome with avocado above and the toro and lamb loin with ebi shrimp below. But hey, we need to start somewhere.

Spiral Mixer

There are several types of mixers that bakers use depending on their preference. The two most common mixers are the planetary and the spiral. The main difference between the two designs is in the way the dough hook moves, or doesn’t move for that matter. The planetary hook rotates around the interior of the stationary bowl. Planetary mixers are very common and if you have used a Kitchen Aid, you have used a planetary mixer. The spiral has a bowl that rotates around a hook that spins in a fixed position at the back of the bowl. Spirals are less common outside of commercial bakeries.

Our goal is limit the amount of air incorporated into the dough during mixing to prevent oxidation. Oxidation reduces the flavor and color of a finished loaf, so we want to develop the dough with the least amount of mixing and air. The dual action of the spiral mixer allows us to mix dough less aggressively in a shorter amount of time than with its planetary counterpart.

The spiral also gives us a tremendous range of dough size that can be mixed efficiently. We can do a 2 kilo batch of dough for pain aux olives, followed by a 25 kilo batch of baguette. On the other hand, planetary mixers have more of a sweet spot you need to hit for their dough capacity. If you have too little, the hook will barely make contact with the ingredients. If the dough is too large, it will take too long to mix. With our spiral mixer we can bake for 100 guests or the whole neighborhood.

Previously: Pain de Campagne 

Bread

The Pavailler

Hawaiian Shave Ice

The first time I had shave ice was at the beach in Shirahama, Japan. I really got to know shave ice over several trips to Hawaii where it is really a part of the food culture. I love the cool smooth texture. I think it has a lot of potential, so I ordered a machine from Hawaii. I plan to use plain shave ice for presentations on the plate. We will also experiment with flavors, like freezing lobster consomme or watermelon juice, then shaving it to add to a dish as an ingredient.

Miyazaki Wagyu

In Japanese wa means Japanese and gyu is cow. Wagyu is a type of cow breed in Japan that has genetic characteristics where the meat is predisposed to have intense marbling in the muscle. The quality of fat is unique in that Wagyu has a high percentage of unsaturated fat, thus the melting point is at a lower temperature.

Miyazaki Wagyu refers to the Wagyu beef born and raised in the prefecture (or state) of Miyazaki located on the southern island of Kyushu. The location gives it a warm, mild climate and natural surroundings which are ideal for raising Wagyu cattle. Miyazaki has the second largest Japanese Black Wagyu production community in Japan and is the main supplier for Matsuzaka branded beef which is considered the premium brand of beef in Japan.

The cattle are raised with special attention to their diet in order to produce a beef rich in marbling with minimal external fat. This is made possible by feeding them a low energy diet over a longer period of time to promote slow and natural growth. These animals receive no hormonal implants nor hormonal additives in their feed. Also, there are strict requirements by which no animal proteins or animal fats are mixed into the feed.

The Miyazaki brand of Wagyu beef is certified so that all beef with the brand follows the same high standard. It passes a very strict carcass evaluation, has the highest degree of marbling, fine muscle fiber texture, white fat color, and cattle conformation.  Miyazaki beef is only from Japanese black haired cows, not Japanese brown haired Wagyu, polled Wagyu and or shorthorn Wagyu.

Miyazaki Wagyu also complies with a source verification program. This means that the beef can be traced back to the parental lineage, which reaffirms the genetic disposition of the final meat quality and ensure highest safety standard.

What does all this have to do with a seafood restaurant? Well we do want to offer some alternatives in case a guest cannot eat fish. About 5% of the menu will be non-seafood items.