Hello and happy holidays! Its been a while since my last blog -so this is a year in review blog.

I was so exhausted, as all of downtown was after the record breaking weather last winter. March was the worst ever since 1989, the first year we open our operation in Mattydale. Of course, the Grass faced a huge sales drop the first and third months of the year. February was good due to Valentine's day and dining weeks. After we survived the treacherous winter, we had a very busy spring and summer. We passed last year's sales in the beginning of December.

This year we changed quite a few things- the approach of our lunch menu, trimming the sushi menu down, and we will be adding more noodles this January. On our lunch menu we now have three different fried rice dishes, two of which are my new invention. From the Bistro kitchen we added beer battered fish and chips and rigatoni.

We began the year with 18 different kinds of sushi, now we have 2. Seven years ago we added sushi to our menu for marketing reasons. Now everybody is selling it- from all you can eat Chinese buffets, other Asian / Fusion, and even French restaurants.

We would like to keep sushi as part of our appetizers, not as an entire section by itself. This way we can offer new creations with more fun dishes. Please give us a chance to show all of you something that you can't find in this area. Sushi restaurants are on every corner of this town. You will come to Lemon Grass not to try something that you can get from others. If you're looking for adventure and excitement in your food, that's our specialty!

You also can surprise your guests with our menu. I really believe in a small and controllable menu. I am working on new recipes now and wish to be able to finish them and try them out very soon. For the past two months we've been very successful on a lot of new dishes, such as Steaky Bacon, Morning Roti, Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Salad and our Orange Ricotta Salat Salad. Thank you for your support and feedback.

On my drawing board are Panaeng Escargot, Chicken Curry Puffs, Thai Bolognes with Pappardelle, Grilled Thai Sausage  and a lot more.

There will be more fun waiting for all of you by early next year. Enjoy the holidays!

Your Chef,

Max

It's been a while since my last blog - it has been very busy here at the Lemon Grass and the big Elephant. We have been through a lot of changes on the menu and the company structure.

Most of the time for the menu I always miss a lot of goodies from the season and I tend to put most of the stuff on late. I just got new help, his name is Mike, freshly graduated from Johnson & Wales. Mike will help organize my kitchen and is going to be my main man - which will allow me more room to put better food on the menu.

In the past we have had great staff behind all the lines, but what we lacked was finance for higher tech resources. We really need the new kid who can take our new ideas and carry the ideas over to our clientele. Lets see what Mike can do.

Ok lets talk about food! Fall is here and we are welcoming the season with some new goodies and the return of some old classics.

We put a fall spin on our popular goat cheese salad creating our new Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Salad with shredded granny smith apples, stewed white raisins, toasted hazel nuts, olive oil and a Greek yogurt and tarragon dressing.

A Thai classic will make its first appearance on our menu with Num Pla Wan, a Tamarind dipping sauce of dried fried shrimp, fresh and crispy shallots, garlic and palm sugar. Which will be served with fresh tart seasonal apples.

Morning Roti will also make its debut on the menu. I will use green curry with sliced filet mignon, cinnamon basil and sweet peppers served with our warm roti - flat bread.

And introducing Steaky Bacon - center cut pork belly from Niman Ranch - the best free range, no antibiotics. The pork belly is roasted at 700 degrees to melt the fat away then it is stewed in all-spice. It is served with fried sweet buns and a fresh garlic and chili vinaigrette. Trust me you will LOVE it!

As for our returning favorites the butternut squash soup and orange ricotta salata salad are back! Our butternut squash soup is topped with our famous coconut shrimp and its still be best soup in town. The orange ricotta salad is becoming a new classic. Take Ricotta Salate, add seasonal oranges, shaved fennel, mache and finish with balsamic vinaigrette and California extra virgin olive oil.

My Bistro chef Dave (the DDT) added pheasent sausage and cranberry cognac chutney to the big Elephant menu.  Along with wild mushroom risotto and a pulled pork poutine that is sure to fend off the cold weather!

This will be a fun season. I am excited to put the new food on and see what everybody thinks!

Your Chef,

Max

Last week I went to see my little one Danielle in Chicago. She and Kevin bought all of us tickets to the restaurant "Next." Yes, you heard that right, tickets to get in! Every three months the Chef prepares a new menu and sells tickets for it. The current menu is "Present Thai." I believe the last one was "1906 French."

This perhaps may be the hottest restaurant in America right now. We got a kitchen table so we could see what was going on. I can't believe that the executive chef is from Syracuse, New York. Dave is his name, he is such a great chef, manager, and he's not afraid to try something new!

Considering he only had a month to study Thai food before debuting this menu I think he did a great job. He did Thai food "his way" which was smart. In a month no one would be able to conquer true authentic Thai flavors. I was so thankful that I got to pick his brain a little bit so I could understand his full vision. Congratulations brave Dave!

I am working on our new fall menu, I want to continue to do "My food, My way." As I have mentioned before, since we opened on July 20th 1994 we have not sold straight Thai food, it has always been Pacific Rim with a Thai accent and a Max twist! We will try to push further from the basic Thai concept, keeping it fresh and fun.

Your Chef,

Max

As you guys know we order our oysters from JP Seafood. They are the only ones that are really serious about what they are selling. They care about the environment and the cleanliness of their product. But most of all their quality is always the best!

Our oyster sales are up almost 40% and so far we have been very happy with them. However, a few weeks ago we found our selves in a funny situation. Our standing order has been three small boxes (180 oysters). They sent us three large boxes (300 oysters) and shipped it twice... so there we where in an Oyster Crisis!

So how do you sell 600 oysters in the time you usually sell 180??? We knocked the price in half and started call people. The news spread all over Armory Square. Our good friends the Hanford family came in with a large group and ordered dozen after dozen. Mike from the Blue Tusk and Adam from Empire Brewery also came in with some friends. Our good friend and long time customer Mr. Jacobson ate four dozen himself on Thursday night! We ran the special from Thursday lunch through Friday lunch and sold 450 oysters, leaving us with 150 just in time for the weekend!

We would like to thank everyone who came in and helped us out. We had such a great time with everyone we have decided to make this a bi-annual event. We will have an "Oyster Crisis" in January and July every year. We will kick it off with 200 dozen oysters and see how it goes. We hope to see you all there!

Your Chef,

Max

This heat is killing us! Its causing all kinds of problems with our equipment from refrigerators and freezers to our new AC units in the dining rooms. But the kitchen heat is the worst. It must have been over 100 degrees in there. We barely made it through the MOST Gala this year. Pook's balloons collapsed and we had to get a new tank of liquid nitrogen three hours before service to make a new batch. It was too hectic for me!

So after all this Pook and I decided to call Charles Heating to take a look at the kitchen to see how they can improve the working temperature. We need it at least 15-20 degrees cooler in there. We also need to fix the air circulation in the dish room. My poor dish jockeys are dying in there.

This is going to be an expensive year for Pook and I. We did some decor updates before my kid's wedding  and now we are looking at some back of the house maintenance and upgrades that need to be done. My sous chef Neal and I agreed we should expand our walk-in cooler and install a walk-in freezer. We have such limited space, I wish we had an extra 300-500 sq ft. We will start drawing up plans this week.

Okay enough about that. Lets get to some food.

We have a great supply of Florida shrimp and our supplier in Boston is sending us baby squid, Blue Fin tuna and a few different cuts of Kobe beef. We have been getting good stuff from this company but I wish we could get the same selection from our bigger suppliers.

We are gearing up for fall. All the staff is looking forward to the new school year, Lion King coming to town and the reopening of our Landmark Theater. We are all wishing for a busy fall.

Your Chef,

Max

OK, after a full month of entertaining friends and family and hosting my kid's wedding I am getting back to business!

Last weekend Pook and I drove down to Boston to drop off my kid's car and see them back from their honeymoon. Boston has a lot of great new restaurants popping up like mushrooms after a heavy rain. I'm so jealous of them! I would love to have a blank canvas to do what I really want to do. To take the Grass' cuisine to the next level without worrying about upsetting my clientele.

We worked so hard over the years to build what we have today but sometimes I want to mix it up a little bit. Take sushi off the menu, get rid of some of the dishes we have had since we opened in Mattydale 20+ years ago. However, those dishes have been on the menu for twenty years, people expect them and they are what keep bringing them back!

Don't get me wrong, I love my food but a fresh start would be so fun, get my blood moving again. If we had a new place, we could easily go with 8 apps, 4 salads, 2 soups and 8 entrees with a menu right on season using the freshest local ingredients. We will put the right meat with the right sauce and keep our focus on flavor, timing and presentation. Simple, clean, and elegant with a Max twist!

I had an offer from a great friend of mine to open a restaurant down in Boston but I always refused, after this trip I might reconsider.

Your Jealous Chef,

Max

I always try to come up with a good excuse why I haven't posted any new blogs. I got a good one this time... My daughter got married!

This was real serious because my kid requested to have the wedding at "The Grass." We tried to tell them that we aren't big enough. The restaurant will seat 258 top, top top! That's Ali's record for one straight seating - without a dance floor. We maxed out the seating with 177 with the dance floor, DJ, and one extra bar next to the dance floor.

I wish we had more space there were about forty more guests Pook and I would have loved to have invited. But after we reviewed all the seating with both kids and parents we can not even dream to get any more friends. We really needed about 100 more seating.

To our dearest friends, Pook and I would like to apologize for the very inconvenience, we would have loved to have all of our dearest friends here to share such a happy day with our family!

From graduation to the wedding all of our staff showed great strength. Pook and I would like to thank them for helping make this day so special for us. Now there is just one big party left, the annual MOST Gala! It the biggest party of the year. We serve between 220 to 250 guests a ten-course tasting menu. Our kitchen sends out between 700 - 800 plates in two hours flat. The wedding was just a warm up for the Gala!

I'm getting back to my routine now. New food will be coming up. I am going to Boston this week and in August and September I will be traveling to NYC and Chicago. I will come back with lots of ideas to shape up the menu.

So far the oysters from JP have been terrific, the quality was unreal. Of course the price may not be that friendly but quality was good. This is really  "The Grass' " high-light this summer. Mark our heirloom guy should be shipping us tomatoes in a week or two. We will see how great Mark is.

We will get the first batch of Blue Fin Tuna in today. The fish was 260 lbs which is pretty small, but should be good quality.  We will see.

Your Chef,

Max

Welcome Spring! It's been busy at The Grass and The Big Elephant since the weather broke. We are happy to see all of our friends. We closed out winter and welcome spring with our new salads: Heirloom Salad with heirloom (locally grown when available) tomatoes, baby greens, fresh mozzarella, and a basil, garlic and pine nut vinaigrette. Our Strawberry Maytag Salad is back! With fresh spinach, baby arugula, locally grown strawberries, Maytag Blue, smoked Berkshire bacon, peanut brittle and port wine vinaigrette.

This spring ramps and fiddle head ferns were all over the place. First we got them from Philly, but now we have our own picker. The first batch was 10 solid, young and yummy pounds. Pook, our staff and I ate some of them - so delicious!

Soft shell crab has been in season for almost two months now. We get them from North Coast in Boston - they are great! We selected the Whale for appetizer and the Prime for our noodle soup. We can't buy enough - we have them shipped twice a week.

Pacific Halibut price is unbearable now. If the price doesn't come down we can not support to have them here any longer. Lamb is another precious commodity now. Imagine, if I am not wrong, the imported lamb will drop from 27 million a year, to 17-20 million this year. I be they say "Why do we have to work so hard for little money? Just cut supply down and the demand will come." - ha ha ha. It basic Econ 101. So, the price of the domestic lamb jumps up because we did not have enough supply on import?! Colorado lamb has already doubled in price! What is going on!!!

I will not raise our prices. This is the time that we have to show our spirit. I believe that it is just hurting now, not bleeding yet. I will wait a little longer, if the time comes to increase prices I will let you know and just hope that you all understand.

Your Chef,

Max

I just returned from NYC and DC and have some great ideas for our new menu. International food items are everywhere as our world is getting smaller by the day. The great Chefs of these great cities are utilizing the Asian influence which of course please me very much.

Raw and semi-raw food are all over NYC's and DC's 3 star Michelin restaurants. But this is Syracuse, so I will adapt.

Not to worry, Pad Thai and Sushi are here to stay. Though Pad Thai is a traditional Thai lunch item not dinner, I give my customers what they want and you want Pad Thai. So it stays!

Speaking of which, Pad Thai and Sushi are tough on the kitchen - time consuming and production heavy. All items on a dining ticket must leave the kitchen simultaneously and with four kitchen stations - entrees, sushi, Pad Thai and Bistro, it can be tough. But we succeed - most of the time! When we serve 125 - 275 dinners a night, our rhythm is not always perfect but we try and usually re-gain our synergy between the four stations.

What we are doing is trimming our menu to allow for better synergy. Low sale items are gone and new items will be added and consolidated within the four station kitchen. It is all a balancing act between the kitchen, "front of the house" aka the dining room(s) and the menu.

Changes are happening at "The Grass". We always strive to evolve and offer our Guests the best we can. We look forward to introducing our new menu to you. And we look forward to your feedback.

Sincerely, Your Chef,

Max

After the last blog I wanted to touch on the quality of our food products and how we maintain them. I could go on for hours on this topic but everyone keeps telling me "Enough already! We want to hear about the fun stuff. What new dishes are you working on? Are there any events coming up? What's new over there?"  So I will say only this... We maintain our quality by keeping a positive working relationship with the best suppliers available to us. We don't just by quality products, we buy them well.

So back to the "fun" stuff...

I am reworking the whole menu. I want to cut some sections down, reinvent some classics and bring some new life to the menu. I want something new to make my blood move again. Pook and I are going to DC and NYC for a week. I am hoping to come back with some fresh eyes and new ideas.

In the mean time, Soft Shell Crab season is sneaking up on us. The Wegmans in Dewitt already has them. We will be getting in fifty a week, hopefully its enough. But if we are short let it be.

The Grass and its Elephant are trying to jump on the social media bandwagon. We have officially joined Facebook! We are still in the process of updating our profiles but if you have any pictures or comments please post them! Show us your support and LIKE us today! Find us at www.facebook.com/LemonGrassCNY and  www.facebook.com/BistroElephant

Your Chef,

Max