Only 4 days of dining week left to push through. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! It has been fun to be able to serve a new crowd.

Spring is just around the corner and we are so excited! We will start hunting for new stuff for our menu... really can't wait...

I am looking to get white French asparagus from Provence. Some that are nice with a diameter exceeding 1" - 1 ^1/4"  but I don't know how long the season will be. We have a really nice wedding coming in early May that I wish to use them for.

This week we will get Hawaiian Sea Bass. This is new to me so we will see in a couple of days how good they are. I know for sure that the fat content in this fish will not be as high as the Chilean Sea Bass so the meat may not be that silky but will the flavor be better? I will let you know next week.

The Soft Shell Crab season will hopefully start in mid April. They will come from the Gulf of Mexico. The crab will be huge, fat and the price will be much more reasonable that those from Maryland. The season will be a lot longer too. We've been using this crab since 1994.

We just talked to Tony from the MOST last week about the menu for the Annual MOST Charity Gala in July. I can't believe its that time of year already.

Your Chef,

Max

Well we survived the first week of dining week. The staff is pretty tired but happy to be busy. The kitchen is bored with the menu already. It is so small and very predictable. Good thing we are changing it up a little this week. About 80% of our guests last week came in for the dining week menu which is great. We are so happy to see so many people come out to support us and our neighbors during this harsh winter stretch. Thank you to all those who make dining week such a success!

Now lets talk about food... I sat along with some old friends of mine on their 25th wedding anniversary dinner. I noticed a difference in our dry aged steak I didn't like it as much as I did before. So I decided to sell it on a big discount. We will go back to my guy in Rochester, he is the one who first got us the dry aged beef. He has made a strong commitment to me that our quality and price will not falter. They will send their first batch the first week in  March.

Your Chef,

Max

Twenty one pounds of beautiful Blue Fin Tuna came in today! It is sushi grade and it is soooo tender it melts in your mouth.  After I cleaned it we were left with seventeen pounds. Half will be served sashimi and the other half will go to the entree line.

Look how beautiful it looks!

Ali has been crazy with all the phone calls this week. The phone has been ringing off the hook for reservations for Valentine's Day and Dining Week. I hope she will be okay!

Sorry there were are lot of calls for the name of that Greek restaurant on my lasted post. It was called Taxim.

I did not get back to my blog last week. I was training staff in the kitchen almost the whole time.

This week we are gearing up for a very busy next couple of weeks. We have Valentine's Day weekend which we will be running a special menu combining Lemon Grass and Bistro Elephant Friday though Sunday. Then with no mercy we jump into two weeks of Downtown Dining. These are weeks that will separate my weak staff and my strong staff, the men from the boys and we will see who has real "True Blood!"

Downtown Dining Week(s) is a promotion we run with the Syracuse Downtown Committee running February 15th - 27th. Us and eighteen other area restaurants offer a three-course menu for $25. This is the time when we can't look at our profit margin, it is the time to recruit and build a new customer base for the upcoming year. We only wish that they will have a good time, enjoy the price, food, service and atmosphere.

The menu will include your choice of appetizer, salad and entree including and eight ounce filet mignon. We will also feature about eight different wines that will be so so so deeply on sale. We will run a different menu each week. Week 1 February 15 - 21, Week 2 February 22 - 27.

For the foodies out there we started to carry Foi Gras from France, not Hudson Valley (also very good too!) They are so light, fluffy and rich you will like them.

I got pork belly in and will start to cook it today. I will use five spices, molasses, some chili peppers and a lot more herbs. I'm going to see how my weird dipping sauce will work with this. If I like it maybe I will share with my customers.

Your Chef,

Max

How about we don't talk about fish this week. I think I will lay low and order Halibut again. There was nothing else interesting available... nothing that made my blood move.

I spent last weekend in Chicago visiting one of my daughters. We ate out at five great mid-range restaurants... Publican, Xoco, Takashi, Mado which was B.Y.O.B. (bring your own bottle) and the last one was a Greek place with the best Greek food in the history of man kind!

Believe it or not, the great restaurants with some of the top chefs in the country all have had pork belly on their menus for a couple of years. I ate so much pork that I started to look like a pig! I will order some for next week. For sure they may not sell very well so I will just plan on eating a lot of pork belly... ha ha. I will go ahead and talk to Steve Fraum from Palmer Foods in Rochester, NY. He always takes care of me on special cuts and this time I will request Black Pig Belly... Yummy in my Tummy!

Your Chef,

Max