Max's Blog

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

Last Friday we were shipped a batch of scallops that were too small and some were broken. We had to send back the whole batch so we didn't have any to sell over the weekend... so bad! On Monday I called John our new seafood guy to get scallops from him instead of our regular supplier. The quality was better they are sweet and firm. When we started to pan sear them their sweet smell filled the kitchen up so quickly... good sign... bravo!

Monday I was swamped with work. We worked on staffing for the upcoming weeks, tasted wines for our new wine list, discussed changes for our dinner menus, talked to suppliers, etc, etc, etc. I think that I may be too old for this job. To run restaurant is easy, but to keep it running with quality is tough, tough and tough.

We ordered ten pounds of Manila Clams. They were shipped in on Tuesday and Pook, Ali and I tasted them together. They were wonderful we will special them this week.

We also got in some Sunhollow Oysters from the west coast to replace our Island Creek east coast oysters. Look how beautiful they look!

This week's fish will be Black Cod. We wanted something besides halibut . The halibut was sixty to eighty pounds which is too big for us. John is shipping in Atlantic Black Cod about twelve pounds a piece. So we are looking forward to trying something new!

So far this year has not been the greatest for fish. It is hard to find really good, eye catching product. This will be my only post this week. I will talk to you next week.

Your Chef,

Max

John our seafood guy shipped us Blue Fin Tuna today! I just finished cutting it. From the 16lbs I got in we only got 2 1/2 to 3lbs of sashimi. The rest will be used for the line as 1st grade Blue Fin. Enjoy!

The weather in Boston this morning was terrible so there is no good seafood to report. We will let you know on Wednesday if we can get any goodies in.

But in the mean time I will fill you in on our chocolate challenge. One of our suppliers sent us a sample of Cordillera, a premium dark chocolate from Columbia to try for our famous warm chocolate cake. We substituted the Cordillera for Callebaut, our Belgium chocolate to compare the two. For this particular dessert and the way we prepare it the Cordillera didn't compare to our Callebaut. Because of the richness of cocoa the Cordillera plateaued and didn't have enough depth and finish. So at least for now our warm chocolate cake will stay the same.

Last week was a big prep week for us. The Red Balloon our newest dessert has been so popular we have had to triple its prep. We have to use a whole ten gallon tank of liquid nitrogen to make enough. We fill a balloon with raspberry puree then roll it in liquid nitrogen at negative 321°F rotating it to make a hollow sphere. It's a scary technique but its all worth it! The sphere is the placed on top of an almond cake filled with lemon and rose-lychee mousse and garnished with raspberry caviar.

Lastly, over the weekend we sampled some dungeness crab. It was fantastic! We ate it chilled served with chili coulis sauce. It was so good we ate all three. If you would like a copy of the recipe please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it It's never too early to start experimenting with menu items for the summer. We will order more this week to check the consistency of the product.

This week we are finalizing our Valentine's Day menu. We were very happy with the new a la carte format of our New Year's Eve menu so we decided to follow suit and use the same format for Valentines Weekend. Good bye prix fixe menus!

Our new seafood vendor has informed us that the tasty Island Creek Oysters we have been serving are only available for about one more week before they start to spawn. However, upon their dismissal we will be shipped Beau Le Soleil Oysters that are equally as delicious from San Francisco.

And finally our daily fish special... We were hoping to get in some of the beautiful blue fin tuna we had in early to mid December, however, the fish was too soft, the color was not right and the fat content was too low. Since blue fin was out of the picture we decided on Norwegian Halibut. Two 27 pound halibut were shipped in today They are so fresh you can still see their spots! I have decided to keep one of the taill for myself. I will roast it with fresh herbs and white wine...Yummy!

Welcome to Max's Blog

My name is Max, I am the chef at Lemon Grass and Bistro Elephant. I have created this blog to keep everyone up to date on what to expect next from our kitchen. This blog will mirror the every day life at the Lemon Grass, the way it has been done for twenty years.

I believe that the popularity of the cuisine changes yearly, monthly and even weekly. It is our job to be good enough to keep up with the ever changing market and stay up to date with the rest of the world. So next time you're craving something different check out our new adventure on Max's Blog!