The "Nils and Dave" Show Hits the Road!

Last year I talked about a demo at school given by Nils Noren and Dave Arnold. They are an interesting pair, in a good way.

This friday they will be featured on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon!

Don't forget to set your DVR's!!!!

Rayuela, Check!

From the minute you walk into Rayuela, you are overcome with this feeling of knowing that you are about to have a great experience. The outside of the restaurant is unassuming, and I realized how many times I have walked or driven past this place and not even noticed it. But once I stepped inside, I felt transformed into a magical place, kinda like Disney land for me with all the food and drink options like the different rides I could go on. I was excited. I always love it when restaurants bring a little bit of outside in, and the tree in the middle of the first floor, going up to the second, along with the little lights and candles, gave the place a feeling of coziness.

The service was outstanding. Our waiter in particular was not only attentive, but knew his job. We asked a lot of questions, about the food, the menu, the executive chef. He answered all without missing a beat. I have to admit, I truly believe that all front of house staff should be able to inform customers of the chefs intention and vision of a restaurant, but unfortunately not everyone can. When we asked about the background of the chef, our waiter was very knowledgeable. He also informed us that the idea behind Rayuela is that it is designed to serve food from Spanish speaking places around the world, with an Asian flair. This was evident from the food to the cocktails and even the beer and wine. We were particularly excited to see Imperial beer on the menu! This is the official beer of Costa Rica, and it had been a while since I tasted the sweetness of it. I was also excited for the Picso Sour I had to start off the evening. There was a Peruvian restaurant uptown in my old neighborhood where I had one for the first time, and since then it has become one of my favorite drinks.

The menu was fantastic. I had high expectations because my Chefs at school were always talking about how much they love this place. We are definitely looking forward to going back because there were so many great things on the menu, that we were not able to try everything we wanted. Which is really EVERYTHING. They do have a 5 course tasting menu, which is the chefs choice, but we had specific dishes in mind for that night. In a future visit we will definitely try the tasting.

Course 1

Tuna Rellena-Shrimp, crab, and avocado wrapped in sliced tuna served with cucumbers in a soy vinaigrette



Carica Tejada - Chilean papaya stuffed with duck confit, spinach in a pedro ximenez duck sauce



Course 2

Carne a la Parrilla - Grilled beef tenderloin with oven roasted potatoes, mushrooms, diced spanish onions, pork belly and cabrales fondue



Paella de Coco - Valencia rice infused with lemongrass, coconut milk and ginger, served with shrimp, calamari, scallops, octopus, manila clams and peas. Served with head-on shrimp and ginger oil



Dessert

Pear tres Leches - Traditional sponge cake with spiced white chocolate mousse and poached pear

For a Small Fee.....

You can come over and I will make a lasagna for dinner....

Just kidding. But, really, maybe a small dinner party and pasta tasting?

Insider Tips...

...and a small plug ;-)

Perfection

There is really no other word to describe dinner at Le Bernardin last night. I had been there before, but this is the first time since embarking on my culinary career. It was amazing.

I always feel stupid taking my camera out and taking pictures of food, and I really regret not doing so last night. Next time. I was also too caught up in being so close to Mick Jager enjoying his dinner at the same time I was.

I did, however, whip the camera for this one!



So, cool......

Here is the tasting menu we enjoyed along with the wine paring. The only dish, in my opinion, that did not knock my socks off was the nori crusted skate. Don't get me wrong though, it was still good. But all the other dishes....absolutely incredible.

TUNA
Layers of Thinly Pounded Yellowfin Tuna; Foie Gras and Toasted Baguette; Shaved Chives and Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Botani Moscatel Seco, Sierras de Malaga, Spain 2008

OCTOPUS
Charred Octopus; Fermented Black Bean - Pear Sauce Vierge; Ink - Miso Vinaigrette; Purple Basil
Sauvignon Blanc, Paul Cluver, Elgin south, Africa 2008

SKATE
Nori Crusted Skate; Poached Oysters and Braised Winter Lettuce; Ponzu Vinaigrette
Jurançon, Domaine Cauhape “Chant des Vignes”, Southwest France 2008

STRIPED BASS
Baked Wild Striped Bass; Corn "Cannelloni"; Light Perigord Sauce
White Rioja, Crianza, Vina Gravonia, Lopez de Heredia, Spain 1999

SURF AND TURF
Escolar and Seared Kobe Beef; Sea Bean Salad and Eggplant Fries; Mr. Kaufman's Pesto and Anchovy Sauce
Malbec - Mendel - Mendoza/Argentina 2007

MASCARPONE
Mascarpone Cream in a Crisp Coffee Shell, Almond - Cocoa Pain de Genes
Château La Rame, Reserve, Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, France 1998

PEAR
Cinnamon Caramel Parfait, Liquid Pear, Smoked Sea Salt, Fromage Blanc Sorbet
Maury, La Coume du Roy, Roussillon 1998

Just Another Day in the "Office"

It's a Good Thing

It's always a good thing then you are excited about your work. I have only been working for 7 weeks now, and I have to admit that although this pasta making thing is still very new to me and I have a lot to perfect still, it was starting to get a little redundant. Everyday I was responsible for the same pastas. Since I started, we have made the spinach pasta for the lasagna, as well as the bolognese for that dish and assemble several trays of it a day (5 layers of meat :-) ) . We also make ravioli, as well as the raviolo with the egg in it. The other 2 pastas we make from scratch are the tonarelli for the Cacio e Pepe and the malfatti. Tonarelli is similar to a spaghetti, perhaps a thicker noodle, and the malfatti has a higher egg content as well as some semolina flour in it. We roll this out fairly thin and then cut them into small rectangles and then hand shape each piece into a shape I can only try to describe as similar to a bow tie, but it's really not (hard to explain or tell from the photo below!) In addition to these pastas, we also make the spinach ricotta filling fresh each day for the raviolis. It's enough to keep us busy, but I am always thinking in my head that I want to learn more!

Malfatti



Tonarelli


Lasagna



Raviolo



Well, I got my wish! Chef just came back from a short trip to Rome with the big DM and while he was there, all I could do was hope that he would come back with some new menu items, which he did! So, in addition to the pastas we are making already, we now get to make a fettucini, a squid ink tagliolini and a gnocchi! I'm sooooo excited about the gnocchi - this is a pasta that I am dying to perfect, and I can't wait to see our Chefs approach to making this. On Monday, when Chef had come back, he asked us to make him 9 different types of fettucini, differing in dough recipes and thickness of the noodles. The fun part was when he invited us up to taste all of the pastas with the other chefs. They were basically buttered noodles but so yummy! And it was also great to taste all the different textures of the noodle and hear from the Chefs why they did or did not work.

I will give more info as to how these pastas translate to the table, but I'm pretty sure the fettucini will be with fresh clams, the tagliolini with fresh shrimp, and the gnocchi will be with fresh tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil.

Look forward to some tasting :-)