what happened was I set up a blog entry to read over and finish up, but then had to go out of town AND managed to succumb to an insidious week-long cold that had been going around the office, felling colleagues left and right. So without further excuses...
February 8
I headed on over to the received an invitation from Ruth's Chris Steak House to discuss the concept's food and beverages with the two people most qualified to discuss such things. Vice president of culinary and purchasing James Cannon, and vice president of beverages Kevin Boyer.
My colleague Mike Dempsey and I headed over to the 51st Street location for a chance to sample different menu items and talk about them.
Kevin explained that Ruth's Chris was doing a lot to keep up with drink trends with regards to cocktails. For example, fresh-squeezed ingredients or using infusions. For example, Ruth's Chris introduced its own infusion the Lemonessence, which is made by infusing vodka with lemons and is used for some of the new fusion cocktails like The Pear Twist.
The menu also gets a fresh infusion of ideas through a company-wide contest for new food and beverage items. I got to sample one of the winners, a submission from a Dallas Ruth's Chris location, the Orange Citrus Mojito. It is made with orange-flavored rum, Triple Sec, orange juice, fresh lime juice and a splash of soda water.
The Pomegranate Martini is shaken tableside and is an eye-catcher with its deep burgundy and purple liquid served in a martini glass rimmed with yellow sugar.
Kevin also talked about how Ruth's Chris works with suppliers to have available drinks that are especially for Ruth's Chris. Ruth's Chris works with California wine cellar Parducci (owned by Mendocino Wine Co.) for an exclusive Pinot Noir.
Since wine is also served by the glass at Ruth's Chris, opened bottles are cared for with technology such as uses vacuum enclosers and sealers, as well as hand pumped inert gas to help preserve the life of an opened bottle of wine. However Kevin explained, that while technology can help to a degree, in the end it still comes down to the people who serve it. Servers are trained to continuously nose and taste test the wine to make sure it is good to serve no matter when or how many times it was opened.
Another interesting item on the specialty martinis section was the Spicy Mango Martini. It was a drink made with Absolut's limited edition (30,000 cases of the stuff was bottled) New Orleans Vodka, shaken with fresh lemon sour and garnished with a lemon slice and three whole black peppercorns that dotted the floating lemon slice. It was a very simple drink showcasing the mango and black peppercorn-flavored vodka which was created especially by Absolut with 100% of the profits going to various Gulf Region charities.
Besides helping out a cause for a region that's close to the company's heart the cocktail is also an opportunity to have something different and special on the menu.
"We don't want to be all exclusive," Kevin said about beverages such as using Absolut New Orleans or the partnership with Parducci, but he added, "these special things we like to do for the sake of offering something that customers can't get anywhere else."
Kevin said the drink will stay on the menu as long as the vodka is available in locations, but they're disappearing fast.
Showing posts with label infusions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infusions. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Adventures in secret dining
As I cautiously rang the bell at a building I'd never been to I was at the height of my paranoia. On the way over I fretted over whether or not I had the correct address and I wasn't really sure who to contact if I did write down the wrong address...what if I was walking into some insane kidnapping scheme? All this for a dinner and cocktail pairing?
I had been receiving correspondences from Bite Club for a while, but a recent notice said that there would be a dinner paired with cocktails by Joaquin Simo of Death & Co. made it me decide, "Well, maybe it's time I attended one of these secret dining club dinners."
When I entered the apartment that had been temporarily turned into a small dining area I was instantly struck by apartment envy. It seems to be a condition of New York living. It wasn't palatial like a Trump condo, it was just normal-sized. Seriously, that's all I ask for in an apartment. Normal-sized. Though I guess that's pretty subjective...
I managed to get over the apartment envy long enough to overhear a woman explain that she was with Italian Marie Claire and an older gentleman with her snapped away on his professional-looking camera. To be honest half of me was pretty scared about the possibility of being interviewed as an attendee. I wasn't sure what protocol was in giving statements since I was there as a reporter in some sense and I didn't want to commit some weird imagined faux pas in my head. However, when she ignored me to talk with other guests, what ego I had did feel a bit wounded. I was hoping I looked important or cool enough to talk to whether or not it was true.
As I scanned the room I spotted what I thought was a familiar face, but thanks to my ineptitude at recognizing faces and deteriorating eyesight it took me a while for me to recognize that it was my colleague Elizabeth Licata who was with her husband Nick Vogt. The two had been married since June and, may I for a moment drop all reporter pretense to say they totally made a cute and well-dressed couple? Seriously? Totally cute. But back to being professional...
It was a total coincidence to run into them. I hadn't discussed about attending this particular dinner and asked them if they were regulars to this club. Elizabeth answered that it was their first time attending and was sort of a Christmas gift to each other, which I thought was a great gift idea.
As I scanned the menu I saw that the five course meal featured marrow, lobster, sweetbreads, foie gras and chocolate. I was very curious as to what drinks would be matched with these food items. I dove head first into the pairings and tried to taste as much as possible each of the dishes and cocktails, but to be honest, five courses with five drinks (not counting the Blood Smoke and Sand Joaquin served before dinner) began taking a toll on me.
I guess I really should have tried approaching it more from a "tasting" standpoint, yet stubbornly I tried to be pretty good about drinking most of the drinks at the beginning. Waste not, want not as they say, but towards the end I was pretty full from the food and the drink. I could say a lot about what I tasted. For example, when I drank the Blood Smoke and Sand, the first thing to hit me was how smoky it tasted. I commented to Elizabeth about whether or not there was some liquid smoke in the drink because it was so pronounced, but later I was to find out that it was the extra peaty and smoky scotch that was used that was packing that punch. I found the choice of pairing the Summer Shack with the lobster dish interesting because of the drink's strong lemon/citrus aroma. It was pretty logical to me since it seemed like a drink that could play with the seafood flavor of the lobster, while playing in contrast with the creaminess of the dish and the rich and subtle black truffle pastry accompanying the cream of lobster. This was good and all, but I wanted to hear about the drinks from the source.
After the dinner, the place began to clear out and it started to look more and more like an apartment again. People were clearing up in the kitchen, and diners were grabbing their coats and heading out, thanking for the meal. I found Joaquin in the kitchen with a drink in his hand and leaning next to a fridge. He said good bye and thanked the dinner guests who complimented him as they filed out. It felt more like the end of a holiday party at a friends house than an intense study in complex cocktails served with an elaborate food menu. I felt like I was having a conversation with a friend of a friend I had been introduced to when I cornered Joaquin.
Curiosity got the best of me and I told Joaquin that I noticed him shaking the drinks in an interesting way.
"Were you doing a hard shake?" I asked. He replied that the odd shaking was more a result of him having to use chipped ice that I saw him scoop from a cooler stationed next to the long table he had set up as his station.
I also asked about the demerara syrup that was listed for some of the drinks. I confirmed with Joaquin that it was simple syrup made with demerara sugar. An option he chose to give the drinks a richer flavor to round things out.
We made small chit-chat about cocktails and how the cocktail scene can be a close-knit one. I also prodded a bit about the current state of affairs with Death & Co. and the State Liquor Authority. There had been closings related to noise complaints in 2007. In short, it's complicated and an ongoing issue, but the place is open again and trying its best to be squeaky clean in an attempt to show that they are good citizens, and if possible, avoid further attention from the SLA. It's running under the schedule of a previous liquor license, so the place is open from 6pm to midnight. There were more questions about how he worked out the pairings, but I didn't want to be rude about taking up too much of his time since it looked like there was still a lot of cleaning up to do. I asked him if I could follow up by phone. I was relieved that he obliged me by letting me call him up on Wednesday even though he was spending time with family.
Joaquin said that he got the menu from Bite Club a week or week and half ahead of time. The thing that I kept wondering about was how one would go about doing cocktail pairings. Cocktail in and of themselves seem like a food item with their own recipes of ingredients.
"There’s a couple a different approaches. One is to try mimic the flavors that are in the food. So if the food's heavy and rich, I might go with something heavy and rich. Or I might do the opposite. Both can work," Joaquin said.
"For the most part, I was trying to reference the flavor that I found or at least a certain sense of what the dish was about."
The first course of bone marrow was paired with a cocktail called the Loosey Goosey that had a foie-gras infused bourbon for providing a mouth feel of richness in the mouth.
When I saw it on the menu that night I instantly thought of chunks of foie gras sitting in bourbon, and that definitely did not seem right.
"It uses a technique called fat washing," Jaoquin explained, dispelling the disturbing and unappetizing image I had of the foie gras floating in jars like some kind of specimen. In the fat washing technique, the fat is rendered from the foie gras and allowed steep with the bourbon at room temperature. Afterwards, it's blast chilled and then strained through a series of sieves and filters. "You’re not going to get a greasy mouth feel."
Jaoquin explained he wanted something big to go with the bone marrow and a week before the dinner had the good luck of sampling some of the infused bourbon at PDT, where it was created by Don Lee. He knew instantly he needed some of it for the dinner.
And speaking of foie gras, the particular food item made another appearance later on in the dinner, but was paired with Joaquin's Black Market Brandy. The dish had pear poached with mulling spice, ginger snap, cacao nibs and star anise. The cocktail echoed some of these flavors with the spiced tea used to infuse the sweet vermouth, and also with the chocolate bitters and fruitiness found in the brandy.
"It’s always kind of a crap shoot," Joaquin said about trying to pair cocktails with food, but added, "I think they did work...they worked out very well. When they present these really complex menus it gives you a lot to work with...you play with one lesser flavor that’s found in the dish and accentuate it in the glass so people can recognize it."
Usually a spirit or new liqueur with an interesting flavor inspires Joaquin to come up with new drinks.
"When there's a really lovely flavor, I think 'Wow what could I do with this?'"
For example with a new rum he might try it out with a classic rum drink to see how it behaves. A technique he uses often, playing with proportions of classic drinks to see what else can come out of it.
I made a promise to try and stop by in the new year since around 30 new drinks were added to the menu.
"...30??" I asked again to make sure I heard right.
"It's always a challenge when we put out a new menu," Joaquin said. "Then you work a couple of shifts and get the hang of it."
A self-professed foodie, Joaquin said about dinner pairings, "It’s fun. One of the drinks on the list came from one of the first dinner pairings...it's always nice to have impetus with the food where you’re automatically getting a base flavor profile."
Dec. 22 Bite Club Dinner
Loose Goosey
Foie gras-infused Bourbon Rittenhouse Rye, Carpano Antica, dry Sherry, Champagne, Demerara syrup, Orange bitters, orange twist
Marrow
parsley shallot salad, sweet garlic jam, toast points
Summer Shack
Plymouth Gin, Lillet Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, St. Germain, Orange Bitters, Lemon twist
Lobster
cream of lobster, black truffle pastry
Solera Sidecar
Courvoisier Cognac, Ooroso sherry, Lazzaroni Amaretto, fresh lemon juice
Sweetbreads
JG raisin caper emulsion, cauliflower puree
Black Market Brandy
Courvoisier Cognac, Laird's bonded Applejack, Market Spice tea-infused Sweet Vermouth, Angostura bitters, Bittermens chocolate bitters
Foie Gras
Muling spice poached pear, ginger snap, cacao nibs, star anise caramel
New york Flip
Sazerac 6 year rye, Tawny Port, Demerara syrup, Heavy Cream, egg yolk, freshly grated nutmeg
Chocolate
Cayenne infused Neuhaus 85% chocolate, frosted habanero pepper
I had been receiving correspondences from Bite Club for a while, but a recent notice said that there would be a dinner paired with cocktails by Joaquin Simo of Death & Co. made it me decide, "Well, maybe it's time I attended one of these secret dining club dinners."
When I entered the apartment that had been temporarily turned into a small dining area I was instantly struck by apartment envy. It seems to be a condition of New York living. It wasn't palatial like a Trump condo, it was just normal-sized. Seriously, that's all I ask for in an apartment. Normal-sized. Though I guess that's pretty subjective...
I managed to get over the apartment envy long enough to overhear a woman explain that she was with Italian Marie Claire and an older gentleman with her snapped away on his professional-looking camera. To be honest half of me was pretty scared about the possibility of being interviewed as an attendee. I wasn't sure what protocol was in giving statements since I was there as a reporter in some sense and I didn't want to commit some weird imagined faux pas in my head. However, when she ignored me to talk with other guests, what ego I had did feel a bit wounded. I was hoping I looked important or cool enough to talk to whether or not it was true.
As I scanned the room I spotted what I thought was a familiar face, but thanks to my ineptitude at recognizing faces and deteriorating eyesight it took me a while for me to recognize that it was my colleague Elizabeth Licata who was with her husband Nick Vogt. The two had been married since June and, may I for a moment drop all reporter pretense to say they totally made a cute and well-dressed couple? Seriously? Totally cute. But back to being professional...
It was a total coincidence to run into them. I hadn't discussed about attending this particular dinner and asked them if they were regulars to this club. Elizabeth answered that it was their first time attending and was sort of a Christmas gift to each other, which I thought was a great gift idea.
As I scanned the menu I saw that the five course meal featured marrow, lobster, sweetbreads, foie gras and chocolate. I was very curious as to what drinks would be matched with these food items. I dove head first into the pairings and tried to taste as much as possible each of the dishes and cocktails, but to be honest, five courses with five drinks (not counting the Blood Smoke and Sand Joaquin served before dinner) began taking a toll on me.
I guess I really should have tried approaching it more from a "tasting" standpoint, yet stubbornly I tried to be pretty good about drinking most of the drinks at the beginning. Waste not, want not as they say, but towards the end I was pretty full from the food and the drink. I could say a lot about what I tasted. For example, when I drank the Blood Smoke and Sand, the first thing to hit me was how smoky it tasted. I commented to Elizabeth about whether or not there was some liquid smoke in the drink because it was so pronounced, but later I was to find out that it was the extra peaty and smoky scotch that was used that was packing that punch. I found the choice of pairing the Summer Shack with the lobster dish interesting because of the drink's strong lemon/citrus aroma. It was pretty logical to me since it seemed like a drink that could play with the seafood flavor of the lobster, while playing in contrast with the creaminess of the dish and the rich and subtle black truffle pastry accompanying the cream of lobster. This was good and all, but I wanted to hear about the drinks from the source.
After the dinner, the place began to clear out and it started to look more and more like an apartment again. People were clearing up in the kitchen, and diners were grabbing their coats and heading out, thanking for the meal. I found Joaquin in the kitchen with a drink in his hand and leaning next to a fridge. He said good bye and thanked the dinner guests who complimented him as they filed out. It felt more like the end of a holiday party at a friends house than an intense study in complex cocktails served with an elaborate food menu. I felt like I was having a conversation with a friend of a friend I had been introduced to when I cornered Joaquin.
Curiosity got the best of me and I told Joaquin that I noticed him shaking the drinks in an interesting way.
"Were you doing a hard shake?" I asked. He replied that the odd shaking was more a result of him having to use chipped ice that I saw him scoop from a cooler stationed next to the long table he had set up as his station.
I also asked about the demerara syrup that was listed for some of the drinks. I confirmed with Joaquin that it was simple syrup made with demerara sugar. An option he chose to give the drinks a richer flavor to round things out.
We made small chit-chat about cocktails and how the cocktail scene can be a close-knit one. I also prodded a bit about the current state of affairs with Death & Co. and the State Liquor Authority. There had been closings related to noise complaints in 2007. In short, it's complicated and an ongoing issue, but the place is open again and trying its best to be squeaky clean in an attempt to show that they are good citizens, and if possible, avoid further attention from the SLA. It's running under the schedule of a previous liquor license, so the place is open from 6pm to midnight. There were more questions about how he worked out the pairings, but I didn't want to be rude about taking up too much of his time since it looked like there was still a lot of cleaning up to do. I asked him if I could follow up by phone. I was relieved that he obliged me by letting me call him up on Wednesday even though he was spending time with family.
Joaquin said that he got the menu from Bite Club a week or week and half ahead of time. The thing that I kept wondering about was how one would go about doing cocktail pairings. Cocktail in and of themselves seem like a food item with their own recipes of ingredients.
"There’s a couple a different approaches. One is to try mimic the flavors that are in the food. So if the food's heavy and rich, I might go with something heavy and rich. Or I might do the opposite. Both can work," Joaquin said.
"For the most part, I was trying to reference the flavor that I found or at least a certain sense of what the dish was about."
The first course of bone marrow was paired with a cocktail called the Loosey Goosey that had a foie-gras infused bourbon for providing a mouth feel of richness in the mouth.
When I saw it on the menu that night I instantly thought of chunks of foie gras sitting in bourbon, and that definitely did not seem right.
"It uses a technique called fat washing," Jaoquin explained, dispelling the disturbing and unappetizing image I had of the foie gras floating in jars like some kind of specimen. In the fat washing technique, the fat is rendered from the foie gras and allowed steep with the bourbon at room temperature. Afterwards, it's blast chilled and then strained through a series of sieves and filters. "You’re not going to get a greasy mouth feel."
Jaoquin explained he wanted something big to go with the bone marrow and a week before the dinner had the good luck of sampling some of the infused bourbon at PDT, where it was created by Don Lee. He knew instantly he needed some of it for the dinner.
And speaking of foie gras, the particular food item made another appearance later on in the dinner, but was paired with Joaquin's Black Market Brandy. The dish had pear poached with mulling spice, ginger snap, cacao nibs and star anise. The cocktail echoed some of these flavors with the spiced tea used to infuse the sweet vermouth, and also with the chocolate bitters and fruitiness found in the brandy.
"It’s always kind of a crap shoot," Joaquin said about trying to pair cocktails with food, but added, "I think they did work...they worked out very well. When they present these really complex menus it gives you a lot to work with...you play with one lesser flavor that’s found in the dish and accentuate it in the glass so people can recognize it."
Usually a spirit or new liqueur with an interesting flavor inspires Joaquin to come up with new drinks.
"When there's a really lovely flavor, I think 'Wow what could I do with this?'"
For example with a new rum he might try it out with a classic rum drink to see how it behaves. A technique he uses often, playing with proportions of classic drinks to see what else can come out of it.
I made a promise to try and stop by in the new year since around 30 new drinks were added to the menu.
"...30??" I asked again to make sure I heard right.
"It's always a challenge when we put out a new menu," Joaquin said. "Then you work a couple of shifts and get the hang of it."
A self-professed foodie, Joaquin said about dinner pairings, "It’s fun. One of the drinks on the list came from one of the first dinner pairings...it's always nice to have impetus with the food where you’re automatically getting a base flavor profile."
Dec. 22 Bite Club Dinner
Loose Goosey
Foie gras-infused Bourbon Rittenhouse Rye, Carpano Antica, dry Sherry, Champagne, Demerara syrup, Orange bitters, orange twist
Marrow
parsley shallot salad, sweet garlic jam, toast points
Summer Shack
Plymouth Gin, Lillet Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, St. Germain, Orange Bitters, Lemon twist
Lobster
cream of lobster, black truffle pastry
Solera Sidecar
Courvoisier Cognac, Ooroso sherry, Lazzaroni Amaretto, fresh lemon juice
Sweetbreads
JG raisin caper emulsion, cauliflower puree
Black Market Brandy
Courvoisier Cognac, Laird's bonded Applejack, Market Spice tea-infused Sweet Vermouth, Angostura bitters, Bittermens chocolate bitters
Foie Gras
Muling spice poached pear, ginger snap, cacao nibs, star anise caramel
New york Flip
Sazerac 6 year rye, Tawny Port, Demerara syrup, Heavy Cream, egg yolk, freshly grated nutmeg
Chocolate
Cayenne infused Neuhaus 85% chocolate, frosted habanero pepper
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Drinks at Tailor don't always tailor to the seasons
Last week I caught Tailor's Eben Freeman on the phone to talk a bit about the drink menu at Tailor. With the change of the weather, I'd been feeling out to see what kinds of changes were happening to beverage menus out there, so I asked Eben if the beverage menu at Tailor menu was doing anything seasonal.
"I wouldn't necessarily call it seasonal," Eben answered. "We change things up all time. We're constantly developing new ideas and the bartenders are playing with things. There are a few drinks that are not on the list yet that we're happy to make changes with."
At the same time, he added, "We can't ignore the season. There are certain ingredients that come into play and the seasonality of drinking in the winter is different from the summer. But it's not a case of 'It's spring. It's fall.' It's not how it really works."
Eben said that while he doesn't collaborate directly with Sam Mason to come up with the drinks menu at Tailor, he tries to make drinks that "express the vocabulary of the kitchen." And the main drive behind his creations are about "putting things in liquid form that haven't been in liquid form before."
A direct collaboration isn't necessary between him and Sam considering their long working relationship together, which includes WD-50 and time at Jean-Louis Palladin's restaurant.
"It's about working in a certain milieu and a certain mindset," Eben said, crediting also their mutual familiarity with vocabularies and techniques.
"When you're a bartender in a restaurant, your responsibility is to know food well. For me that extends to knowing how to work in the kitchen. To know what the rules of the kitchen are, how you clean up after yourself, how the kitchen works, how to use the equipment...also not to step on anyone's toes." For example, smoking the syrup for the smoked Coke would be difficult if the kitchen was not equipped for smoking or if the kitchen staff did now know how to smoke things already.
Word of mouth has been going around about Eben's creations and he's been what he called, "very fortunate coverage." Especially for the smoked Coke and bourbon, which was also featured by NRN's food writer Bret Thorn in a food trends piece on smoked items. It started out as a food idea since some barbecue recipes call for cola. Other drinks that are turning heads include the pear crumble, which is made with sparkling pear cider, cloves and brown butter rum.
Some new drinks are being/will be rolled out this week. One of those drinks uses a lovage-flavored ingredient first developed by Sam as an infusion with juniper, clove, dry vermouth and a little bit of sugar. Eben added mescal, lime, juice and sea salt to the mix and calls it Mi Amor.
The lovage has a celery-like flavor, and Eben said that the drink is seasonal in its on way because lovage is no longer available and it's not a fall or winter flavor. The flavor of lovage intrigues with something unfamiliar and people who tasted the beverage reacted very favorably.
Eben also mentioned his Pumpernickel Flip. A flip is a classic mixed drink made with an egg yolk that's served either hot or cold. Eben's touch on this particular drink is the use of a pumpernickel raisin bread infused Scotch. The drink is rounded out with cream, simple syrup and nutmeg.
"I wouldn't necessarily call it seasonal," Eben answered. "We change things up all time. We're constantly developing new ideas and the bartenders are playing with things. There are a few drinks that are not on the list yet that we're happy to make changes with."
At the same time, he added, "We can't ignore the season. There are certain ingredients that come into play and the seasonality of drinking in the winter is different from the summer. But it's not a case of 'It's spring. It's fall.' It's not how it really works."
Eben said that while he doesn't collaborate directly with Sam Mason to come up with the drinks menu at Tailor, he tries to make drinks that "express the vocabulary of the kitchen." And the main drive behind his creations are about "putting things in liquid form that haven't been in liquid form before."
A direct collaboration isn't necessary between him and Sam considering their long working relationship together, which includes WD-50 and time at Jean-Louis Palladin's restaurant.
"It's about working in a certain milieu and a certain mindset," Eben said, crediting also their mutual familiarity with vocabularies and techniques.
"When you're a bartender in a restaurant, your responsibility is to know food well. For me that extends to knowing how to work in the kitchen. To know what the rules of the kitchen are, how you clean up after yourself, how the kitchen works, how to use the equipment...also not to step on anyone's toes." For example, smoking the syrup for the smoked Coke would be difficult if the kitchen was not equipped for smoking or if the kitchen staff did now know how to smoke things already.
Word of mouth has been going around about Eben's creations and he's been what he called, "very fortunate coverage." Especially for the smoked Coke and bourbon, which was also featured by NRN's food writer Bret Thorn in a food trends piece on smoked items. It started out as a food idea since some barbecue recipes call for cola. Other drinks that are turning heads include the pear crumble, which is made with sparkling pear cider, cloves and brown butter rum.
Some new drinks are being/will be rolled out this week. One of those drinks uses a lovage-flavored ingredient first developed by Sam as an infusion with juniper, clove, dry vermouth and a little bit of sugar. Eben added mescal, lime, juice and sea salt to the mix and calls it Mi Amor.
The lovage has a celery-like flavor, and Eben said that the drink is seasonal in its on way because lovage is no longer available and it's not a fall or winter flavor. The flavor of lovage intrigues with something unfamiliar and people who tasted the beverage reacted very favorably.
Eben also mentioned his Pumpernickel Flip. A flip is a classic mixed drink made with an egg yolk that's served either hot or cold. Eben's touch on this particular drink is the use of a pumpernickel raisin bread infused Scotch. The drink is rounded out with cream, simple syrup and nutmeg.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
