The Restaurant you work in...

Smoked gouda quesadillas with montreal seasoned chicken, artichoke hearts, and bacon. Served with a caramalized leek sour cream

Smoked salmon, caper, caperberry, red onion, chive, and extra-virgin olive oil "bruchetta". Served on crostini.

NY Strip dusted in powdered porcini mushrooms, served with a warm arugula, spinach, vidalia onion, and bleu cheese salad.


Of course we have things like burgers, wings, and other typical "diner & pub" food on the menu, but I wanna list some of the more stand-out items.

I work for a sports bar/restaurant, our "signature" dish is a crunchy grouper sandwich~ grouper is coated with crushed corn flakes, almonds = our best seller.

A lump crab sandwich with remoulade sauce


All the typical fare that you find in such a place, but everything is made fresh daily including our hamburger rolls, soups, etc.

In my working days my best sellers were

Smoked salmon and goat cheese quesadilla

Scallops with orange butter and shallot jam

Lamb "ribeye" in various forms

Lobster wontons w/ nage

Carpetbagger steak :D (Imagine that)

Giant fried pork chop with creamy hamhock gravy (pounded out twice as big as your plate)

Lump crab and avocado salad

That makes my mouth water :bounce:

Our most popular item is undoubtedly duck l'orange, followed by Dover sole meuniere, colorado rack of lamb with dijon breadcrumb crust and sea scallops with lobster veloute. Dessert favorite is floating islands. We sell about 60/40 our menu items/specials because we do a lot of daily's. Here's Saturdays specials:

Amuse: Brandade d'morue puff pastry, tomato coulis
Soups: Gazpacho, Roasted pepper and crab bisque
Kummamoto Oysters
Tuna tartare with green apples and corn relish
Frisee and Lardons with poached egg and black truffle viniagrette
Grilled lamb chop with fresh papardelle, roasted yellow tomato and green olive sauce.
Lobster L'Americanne
Whole roasted bronzino with sauce l'estragon
Butterflied rainbow trout with champagne grapes and champagne sauce
Bone in escalope of veal, roasted pepper, shallots, white wine and shaved reggiano
Hudson Valley Poussin, rustic egg stuffing and foie gras nage

That's actually not that bad. On the weekends I try to keep it simple. During the week our kitchen is like a science lab sometimes...Most of our competition is high end northern Italian so you may notice we lean that way sometimes. I managed a pic of the Tuna tartare, Lobster L'Americanne and Frisee salad but other than that I was slammed. There is an older pic of the trout which I have been running all summer(It's a food cost dream at $28). Most of you know how much that piece of trout cost me....(insert maniacal laughter here)

Keep those fires burnin
Chef Brian

The cranberry crusted chicken sounds wonderful.

Wow, fresh escargot! I am impressed. Maybe I can get you to start a thread about the snails...

My favorite dish was this composed beet salad at an old job.

Mache
Fresh chirve.
1/2 slices of roasted yellow beet
Braised baby beets (red, gold, and candy striped)

This was placed on a little bed of a red beet puree (roasted red beets pureed while still warm with brown butter and some balsalmic vinegar. It was so fricking good!)

The plate was finished off with a drizzle of beet gastrique (reduced red beet juice. You need to simmer slowly and skim the foam or it gets bitter)

We used square frosted glass plates, it looked drop dead gorgeous.

That they were. I was hoping for more the candystripes but they always seemed muted in comparison.

The same chef had this baby vegetables in escebeche salad that was served on a bed of cauliflower puree. The pickled veg was tossed with some shaved carrots in a vinegrette made with reduced sherry. We garnished with fired parsley leaves (What a PITA. Each individual leaf had to be flat)

Where are you from? I remember retrieving fresh snails of the mustard tops in Burgundy.

Torrie, you owe us all pics of yours. I don't have pics at the moment, but my kitchen smells of very good food right now

latest menu for a casual wedding reception....

Cheese Table:
Manchengo
Cheddar
Brie with cranberry tangerine goo
housemade lavosh, crackers, grapes, nuts, other crackers

Veg Table
heirloom tomato platter, buttermilk herb and vinagrette
roasted veg with evo herbs


Pork table
Heirloom pig, pulled and sliced
coarse grain mustard, chutney, onions
rolls

Shrimp Remoulade Table
with melba toast

Wedding Cake

Budget wedding for a white linen chef friend that just quit his restaurant.....no job lined up, but as he's one of the best in town that will not be an issue. It was interesting working out the menu with him.

So, that is fairly typical....local good quality food cooked fairly straight forward......
Though I love twisting too...ie shrimp creole arincini or sweet potato crepes with orange cream filling and bourbon praline pecan sauce.

Most wednesday dinners (farmers/cheese makers/chefs/chocolaters/foragers) are out in my back yard and are usually monstrous seafood salads with local sunflower sprouts, tomato salads, last week was southern smothered okra with lardons, cheesy biscuits.....watermelon, pesto.....straight forward usually big flavored food.

not decided....could be apricot/orange with mustard seeds,onions, garlic chili flakes, cider vinager, brown sugar.....dried or/& fresh apricots

Apples....same rift

Not done grapes but think concord would work too.....

I'm not crazy about pear chutney.....in spring it's rhubarb, YUMMMMM YUMMMM......

If you're serving manchego you've got to serve quince or gauva paste (membrillo) alongside. I think it's a Spanish law. It's a tasty and classic combo, and the red of the membrillo looks stunning with the white of the cheese.

Sid Wainer's quince paste is to die for...and yes I believe it's a law in Spain...lol

yes I have 3# left of the 6.6# tub....1/2 wheel of 3 mo manchengo (actually prefer the older but this is what I've got....marcona almonds, some great dried figs.....last week had tons of fresh figs, champagne grapes and some tiny thompson grapes (first time I've seen them so little) that went with the housemade lavosh, wheat biscuits and very very expensive raisin, rosemary, nut thins from Whole Foods that I've not figured out how to make yet. :)
And the wheel of D'Affinoise.....

I sell alot of cheese tables, guess it's easy to sell what you love.

Sometimes I regret visiting a thread because my mouth is watering for what was mentioned and there is no way for me to get it at the moment.

cheftorrie.....thanks!! there is a thread with specs for a women's halloween "heavy cocktail food" event....with Dracula as the theme.....the ideas are just not fully flowing yet.....but if you'd enjoy the exercise I'd love the help....(should be on that thread though) don't wanna hijack this one.

on the chutneys don't cook the fruit too much, I like some tooth to the fresh fruit.
saute onions, garlic, mustard seeds, add vinegar (prefer apple cider vinager in most cases) brown sugar, chili flakes....fruit....salt.... oj concentrate with apricots works very well. Heirloom dbl cut pork chop....life is good!!!!
I've got a pork supplier that raises phenominal pig, oh man this shtuff has got a outer layer of fat, marbling, flaver and is so tender....I buy 1/2's and wholes and break them down myself. really really good prices.
Last Oct I had a heirloom pork tasting with 7 varieties, most heirloom pigs...ossabow, red whattle, berkshire, tammworth, mutt mixes that are great, duroqs, ......next to a Sam's pork loin....you know it's night and day, but when you are tasting them side by side it's trully unreal the difference of varieties, what their fed......etc.....good pig is a beautiful thing!

don't mind thanks for asking.....enjoy!