Prix Fixe

On The Fly: Inside noma - A Docsconz Video

Another great video from Doc.

If you haven't checked out "Docsconz" I highly suggest that you change that - and go a'readin'. Link to his blog is at the end of this post, and over on the side bar.

In the second half of August I had the opportunity to travel to Copenhagen and visit noma, the restaurant now considered by The San Pellegrino World's Fifty Best Restaurants as the number one restaurant in the world. Prior to dining there, I had the opportunity to visit the restaurant before lunch service and had a tour from Chef Rene Redzepi himself.

We were joined by my friend and dinner partner, Chef Scott Boswell of the restaurants Stella! and Stanley in New Orleans, Louisiana. I hope this short video provides a glimpse into the inside of a truly incredible restaurant.

Inside noma from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

via docsconz.typepad.com

On The Fly: Shameless Plug

Hope everyone is getting to enjoy their labor day weekend, since things are a bit slow I figured I'd do a bit of cross promoting here.

Head on over to Geek. Cred. to check me out waxing poetic about another time, and sometimes universe. "Roll For initiative".  I take a look at a  younger gaming me, so if your interested in finding out a bit about me - from a non-food perspective, please head over and check it out.

OTF Update: Sinju [still] not talkin', Guido is..

On Saturday I posted about sushi restaurant Sinju and Guido Rahr who was banned from the restaurant after; objecting to the endangered Blue Fin that was on Sinju's menu. Go ahead and click that link, I'll wait for you to catch up - if you aren't already.

This comes from the Atlantic, and was posted yesterday.Though it seems Sinju and it's owners aren't talking. First rule of Blue Fin and all that.

Guido Rahr of the Wild Salmon Center, is more than willing to talk.

When my first post on this went live Saturday, I got a tweet that to sum it up - this guy was a tool and supported what Sinju did. Why I don't fully agree with that, and on some level there could have been a billion other ways to avoid the bad press and make everyone happy. They chose not to do this (as of this writing), so Mr. Rahr is going to keep talking.

Keep in mind, we're only getting one side of said story here. But let's get started shall we? It started out innocent enough, when he inquired about the breed - Atlantic or Pacific? When he was told that it was of course, Atlantic Blue Fin he had to respond.

In what he insists was a diplomatic manner, Rahr said that he recommended that the restaurant consider not serving Atlantic bluefin. "I said it really politely and more in the sense of, 'I'm a regular customer and I'm concerned. You really ought to think twice about doing this—especially in Portland where we take sustainability seriously,'" he told me in a telephone interview.

Emphasis is all mine, baby..all mine!

Erm, where were we?

That's right, diplomatic and all that.

Then according him, returned the next day and dropped off packet of information on the Blue Fin and how it's being fished to extinction. He returned a month or so later, and was told that he wasn't welcome - and that:

"She[the hostess]said the staff were afraid to serve me,"

According to the rest of the article, Mr. Chen who heads up the whole thing - hasn't replied to the email Rahr sent. The Atlantic tried to contact him via phone and was successful (sorta),he told the Atlantic to email him thier questions, and (Spoiler Alert!) he has yet to return that email as well. This is a bit surprising to me. I mean, wouldn't you want to now, nip this in the bud before it got any further?

Maybe Mr. Chen thinks that if he ignores his inbox enough - this will all go away and he can keep serving a dieing species.

Because hey! Endangered never tasted so good!

Of course, we've still only got one side of this story - and until Mr. Chen reverses his rectal/cranial inversion we'll only have one side of this he said/she said. I learned long ago, that you can't ignore something long enough for it to just 'go away'. And of course; I'm sure we haven't heard the last from Mr. Rahr yet either.

 

On The Fly: Sinju's P.R. #Fail

Let this serve as an example of what not to do.

Guido Rahr is the head of the Wild Salmon Center here in Portland, and he's been dining at Sinju for nearly a decade. Well that's come to an end, as he's been banned from dining at the restaurant. You see, he saw that Atlantic Blue Fin tuna was on the menu, and wanted to educate them on the fish that is dangerously getting close to going the way of the dinosaur.

Here's a snip-it of an email he sent to the restaurants management team.

"I have been a regular customer of Sinju for years and the Wild Salmon Center has given Sinju quite a bit of business. So when I saw Atlantic Bluefin tuna on the menu, I felt it was important for Sinju to know that this is not just another declining species, but perhaps the most high profile endangered fish species on earth."

He didn't just mention this in passing, he came back with detailed documentation about the over fishing the blue fin, and that it's nearing extinction.  It was his hope that the team at Sinju would understand and think about pulling Blue Fin off the menu.

"I was surprised that Sinju's reaction to all this was not to stop selling bluefin, or to even politely disagree with a loyal customer, but to ban me from eating at Sinju," he continues in his letter.He has not yet received a reply from the restaurant to his letter.

Rahr, who says he doesn't recall seeing bluefin on the menu prior to this incident, is still stunned. "I'm a regular customer. I didn't just walk in out of nowhere, and I did it in such a respectful way. I mean, this is Portland we're talking about," he says.

Sinju could've avoided this mess by listening to what he had to say. But;  by banning him from the restaurant - they now have lit the bat signal of unwanted attention. Even though the saying goes "Any press is good press" isn't really applicable in this scenario. The blogs and food sites are picking up on this and running with it, hell the story originally appeared at SlashFood.

It's going to (I'm sure) cause problems. The smart move? Invite the guy back in for a dinner, and for the love of all that is holy - take it off the frakking menu.

Kiss and make up.

Instead, it's going to cause a P.R. shit storm. Enjoy putting out that fire fellas.

On The Fly: Subway is in the constitution?

A tiny picturesque town nestled near the Zion National Park, it's been named one of the Top 10 "Prettiest" cities in the United States. Not a chain restaurant in site, and for good reason.

It's not what the town wants, they have a plan and they're sticking to it. Cannon Beach has the same type ordinance in place, and was one of the models for Springdale. But it seems that there's a Subway that wants to go up in the town - and the city doesn't want them there.

But the thing is, the people behind the money - knew this going in.

"We knew of the ordinance by the time we contracted with Subway, but my clients looked into it and absolutely believed that ordinance was unconstitutional," says David Stucki, the attorney representing the investors, who are incorporated in Utah as Izzy Poco. The ordinance has been in place since 2006. The suit was filed June 17 in U.S. District Court.

Unconstitutional?

I didn't know that putting up a Subway where ever you damn please was in the constitution. Which I'm sure the founding fathers had in mind, because hey - you can never have enough Sandwich Artists.

It'll be interesting to follow this, as I have a feeling they're screwed. Though from the picture in the article, the restaurant is ready, just not open because the city refuses to do a final fire inspection. Towns block places like this all the time, what gets me is these clowns think it's their right to put up restaurant.

Last time I checked, if you can't follow the city codes, and the fact that you knew they were in place already - is just plain silly and a tad on the dick-ish side.

On The Fly: Red Velvet...Whaaa?

It took me a minute or two to wrap my head around chicken and waffles; but this takes the cake (see what I did there?). How about tasty Red Velvet Fried chicken with cream cheese garlic mashed potatoes.

Here's the low down.

At first glance, it’ll look like a heaping plate of leg, thigh and breast. But upon further inspection, you’ll see that the chicken has taken on a slight reddish hue.

That’s because your precious fried bird has been pre-soaked in AC’s signature red velvet cake batter, then dredged in toasted, crumbled bits of red velvet cupcake before being dipped in a frying pan. You know, as one does.

I can only imagine how the idea for this came down. Most likely after a round or two of bong hits, and the obligatory "Dudes! I've got a totally rad idea yo!". Blammo! Red Velvet Fried Chicken. So if  you're in the San Fransisco area, and want to take your culinary life into your own hands you can get this abomination at American Cupcake.

And because I love you so much dear readers, here is photographic evidence.

On The Fly: Bocus D'Or

One of the blogs that I read on a daily basis is Docsconz-The Blog, it's fun, informative and christ he gets to talk to some finest chef's in the world - which is a +5 to the cool factor. Recently I read "Knives At Dawn" about Tim Hollingsworth's run at the Bocus D'or.

The next Bocus D'or in February on next year. Doc just recently posted a video - to which he describes it as.

This video featuring the likes of Jerome Bocuse, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Gavin Kaysen, Alain Sailhac, Andre Soltner, Andrew Friedman, Daniel Humm, Joel Buchman and the most recent US representative Timothy Hollingsworth, strives to give an idea of what the competition means for culinary America as well as a sense of what the competition itself was like.

And without further a due, here's the video.

Bocuse D'Or USA 2010 - A Docsconz Video from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

 

On The Fly: Rachel Ray + Cheetos= Yucko

It's been pretty apparent on this here blog that I don't particularly care for Mrs. 30 Minute CrapMeals. So that in itself begs the question of why I would post on the subject. This my friends is a bit different, imagine if you will a giant Rachel Ray head made from Cheetos (eye's up here buster, I know your eye's keep drifting to the picture below).

Well it seems that Colorado based artist Jason Baalman has you covered (and maybe a bit too much free time on his hands. No?) with his larger than life size portrait of Rachel Ray, only using Cheetos.

Yes, you did read that correctly. Cheetos.

This isn't the first time he's done this, his first Cheetos tribute was one of Conan O'Brien - unfortunately he never got the chance to present the portrait be cause of Jay Leno being a douchebag and forcing Conan off the air. Hell, NBC isn't even going to televise the Late Night catagory at the Emmy's - which CoCo won.

But I digress.  Here's the picture evidence:

That is more than disturbing.

Here's even more proof that homie needs some lady affection.

Baalman uses between 40 and 50 bags of Cheetos for the portraits. The different flavors are what account for the color variations, from mild white cheddar to the preternaturally blazing red-orange of "Flaming Hot."

He has to separate hundred of Cheetos by size and shape before he begins and spends hours gluing them down in layers.

Umm...yeah. This guy has also done Elvis in cheese puff dust and the Mona Lisa made entirely from ketchup. To make this even more painful - video evidence after the jump.

And you can't say that I didn't warn you.

On The Fly: Road kill beer? Really?

This is really some what disturbing, I come across some weird food related shit - but this is moved to the top of the

  "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" category. First off, it's $765 a bottle with a 55% alcohol content. But here's the kicker the bottle comes wrapped in a dead squirrel.

You'd expect a lot from a bottle of beer costing $765. What you get is 55 percent alcohol — and served in a squirrel. According to Scottish firm BrewDog, "The End of History" is the "strongest, most expensive and most shocking beer in the world."

According to the article, the beer needs to be treated more like a whiskey and should be handled as such (leave it to the Scottish). Apparently the 'wrapping' is 100% roadkill.

The dead animals which were used to create the beers' unusual appearance were four squirrels, seven weasels and a hare. All were roadkill, James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, told msnbc.com.

Only a dozen bottles of this 'killer' brew were made,and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but all 12 are sold out and there are currently no plans to make more. 

Of course wrapping your bottles in a dead animal of course has brought out the animal rights activists left and right. They've been told it's degrading to animals to which he responded.

"It was all roadkill we got from a taxidermist. They are all animals that were dead anyway. We think to use dead animals in this way is much better than for them to be left to rot on the roadside."

One of the selling points for a U.S. buyer was that it came in it's own taxidermist case.

The reason I purchased the beer was solely because it came in a taxidermic case," he said. "The humor of the packaging is what persuaded me to commit to the purchase, besides the only other taxidermic 'thing' I have is a jackalope." 

"However an added bonus — major added bonus — is that it contains the world's strongest 'beer' for now. All in all, I'm a craft beer enthusiast who appreciates BrewDog's cheeky direction," he added.

So don't expect to go down to the Oregon Brewers Festival this weekend and finding one of these beers.

On The Fly: Foodportunity PDX

One of the first things I do after getting a cup of coffee are awaking from a work induced dead sleep is fire up the laptop and open Google Reader. If it wasn't for Google Reader, I'm pretty sure I'd feel out of the loop on damn near everything. It's not like I get to watch the news every night.

One of the sites I really enjoy is Eater PDX. With the restaurant in Lake Oswego, it's like we're on the outer-rim. So Eater is a way I keep up with the culinary happenings in Portland proper. That's why it was great to see Scratch getting some love for a big event coming up in September.

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar will host the event on September 13, and on-hand to schmooze and chat with ticketholders include multi-nominated, hyphenated chefs Matt Lightner (Castagna), Naomi Pomeroy (Beast), and Gabe Rucker (Le Pigeon). Eats will be provided by the likes of Beaker & Flask, Clarklewis, Gilt Club, Nostrana, Ten 01 and Lake Oswego's Scratch

Emphasis is mine.

We're going to be hanging out with some heavy hitters that night, and should be a lot of fun. I've extremely proud of the things we do on a nightly basis at the restaurant, and I love that we get to show that off to people that might not normally make the trek to Lake Oswego to have dinner.

Foodportunity Portland