The Impromptu Dinner Party

So I took a Friday off of Salesforce to do some food work. I had a dinner party planned for a colleague, Neil so I needed that time to really think through the plan and prep.

A friend of mine, Juan had the day off of work from the restaurant so I called him up to see if he wanted to practice filleting on some fish from Tsukiji Market. Then I realized this could be a great time for an impromptu dinner party. I called a few girl friends up and the pitch was simple: Two guys are cooking for you. Professionals.

So I told Juan about this and we rushed down to Whole Foods downstairs, scoring some ribeye steaks, bunch of vegetables. So you know, this was the first hour of 7 hours of mayhem. We first got to work by setting up our workstations, a board for each. I sharpened my Nenox S1 Gyutou for Juan since I wanted him to rock the best. I sported my Suisin Kiritsuke.

Anyways we took apart the fish, got some scallops out and then got to work on the vegetables. Juan took apart a pineapple, and braised it in some juice, with a variety of spices. It smelled so good as we were working on the other stuff. He even took us to Morocco with a spiced sauce that we at the last minute, used with the giant botan shrimp heads, some well structured fusion. I worked on some sashimi, plated that to start, and then did some stuff with dashi. I wanted Juan to learn how I did dashi so he could experiment with it at work. I think after course 8 or 9, we slowed down a bit, and relaxed, since it was now 3am.

Juan served up the braised pineapple on top of a rose granite. I served up, um scotch. Seriously though, such a great night. Juan is probably one of the better chefs I know. Working as the Exec Sous Chef at Luce under Dominique Crenn is no small accomplishment. It's definitely a privilege to cook with him and I know the friends we invited all had a great time. Him and Dominique served me and my friends one of the best tasting menus I've had. Story another time.

What you read, was the first of 3 dinner parties of that weekend...