A la Carte Kitchen Week 1

School started last week! This quarter's class is A la Carte Kitchen, a student-run restaurant at school. We divided into the front and the back of the house. The front consists of servers, busser, maitre d'hotel, dishwashers, etc., while the back of the house consists of the cooks. Wanting to take things slow, I chose to work in the front for the next few weeks.

There was a lot to learn. There's a chalkboard in the restaurant that needed to be changed weekly. Usually, we would write about an unusual dish or an ingredient that we'll be serving that week. For Week 1, we had gnocchi, a candy called "honeycomb", and shishito peppers. We had to polish all the drinking glasses, silverwares, and set the table.

There are also certain rules of serving at a fine dining:

1. Ladies first

2. Serve drinks and clear the plates from the right side

3. Serve food from the left side

4. Be sure to clear the plates before bringing in the next course

We also needed to explain to our guests what our food is, what the ingredients are, how they're prepared, etc. With our heads bursting with these rules and the minute details about our menu, we started off the Wednesday night quite nervously...

This is our Amuse: Lemongrass Granita. An amuse is like a palate "cleanser" or "prepper", meant to prepare the palate for the upcoming courses.

Bread course: Rosemary and Garlic Foccacia. Good flavor...but when I took some of the leftovers home and ate it the next day, the texture was too spongy and tough. I turned it into crumbs for breading.

Soup Course: Shishito Pepper soup with cream cheese foam and caramelized onions. It wasn't bad, but it was still a little bland. We served the soups tableside--we set the bowls with the foam and the onions in front of the guests and then pour the soup into the bowls at the table.

Salad Course: Roasted Beet Caesar. With roasted red and golden beets, Parmesan-Beet green chip for crunch. The beets were nice and tender.

Pasta Course: Gnocchi with Spring Vegetables. Potato gnocchi with trumpet mushrooms, roasted shishito peppers, red beets, and elite cream sauce. The gnocchi were fluffy and light, crispy on the outside, just the way they're supposed to be. The trick is to bake the potatoes very well, then mash them while they're still hot, add some flour and eggs, then mix. Don't add too much flour or overmix, since that'll make them heavy and gummy. They are usually boiled, then fried, but I believe these were deep-fried without boiling.

Entree Course: Sauteed Shrimp & Beans. With handmade chorizo sausage, white beans and fava beans cooked in rosemary broth, topped with arugula. Both the beans and the shrimp were delicious!

Dessert Course: Sorrel Panna Cotta. With rosemary-olive oil cake, bay leaf ice cream, avocado sauce, and crunchy honeycomb. I liked the bay leaf ice cream; the sorrel panna cotta was OK, definitely different; the rosemary cake tasted great, but the texture was pretty dry and crumbly.
That was Week 1. Stay tuned for Week 2!