OpenTable

As a tech guy (I spent nearly 20 years in the computer industry before switching horses), I have always valued automation and using software to assist me in running my business. In the best of all worlds, software applications help me leverage myself to do more with my precious hours at a lower cost. As an example, using QuickBooks saves me the cost of a part-time person to keep the daily books. So it is not surprising that I have always seen the need for electronic reservations and my restaurant was one of the first to go to on-line reservations a decade ago.

When OpenTable arrived on the scene some years later, I decided to have a look at the technology and consider scrapping my homegrown (and still to this day functional) reservation system. Alas, the technology four years ago was not at the point where it needed to be to support my restaurant.

All our hardware infrastructure is in the back office of our old building, as far as physically possible from the dining room. The OpenTable system relies on a terminal in the front of the house. And they required that the terminal be hardwired to the server in the back office. Not only would it have been very difficult to retrofit new wiring in our old building, we simply don't have any reasonable place in the dining room to put a terminal. And so, we took a pass on OpenTable.

With the advent of wireless technology came the hope that OpenTable would move with the times. And so we took another look at them last summer. The new system comprises an iPad in the front of the house talking over the wireless network to the server in the back office. It seems like a perfect and obvious solution. We took the plunge and discovered that it is not a good solution. Far from it, alas.

The technology on the iPad was bleeding edge and largely untested. From the moment we put it in production, it was crashing constantly. What OpenTable didn't tell us was that we were guinea pigs. What they didn't tell their sales rep was a lot. They let him promise us things that never worked and had never been tested.

For example, the iPad was pretty useful for seeing the dining room and telling when tables would turn, but it couldn't take reservations. What? That's right; the iPad app was incapable of taking reservations: it would crash or the performance would be so bad that we couldn't take the reservation in real time. When the phone would ring and we needed to take a reservation, someone had to go from the front of the house all the way to the back office and record the reservation on the server. And for this OpenTable wanted a fee?

Worse still is that we were on the phone and email with OpenTable customer support almost from the moment we deployed the system and nobody could or would take responsibility for our account and help us make the system work for us. After nearly three weeks of non-responsiveness despite nearly daily communication with OpenTable, I finally asked the sales rep to take his system back. I thought I was going to get a standing ovation from the front of the house staff, who hated every second of the experience.

Nearly a week after the hardware went back and our account was closed, a product manager finally emailed to find out what maybe they could do to help us in a future product. This is the old barn door getting shut long after the horses left for greener pastures, but very symptomatic of a corporate culture gone wrong. Another telling symptom: OpenTable doesn't have a published phone number for their corporate offices. A customer needing management intervention does not have the option of trying to call one of the executives at OpenTable for some assistance in resolving a problem. Is this arrogance or ignorance? Does it matter?

The story does not end here. The final insult was that despite our returning all their hardware and closing our account with clear documentation that the product delivered was not the product sold, OpenTable hit me with $2600 of early termination fees. Fortunately, I had the foresight to put these on my Amex card and so it was easy enough to dispute the charges. But this seems symptomatic of a company that does not know what it is doing.

And so now those of you who have been asking why we are not on OpenTable and have no plans to ever be, now you know why. Arrogance, incompetence, and worse, a total disregard for the customer who pays their very large fees. Sound like a company you want to do business with? I thought not.

Chef's Tasting

And now post-Valentine's Day, we start a whole series of tastings. Winter is seriously the most challenging time to do tastings as the showy summer fruits and vegetables are absent. We had fun with this menu making do with what we had on hand.

Smoked Salmon "Latke"

Smoked Salmon "Latke". Tony came up with the idea of inverting the smoked salmon and the potato, putting whipped potatoes on top of a thin pancake of shredded smoked salmon, capers, and dill. A twist on your mom's salmon croquettes.

Potted Rabbit

Potted Rabbit. We're blessed to have plenty of rabbits on hand and sometimes when we have too many, we conserve the rabbit by curing it and slow-poaching it in duck fat, then shredding the meat, seasoning it, and mixing it with the highly reduced braising liquid and more fat, then sealing it in a container under a layer of fat. Sound like rillettes? It is.

Hedgehog Mushrooms on Goat Grits

Hedgehog Mushrooms on Goat Grits. Recently, I've been on a kick of enriching my grits with goat cheese, especially to serve with a high acid red wine. On top is a mix of hedgehog mushrooms, roasted sweet potatoes, and spinach.



Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads. There may be no finer meat to eat than sweetbreads, these from our friends Bill and Holly at Martin's Angus Beef, our regular beef supplier. After poaching in court bouillon, being pressed overnight, and then cleaned, these labor-intensive nuggets have been hard-seared in pancetta oil after being tossed in Wondra and then finished with a splash each of heavy cream and veal glace. Did I mention a bit of black truffles as well? The green is cavolo nero.

Pork Pâté en Croûte

Pork Pâté en Croûte. I made a freaking awesome pork terrine earlier this week from pork shoulder, pork belly, and pork liver and I wanted to serve it for my tastings this week. But I didn't want to do the cold first course kind of thing with it because it has been so cold this week. Tony came up with the idea of wrapping the slices in pastry and then at some later point, we had made this awesome tart apricot chutney that was just hanging out waiting to be used, and so it went inside as well. Served with a whole-grain mustard vinaigrette to help tame the unctuousness of the terrine and the pastry.

Wild Boar Bobotie

Wild Boar Bobotie. I'm just going to say it right here and right now: feral wild boar is wild for a reason; it's barely worth eating. Domestic pork is so, so, so much tastier, fatter, and easier to work with. These big feral bastards from Texas are lean, stringy, chewy, and taste much more like beef than pork. Your idea of a good time? Not mine. So what can you do with it? Mostly, we grind it and add a hell of a lot of fat. And then we try to figure out what to do with pounds and pounds of ground boar. And bobotie, the unofficial national dish of South Africa, is a great way to use ground meat. More commonly made from lamb and/or beef, bobotie is an Indian-spiced mince pie topped with an egg custard. This one contains golden raisins, diced apricots, and diced apple.

Lime Curd Parfait

Lime Curd Parfait. With most of our dessert wines, something light and citrusy is called for, if we are not doing a savory profile dessert. Lime whip, lime curd, crème anglaise, and shortbread crumbles make this a tart and light finish to a heavy winter menu.

February Tasting

It's been a very long time since I posted anything here, since before the holidays. The holidays are a struggle in themselves and then comes January. Slow month for sure, but filled with paperwork trying to close the prior year, get W-2s to the employees, and get our taxes done. And then starts all the planning for Valentine's Day, which just having passed is giving me the luxury of a little free time to post some photos. So, we've done lots of tastings in the interim, but had no time to blog about them.

And then, it's just smack in the middle of winter with no exciting produce or products to stimulate our creativity. I really don't have anything more to say about parsnips right now, you know?

We didn't do a good job with portion sizes here. This was way too much food for a seven-course dinner, but then in our defense, it was freezing out and we were serving comfort food, stuff that we always seem to serve too much of.

Clam Imperial

Clam Imperial. One good thing about winter is that we seem to get really sweet and tasty clams, when the clammers can get out. And when the ground is not too frozen, we can dig some leeks to go with those clams. Clams in a rich béchamel with smoky Surry sausage and leeks is a wonderful thing, as comforting as the best chowder, only richer and more sinful.

Char with Caramelized Fennel

Char with Caramelized Fennel. We lucked into some really nice fennel and the char was merely the vehicle for serving the sinfully unctuous braised and caramelized fennel. Served with a round of fennel and orange butter.

Mushrooms and Grits

Mushrooms and Grits. Nothing more comforting in my book than crispy mushrooms on a pile of warm, creamy grits. This dish has hedgehogs, bluets, and both white and brown clamshells (aka beech mushrooms).



Ballotine of Rabbit and Boar

Ballotine of Rabbit and Boar. Our rabbit guy walked in the door with five rabbits the afternoon of this tasting, so I boned out an entire loin with flaps and stuffed it with a sausage that I made from wild boar, blanched strips of carrots, and blanched rapini stems. In another season I would have used haricots verts or asparagus, but being February, the only thing long, skinny, and green that I could find was the tender stems of some baby rapini from a local greenhouse. I might have wrapped this ballotine in crépine/caul fat, but I didn't have any, so I used prosciutto. Served with a little cavolo nero.

Piccadillo Dulce of Lamb Shank

Picadillo Dulce of Lamb Shank. This was actually a dish built around the pimentón aïoli that you see on the plate. In the south of France, they would call this mayonnaise a rouille (rust). I like the smoky flavor that comes from the smoked peppers in the pimentón. I had a lamb shank in the cooler that was just aching to become a sweet and sour dish, flavored with olives, almonds, golden raisins, garlic, sweet red and yellow peppers, onions, poblano peppers, pimentón, cumin, oregano, brown sugar, and Sherry vinegar. You also see a smoky chickpea salad with roasted red pepper and raw red onion, dressed with olive oil, Sherry vinegar, and more pimentón.



Smoked Duck, Sweet Potatoes, and Beluga Lentils

Smoked Duck with Sweet Potatoes and Beluga Lentils. This is a dish that I conceived as a one-biter on top of a water biscuit for a local winery to pair with their newly released Syrah. And so I upsized it and served it with Syrah for our tasting. The particular Syrahs that I paired with this have an earthiness that I echoed in the sweet potatoes but more so in the lentils. The lentils have bacon in them and they, along with the smoked Moulard breast, help enhance the smoky quality of the wine. To pull out the inherent pepperiness of the Syrah grape, I used a syrup of Tasmanian pepper.

Cranberry-Apricot Fregotto with Maple-Glazed Pork Belly

Cranberry-Apricot Fregotto with Maple-Glazed Pork Belly. This dish aims for an almost savory finish, though we may have got carried away with the maple syrup on the candied pork belly. The fregotto, a neologism of my own concoction from fregola and risotto, indicating fregola sarda cooked in the style of a risotto, is quite tart and bright, having been cooked with unsweetened cranberry purée. We sweetened it a touch at service by adding dried apricots, dried cranberries, and a touch of maple syrup.

Winter Tasting

We're getting to that time of the year (and we still have months to go) which taxes our ability to put fresh and local ingredients on the table. We're having to get creative with storage vegetables, winter greens, and items from the pantry.

Sopa de Ajo, Chorizo, Chorizo Oil

Stuffed Mussels, Chickpea Salad, Safrron Aïoli

Brussels Sprouts Salad

Scallop, Sweet Potato Purée, Black Truffle Beurre Blanc

Five Spice-Orange Pupusa Stuffed with Duck Confit, Curtido

Ballotine of Quail Stuffed with Pork/Pistachios/Cranberries

Rabbit Bourguignon, Broccoli Raab, Rabbit Demi

Venison and Cavolo Nero, Five-Spice Black Vinegar Sauce

Risotto of Thai Purple Rice, Coconut, Persimmon

Another Tasting

Here are photos from another recent tasting. Couple of ideas that I would like to remember here, especially the mussel soup, the kale salad, and the rabbit Bourguignon in pastry.

Deconstructed Paella?

Mussel Soup. This dish started with a color, saffron, chorizo oil against a golden soup. From there it morphed into something of a deconstructed paella. The soup is salsify with saffron, mussel broth, and a little cream. The main garnish is a mussel salad: mussels, EVOO, Sherry vinegar, garlic, roasted red peppers, and diced tomatoes. The minor garnishes are chorizo oil, crispy chorizo, and socarrat—the crispy rice bits from the bottom of the paella pan.

Kale Salad

Kale Salad. This is a blatant rip-off of a wonderful salad that Kelly White of Glen Manor Vineyards served me a few days ago. She's a great chef and this is a fantastic must-remember salad! It is tedious to pull off the tender, frilly edges of the kale, but after that, it is child's play. Garnishes for the salad include crispy pork belly bits, crispy bacon, grated pecorino, dried sweetened cranberries (Kelly used currants), roasted butternut squash, and croutons fried in bacon fat. To this I added some bacon fat, EVOO, lots of lemon juice, a touch of maple syrup, salt, pepper, and some minced garlic; and, surprise of surprises: I adjusted it to taste!

Rabbit Bourguignon

Rabbit Bourguignon. We are blessed with lots and lots of rabbits and so we struggle to find good ways to use them. And among the dozens of ways, we really do love this one. The trick, to sell rabbits in our market, is to take it off the bone, something that is anathema to Europeans who are used to rabbit on the bone. Once we take it off the bone, it is formless and we struggle, absent the bones, to give it form and definition on the plate. Wrapping the rabbit in pastry is a great and tasty way to present it. We have cooked the rabbit in the traditional Burgundian style with bacon, onions, mushrooms (cèpes or porcini), and Pinot Noir. A little of the reduced braising liquid serves as a sauce and some tiny Brussels sprouts serve as garnish.

Veal Shank Puttanesca; Black Barley Barlotto

Veal Shank. We lucked into some tiny veal shanks and so we did a take off on ossobuco, braising the veal in a puttanesca (spicy tomato with anchovies, capers, and olives) sauce. Rather than risotto milanese, we did a barlotto, black barley cooked in the style of risotto. Good hearty food, but culinarily unmemorable.

Pawpaw Parfait

Pawpaw Parfait. Back in the fall, we collected a lot of pawpaws and froze a lot of pawpaw pulp against the day when there wouldn't be a lot of local fruit with which to work. This parfait looked a lot nicer in person than it does here: you really cannot see the ruby red of the cranberry jelly layer that sits on top of the pawpaw panna cotta layer. On top of the cranberry layer is a layer of vanilla custard, a sprinkle of crunchy granola, and a whirl of whipped cream. Surprises: hidden in the middle of the panna cotta is a chocolate truffle and hidden in the vanilla custard is a swirl of orange cream cheese.

Chef's Tasting

We've done a lot of tastings recently, but I haven't posted many pictures mostly because the dishes don't have striking color this time of year like they do in the summer. Long gone are the gorgeous reds of ripe tomatoes and peppers, the bright green of peas and snow peas, and the delicate yellows of squash blooms and corn. In now are the browns, rusts, tans, beiges, and whites of our winter vegetables and while they are not as photogenic as their summer cousins, they are equally delicious.

Without further ado then, one of our most recent tastings:

Charcuterie Trio

Charcuterie Trio. In the foreground you see a veal tongue terrine set in aspic with a lot of fresh parsley à la the French classic jambon persillé. In the middle is a swirl of rabbit liver mousse flavored with Cognac and on the far end, a terrine of ground Berkshire pork shoulder flavored with all kinds of delicious bits.

Cauliflower, Maitake Mushrooms, and Leeks

Cauliflower and Leeks. These are two vegetables that many people pass over without a second thought but which are incredibly fun for us chefs to work with. The cauliflower has been roasted to the point of caramelization and then made into the silkiest of sauces: it is really something you just want to wallow in! The leeks have been creamed and then wrapped in phyllo for presentation purposes, and these little triangles are decadently delicious. Crispy maitake mushrooms and dots of truffle-infused balsamic vinegar complete the plate, the earthy mushroomy flavors playing off the rich creamy cauliflower and leeks, and the vinegar delivering the acid that keeps this dish from being cloying.

Scallop, Pork Belly, Sweet Potatoes, and Black Truffles

Scallop and Pork Belly. Not too much original here, but this is a damn fine course that I would be happy to be served at a restaurant. Scallop on top of house-cured pork belly on top of a silky sweet potato purée, all napped with a tart black truffle beurre blanc.

People always ask me how to make pork belly, thinking that they are going to make it at home, but then start wincing about the time I get to the third of the fourth cookings! We cure it for a length of time dependent on the thickness of the belly, then brown/damn near char it in a very hot oven, then braise it, then refrigerate it, then confit it under duck fat, then refrigerate it under duck fat for a long period, then slice it, and pan fry it. Sure, you can do it at home but why would you want to? You can achieve 90 percent of the results with a much simpler process and that it good enough for home. The extra pain that we go through to make it the very best pork belly you've ever eaten, you should leave to us.

Duck, Rabbit, Spätzle, and Brussels Sprouts

Duck and Rabbit. It's winter and for some reason, the cute little brussels sprouts keep making us think of schnitzel. Here, we have taken a tenderloin off of a rabbit and the so-called tenderloin off a duck breast (the little tender piece on the under side of the breast) and pounded them side-by-side, slightly overlapped, so that they form a single piece of schnitzel from two very different meats. They're breaded in a five-spice panko and served with sweet and sour sprout hash and orange spätzle. I thinly sliced the sprouts, some shallots, and some of my house-cured pancetta. After caramelizing the pancetta and shallots, I added the sprouts and cooked them until bright green, just a few seconds. Then into the pan with a tiny bit of butter, a pinch of sugar, and a taste of white balsamic vinegar. Done and delicious! Even so-called sprout haters love them this way!

Pork Cheek, Grits, Gremolata, and Pork Jus

Pork and Grits. We serve a lot of pork and grits in various guises, mostly because how insanely good is the combination of any kind of pork with corn? This is a slow-cooked Berkshire pork cheek, crisped in a black steel pan, on grits, topped with gremolata, and napped with what we call "pork goodness," the juices left in the bottom of the pan after cooking our pork belly.

Venison, Flower Sprouts, Blueberry Salad, and Tasmanian Pepper

Venison. It's venison season once again and we are working our way through a few rear haunches. I seam out the legs into individual muscles and then break those down into steaks which I marinate for a couple of days. Then I grill them, very, very rare. Here you see the grilled and sliced venison plated with a dried blueberry and celery salad, and the first so-called "flower sprouts" that I have ever seen. These are a new (and according to the farmer that grew these, not very stable) cross between brussels sprouts and kale. The resulting plant has a long central stalk like a brussels sprout plant, but instead of miniature cabbages, it has little broccoli-like whorls of leaves without any sign of a bloom. These were deep purple before blanching and now they are very deep forest green. Despite their novelty and interesting appearance, I have already told the grower that they are not worth growing again: the flavor is not as good as either of the parents. She said, "good to know; they are a pain to harvest." And so it goes.

Chocolate and Cranberries

Chocolate and Cranberries. Being just after Thanksgiving, we have lots of cranberries in the cooler, looking for ways to get on plates. I made a bunch of them into a delicious whole berry jelly (or jam, if you are so inclined to call it that). This dessert starts with a simple disk of flourless chocolate torte, then a layer of orange cream cheese, a layer of jelly, and finally a swirl of cream cheese. This rich but not very sweet dessert I designed to go with a glass of Malbec. I liked the pairing a lot.

2012: The Alien Ingredient Series

Each week of 2012 here at One Block West Restaurant, we are aiming to find, use, and document two new-to-us (aka "alien") ingredients for a total of 100 during the year. I have worked with hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of ingredients from all over the world in the past 30 years of cooking. But a quick trip through our new international food market here in lovely Winchester, VA reminded me that there are hundreds more ingredients out there that I have never worked with.

So the crew and I are on this mission to document what we find and are using, to not only broaden our own knowledge, but truth be told, to have some fun too. We love surfing through markets for cool stuff. We're just like kids in candy stores!

The 2012 Alien Ingredient Series

1. Dwarf Truffle Peaches
2. St. Germain
3. Culantro
4. Epazote
5. Banana Flower
6. Dragon Fruit
7. Pickled Eggplant
8. Coquitos
9. Buddha's Hand
10. Nilgai Antelope
11. Cancha/Maíz Chulpe
12. Tteok
13. Silkie (Black) Chicken
14. Choclo
15. Fresh Green Chickpeas
16. Spondias/Mombin/Jocote
17. Jackfruit
18. Guava
19. Shungiku/Tung Ho
20. Okinawa Sweet Potato
21. Lotus Root
22. Guaje
23. Rau Răm
24. Kinh Giới
25. Ngò om/Rice Paddy Herb
26. Khao Thong
27. Rambutan 
28. Artichoke Stems
29. Korean Melon
30. Goose Eggs 
31. Longan
32. Fresh Lychee
33. Mamoncillo 
34. Dosakai
35. Wax Apple
36. Chipilin
37. Tasmanian Pepper Syrup
38. Lentil Shoots
39. Sweet Lime