Private Dinners in The Salon

A couple of weeks ago, we hosted two private parties in The Salon. Each had 12 guests who sat around the cooking table and got to see our Chef Matt prepare most everything table side, including fresh, warm Ricotta Cheese, my personal favorite thing ever. Here's a look at the menu:

APPETIZERS

Crispy Soy Rice Cake with Tuna Tar Tar

Pork Skin Chicharon Tostada with Housmade Jerk Sausage & Red Chili

Vegan Carrot Panna Cotta with Candied Carrot & Fennel Seeds

Baba Ganoush Agnolotti with Yogurt Tzatziki & Cilantro

AMUSE BOUCHE

Garden Vegetable Crudite with Roasted Pepper Hummus, Handsome Coffee "Soil" & Baby Sprouting Vegetables

SALAD COURSE

Apple Salad with Purple Frill Mustard Greens, Smoked Orange Vinaigrette, Sunflower Sprouts & Seeds, Sugar Snap Peas & Hot, Fresh Ricotta Cheese Prepared Table Side

FISH COURSE

Blue Prawns, Scallops & Striped Sea Bass with Spaghetti Squash, Shaved Green Radishes, Clarified Lobster Stock, Enoki Mushrooms with Herbs and Spicy Chili Oil

BEEF COURSE

Grass-Fed Beef Cheeks Pot Roast with Celery Root Puree, Glazed Mirepoix, Red Wine Reduction & Carrot Top Gremolata

DESSERT

Angle Food Cake Toasted in Brown Sage Butter with Grapefruit Curd & Creme Fraiche Ice Cream

Let's Plate

We have kicked off the new year by cooking for a lot of wedding tastings (remember when we took you inside a wedding tasting here?). It's difficult not to be struck by the colors and aromas that I pass by when a tasting is going on. Whenever I can I grab my camera to pop off some shots to share. The tasting you see below actually was for a large event rather than a wedding, and four people came in for it. They brought a fancy bottle of wine and had themselves a party. They requested "really pretty food" so it was fun to pick through (edible) flowers in our garden and incorporate them on the plate.

Mise en Place

Sometimes the Mise en Place (French for "putting in place")is as pretty as the dish itself. Here is a dinner Matt made in The Salon for the staff holiday party of our friend Joy. Can you guess what each tray was used for?

We Get All Street In Our Garden

You may have already heard about our event inspired by our friends at Poketo we held out in our garden. It was featured in The New York Times and in 100 Layer Cake! The time has come to talk a bit about it here on our own blog. Here we go!

As is the tradition of these collaborations (here's the most recent one), we clear out everything from The Salon so our featured guests can completely reinvent it. Here Poketo made a pop-up of their downtown store. I especially like how they used tape on the floor to make designs, even a rug!

The chalkboard artist, Joyce Chai, works at Poketo so she did up all the many chalkboards we have around with little sayings and figurines just to add some pop.

In The Salon here is Nicolette, one of our catering managers. Together, she and I design and plan all of our special events. You may not always recognize her because she likes to roll out in costume.

We enlisted our talented friend Yasmine to do the flowers. She was a bit horrified that I gave her a bunch of artificially colored buds to work with. They had to be in our color palette: sea blue, red, purple, and yellow, all the colors of Poketo's logo! I knew they were cheesy but having Yasmine's delicate touch arrange them balanced it all out. I thought they looked beautiful!

It was a street fare after all so Nicolette took to spray painting milk crates in our color palate for seating. We also screened a Thai movie over off the bleachers there. Yes, those are stuffed animals in the audience. Better yet, they are MY stuffed animals from when I was a kid. My dad has kept my childhood bedroom like a time capsule from when I left at 18. He must've known these guys would come in handy someday.

Nicolette and I scoured Korea Town and Thai Town for components of flair and we were delighted to find very colorfully wrapped candies that we used in our decor. By the end of the night, those candies had been gobbled up.

Let's talk food! We had 4 "Action Stations" where we served our take on Thai and Korean street food. Our friends who own Poketo, Angie (who is Korean) and Ted (who is Thai), took us out on the town for some traditional comfort food from their homeland so as to familiarize Matt and I with the flavors and techniques of their respective countries. Then Matt put his own spin on things.

STATION 1: THE FRYER!

STATION 2: THE GRILL!

COLORFUL SOJU COCKTAILS!!

Let's get the tunes going! My dad drew and cut out those animals and vegetables that we painted in our color palette. Angie, of Poketo then wrote the names in Korean. Cute, huh? 

For the tables we wrapped wood blocks with Thai and Korean newspaper pieces and then spray painted little matchbox cars and tractors (it was a street party after all!).

STATION 3: THE WOK!

STATION 4: LETTUCE WRAP STATION

LET'S DANCE!

We made lots of little Thai inspired desserts that we tray passed.

The Flipbooth made it's debut at this party and it was a huge hit! Guests make little movie books that were printed for them on the spot as takeaway gifts. So much fun!

Photos: Stephanie Collins and Glen Nakasako

Oh yes and our friends at Smilebooth brought a set-up for us to have fun with, remember when we talked about it here? Did I mention we had ping pong table up too? We all had such a blast!