Lots of work happening on all fronts getting ready for Uchiko, with focus primarily on Uchi and maintaining it's consistency and super ninja trained staff. Key leaders and people at Uchi will stay in place and Uchiko will be 90% new hired staff. A couple chefs and managers will likely jump to the new space to help instill the same culture and systems we have in place at Uchi currently.
We went ahead and hired a third party expert almost 6 months ago to help us grow into a more high performance organization. His name is Joel Fleshman and he's incredible. One by one he's taking all of us up to the next level. Commitment vs. compliance....trying to help us become a place where everyone is committed to excel, and not just complying to set systems,checklists, etc. Joel's help has been priceless.
On the food side of things we're trying as always to edit and simplify; keep fewer things on the plate and make sure what's there is done as well as possible. Toying with different cuts of meat and techniques. Got in this gold label wagyu flat iron today. Paul is going to sous vide in it's own fat with various spices and/or aromatics and hold overnight. Tomorrow we'll portion and sear off on the binchotan grill to order. Rest of the composed dish forthcoming.
Tasting of daily specials for FOH in 2 hours.....including foie terrine with yukari and watermelon...sayori from Tsukiji....Japanese aji with ginger gel and plum...cuttlefish tataki with pickled Texas peaches...and paco jet grapefruit sorbet with crunchy olive candy and yogurt caramel.
Hey Tyson - hope things go well with the new venture - I'll do a drive by of your construction site tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteBTW, got to love that flat iron steak - I marinated a grass fed one overnight last week and seared it and finished off in 500 degrees - to perfection I might add. Was my first flat iron and i loved it. These guys deliver some good product if your into grass fed beef: http://www.alderspring.com/
You should have some gift certificates with my name on them - we need to get in their soon!
You working tomorrow?
-Rob and Jen