Category Archives: On the Menu Now

Cheers to the #SoBeWFF Festival Week/end & Two Drinks for That

Posted on February 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

Make two new friends this week (photo courtesy Ellie Sara Groden.)

Today marks the unofficial opening of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, and I’ll drink to that!  TGHG Beverage Director Ryan Goodspeed appropriately anticipated the needs of guests new and old descending on Miami this week for the country’s largest culinary festival, in high spirits of course, and last night put the Bandito and Scotsman on the @MGFD_MIA specialty cocktail list, with more additions coming today.  Ellie and I tasted these two last night and gave them high marks for balance, simplicity, and overall good taste. Here’s how they break down:

Bandito
This cocktail sneaks up on you like a bandito! And attacks!

2 oz Don Julio Reposado
1 oz Poblano/Cubanelle Agave
1 oz Passionfruit
1 oz Pineapple
½ oz Lemon
Combine ingredients in a rocks glass, add ice and shake.
Garnish w/ pineapple spear or chunk if available

Scotsman
Named after Colin Scott, master blender at Chivas

2 ½ oz Chivas 12yr or 18yr
1 oz Espresso infused orange blossom honey
(3 shots of espresso stirred into one bottle of local orange blossom honey)
½ oz lemon
Top with soda
Combine scotch, honey and lemon. Add ice shake and top w/soda
Garnish with lemon peel and dash orange bitters

Hope to see you in the restaurant for some toasts over the next few days. Here’s where we’ll be outside it, too:

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Posted in At the Bar, Harry's Pizzeria, In the Neighborhood, Local Ingredient, Mmm beer, News, On the Menu Now, South Beach Wine & Food, Special Event, Student Serving, Sweet

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[UPDATED] This Little Piggy Went… in the Walk-in for a Year

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Meat notes of the aged kind.

Update: Great class from Thomas, we hear. Sad to have missed it, but at least we have photos of what went down courtesy Beth!

On the eve of Thomas’ first in a series of Genuine Cooking Classes at Bon Vivant’s beautiful new store in Camana Bay, I get this photo in my inbox from Beth — a gorgeous, housemade and ready-to-eat prosciutto that our executive chef in Grand Cayman made.  I had noticed two hams dangling in a corner of his walk-in on our last trip down for Slow Food Day.  Apparently it eats like a fresher, moister prosciutto. Not quite as dry or developed in flavor, but quite good for a first try in the Cayman Islands. Salty at first but the pork flavor definitely comes through. It’s making its way to the table now on Thomas’ gnocchi (which are themselves said to contain magical powers,) and he’s thinking about pairing them with Donna’s eggs, possibly poached with the sliced ham and a ham double cream.

We hear the ladies love Thomas' gnocchi.

“I started with about 2, 5-pound legs. They roughly weigh about 4 pounds each now,” Thomas explained over email after service last night. ”This one happens to be from Paul Bodden. Such an excellent product, you cannot go wrong.  When i started it, I just thought about 6 months, but 8 months passed, and I said, ‘hey why not let it stay for a year.’  I began it exactly at taste of Cayman.”

This was his first time making a prosciutto, and knowing Thomas’ love of a good experiment, he just went for it having ”only” seen, eaten, and read about it.  If ever there was an experiment, Thomas is conducting one in more calculated a way than he will admit to. Methodically, but never to without a free spirit. Continue reading →

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Posted in Artisans, Cookbook, Local Ingredient, MGFD_GCM, On the Menu Now, This Little Piggy Went...

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A Winter Grove in Central Park

Posted on February 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

The place to be on a cool winter's afternoon.

Right now you’re thinking Central Park is the last place you’d want to be today. A frost-bitten landscape of white, studded black with bare branches trembling in winter’s icy exhale.  Well it’s Day 3 of our Eastern Caribbean sailing aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, and our seaside doppelganger of this New York icon is awash in sunlight at 75 F, with butterflies surfing a heady breeze from the north northeast.  Preparing for tonight’s dinner service at 150 Central Park where the Winter Grove menu is in full swing, Michael is with Jamie and his cooks Conmelia, Feng, Adrian, and Sadeki in the galley, with its own sunshine from Michael Borek’s heirloom tomatoes, ripe and running with juices.  Chef sliced up some for the servers to taste, just like he would do for the front of house at MGFD.

Getting to know 'looms...

Just some flakes of Maldon sea salt, a sprinkle of freshly-cracked black pepper, and of course a glistening pool of  Lucini Italia extra-virgin olive oil.   It’s the only way to try a tomato this good and to really understand the freshness of the product and why we are making a point to source from south Florida farms.  These heirlooms will become a silky tomato-bread soup with a grilled fontina cheese and short rib sandwich resting in the middle, making croutons everywhere cower in inadequacy!  It’s my favorite dish of Winter Grove which also includes Borek’s spring onions, baby vegetables like patty pan squash and heirloom carrots; Swank Farms radishes, arugula and beets with their greens; and even Guinness with dessert – a decadent chocolate caramel tart – from wine genius (and director) Eric Larkee.  We hope he recovers just as famously as this pairing from his cold and joins the ship tomorrow when we port in Saint Thomas. In the meantime, please enjoy my photos posted here from the past few days of being onboard and observing the chefs pull together and train the staff on this first menu.  Our next report will be on the Shade House menu which transitions on Wednesday, in motion picture format like the first Officer’s Log I did with Jamie for Greenhouse, one of our fall season menus.

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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Local Ingredient, Mmm beer, On the Menu Now, Cruise Control

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