Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Morro Oysters


Morro Bay Oysters with pickled "Turkish towel" seaweed, avocado, shiso and myoga ginger

Monday, February 24, 2014

Our First Egg!


Fiona holding Bernice, the polish crested chicken

Fiona holding our very first egg

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Wild Onions


After months of perfect sunny weather, Big Sur was recently blessed with rain.  The ground had been so dry that I had all but given up on any local mushrooms and was concerned that even oxalis, wild radish and onion would not sprout this spring.  After the rains came, I put on a raincoat and went in search of Mugwort and Wild Onions for our smoked pheasant dish and was pleasantly surprised to find a lush stand of wild onions coming up along a seasonal stream, with hundreds of sprouts popping up all around.  These wild onions, or "triangle leeks" are one of my favorite spring ingredients.





Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Hazelnut Finished Pork


This week I tried a new variety of Berkshire pork that is finished on a diet of hazelnuts.  The flavor and marbling was exceptional, somewhat reminiscent of acorn fed Iberico.  Tonight we are featuring the hazelnut finished pork racks with Molokai potato, fresh coconut water, lemon verbena and barrel-aged fish sauce.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Ring Tailed Cat and Hoshigaki Persimmon


This year's batch of Hoshigaki Persimmons are finished.  They have a beautiful sugar bloom on the outside, a rich texture and intense persimmon flavor accentuated by a few days of wild fire smoke.  Yulanda has been featuring the air dried persimmons with acorns and chocolate on the Taste of Big Sur Menu.  She is not the only fan of Hoshigaki Persimmons; for the last month we have noticed that every few days a persimmon would go missing with only a piece of ragged stem left dangling from the twine.  Late one night, someone finally caught the thief in action.  It turns out ring tailed cats have quite a sweet tooth and at least one was enjoying our persimmon buffet.  Now that the persimmons have been removed, it has moved on to other urban grazing, and was sighted yesterday picking up some chicken bones discarded from a batch of stock.  Thanks to Quinn and Sterling for the two pictures!






Thursday, February 6, 2014

The New Taste of Big Sur Menu

On Friday night we debuted a new Taste of Big Sur Menu.  This menu is heavily inspired by the bounty of our local coast and features an array of exotic local delicacies including: sea urchin, whelks, red abalone, spiny lobster, oysters and sea cucumber.  I’m very excited about this new menu!  You can see the dishes below.  For a full view of the menu, click here

The new Taste of Big Sur menu
Amuse Bouche - Oyster



Amuse Bouche - Whelk
Amuse Bouche - Goose

Roe Roe Roe - Asparagus, Cod Roe Tarama, Smoked Steelhead Roe, White Sturgeon Roe, Meyer Lemon

Spiny Lobster with Citrus and Hibiscus Gelee

Dungeness Crab Consomme with Thai Herbs
Textures of Sunchokes - Carmelized Onion Cherry Jus

Monterey Red Abalone - Escarole, Squid Ink, Brown Butter


Smoked Wild Pheasant - Triangle Leeks, Celeriac, Red Cabbage, Mustard Seed



Schoch Family Farmstead Cheese - Date, Brioche Crumbs

Apples and Rose Geranium

Chocolate, Acorn and Persimmon