So there’s a restaurant that (for now) only exists in my head. I have a menu in mind, and am curious how popular the dishes would be.
What would you order from this menu?
First
Savory Black Bean Pastry
Layers of black beans, poblano and jalapeño peppers, pancetta and queso fresco. $8.95
Avocado-Roasted Corn Salad
Avocado, roasted corn, queso fresco and banana chips, drizzled with a balsamic reduction. $7.95
Dumpling Soup
Chicken and apple dumplings in broth, garnished with fried scallions. $7.95
Chile Pepper Fries
French-fried Fresno and jalapeño chiles, served with mango mayonnaise. $7.95
Crab Empanadas
Empanadas filled with Dungeness crab, cream cheese and bell peppers, served with plum salsa. $9.95
Main
Fish and Chips
Pan-fried pistachio-encrusted salmon fillets, served with blue potato wedges and red cabbage slaw. $16.95
Veggie Burger
Lentil and split pea burger, with house-made farmer cheese, poblano relish and mayonnaise; served with yam fries. $13.95
Hypocritical Option: Add pancetta for $3.
Roasted Chicken and Savory Cranberries
Herb-roasted chicken; cranberry sauce roasted in the bird; château taro roots. $15.95
Pineapple Braise
Pineapple braised in a roasted peanut-tomato sauce; served over savory vegetable cornbread. $14.95
Spinach-Chorizo Sauté
Sauté of spinach, house chorizo and couscous in an arbol-pineapple sauce; served with yogurt and an apple-walnut salad. $14.95
Dessert
Cannoli
House-made farmer cheese in almond pastry, garnished with candied lime peel. $7.95
Milk and Cookies
Licorice cookies with house-made cream-flavored ice cream. Or order it with licorice ice cream for even more licorice. $6.95
Rose Mousse
Garnished with pistachio-rose petal brittle. $7.95
Plum Cobbler
Buttermilk biscuits baked in plums; served with house-made cashew ice cream. $6.95
Habanero Tres Leches
Habanero-confetti sponge cake, soaked in cream, evaporated milk and habanero-infused cajeta. $7.95
Assuming I were eating at this restaurant at all (at those prices, I probably wouldn’t, unless someone else were paying or it were a really special occasion), I’d go with the bean pastries for an appetizer and the spinach-chorizo saute for a main course. For dessert, I’d probably go with either the cannoli or the rose mousse, depending on how good the cannoli are. And I notice that you don’t seem to have any sort of chocolate dessert, which would also be a contender if you had one.
I’m also a bit puzzled by what the unifying theme here is supposed to be. There’s obvious Mexican influence, but I’m not sure any of that is authentically Mexican. Nor is there any other clear connection. Is this just a list of foods that you happen to have good recipes for?
Non-US foodie here. I’m sorry but nothing on that menu triggers my “must try that” impulse. Without trying to be rude, it’s too American - that is to say, one dimensional. Everything is core Western and/or south-western US. I’m used to food that has sources (or indeed sauces) from all over the world - the archetypal Australian cuisine is European-Asian fusion.
I have no problem with the prices - they would be, if anything, cheap in this part of the world. In particular:
I would probably order this as my starter. Seems a little mild in spicing for my taste, but the best of the “firsts”.
Banana chips rule this out for me. Overly sweet in combination with the balsamic and corn - all of which are well out on the sweet side of the spectrum. Banana chips are more a novelty than a serious ingredient, IMO.
Everything in this dish reads as dull. Needs serious pepping up, IMO. What is supposed to be the highlight ingredient? What is the abiding flavour? Everything listed is either background or garnish.
Fried and sweet. No thanks.
Cream cheese? Lost me right there. You really need something more striking as a key taste-maker. Isn’t there something more distinctive to put in here as a flavour-carrier? And sorry to repeat myself but the cheese, peppers, crab and plum are all sweet.
A possible order from the mains. I love the idea of the blue potato wedges, and slaw is fine as a palate-refresher, not 100% sure of pistachios to crust the salmon with (would you consider pine-nuts? Or a herb such as rosemary, or lemon grass?). I’d hope it was wild salmon so the base ingredient has some real flavour and texture, but I’d fear that the fact you didn’t mention that means it’s farmed and so unacceptable to me. I would ask that before ordering.
Second choice for mains. I don’t know what “farmer cheese” translates to in terms I’m familiar with, I’d be hoping it had some real tang rather than being anything like that bland white cheese I can’t seem to avoid in the US.
Good. In fact potentially excellent, although I’d like to know what actual herbs you are using here. Can’t go far wrong with rosemary, oregano and/or marjoram. I love the idea of the taro roots.
Hopelessly sweet for my palate. Pineapple is only consumable raw IMO, cooked pineapple belongs nowhere outside a pizza franchise.
Pineapple aside I have no problem with any ingredient here but I’m not sure what they are doing in the same dish. I’d anticipate the chorizo had a good Spanish fire to it, but then think that it would overwhelm the spinach - and if it didn’t it might be too insipid to carry its weight in the dish. Perhaps something in with the spinach to highlight it, garlic or perhaps ginger would be my first instinct. I like the chilli (arbol) and then the salad as a mouth-cooler, assuming the chorizo is as authoritative as I’d hope.
My most likely dessert order. Again on the assumption the cheese can make its presence felt, this sounds like a great combination - the residual acid in the lime will balance the fat of the cheese and oil of the almond nicely. Yum.
Either the licorice is proper European slated, in which case it won’t go with the ice cream, or it isn’t in which case it oughtn’t be there. Cookies are considered children’s food here.
Sorry, mousse of what? Chocolate? If it’s just milk and/or cream, too insipid for me, sorry.
I have a hard time envisaging this dish. But of course “biscuits” here means an entirely different thing than it does in the US, where as I understand it they are more or less what we call scones. Might try this on a second visit out of sheer curiosity.
I never got on with the chilli dessert thing, chocolate mole included. But I can see that this one has an integrity, just not my thing.
Overall I’d say you are over-relying on chilli for your flavour highlights, even for the American palate (which is far sweeter than others’). I love south-western US/Mexican cuisine - it’s the best native cuisine that the US has to offer IMO, cajun a close second - but here it’s in almost every dish and that seems over the top for a general restaurant; I’d like to see a wider sourcing of inspiration and ingredients. Heat doesn’t have to be provided by chilli derivatives; consider (real) wasabi, pepper berries, horseradish (in certain contexts), and shallots (known in various areas as eschallots/French shallots/spring onions) as alternatives.
On re-reading the above before posting, it comes across as very negative and I’m sorry for that. I hope you can accept it as honest informed comment, I’m genuinely not meaning to be nasty. If you need anything expanded on please respond, I’d love to chat further on this stuff if you’re interested. To me the US is the great unfulfilled promise of the food world, the quality ingredients are there but they just can’t seem to get it together. Dishes seem to be either bland or over-spiced, and almost always too sweet, and I’d love to hear your perspective on these matters.
The cannoli is different from the smooth version you might expect. The cheese is first browned in butter and then mixed with the milk and sugar by hand. It has texture. It’s also a little less sweet than you might expect.
Chocolate might make an appearance on a later iteration.
I usually say that it’s familiar weeknight food for people who eat out most nights and have been exposed to a variety of cuisines. Dishes we all know, but with something unexpected.
It’s funny you should ask - the recipes came later.
Thanks for the feedback, by the way - this is very helpful.
In a way, that’s the idea. I wanted the dishes to be immediately recognizable to my audience. I sometimes feel like there’s a (self-imposed) duty to make dishes “exotic” or “boundary-pushing”. My main concern is serving food that’s enjoyable to eat, independent of categories. It feels like there’s a duty to push the envelope.
Food shouldn’t feel like a duty.
(On further reflection) Food can distinguish itself not just by the ingredients, but by the care in using them. I’ve eaten in so many restaurants where the food tasted bland but would have really popped with the simple addition of some salt!
I didn’t want to go into too much detail on the menu - I don’t want to make my diners read a recipe to decide what to order. There’s a bit more going on - for example, the lentil-and-pea patty and farmer cheese in the veggie burger is inspired by the Ethiopian misir wat and eyeb, and the pineapple braise is my homage to the Senegalese peanut-tomato stew mafe.
Interesting. I was imagining something closer to crab rangoon, which I think of more salty-savory than sweet (except for the dipping sauce, of course).
The pistachios are there for flavor, but mostly because I liked the color contrast.
As for farmed-vs-wild, I want the flexibility to be able to choose the best product at a price that’s in line with the menu. If wild salmon became prohibitively expensive, I wouldn’t want to be locked into that choice. I’ve been considering the cost-control angle recently.
I’m surprised that you picked this dish - I think of this as the most stereotypically American on the list. Roasted chicken is almost a dinner cliche here. Huh. As for the herbs, I was thinking rosemary, thyme and garlic.
The licorice is Pernod (used sparingly). As for children’s food, a restaurant I like a lot has items like peanut butter & jelly and grilled cheese sandwiches - stereotypical children’s fare here. I like that they’re ballsy enough to take them seriously.
This is an Indian/near eastern-inspired mousse. Rose is the primary flavor - it’s a whipped cream custard like a typical mousse. I like the visual effect of the rose petals, too.
“Scones” isn’t the word I’d use - I don’t know if you have a bread quite like it. It’s that delightly flaky, fatty roll that’s often served at breakfast with gravy, or with fried foods. The biscuits are baked in seared plum halves.
Fair enough - I tend to think of fruits and nuts and chiles as the workhorses of my imaginary restaurant.
Funny you should mention shallots - there are no onions in my imaginary restaurant’s kitchen. Shallots have taken their place.
And does everything have to have a completely weird ingredient thrown in? I mean, do you make chocolate chip cookies with pomegranates? Do your brownies have garlic-and-kiwi flavored bacon? Mango mayonnaise? Plum salsa? If I want ketchup, will it have some similarly exotic ingredient, or can I just get regular old tomato ketchup?
Reminds me: a friend recommended a place here in Vegas that some friends of hers had opened up, an ice cream place. I went in one day last summer, and was amazed at the crazy combinations on their menu (ice cream stuff that sounded like your menu). I asked why they didn’t just have a simple hot fudge sundae or a chocolate shake on the menu. Then was told they couldn’t even make one, as they didn’t have the right ingredients. I walked out without a fancy $8 ice cream cone.
ETA: FWIW, the avocado corn salad sounded good, minus the banana chips. Oh, and “farmer cheese” is gonna send vegetarians right out of your restaurant. Serving a veggie burger with rennet won’t make you any friends.
No, but my chocolate-chip cookies have pistachio, cardamom and rosewater.
A fair question. I’d originally imagined the chile fries using whole, french-fried habanero peppers. … That is, until I tried making them, and ate one whole, with the seeds and ribs. It seemed to need something fatty and fruity to mitigate the burn. The plum salsa just seemed like something that would taste good - something slightly cool and acidic to go with the fattiness of the cream cheese in the empanadas.
“Ketchup” is what I call sriracha.
I don’t really have a good response to this. I wish I did. When I set the prices, I looked at comparable restaurants in my area.
I’d mentioned in another post that I’ve been looking at the cost-control angle. You’re aiming for below 30% food cost. I recently costed out my recipes, and most of them ended up in the 25-30% range.
I’m with Oakminster on this. I have a pretty good range of food I’ll eat, even tho I’m a vegetarian. But your combinations of weird, exotic sounding ingredients are off-putting, at least to me.
I’d see the ingredients, then see the $14 veggie burger price tag, and I’d be outta there.
I’m way out of your target demographic, I think. I like plain, simple food without exotic ingredients. You serve a veggie burger, but not a regular burger? How about the chicken or fish with fries or a baked potato? Some steaks?
Really not trying to insult you or your food. It just seems like your place would be aimed at what I would consider a niche market. People that like that kind of food might love the menu.
I’d rather have the lunch special down at the bar by the courthouse, which is usually a meat and two veggies, with drink and maybe a piece of cake for about $8. The meat and all veggies will be things I recognize.
If I was presented with this menu, I’d lobby for leaving and going somewhere else. It seems like you’re trying too hard to give each dish a “twist,” all of which are unappealing. Why cashew ice cream? Why garnish the dumplings with scallions? These things don’t sound like they’d taste very good together…
