Cioppino Vino

Tonight was… Interesting. For a moment, it was all out war over a steak. It began as such…

Things really heated up for my station in the middle of service. Keeping in mind the size our restaurant (less than 40 people) I had tickets for seven ciopinno, 6 steaks, 2 chicken and 2 salmon and a porchetta (stuffed pork loin). Each entree had multiple garnishes and sides, many of which have to be made on the fly. All burners were occupied.

As the end was in sight, our final ticket had three steaks. Problem was… there was only one left.

This is not a cool thing to happen – for everyone involved. Servers need to be notified and then they have to endure the horror of going back to the table and telling the customers that two of them cannot have a steak and the behavioral consequences depending on the nightmare-level of the customer (we all have that friend or relative who is a total jerk to a waiter or busboy).

What we decided to do instead was offer to subsitute the sirloin for the skirt steak we use for lunch, which I happened to have at my station. The server claims to have notified the customer but that is still pending investigation… particularly, after a “favor” I was asked for by him but I won’t totally rat him out. I kinda want to hook up with him and don’t want to ruin any chance of a drunken mistake (fingers crossed).

Two sirloins and one skirt went out and after a minute, one of the sirloins came back. Apparently one of the steaks ended up being a mistake and one of the customers already started eating the skirt, leaving a fuller sirloin as a leftover. Seconds after that, there was a complaint over the size of the steak. Why did we not offer the sirloin that was returned to the customer? That answer we will never know but it resulted in a total battle between the front and back of the house that ended up involving the executive chef and the GM. Silent treatment and cold stares followed for about an hour. We all eventually got over it. One person apologized and everyone else caved as well, including myself and the GM bought us all chinese food at the end of the night. Free food can end any dispute.

Prior to that, something interesting happened to me. I took a liberty with one of the chef’s recipes and he noticed it. Depending on the chef, this could escalate into something really bad.

We were running a Cioppino special and the chef let me have pretty free range with the execution. He told me what ingredients to use and some basic preparation guides but for the most part, he let me make it my own – and the response has been very good – both from the customers and the staff. A few of the servers made a special effort to tell him that the feedback on the floor was really positive, which was a huge solid for me.

Tonight however I question going a little too far when he told me originally to use white wine as I built the broth and I went with red. I believed that the red wine gave the broth a deeper color and taste.

He happened to catch this as I was in the early stage of prepping it and while he didn’t say anything to me about it, I could have SWORN that I saw him raise one of his forearms in a WTF manner.

I built the Cioppino as follows:

I sweat onions and shallots then added Bonito (smoked, dried and shaved fish) and red pepper flakes. I did this to develop a spicy and broth with a noticable pronounced taste.

I then added red wine and allowed it to reduce for a bit before adding clam juice – more reduction and then pureed tomato. I allowed it to reduce often to concentrate flavor and would occasionally thin it out with a fish stock (that I took the initiative to make with the bones of one of our fish entrees… am I tooting my own horn?) and adjusted seasoning throughout service and as more stock was added. I must have had about three bowls on increments of tablesppons here and there.

When an order was fired, I steamed clams in white wine and clam juice. While waiting for them to open, I seared diced swordfish and shrimp. Seared the swordfish just enough to color the ouside and then allowed them to continue cooking with the tomato broth and clams then seared the shrimp until they turned began to turn pink and then finished them in the broth as well.

While waiting for the shrimp to cook. I grilled calarmari just enough to mark them and finished those as well.

I took these steps in an effort not to overcook the seafood, recognizing that they each had different cook temperatures – professional cooks, in case you are thinking it – no, my clams did not overcook. I realize it sounds like the opened clams were on high heat for a long time.

I then plated by adding an exaggerated piece of toasted bread with a saffron rouille to wide bowl, then added the large shrimp then spooning the remaing seafood, then adding enough broth to envelop the cluster of seafood, topping it with more Bonito, which kind of danced in the breeze and fresh parsley.

A total pain in the ass to make but worth it. There was a gasp by someone almost every time I plated one, which totally thrilled me. I also delighted in noticing that at any point I looked up looked up or over someone was watching me.

It was a great moment and feeling, which is probably why I didn’t thow a tantrum when I got an order. I do worry about the chef’s feelings on the wine but probably will not mention it if he doesn’t but I assure you that I do know my place.