Vietnamese Style Salt & Pepper Shrimp Salad

This pretty much sums up what we think about this salad - We ate 3 entire salads during the course of development. That’s saying a lot given the fact that it was early in the day and we had a full day of cooking & eating ahead of us, a total loss of control. Not your ordinary bowl-o-greens. The flavors are so well balanced that it leaves you craving more as you finish.

Salt & pepper shrimp, flash sautéed in spicy red chili oil. Papaya, young pea greens, English cucumbers, sweet carrots, scallions, mint, basil, cilantro, cashews, Nuoc Mam sweet & sour dressing.

Ideas Are Infectious

New ideas start like this. We’re peeling & seeding papayas and stop to look at the seeds, they’re beautiful shiny black pearls. An idea emerges, maybe we don’t throw them away…..could we dry them in the oven? We’ve never heard of anyone doing it before, which makes it even more intriguing.

After some time in the oven they look like peppercorns and have the same texture. They have a Szechuanesque quality to them without the heat.


Finally, we have grind the roasted papaya seeds and mix them with kosher salt as a seasoning blend. Final use TBD.

Simplicity At It's Best

Some things are better if fussed with less.....Just stop, don't add anything else, a hard thing to do sometimes. As a chef, you're always convinced there's "one more thing" it needs to "make it".

"When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy. Thats what cooking is all about." This quote is posted on the wall of the kitchen at the French Laundry and embodies the core philosophy of the restaurant.

The unpretentious quality of this salad is the very beauty of it. The flavors of watercress and arugula are allowed to come through.

Appetizer Salad
Watercress, arugula, frisee, baby spinach, sherry vinaigrette, Parmigiano-Reggiano, red onions, strawberries.

Lobster Cobb

It just feels like summer, on the east coast, somewhere around New England, a friend from 70's shows up, he has a bag of cornuts..............

Lobster Cobb Salad With Tarragon Dressing
Watercress, arugula, baby spinach, tomatoes, applewood smoked bacon, cornuts, white cheddar, avocado, fresh corn, red onion, sweet potato shoestrings

Kona Kampachi Poke

Like hamachi (yellowtail), Kona Kampachi is a premium fish worthy of the most discriminating sushi bar, but with even more rich, buttery flavor and a firmer texture. As delicious as it is raw, however, cooking is where Kona Kampachi really excels. Firm flesh and a high-fat content make it suitable for virtually any cooking method, from gentle steaming to high-heat searing, and its subtly rich, pure flavor complements a variety of different culinary styles, simple and straightforward or spicy and complex.

Kona Kampachi is harvested only when it's ordered to ensure the ultimate in freshness and is available on a year-round basis.
Whole Fish - this is a great place to start ideation, buy the best damn fish, put it on the cutting board, and say what next?.....I mean how could you go wrong, this fish is so fresh it smells like watermelon.


Kampachi Poke - Derek concludes that the fish is so fresh we shouldn't bother cooking it.


Kampachi poke, black Hawaiian sea salt, togarashi, sweet soy, wakame