my dessert menu/ Sens ~ December 07

A lot has changed since the last time I came to you with my menu. For one, the names have changed. We thought it best to steer away from poetry and tell you all exactly what was going on. It's always hard to tell when a restaurant first opens why sales are headed in the direction they are. Who can be blamed for why this sells and that doesn't is tricky business.

My own honest experience is few of my desserts garner wishy-washy responses. People tend to love or dislike strongly my flavor marriages and choices. Sometimes I start with a traditional pairing and then I turn it upside down. Sometimes I go to the edge of the diving board and fall in backwards, not checking pool temperature first. Of course I'm always in awe and inspired by fruit, and I'm also shamelessly in lust with herbs and certain cool, watery vegetables.

I've been thinking way too much about how my dessert process comes about lately. I have a solid team now and they ask me questions, taste desserts en route, scale out recipes & make components, and are looking to me for their answers about it all.

Each of my desserts is like a separate person, and that can sometimes feel bizarre. Each have their own personality even though they all come from me. Like the writer whose prose shifts while reading another author's words, or painters who adopt stylistic flourishes depending on whose hands form the strokes empowering them, my plates ebb and flow with tides of inspirational forces.

I like odd numbers when it comes to how my plates are styled. I rarely work with more than 3 competing flavors and if I do, I treat the flavors like an oil painter; main flavors are in the foreground and then I paint the background with supporting components.

Nothing is on the plate that should not be there: eaten, worth mentioning or noticed.
Every food morsel is intentional.

{Pet peeve #480: Menus which sport the name of a component and when it arrives it's barely noticeable. Chefs & Restaurateurs: Please do not put something on your menu if no one can find it in the dish.}

In fact I abhor old fashioned plating techniques and will never garnish any desserts with mint unless someone holds a gun to my head. I would never again use a squeeze bottle if I could, but the truth is that, unless you are a scary clean efficient line cook serving only a hundred or so plates a night, they are necessary for getting liquids of varying viscosities on hundreds of plates at a time. Like a few good chefs I know, I also eschew tongs in the kitchen, but for lifting searingly hot ramekins filled with sizzling caramel, I prefer them over my fingertips.

(A hint for holding hot ramekins-- buy gardening gloves that have those leetle rubber dots on the palm. They work like a charm unless you have to hold onto said hot thing for an extended period of time.}

Why don't I have any photos to show you? Because Frankie Frankeny does and when our website looks the way we want it to, you'll see some of the below desserts in better light and form than I could do hand-holding my camera set at 1600 ISO during service. {I've begun shooting in the kitchen at Sens and you can see some here.}

Sometimes when I hit a dessert idea on the head-- we've tested it this way and that over and over and over-- I have one of those aha! moments and whoooosh, the dessert is released from my mind and heart and there it sits, happy and ready to be eaten with small fork and spoon.

Other times I set something down in front of cooks armed with critical mouths and I see what the consensus is. Even if a dessert does not feel absolutely and certainly complete I will place it on the menu because I know while we make and serve it every day, I will work out its kinks and stiff spots. It's a strange balance to strike because of course I am tortured by the ones which feel unfinished and I feel like the motherbird watching a chick fall to their death because its tiny wingspan was not fully realized.

But all in all I am happy with how the opening menu has fleshed out. My team is doing a fantastic job executing and as the season changes further specials will appear and maybe make it onto the menu.

last course/ dinner

pear & buckwheat
poached pear, anson mills buckwheat cake, brown butter crème anglaise
9

butterscotch pot de creme
warm apple crepe, long pepper cream-brown butter vinaigrette
& a dash of honey lebne
8

pistachio gift
vanilla phyllo wrapped pistachio frangipane
with mastic-rosewater ice cream
9

rosemary caramel
slow roasted hazelnuts, supple semolina, rosemary-caramel ice cream
& candied valencia orange
8

warm chocolate
cocoa cake, sensuous chocolate, cardamon ice cream
& shuna’s famous dark chocolate sauce
9

honey-cumin pot de creme
& heirloom apple-walnut-white fig salad
8

lemon essence
citrus soufflé, fennel shortbread, lemon sherbet
& pine nut-date-anise-arbequina oil relish
9

Hot Cocoa with Honey-Marshmallow 4

~ see you soon?

Comments

[Roger Feely]

Sounds like fun Shuna. Wish I could come over to play.

[calichef]

I'll take one of each, please!

I loved the poetic names, but the straightforward names will probably sell better. They don't confuse those who are transitioning into food comas.

[fanny]

Shuna, your dessert meanu is so inspiring. I can't wait to try ad recreate the buckwheat cake and serve it with poached pears, just like you do...
If only I lived in sf!

[jennywenny]

I've got my table booked! I'm looking forward to it very much!

[Shanti]

Oh wow. I was just thinking about cardamon ice cream this weekend and here it is on your menu. I may have to extend my holiday trip to the Bay Area to visit!

[Dana]

When our new cooks ask where we keep our tongs, Shannon asks if they think they were hired to work in a diner. But I agree, they work wonders for manipulating hot ramekins out of a water bath. I will be picking up your suggested gloves asap. I love keeping a tool kit from the hardware store for pastry work, and relish any chance to add to it. I have been using various putty knives to "shmear" my thick sauces lately.

[EB]

That's it. I'm officially coming in to try one of each!

[kayenne]

i hear the hot new kitchen item, silicone wares also came out with gloves that's great for holding hot dishes.

otherwise, those insulated welding gloves use comes in pretty handy, too! learned of that first a year ago on a wellfed site.

http://thecookskitchen.net/2006/11/08/my-most-used-kitchen-tool/

[Susan]

Yes, see you and your lovely desserts tomorrow! oooo, honey marshmallows, mmm.

[Richie]

Again, as Marco Pierre White said "use your fingers, I dont care if you burn them...you weren't given fingers so you wouldnt burn them."

[Roberto N.]

They're all enticing, but I think I'd go for the last two.

[Diane]

Oh shoot! I loved the poetic descriptions...But I do suppose this is far more practical as far as selling stuff. Either way, they look good.

[Lauren]

Thank you for the gardening glove idea! I needed that. I tried a stab at a chestnut creme caramel recipe this evening and just used my fingers to get them out of the water after waiting a couple minutes. Meanwhile, I butchered a few cinnamon chocolate creme brulees last week trying to get them out with (gasp) tongs!

[hungrygirl]

ah, I miss the cute names.

[Sara]

Yummy. Given the opportunity, I would happily order every single one of these things at least once.

I love the idea of a dessert salad.

I'm also totally with you on #480.

[sam]

I am with you on #480. And TWO pot de creme's on the menu. wow. Suprisingly the cumin one wasn't my cuppa tea even though I so expected it to be. There is no doubt the butterscotch would be. Too bad I don't have a spare minute between now and next year to stop by and try. Love the sound of the pistachio gift.

[Mercedes]

I'll have a pistachio gift please :-)