School days + sushi.

This past week I was on the entree station again at my school's restaurant, Opus Too. I actually got to put a recipe of my own on the menu this week, as the amuse bouche. This was cool for me, as usually the students aren't involved in the decision making for the menu.

Above is part of our kitchen, the window in the background looks out over the valley, so when I go into class, I can catch the beautiful desert sunset over the mountains, and I can see the entire strip throughout the night, it's really breathtaking.

We focus on really classical dishes, above is a Chicken Florentine on risotto primavera with mushroom marsala sauce. This helps us get experience in some of the more traditional dishes and styles of cooking in a learning environment. For dinner we do five courses for $14,95, this covers only the food cost, and it's really a great deal. Occasionally you may have to wait a little longer for the food or there may be service hiccups, but for many students this is their first restaurant experience. We've served Joel Robuchon (very impressive that he took time out of his busy schedule to dine with us) in our restaurant before, not many schools can say that.

Above is my amuse bouche, each person got one spoon with some apple jalapeno marmalade, a lobster fritter, and a touch of herbs in white truffle oil. It went over pretty well, I even had someone ask for the recipe.

Thursday night my brother Alex got into town, and I made us a simple dinner of beef and pork ragu on some homemade pasta I had leftover from earlier. I threw some home made ricotta in there too... but only because I had it lying around.

We had sushi for lunch at Ka, across the street and down the block from my apartment. They have really quality sushi there, and a great all-you-can-eat lunch special for $24.99. They get the same fresh fish as the more expensive places on the strip, but without the insane markup for location.

This was spicy tuna wrapped in nori and rice with cucumber, topped with torched yellowtail, drizzled with citrus ponzu and green onions.

One of my favorites, a tempura lobster roll. So very crunchy and savory, it comes with a creamy sauce as well.

A very spicy roll, shrimp tempura with tuna, yellowtail, jalapenos and sriracha with a citrus sauce.

And eel with avocado and sesame. Delicious! We had more than this, but it get a little obscene when my brother and I go out for sushi, we can really rock a sushi bar.

But this is nothing compared to the place we went to for dinner earlier tonight. Where? You'll just have to wait until my next post!

Ciao!