Seafood Night II (Son of Seafood)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab 

The best place to start is with the best quality ingredients you can get!!

Super fresh rianbow trout - we had a half spare, I had it as sashimi with some citrus soy, melt in your mouth!

Still moving when I picked them up! Packed 'em in ice, and back to the lab!!

Octopus, curling from the heat of the pot, cooked with red pepper corns, sherry vinegar, and a fair amount of salt!

I always get a bit of stage fright when we do a virtually completely new menu, and I'm learning that an extra pair of hands in the kitchen is no bad thing, because without exception something will always take longer than you think!! Especially if you've tweaked it to improve it!! Got to be very careful with last minute tweaking!!

Last weekend we had the usual lovely mix of people, including Vic and her hen party, that was organised by the lovely Sarah!!
(BTW: Thanks for all your fantastic comments on the night, guys, and I hope you have a lovely day on the day!)

They put in a request for a seafood menu, and since they gave me 3 months notice I thought I'd oblige!! Here's what we made for Vic and the rest of our guests:

~ MENU ~

Devonshire Crab & Palm Heart Salad w/ 

Breakfast Soldier Croutons,

served w/ Garlic (Turkish) Bread & Palm Heart Sauce.

Flores del Mar

(Hot and Cold Seafood Salad w/ Octopus, Orange, Paprika, Squid & Whitebait & Borage)

White Fish Ceviche & Edamame

Basil Infused Grapefruit Amuse (V)

Stargazy Pie & Chips 

Gutted we didn't get a shot of the dish, with Langoustine claws popping out!!! Will have to make it again, and make sure we get the shot!!!

~~~

Orange and Vanilla Pannacotta, w/ Butter Pastry Biscuits & Balsamic Pearls

Topped w/ Cointreau Strawberries

Black Olive Ganache (V),  Salted Lemon Fudge (V)

 

~~~

At the end of each evening, if people want to leave a comment they can!!! Here's what folk said:

THAT WAS COOL!!

: ) PEACE AND LOVE  V

Merto & Michelle

Thank you for the lovely evening.

Haven't been at a supperclub for

a while & realised why i really

liked it in the first place.

                           Amazing pie!!

Merto & Michelle

Food was amazing! The amuse bouche was so refreshing, the way the basil develops on the palette is simply divine!
Kate

Interesting food.

Very well cooked + tasted great.

Great relaxed atmoshphere aswell

AMAZEBALLZ! - ferdie: massively excited writing!! ; )

Beautiful food, presentation.

Awesome!!

Thanks Sarah

"The octopus was AMAZING the best octopus I've ever had", Vic

REALLY ENJOYED THE
FOOD (CRAB WAS MY
FAVOURITE) AND THE
FACT THAT EVERYONE AT
SAME TABLE
Pedro

I must thank Danielle of the New Zealand Tourist Board, for being really helpful at the end of the night, and great to sit and chat away to with a glass of wine once we'd cleaned the kitchen down and tidied the main hall!! Very engaging! Hell, otherwise Sarah wouldn't have got in and we might have got to bed at 1AM instead of 5AM!!!!! Aye caramba!!

Mental note would love to return to Queenstown in the winter instead of the summer like last time!!! Sigh . . .

Was a cracker . . . .

Big hugs from ferdie!!!
XXX

Squid Squash

Menu

-Sage & Butter Frogs Legs w/ Sweet Basil Seed Sake

-Beetroot, Red Cabbage & Goats Cheese Salad W/ Leluu's Secret Dressing                                       

-Cold Octopus, Sweet Potatoes Tortilla & Garlic Turkish Bread

-Tuna Sashimi & Ferdie Chips With Salad, Pickled Shallots & Wasabi Mayo

-Squid Squash Risotto

-Vanilla, Orange & Vodka Panacotta

 

These Photographs are courtesy of The London Foodie - Copyright 2010

We love cooking seafood - somehow, its fast and we can get the food out on time. This menu is one of our favourite menus to create, cook and serve. We had so many happy people electrifying the room with their good spirits and character.

Luiz from The London Foodie and Chris & Lacey visited for the fourth time, bringing new friends and creating wonderful memories for themselves at Fernandez & Leluu. It was lovely! When we first started out, this is exactly what the objective was - that people can find a place they can come enjoy good food and company.

We even had a waitress on Friday, called Anna,  and she made me wonder - how did I ever do it before without one but on Saturday, I had to do it all again because she couldn't make it - ahh thats how...

The dates we did last weekend were dates we added in recently as all the later ones were all booked up. It is interesting to experience this "fad" of underground supper clubs being the recent trend. We discovered how unreliable and unthoughtful some people could be by cancelling their booking (or ignored it til prompted) at the last minute when we have bought all the food and reserved places for them when in actual fact, other people would have loved to attend if they had any notice at all.

We had 40% of our bookings cancelled on both days, due to all sorts of reasoning. We were able to fill most places when given at least one or two days notice but not the one at 3pm! It was really stressful as we had to prep, we had to clean, we had to turn our flat into a supper club etc etc as well as having to find people to take places. 

A lot of our friends on Twitter - retweeted the places - we had so much support - it gave us both smiles on our faces despite it all. Thank you guys!

In the end, it all turned out good and thats what counts.

We have been assessing how we will take bookings from now on. Our place is about eating good food and being with good friends. We have to make more effort to let people know what efforts we put into our events and the impact everyone who attends or does not attend has.

99% of everyone who has walked through our door has been brilliant - there is just the 1% or so who "forget" its someone's home and has no respect for it whatsoever. 

We don't have clowns, musicians or entertainers. Nor do we create any gimmicks or compete with other supper clubs/ pop ups/ underground restaurants or whatever you want to call it. We just cook - from the best ingredients we can find (this time we tried using Marky Market who got us the freshest fish from Billingsgate)- you can come and eat it. Good food, wine, great company - Fad or no fad - we don't care what the fad is - we like the way we are and we don't want it changed because of the 1%.

Check here for another great post about last week's dinner: EPHEMERETTE