Intrigued by the cookbook title, Off The Menu – staff meals from America’s top restaurants, I requested a review copy. If you have ever worked in a restaurant, and that is a great number of you, do you remember your staff meals? For me, my favorite staff meal was at Hoang’s Seafood Grille with a bowl of fish head soup. Possibly that might not be your favorite but it was mine.
Staff/family meals are usually a conglomerate of what is leftover in the walk-in. Sort of that mystery basket we see on Chopped or other culinary television programs. In some restaurants chefs alternate making the staff meal and in others it might be just one chef’s job to create the meal that takes them through their shift.
Author of Off The Menu Marissa Guggiana went out on the road, interviewing, travelling, photographing and sharing staff meals at more than fifty of America’s top sustainable restaurants from coast-to-coast.
From Abattoir in Atlanta, Georgia recipes for soy and honey glazed chicken, skillet fried rice, kimchee and lettuce salad and brown sugar bacon cookies all the way through the alphabet to Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan with chicken and biscuits casserole and cheddar ale soup – your taste buds will be delighted.
This isn’t just a book with recipes, there are back stories to all fifty restaurants and the author’s Excoffier questionnaire asking 30 questions like what satisfies your sweet tooth, kitchen equipment, and what is your favorite midnight snack?”
My fave recipe so far is Pok Pok’s out of Portland Oregon and their MAMA Phat, oriental style instant noodles, pork flavored doctored with fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, pork stock, shallots, ground pork, onions, napa cabage, bean sprouts, Thai chilies and fresh cilantro. I can’t deny my penchant for Asian foods.
Check out the website below – you will find the entire book on line.
Off The Menu – Staff Meals from America’s Top Restaurants
Author Marissa Guggiana
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