Last night, I was lucky enough to attend the Taste of the Nation Reception at AT&T Park in San Francisco (thanks Foodbuzz!)  The reception was a who’s who of the San Francisco restaurant scene, with local chefs (and bartenders) onhand to share samples of some of their finest foods.

Some of my favorite bites included the pork croquettes from Maverick, the Jerk Spiced Duck Hearts from Alembic, the Lamb “BLT” from Scala’s (finished before i had time to snap a picture), and the Carrot soup from Spruce.  The most common element from each offering tended to be pork.  Some obligatory food porn (mouse over or click through for more information on each dish):

 

 

 

 

I only had a ticket for the reception, not the blow out, star chef studded dinner that followed. Luckily for me, Chef Jen Biesty from Scala’s invited me to sneak back into the kitchen and grab a few pictures of the dinner being put together.  Although the phrase “too many chefs in the kitchen” gets bandied about, there was a great sense of teamwork.  Out front, Chef Chris Cosentino ran things for plating (plug: his brunch is amazing), while in back Chef Michael Symon seemed to be in charge. When it came time for dessert, naturally Elizabeth Falkner took charge. All of these hot shot chefs seemed to have no problem (or even enjoy) stepping onto the line to help expedite a few hundred plates out the door.  In fact, the only person who seemed out of line and to be causing trouble to the flow of the kitchen, was me. 

One of the aspects I most enjoyed was seeing how similar the systems and solutions were for a dinner like this, compared to some of the beer dinners I’ve helped cook. Even with more professional chefs than you can shake stick at, it’s still all about communication, coordination, getting the hot food out as fast as possible, and sneaking a beer on the side.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it turns out, I took a lot of pictures.  Want more?  Enjoy:

 

Tags: acme, falkner, Jen Biesty, symon

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Flickr, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.