Uptown 21: Stagiaire Two

Back for round two at Nick and Nat’s Uptown 21 Food and Drink.

I guess I didn’t do too much damage, so Chef Benninger let me come back. He dislikes it, by the way, when I call him “Chef.” Okay, ever the self-effacing cook.

1:53 p.m. — In through the back door again to see what this second stage will hold. Turns out it holds a lot of what the previous visit held. And that is much of the essence of preparing a restaurant kitchen for the night’s service. Menus change regularly, either wholly or in part, and you mostly have set items that will be served, though with several new dishes and courses here and there, especially at a resto like Uptown 21. So, there is a list of about 30 tasks that have to be done–the mise en place–before the first guests arrive. That’s anything from cutting pounds of butter into smaller cubes for Benninger’s station from which he will cook the main courses, to washing and trimming frisee that will be both an ingredient in salads and a garnish on a dish or two.

Benninger is working his way through the knobbily, ginger-looking Jerusalem artichoke–which isn’t from Jerusalem and isn’t an artichoke. It is native to Canada and the northeastern United States, and it is related to the sunflower, in actuality.

Benninger is mandolining them down into the most delicate of chips: with a sprinkling of salt, they are delicious. He is bringing them a food festival–the Evergreen Brickworks picnic, a Slow Food Toronto fundraiser. I’ve noted over the time I’ve been familiar with the restaurant that he is strategic about pushing out the Uptown 21 brand beyond Waterloo Region. One past weekend recently it was Savour Stratford and his championship pork dish paired with the protein of Fred de Martines’ Perth Pork Products.

The "Canada Potato" -- Jerusalem artichokes being sliced into chips.

2:20 p.m. — So let’s start with the frisee again, as I did last week. Since I know it so intimately now, I will tell you that it is in the lettuce-chicory family, a whitish-yellow curly and frizzy cut, featherly green. It is bitter but when used in a controlled application it adds oodles of flavour. It is sometimes the green’s grower–and not just the chef–who has to control this bitterness: they will often bind the centre heads slightly together in order to keep them dark and less bitter. That’s a fussy vegetable.

2:38 p.m. — Time to debeard some mussels. This time, however, in lieu of additional Advils, the pan of mollusks is propped up so I’m bending over less. Thanks “Chef”! (I think he couldn’t stand watching me do it my (more painful) way. By the way, you need to be gentle with mussels because that little beard, the fibres they use to anchor themselves in the water, is connected to their internal parts and you don’t want to damage the tissue too much.

Mussels vs. muscles: the pan rises up to you, rather than you stooping to the mollusks.

2:50 p.m. — And on to chanterelles. These are beautiful to eat…and relatively easy to clean. Why? Well, one reason lies in the fact that the mushroom world is divided into two realms: those with gills and those sans gills. Chanterelles are either black, gold, white or red; I would guess that these ones were the gold variety.

Trumpet-shaped gold chanterelles.

During the chanterelles cleaning, I took in the conversations. The discussions of the night were of a highly technical nature. One had to do with a flaw in the floor in the upstairs storage and walk-in cooler area: was it a “dimple” or was it a bubble? Chef Schleiper contends it is a dimple (she was obviously thinking of a Hollywood star?); Benninger espouses the bubble-theory and in fact seemed somewhat disappointed that the word dimple was used in his kitchen. With no disrespect to Chef Schleiper, I don’t see any dimple qualities–unless you are underneath the floor and looking up. I think dimples go inward.

Unique foie bites dish at U21: always popular.

The other discussion, of more culinary discipline, centres on egg coagulation–I caught only the tail end of the discussion, immersed as I was in my chanterelles prep, but it had Chef Schleiper somewhat flippantly tossing out that eggs coagulated at 65F. I paused for a moment and watched as she smiled an “I gotcha smile.” Everyone knows that eggs–yolks and whites together–coagulate at about 165F (no, I didn’t just know that; I looked it up so there you go).

3:47 p.m. — Perhaps more concerning than egg coagulation is the fact that all employees at Uptown 21 are branded with the restaurant logo so that they don’t steal recipes (and egg coagulation facts) should they move on to another kitchen. This looks quite painful.

As I note, Uptown 21 is quite--quite--serious about its "brand."

5:30 p.m. — As dinner service approaches, I get a twinge of anxiety, just a slight unsettled feeling. I ask Benninger: does he get nervous in pre-service as the dining room is getting ready to open? His response makes sense from someone who has spent many years and countless hours honing his craft in the business: ” No. I get stressed about getting stuff done in time.” Stress: yeah, it makes sense.

6:25 p.m. — The tickets have been whirring in and things seem to be moving along smoothly enough. There is large table that includes several kids and they are getting steaks and fries or chicken and fries. There are nine crepe desserts that have to get put up and there is a sugar cane allergy that has to watched. Tonight, there is a delicious app of frisee, cucumber and plum in a vinaigrette with a lovely quenelle of luscious chevre.

Attractive ... and delicious.

8:05 p.m. — But later in the evening is the highlight of the night: three guests sit at the chef’s bar-table that looks into the open kitchen. They get to see–and hear–what is going on behind the line; I get to worry about them watching me drop something or cut or burn myself. They are a table of three charming young women and friends who get together a few times a year to catch-up over a nice meal and wine.What is neat about this visit is that it is the first time they have deviated from their usual local restaurant haunt to Uptown 21. That puts more heat on the kitchen and staff to win them over and keep them coming back in a competitive business where customers can be, shall we say, “fickle.”

Chef Schlieper's crepes.

8:25 p.m. — From the trio of ladies, I hear “OMG!” I ask: is that a good “Oh My God!” or not, since I had a hand in the making of the cod cakes when it came time to plating the dish. They assure us it is a good exclamation. That feels good. It’s also for Benninger’s “bacon jam” destined for the food event next day. He lets them try a bit (it is quite remarkable).

This is glorious: this is "bacon jam" a la Uptown 21.

At the chef’s bar-table for Jill, Judy, and Brooklyn, the good wines at Uptown 21 have won them over from the beverage angle. One of them says that they prefer wines from smaller, lesser known vineyards. They’ve found the food excellent and the have appreciated being able to see into the operations of the cooks in the kitchen; “that they are not scared to show [customers] what they are doing,” one of them says. Julie likes being able to eat without tending to her kids, while Jill proclaims she loved the unique cocktails and that the shrimp and lobster dish is her favourite in terms of flavour–and that she was wowed by the generous portion.

It’s good positive stuff and, really, with long hours and often demanding work at a sometimes frantic pace it must be what turns a cook’s crank nudging them to recall what it was that has made them enter the cooking trade. There is satisfaction for me too, in the small contribution that I have made during the day, that the effort has gotten bona fide results from guests. And I’m just as glad to call it a night, too.