Welcoming a new era

The first couple of weeks of having our beer and wine license have gone well and had the desired effect of adding to our sales and bringing in folks who would otherwise skip us for dinner. The house wine we're carrying seems quite drinkable and very reasonably priced at $12 bottle. You may also buy it by the glass at $4.50. We've listened carefully to requests for various craft beers and think we have a pretty good line up. Thank you for your input. As we grow we'll be able to add tap equipment. Not yet, though.

Last week I was thrilled to be able to serve those humongous gulf shrimp. I know being on the receiving end was thrilling—many people told me so. But, let me tell ya, being on the serving end was also a thrill. I LOVE, love, love serving food that is impactful—in a good way.

Speaking of impactful, I made a small goof on Friday. When I had Rick making the salad for dinners I accidentally handed him, what I thought was, pepitas. Oops! He came back from tables to tell me three people had complained about the pepitas. Huh? I tasted them and, yep! Those were NOT pepitas. They were whole cardamon pods. Yikes! My personal apologies to the first few who got those. Please try real pepitas again. I am quite sure you will enjoy them.

As the season moves along we'll have access to more and more local ingredients. Already I've had lovely Swiss chard, spinach and arugula, snow peas and bok choy. Last week, fennel bulb arrived with my order! I am looking for asparagus, English peas, fiddleheads, and morels. If you have access to these lovely ingredients at a cost I can work with, please get in touch.

I had hoped to make the seafood dinner this week a fabulous clam bake. However, the response I got was not the enthusiastic one I had hoped for. So that will have to wait until I perceive a dull roar of requests. Just now coming into season are Stone Crabs from Florida. As with all crabs, they are expensive. These crabs are my favorite as they are very sweet tasting. Unlike most crab, they are harvested by removing only one claw and releasing the crab to continue its growth. It'll actually replaces the missing claw. The current Sea to Table resource I have to get in fresh seafood requires a minimum purchase of 25lbs. from a single dock. Even the medium claws at 6-8 per pound cost $15.90 wholesale. Doing the math you can see that we'd have to sell a whole heck of a lot to cover the $400 of food cost. I'll continue to seek wholesalers who will ship smaller quantities. If you have strong personal seafood preferences that I am overlooking, please let me know so I can address them. If you want something that requires a large investment, you can help by assisting to pre-sell an item. I am also not adverse to selling off a portion of a shipment to individuals in the raw form to keep our commitment to a minimum. Of the 25 pounds of those colossal shrimp we brought in last week, about half went home raw to customers who had requested access to them.

At Dinner~~
This week's fresh seafood will return to fresh Rainbow trout. This time I am cooking it "en papillote" or in parchment. These packets will contain the fish as well as the herbs and fresh vegetables. This week the ingredients will include Swiss chard, shallots, capers, lemon, Kalamata olives, Cherry tomatoes and zucchini. It is cooked with NO FAT and makes an exquisite presentation. It will be $14.99 and includes a side salad. A smaller version will be offered on Thursday—read on.

The "Flavor Journey" this week goes to the U.S. Southwest. I'll serve a spicy wood-fired chicken in a savory mole-style sauce served over the top of cornmeal waffles finished with cotija cheese. Mole contains chocolate  in addition to chiles, cinnamon and peanut butter. I'll grill some zucchini to serve along-side and it'll come with a side salad that'll include a bit of jicama, if I can find it. $10.99

This week I'll get most of my fresh herbs planted in the containers in the courtyard. Reports back have told me the bales of straw HAVE helped to reduce the wind velocity through there. Anyone have a couple of pieces of 4-5 ft rebar I can use to secure the bales in place? We'll be turning the flowerpots into bases for a small fence that will demarcate the boundary of where the beer and wine can be taken.

As Thursday is most consistently our quietest night, I am introducing Girls' Night Out. I'll pair some of our entrées in smaller portions with delicious sharable appetizers and Sangria specials. This week I am taking half portions of the trout en papillote (see description above) for $8.99 with salad, adding an appetizer of grilled polenta topped with shitakes and shallots and fresh basil for $5.99 (sharable size) and offering a pitcher of white wine sangria (definitely enough for 2) for $18. Just so I'll know to get excited, please call in your reservation. I'd like to do this weekly. Your feedback is welcome. Guys, you are welcome, as well. I'm just trying to find a way to keep all nights busy and directing my selections toward the feminine appetite for this night.

Friday night will feature Jon and his two cohorts—Greg Kwalume and Rick Brischetto as the Ozarks Jazz Trio. They will play Jon's original material as well as classics from the Great American Songbook. Greg adds nice definition with his lead guitar and Rick's percussion adds rhythm and puncuation. We hope to see you.

This week's menu~~
Tuesday~Spring Salad 50 cents off
Wednesday~ Chicken jambalaya with side salad $6.75
Thursday~ Southwest tamales; wood-fired chicken and black bean tamales with avocado  and salsa verde sauce with roasted cumin seed rice. $6.75
Friday~ Chicken pot pie plus side salad; making twice as much this time! $6.75

Dinners~
Seafood~ Trout en papillote served with a salad $14.99
Flavor Journey~Southwestern spicy chicken over cornmeal waffles. Served with a salad and grilled zucchini. $10.99

Spring!!!!!!

Well, we just had about the shortest, mildest Missouri winter I can remember. In fact, it reminded me very much of my winters in Dallas. Let's hope we don't have a summer to match the Dallas weather. This week, Tuesday, in fact, marks the first day of spring. This is also the equinox—equal length day and night. When driving north from Thayer, US 63 near the race track is pointing in such a way that sunrise comes up on the Equinox right in the middle of the road. I've been watching the progression all fall and winter. If I was headed south about sunset, the sun should set right in the middle of the road going the other way. The forecasts are calling for above freezing weather for the next week or so. So I am going to be the brave optimist I usually am and jump in and buy my basil plants. Yeah, I know we could get hit like we did in 2008 with an April hard freeze. I'll take my chances.

Last week was very exciting for us. We began serving beer and wine with our meals and we had the largest turnout for Friday night we have ever had. We served over 60 at dinner. Shazam!!!! We don't expect to feed that many every week, but it is good to know we can. Starting in April we'll officially take over the other side as expansion space. We used it to good advantage on Friday and love the ability to spread out. Other plans for the second side include a small fine-craft gallery as soon as I can get my act together to find someone to help make it happen.

With the additional staff we are getting your meals out in a more timely manner. I hope you've noticed. We sure have. During the day, Rick Mize has been expediting and it has made a huge difference in how smoothly things are going. Thank you, Rick!  He will also be the usual waiter in the evenings, with additional help on Fridays as needed. We know that keeping staff is often really hard in the restaurant business. I take a huge amount of personal pride in how little turnover we have had, thus far.  Hopefully, you will always see happy, friendly staff. I've told my team I am far more impressed with genuine friendliness and good communication skills than a high level of "professionalism." Hopefully, you'll get it all.

The fresh fish we have been getting in has been of a wonderful, high quality. Sadly, it hasn't always arrived and I've scrambled to make other arrangements. This week, once again, my order got cancelled on the provider's end. So I am sticking my neck out in a big way and bringing in 25 lbs. of Gulf white shrimp. These are the big guys—9-12 per pound with heads on. They will arrive from the boat on Wednesday in time for dinner. They were still swimming on Tuesday morning. After numerous discussions, Bruce and I decided that we'll keep the heads on and cook them on the griddle. The flavor of these shrimp is so pristine that we decided to add as little flavoring as possible. We'll serve them over a fresh pineapple boat filled with coconut rice and grilled pineapple. The pineapple will be glazed with sweet soy sauce. On the side we'll stir-fry onions, snow peas, red peppers, bok-choy and mushrooms. I think it will be a lovely presentation as well as being mucho flavorful. We'll price it at $14.99. I know, it IS a steal.

My "flavor journey" at night is one that was popular before. This goes vaguely to Italy—lemony chicken piccata over linguine. Chicken breasts are pounded flat to create an even thickness. Why? So that the entire piece of chicken cooks at the same rate. They are then sautéed to create a slightly caramelized crust. We slice them across the grain (to give you the most tender mouthfeel) into fingers and lay atop buttered linguine. The sauce, which is poured over the top, is made from fresh shallots, fresh garlic, fresh lemons, fresh parsley, capers, butter and some white wine. I can smell it now. Can't you? We'll start you with a salad. $10.99

Lunch will also get a "flavor journey" this week. I am introducing Bahn Mi (pronounced bohn mee'.) This Vietnamese sandwich has become the darling of the food trucks in LA and Boston. The bun is made from a fresh French baguette cut into quarters. The texture of the bread is crispy on the outside and light— quite a different mouth-feel than a hoagie, which is very doughy. The meats can vary vastly but the first one I'm doing is made from pork that has been marinated in Asian spices and grilled. The vegetables include a slaw made from carrots, sometimes, daikon radish and mostly rice vinegar and the sauce is a spicy mayonnaise. Cilantro and sprouts are the major greens. The overall direction is light and bright—perfect for warm weather. If this dish gets a healthy reception then I'll add it as a "regular" to the menu and add a chicken version and a beef version and maybe even a vegetarian one. So stay tuned! Give it a try on Friday. A glass of pinot grigio would be perfect with it.

Here's this weeks' menu~

• Tuesday~ Romans are on sale at 50 cents off. Choose between the original with its cold cuts, the wood-fired trout, or the seared tuna. Each comes with a side item.
• Wednesday~ Sausage and mushroom quiche with side salad. $6.75
• Thursday~ Cashew chicken tamales. This has become one of the most requested tamales Bruce makes. If you like Cashew Chicken, you'll love the Cashew Chicken Tamales. Served with a side of white rice. $6.75
• Friday~ Grilled pork Bahn Mi. Served with a side item. $6.49

Seafood~ (dinner only)Ginormous Gulf Shrimp served in a pineapple boat with coconut rice, grilled pineapple and Asian stir-fry. $14.99

Flavor Journey~ Lemony chicken picatta over linguine. Served with a side salad. $10.99

I have a survey I am posting on Facebook I hope you'll answer. Our Facebook page is A La Carte Cafe. Please note the West Plains address. (There is another out West) It addresses music on Friday nights and your input is needed. We are considering removing the live music with dinners and only having it Saturday nights with more of a tapas menu. You have a vested interest in how this goes. So please share your thoughts.

If you were to attend a strongly spring event that included lots of frivolity, was family friendly while still serving beer and wine, what activities would you expect to find? We hail from Austin (lived there 12 years). In that town (when we lived there it was still a "town" to most) there is an annual festival the last Saturday in April called "Eeyore's Birthday Party." It was started by a UT professor as a way to get students to lighten up a bit the week before exams. It has become a huge civic fundraiser and has been around for 49 years. To an outsider it might simply look like a Bacchanalian festival. But in true Austin style, it is a family event—face painting, Maypoles, beer trucks, one hundred plus portable toilets, everyone in costume and all. I have no interest in generating a festival on that scale. However, as a resident I loved the intensity of the frivolity. It was a total riot—in a good way. We are planning our own small scale "Eeyore's Birthday Party." The date will be the last Friday in April on the 27th. I have no idea how we will celebrate. The purpose is to really acknowledge the warmer weather, get out, meet friends and family and loosen up—and, of course, bring in a bit more business to us. So I want to hear from you! If you wanted to attend the most fun event in an urban setting what would it include? BTW—I have zero interest in competing with ANY other West Plains event. This is simply an in-house promotion that seemed like a fun idea.

Do you remember Andy Roose? He came in last fall from St. Genevieve and got a very warm reception. He has a lovely style, easy to listen to and still full of emotion. Andy writes almost all of his own material—a rare singer/songwriter. He'll join us this Friday evening starting around 6pm. In case you are wondering, we don't usually charge a cover charge when we have music. Instead, we appreciate your dining with us and simply ask that you tip the musician(s) and your waitstaff generously.

Get out the umbrellas~ it is going to be a wet week! If you come in the door when it is raining, remind us and we'll give you a 50 cent discount~ unless you are already getting one.
~~Susan

At Last...

To quote the late Etta James, "At Last...." we have our license to serve beer and wine! After over a year of hurdles, gauntlets and hoops, the license arrived at the cafe on Friday. We were able to get a delivery of the basic American beers on Friday. Tuesday the craft beers will arrive and Friday we'll get the initial order of wines. Woo-hooo!!!! We are committed to having an environment where you can enjoy a glass of beer or wine without feeling like you are in a bar or a "meat market." We'll often offer specials on pairings of specific beers or wines with our daily specials.

Good timing, too. This week ends with St. Patty's Day. While we won't be open on Saturday, we'll be serving corned beef and all the fixin's at dinner all week. We'll even do a smaller portion on Friday for lunch. I hear we'll be serving both Guiness and Mickey's in celebration of the special event. It is quite important that you make reservations for Friday night if you wish to join in the festivities. I expect we will be fairly busy. Last year when we served the corned beef we had a full house.

This marks a milestone in our growth. Phil Wages stopped by after work on Friday and was the first person served a beer. He has been instrumental in guiding our selections. We respect his palate and knowledge and were delighted to make him the first.

I am often asked if we are still having a good time creating this adventure. The answer is a resounding YES! We have recently added more help which is making our work loads lighter. Bruce has been wonderful in his recent collaborations. He is responsible for the bread and dipping sauce we've been serving at dinner. We've finally worked out a schedule that allows for us to work a few less hours while still getting all the prep work done. Rick Mize is helping at both lunch and dinner. At lunch he is expediting and helping to get your meals and beverages out faster. At dinner, he is our primary waitperson. THIS Friday he'll be on stage with Dustin Collins and entertaining us with Irish folk tunes. We have more expansion news coming up soon. But be assured, we have no interest in getting real big. We just want to make sure we can accommodate everyone, get you fed with good food, good service and a friendly smile.

Dining al fresco—I have added some straw bales plus burlap to create a wind block. My intention is to slow down the wind so diners can enjoy the warm sunshine without being battered. I may have to add another layer, but I think it is going to work. We'll have the tables out most every day. Come get your Vitamin D while stoking up on the rest of your vitamins!

Jon has taken the remaining fresh salmon we had and wood-fired it. Some of it will be frozen for future use but we'll have wood-fired salmon tacos all week. Wood-firing gives the meat a wonderful smokey essence—like our tilapia fish tacos. We'll serve it up with soft corn tortillas, pineapple salsa, and a side of our delicious seafood sauce. It'll come with the usual side options of black bean corn salad, Italian potato salad, Cajun home fries or potato chips. $6.99

The pulled pork sandwich is featured this week, as well. Fifty cents off all week. It is served on a wheat ciabatta bun and accompanied by Cajun home fries and pickled red onions. This sandwich is flavorful and smokey and the meat will melt in your mouth. $5.99

Thursday Bruce introduces another tamale creation. This time he takes us to Portugal. These tamales are stuffed with Portugese chourico (also spelled, chorizo.) Not to be confused with Mexican or Spanish style chourico, Portuguese chourico is an intoxicating blend of lean pork chunks blended with paprika as the key note spice with the addition of garlic and other zesty spices. Portuguese chourico is then smoked to enhance its flavor profile. Chourico stuffed tamales with a Portuguese red sauce and Portuguese rice. Bruce suggests adding Bass Pale Ale from our new beer list for $3.50 instead of $4.00 (if purchased by itself) to compliment your Portuguese Tamales. $6.75 or $10.25 with Bass Pale Ale.

Friday lunch will be corned beef with potatoes, cabbage and carrots. This lunch-sized portion will get you started on your temporary Irish status. $6.75 If you want the dinner sized portion, come at night.You can add a Guiness or a Mickey's to complement the Irish experience.

Dinners this week~
The Flavor Journey this week is the corned beef served with boiled potatoes, roasted cabbage and carrots. At dinner you can get a hefty serving that also includes soup or salad for $10.99. Add a Guiness or Mickey's with your meal for just a few coins from your pot of gold.

The FRESH seafood this week is Seabass. We'll keep the preparation pretty simple. I'll serve it with a Mojo sauce (pronounced Mo-ho) made from garlic, slivered onions, olive oil, lime juice, and wine vinegar. The fish will first be seared, then oven roasted just long enough to take the transparency away. I'll top it with the Mojo sauce, chopped cilantro and sliced avocado. We'll serve it with rice pilaf, stir-fried Asian veggies and your choice of soup or salad. I haven't been given a cost yet.

I am working on putting together a clam bake. I have access to fresh mussels, wild Littleneck clams and oysters. If you have an interest in this, please let me know. As the cost for these ingredients is pretty high, I'll be trying to pre-sell a good portion of what I can produce. We are looking at doing this on the last Friday of this month—the 30th. I don't have final cost info, but my guess would be that the servings will be close to $20.

Upcoming events—

• Eeyore's Birthday Party~ the last Friday in April. Anyone want to help with Maypoles? Drum circles, costumes, facepainting, silliness on a grand scale. Our Austin roots come alive!
• Cinco de Mayo~ on Cuatro de Mayo. We'll acknowledge our Mexican neighbors to the south and serve Mexican beers, real Mexican dishes, and listen to our Tex-Mex tunes. Olé!

Anticipation...

We are eagerly awaiting the receipt in the mail of our new permit to serve beer and wine. If you have been a customer of ours all along, you know what a long runway this has been. If you are new to us, welcome to the new era.  We are hoping to make readily available wines and beers from local wineries and breweries. We realize this may take awhile to educate our palates and discover how things are distributed. As with everthing we've done thus far, this is a new learning curve. Bear with us. If you have strong regional preferences NOW is the time to speak up. We may be a bit clumsy as we learn about each pour, but the chance to learn about such a new and vast arena is a very exciting, if daunting. Initially we will be working only with breweries that can provide beers in bottles or cans as the cost of taps is up there! With over 75 wineries in Missouiri we should be able to have quite the route to discovery. Our funds to stock up on the front end is, so far, limited. So, we will keep our selections narrow to begin with. Your input will dictate our direction of expansion. So get to in-putting!

This week's FRESH fish is salmon (available Wednesday - Friday at dinner). Between us, Bruce and I decided that a blackened version with a kicky salsa would be the best way to go. I'll do a stir-fry using primarily baby bok-choy, yellow onions, garlic and cabbage. The rice will have a sofrito (crucial to most Caribbean dishes, sofrito is made up of peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro and tomatoes) finish. The salmon will be offered with a choice of salad or soup. Market price will be determined later in the week when I learn my cost. The mahi-mahi last week was quite a bargain as I listed the price before I learned my cost. Ouch. Lesson learned.

The Flavor Journey (available Tuesday - Friday at dinner)will be a traditional Malaysian dish in which beef is simmered in a fragrant combination of coconut milk, chiles, and spices. The recipe came right out of my recent issue of Fine Cooking. This issue has so many interesting recipes that I am chomping at the bit to try them all out. One aspect of the the Beef Rendang (pronouced rehn-dong') that especially appealed to me was the layering of flavors—six layers! The dish begins by roasting whole spices of cloves, cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks and star anise in oil. To that is added even more spices in the form of ground coriander, cumin, fennel seed, tumeric and black pepper. Another layer with shallots, dried chiles, ginger. Then comes coconut milk, lemongrass and tamarind and fresh cilantro. If we had access to them, I would have added galangal, keffir lime leaves and unsweetened coconut. Sadly, without ordering those ingredients via the internet or making a trek to St. Louis, I'll have to pass. We'll serve this dish with a choice of soup or salad and a side of coconut rice.  I think you'll enjoy the complexity of the flavors as much as I do. The cost will be $11.99

Soups this week will begin with French Onion Soup and Miso Soup. I make the miso with white miso and hon dashi plus strips of seaweed, tofu, green onion and thin sliced mushrooms. Later in the week I'll also do a Greek Lemon chicken and rice soup.

The desserts should be fun. I have a crepe cake that is layered with a pastry cream and chocolate and hazelnut between chocolate crepes. Only 10 servings of that puppy. Maybe I should make it twice....
Bruce has another mocha ice cream pie ready to go.

Now here is this week's lunch menu~~

Tuesday~ Introducing the new Spring Salad 50 cents off~Spinach or arugula, snowpeas, alfalfa sprouts, feta, strawberries, red onion, walnuts and wood-fired chicken. Recommended dressing is our spinach dressing which has a pronounced toasted sesame flavor. $5.99
Wednesday~Greek Excursion~Spanakopita (spinach/ feta turnover), small Greek salad, lemon chicken kabobs over white rice. $7.99
Thursday~Vietnamese pork tamales, red curry sauce and pineapple salsa with Vietnamese fried rice. $6.75
Friday~Chicken Cacciatore Crepes with parmesan cream sauce. Crepes are filled with fragrant chicken, tomato and mushrooms and topped with a parmesan cheese sauce. Served with a side salad and buttered noodles $6.99

Remember~ until the permit to serve beer and wine is in our hands, we'll be serving only the usual beverages of iced green tea with jasmine, lemonade, pomegranate blueberry lemonade, soft drinks, coffee and hot teas. It'll happen soon enough.

We have no music booked this week. However, a rollicking good time should be had by all next Friday when Rick Mize and Dustin Collins join us again as Chief Wahoo and the Electric Tonic. I have no idea what that name means but the sound is decidedly Irish Folk. We SHOULD be able to serve beer and wine that night. Yee-haw! Okay. My Texas roots are showing.

As you may already know, my vision of this place has always been as a sidewalk cafe. Sadly, we seem to have a wind tunnel in just the place where tables would most likely go. That has put more than a few people off. I am actively seeking a wind abatement solution. So far, I have comeup with the idea of a stack of straw bales to block the wind up to a height level with the top of a sitting person. Do you have any bright ideas? I'd love to hear them. We can't do anything permanent and I don't want to haggle with permits and zoning.

Thank you, as always for traveling this journey with us. I, personally, think we are all benefitting. Have a joyous week. Don't forget to take a moment to notice spring is bursting out all over. I know that Mom will be thrilled when I take her for a drive later this week.

~~Susan