Friday, April 25, 2008

Roasted Halibut with White Beans and Chervil




In a mad effort to create some "beauty shots" for the upcoming menu, I did something I've never really done before - this photo is somewhat fake. We are opening the restaurant very soon, but not soon enough to have any of the mise en place to make these dishes, or access to the plates for that matter.

We got the word we needed some pictures at about 11:30 yesterday. By 12:30 we were knee deep in Atwater market hunting for truffle oil, quail eggs, and any picture-worthy produce we could get our hands on. We were unfortunately unable to secure proper lighting equipment. It makes me cringe just to think this picture was lit with energy-saver flourescent lights, which accounts for the overall badness of the photo. We now have a picture of a tomato salad that sadly looks like vomit. Since my computer died I no longer have access to photoshop to attempt to fix the green spike from the light.

Without the time to braise the beans properly we hastily resorted to the canned version for the sake of the photo. The "chervil emulsion" is a honest to goodness herb oil (not chervil) folded into egg whites. The rest is real, the fish, the crudite salad, the snap peas. By 1:30am we had about 5 photos...I'm tired.