Mont St. Claire........................

Whenever I look for new ideas I always keep track of what other chefs are doing throughout Japan and France. Here is one shop located in Jiyugaoka, Tokyo. This place is the mecca of patisseries and boulangeries in Tokyo. I have yet to visit all of them. The chef actually trained in France, as most of them have. Mont St. Claire, extremely popular and well know throughout Japan having other cakes shops throughout Tokyo. They do everything from viennoiseries to mini gateau's as well as having their own line chocolate. Visit their site, even though you might not know Japanese. The quality of their pastries is outstanding to say the least.

http://www.ms-clair.co.jp/index.html

The proper portion....................

What is the proper portion for a plated dessert in a restaurant that serves course lunch or dinners? Not too many chefs even think about the ideal portioning of a dessert and just resort to the use of various molds and forms without second guessing the finished product. Or better yet, What is the proper portion of a full course meal? It's not written as a law but a little bit of common sense in regards to food consumption, the proper portion of a full course meal should be between 450g. no more. Whether its a 3 course dinner or a 15 course dinner, the portions should remain within those parameters. As for dessert, 90-100 g.. Yes, 90-100 g. and that includes the ice or sorbet that accompanies the dessert. For restaurant cafe's, 120 g. max.

This, however , seems not to be the case here in Hawaii or most of America for that matter, which has become somewhat of a never ending battle to pull back the portions. The dessert, the closing of a meal which leaves the lasting imprint of the finality of the dining experience. It should be enough to leave a "longing" of wanting to come back and try that experience again.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to fill one's appetite but when the servings get too large where it leaves the customer so full to the point where they can't even move. I feel that we as chefs have failed to create that perfect dining experience for the customer, whether its a 3 star restaurant or a cafe.

I clearly recall doing a 9 course dinner here and seeing a 7 ounce steak go out as the 5th course. 7 ounces-that's over 200 g. of meat! You can imagine after that, everything else was going into to-go containers-even the dessert.

This I fear will be a never ending stuggle here at least until I return to the land of the rising sun.

Plasir Sucre..........................

In English, sweet pleasure.............

Yesterday was my son's birthday and his favorite cake is Pierre Herme's Plasir Sucre.

We would often visit his shop for this cake as well as others on the weekends in Omotesando, Tokyo. Asides from the cakes, out of all the many patiserries and cafe's that I had visited, their coffee was the best.

さすがアメリカ人。。。。。。。。。。。。。

日本でありえない！