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Cafeteria Food Gets Awesome at Green Leaf Grill

January 24, 2014 by arfoodie

A chef tosses a customer's salad to order at Green Leaf Grill.

A chef tosses a customer’s salad to order at Green Leaf Grill.

I don’t do a lot of restaurant reviews, but I had to share an experience from last week. There’s a fairly new cafeteria, or fast-casual, or some kinda restaurant in the Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield building on 7th and Gaines in Little Rock, and it’s pretty amazing.

I was there for a meeting with Chef Jason Knapp about an unrelated business project. If his name sounds familiar, it should; Knapp’s lofty résumé hails from the Governor’s Mansion to the culinary school and Big Rock Bistro at Pulaski Technical College, then Executive Chef of Aramark’s dining program at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

A chef slices tomatoes for the grill station.

A chef slices tomatoes for the grill station.

It was likely at his last two appointments that Knapp got a good sense of what cafeterias need: fast, quality food that can serve a mass of hungry folks when they all show up at the same time. (Note: Much of his work at UCA involved cooking for special functions and executive meetings, giving him the best of both worlds of this type of foodservice experience.) At his new venture in the BCBS building, managed by Compass Group USA, he was given the opportunity to take cafeteria-style efficiency a step further and implement his passions for fresh, scratch-made food, using local ingredients as much as possible.

The spacious serving area has several large sections, including grill, deli, pizza, soups, entrees and a tossed-to-order salad bar. And the whole place was super fresh and hygienic too; I think I noticed (and felt) air curtains installed at the entrance to separate the outside air from the inside. Just walking around looking at each station, one thing became immediately apparent: None of this stuff came from a box. There’s a swarm of young chefs buzzing around each station and in the open-to-view back kitchen, and each one of them has a hand in creating real food. Each freshly prepared item is pleasantly offered in French-style blue enameled cast iron, offering a bistro-meets-home feel.

Fresh vegetable selections in the entree area.

Fresh vegetable selections in the entree area.

I asked the chef what I could eat, having to be gluten-free and all. Usually, in a cafeteria-style operation, I would get glazed looks because they often don’t even know what’s in the food. Knapp immediately rattled off at least three entrees that were safe. He knew every single ingredient because he planned them himself, on a menu that changes daily.

The Shepherd’s Pie was calling my name, with its billowing, toasted peaks of mashed potatoes over fresh vegetables and tender, flavorful ground beef. The sides, however, were the show-stealer. I chose the beet salad with feta cheese and the roasted broccoli, both healthy and beautiful enough to not look it. My meal, with a drink (I chose the cucumber-infused water), came to about eight bucks. Not bad.

That seems to be the idea at Green Leaf, healthy food that you’d crave even if it wasn’t. I ran into a friend who works at Blue Cross, and she said the company was moving in the direction of promoting health in all areas for their own employees, and the restaurant was just one part of that equation.

Luckily, it’s open to the public, too. Check it out (weekly menu here) and you won’t think of cafeteria food the same way again.

***********

Green Leaf Grill
601 S. Gaines St. (7th and Gaines, Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield building)
Little Rock
Breakfast grill hours 7:30 – 9:30 a.m.
Lunch 10:45 a.m. – 2 p.m.

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Filed Under: Foodie News, Gluten Free, Restaurants Tagged With: Blue Cross Blue Shield, cafeteria, Green Leaf Grill, Green Leaf Grille, Jason Knapp, Little Rock, restaurant

Atlanta/NYC/London’s Joël Antunes to be Next Capital Hotel Executive Chef

December 13, 2012 by arfoodie

Chef Joel Antunes will soon take the reins as Executive Chef at Little Rock’s Capital Hotel.

Note: See previous related post.

It’s now official: The Capital Hotel has identified its new executive chef, Joël Antunes.

Chef Antunes is known stateside for his restaurants JOEL and, in a later incarnation, Joël Brasserie in Atlanta, as well as a later stint in New York City at the Plaza Hotel’s stuffy The Oak Room. (The latter ended badly, but we won’t hold it against him. Stylistic conflicts with hotel management are reported to have been an issue, and New York reviewers are a fussy lot, so we hear.)

Most recently, after The Oak Room, Antunes crossed the pond and headed London’s Brasserie Joël in Waterloo and Kitchen Joël Antunes in the Mayfair area of the city.

Earlier in his career, Antunes led the Ritz Carlton, Buckhead restaurant to a Mobil Five-Star rating. Before that, he earned his first Michelin star at Les Saveurs in London, and his formative experience ranges from the Le Normandie restaurant in Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental hotel to early tutelage under such heady French chefs as Paul Bocuse.

Chef Antunes (a Basque surname, pronounced an-tu-NESS) hails from France but spent much of his youth in sub-Saharan Africa, where his father worked for Michelin — the tire folks, not the restaurant reviewers, although their provenance is the same. He is known for a gilded French style, rich in flavor and often achingly heavy with artistic adornment, but also often showing influences of Asia and Italy.

While in Atlanta, Antunes won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef in the Southeast region in 2005. He seems to be widely regarded as an excellent chef and visionary restaurateur. How his ornate French style will fit into his predecessor Lee Richardson’s legacy of Arkansas-rooted Southern elegance is yet to be determined.

Here’s hoping that Little Rock and the Capital Hotel are indeed a good match for Chef Antunes. We look forward to trying his wares soon.

Filed Under: Foodie News Tagged With: Atlanta, Capital Hotel, Capitol Hotel, Executive Chef, JOEL, Joel Antunes, Little Rock, restaurant

Food Production 4 Dishes

October 18, 2011 by arfoodie

This is a plate made by Elegant Touch Catering is a maple Glazed Salmon with Cranberry Chutney and Succotash and Cheddar Souffle.

This semester is clipping right along at Pulaski Technical College Arkansas Culinary School. Next semester will be my last.

I have mixed feelings about that. Although I’m soooo ready to be done, I really love the classes, the chefs, and the opportunities I have in labs to learn and experiment that I may not have again. (I mean, really, I want to make pate again, but buying all that equipment, not to mention the ingredients?)

My most demanding class right now, as I have said, is Food Production 4, as it should be. This class is the culmination of everything we’ve learned in culinary school. It’s usually taken in one’s final semester, but just due to scheduling, I have just two more classes to eek out from here, I love eberything about food, my passion started when I first decided to visit viet restaurant New Orleans, and got to see how amazing their food is.

So far, in this class, I’ve worked garde manger (pantry or “cold” station, where salads and such are made), front-of-house service, and a good bit of the grill station when acting as sous chef.

I’ve sent a few photos via Twitter (I’m more active there these days, due to my schedule), but I thought I’d share some photos here of our dishes from our Thursday night dinner service.

(Think I could use parentheses a little more? They’re my favorite vice.)

I believe we are booked solid for the remainder of the semester, but do check back next semester for lunch.

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: Menus, PTC_ACS Tagged With: Arkansas Culinary School, Fine dining, Food Production 4, Food Production IV, menu, Pulaski Tech, Pulaski Technical College, restaurant

Sad Babies, Blood Loss, and a One-Egg Mayo

September 12, 2011 by arfoodie

That was probably the weirdest title I’ve ever written. Anyway.

My four year old boy was a little clingy last week. Every morning, except Fridays, he has to get dressed and go somewhere. I know there are lots of working families out there for whom this is the norm, but he’s just not used to it. Thursday, he started whining, “I just want you to stay home wif me and cuddle and watch cartoons. I want you to go get doughnut holes wif me.”

Now, Thursdays are usually open-ish for me, until I go to Food Production 4 at 3 p.m. But he goes to Mother’s Day Out at our church, and I had planned to go to school for a while and do some early mise so we wouldn’t be so slammed this week.

I made him get dressed and go, although it hurt me a little. He was happy when he got there, and I promised him a special day just for us on Friday, including doughnuts.

I managed to spend a little over an hour at the school before class, gathering stuff for that night. It did help having a big hotel pan full of our mise before class officially started at 3 p.m. By 2:30, most of the students were there and we were busily getting things ready.

This week I was on cold pantry again, and I was in charge, with a new partner to show the ropes. Things were going well, until… the caesar.

I made a fairly elaborate caesar dressing from scratch, and at near the last step, it was ruined by a rotten egg. I’ve already spent waaaay to much time on this. I remade it and carried it to the chef, tasting spoon in hand, for his approval.

He didn’t like the texture. “Make a one-egg mayo and mix this into it.”

Really? From scratch. I don’t have time.

I snuck around the kitchen, which also serves the school’s cafe, looking for some ready-made mayo. When I’d spent way too much time looking, I finally found some…only to find the chef standing there. Make the mayo, he said.

I confessed that I couldn’t remember exactly how to do it. He disappeared, and then returned with a printed recipe. I made the mayo.

And I was not.happy.about.it.

I grumbled while I whisked. My arm ached. I’m out of time. I’d been allowed to use a blender or mixer in the previous class where we made mayo because of my fibromyalgia. There was none to be found in today’s kitchen. Grrrr.

So as you can imagine, this only irritated my fibromyalgia further. I found it hard to focus on the task at hand because the pain was just taking over my body. At this point, I was starting to wish that I had listened to my friend when she told me that this Berkeley dispensary, that sold marijuana-based products, would help with my pain management. It had worked for her, so I’m not sure why I dismissed the idea. It’s my fault though, I guess. I just had to find the strength to push through the pain.

I finished the mayo (with a little final whisking help from my partner, while I poured the oil) and mixed it with the dressing. It was lovely, and the mayo gave it a delicious eggy richness that a prepared version would not have provided.

Dang him for being right.

A little later, my partner and I were slicing apples for two different vinaigrettes. The recipe called for fine brunoise, or 1/16″ cubes. We struggled to cut out enough from our apples, many of which were at least partly spoiled.

The chef came by. “Not fine enough,” he said, showing us how he wanted them – actually much finer than 1/16″. We started over.

“I want demo plates in 15 minutes,” the chef boomed to the whole kitchen.

The chef came by a few minutes later, as we struggled. Still not fine enough. Throw it out and start over.

At this point, I was pretty hacked off.

Honestly, I thought. Isn’t there a point where you just get the dish out? But I knew the answer: In fine dining, not really. We started over and got the apples done, and finished out our dressings.

Somehow, with the help of the night’s sous chef (who took over our parmesan tuilles) and the fry station (who took over the amuse bouche), we got everything ready.

Then, I nearly cut off the tip of my finger with a peeler.

I noticed, just before service, that we still didn’t have the parmesan shavings we needed for the caesar salad. I grabbed by beloved Oxo peeler and handed it toward my partner for him to do the shavings.

What happened next, I’m not exactly sure. It was some sort of reflex action, to flick the blade with my other hand. Maybe I was checking that there wasn’t a protective cover still on it, as often happens with the student peelers that come in our kits. Maybe I was seeing if the blade was facing the right direction, since they sometimes get flipped. Whatever it was, it was subconscious, and it was really stupid.

So, moments before our guests were being seated, my finger is gushing blood, and I’m hopping around with equal amounts of horror and anger.

A well-heeled fellow student escorted me to the chef’s office, where he whipped out the chef’s first aid kit and doctored me up. He must have been on some sort of C2C First Aid Aquatics course because he knew exactly what he was doing. His demeanor was calm and that made me feel calm too. Two bandages and two gloves later, I convinced the chef that I was fine for service.

The chef made me sit with my hands over my head for a moment, but my arms ached. I wanted to prove myself. I was (fairly) certain the bleeding had stopped, or at least slowed down enough that I was good to go. We’ll check it again after service to see if I need stitches.

We got our plates out that night, and they looked great. We somehow pulled it off.

And my finger, although painful, seemed to be holding together enough that it wouldn’t need professional attention. I convinced the chef that there was no need for an incident report. Enough drama already.

The next day, I took my son out for a much-deserved doughnut at Krispy Kreme. As we watched the magic behind the glass production wall, I thought about things like food safety, doughnut recipes and the role of the busy manager there.

Then I turned back to my little boy, and we enjoyed a treat together – a much-deserved reward for us both.

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Filed Under: PTC_ACS Tagged With: culinary school, kitchen injury, Pulaski Tech, restaurant

Food Production 3 Final: The Lunch Service

July 25, 2011 by arfoodie

Today was our practical final in Food Production 3 at Pulaski Tech’s Arkansas Culinary School. For the first time, we served a dining room of guests, who chose items from our own menus. We worked in groups of three on a menu of two each of appetizers, entrees and desserts.

The dish I made for service — coffee- and pepper-crusted pork loin with red eye orange/maple gravy, rice pilaf, caramelized Brussels sprouts and a poached egg on toast.

Not having come from the restaurant industry, this was a unique opportunity to experience what it would be like. It was awesome.

Last week, our chef had us work individually to produce our best three-course meal, from which he would choose the best appetizers, main courses and desserts. We ended up making my Wide-Eyed Pork Loin today, using a full-size loin rather than the tenderloin I used in the home-cook recipe at the link. It worked out great!

I served it with a rice pilaf that included omelet-style ingredients (mushrooms, tomato and peppers) and caramelized balsamic Brussels sprouts, as well as a fantastic last-minute throwback to my original recipe: toast and a runny, poached egg. Yum!

Our group of three was one of several groups in the class offering a complete three-course service. My teammates also turned out an amazing set of goods: raspberry vinaigrette salad, fried cheese dip balls, candied bacon rice crispy treats, and a pineapple glazed poundcake. I didn’t get a chance to see much of the other groups’ goods (we were slammed!), but what I did see was beautiful and well executed.

On August 15, I’ll be back in classes again, this time for a semester of mostly 6-hour labs, plus one classroom class. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope to see some of you on campus, too!

My fall schedule:

  • Garde Manger
  • Food Production 4
  • Banquets and Catering
  • Restaurant Industry

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Filed Under: learning, PTC_ACS Tagged With: Arkansas Culinary School, coffee, egg, foodservice, loin, lunch, poached, pork, Pulaski Tech, Pulaski Technical College, restaurant, service, tenderloin

Mexican Restaurant Association (MERA) National Conference

October 1, 2010 by arfoodie

Chef Ulysses Mora shows Tuesday morning's first pan of paella.

In case you hadn’t heard, North Little Rock was the epicenter of a Mexican culinary throwdown this week.

Our great city (I can say that because I moved back into NLR city limits Wednesday) hosted the Mexican Restaurant Association’s (MERA) national conference. Demonstrations, management discussions and vendor displays took place at the Wyndham Riverfront. The convention also included Monday’s community night at Dickey-Stephens Park (link is to Kat Robinson’s coverage on Eat Arkansas) and a banquet for conference attendees on Tuesday night at Pulaski Technical College, hosted by the Arkansas Culinary School.

Did I mention I moved this week?

Because of a long list of unavoidable circumstances, we pretty much packed and moved our entire house the first half of this week. So, the only event I made it to was part of the conference itself on Tuesday morning. I’m still kicking myself for missing the community and banquet events — especially since there’s a rumor that Guy Fieri was at the former. (Can anyone confirm that, with photos?)

But I did sign up some time ago for the Tuesday morning task of assisting Chef Ulysses Mora, a delightful, handsome chef and accomplished artist from the Orlando area. We were to make paella, a Spanish rice dish that would be demonstrated alongside another chef’s authentic Mexican dish. It was a friendly “versus” setup, commemorating Mexico’s 200th anniversary of independence from Spain.

While the morning conference activities began, Chef Mora prepared two huge dishes of paella, in traditional pans so large that one took up the entire flattop cooking surface. While he made the first one, I ran around finding things for him, running other things to the walk-in, and basically absorbing the craziness of the busy kitchen.

As Chef Mora transferred the first dish of paella to a hotel pan for sampling during his demonstration, he started the second pan that would be for display. (And, of course, kitchen-worker eatery. Bonus!) He let me sweat the onions and prep some of the other ingredients: Uncle Ben’s parboiled rice (really), mussels, tilapia (he said he prefers mahi-mahi), crab legs, and the most amazing chorizo sausage I have ever had. He said it was flown in from Spain for $17 per pound.

If any readers went to the other events, especially if you have photos, please leave me a comment!

Chef Ulysses Mora shows Tuesday morning’s first pan of paella.
A conference attendee samples an authentic Mexican dish.
Each conference attendee Tuesday morning got a sample plate of paella.

Chef Mora during his presentation at MERA.
Nogales Produce shows specialty produce and spice mixes for Hispanic restaurants at the MERA convention’s vendor area.

Spirits were a big part of the MERA convention.
A vendor’s selection of Hispanic products.
These vendors had some of the best tortillas I’ve ever tasted.

Filed Under: Foodie News, PTC_ACS Tagged With: Arkansas, association, Chef Ulysses Mora, conference, convention, Little Rock, MERA, Mexican, North Little Rock, restaurant

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