Ducks today?
Okay, nice.
I wanted to make a unique pie that’s the best in New York.
This is a Rohan duck.
It’s from upstate New York.
The duck foie gras pie is made first.
That’s the biggest part of the work.
We’ll be using this a month from now.
It’s dry-aged in the refrigerator.
We prepare about 20 per week.
If you go this way it’s old,
and the new ones are that way.
We’re going to use the oldest one today.
I’m going to cut it to check the meat.
It’s red like this inside.
By aging the duck we can cook it for 33 minutes and 40 seconds.
This process avoids drastic variations.
It’s managed to the second.
First, it’s the ground duck leg meat and mushroom.
Cream cheese...
...is included.
I’m making the thickness of the foie gras even.
It affects the cooking time when it’s not even.
Once the skin is crisped, it’s placed in the freezer.
Once it’s cooled, it’s placed on the ground meat.
The seasonal mushrooms go on top of this.
The point here is to keep it rectangular and neat.
I’m going to tidy up the foie gras.
It’s a type of art.
It’s salted again.
The ground meat fills in the gap and makes it even.
This side is higher.
I’m placing the grind in order to adjust the height.
I can do this alone,
but in order to minimize the risk...
One, two, three.
Put it in here.
This part makes me nervous.
I get the spinach fresh from the farmer's market.
My job is to prep it up to this point.
The remainder is taken care of by Masaki, our pastry chef.
This is Masaki, the pastry chef.
I make the duck foie gras pie,
but I won’t be able to make it without his handmade dough.
He requested this machine.
I went to look for it on Amazon,
and I found it and bought it.
It’s his Ferrari.
It’s dough for mille-feuille.
Pate feuilletage is time-consuming and difficult to make.
I told Masaki this was the first thing I wanted to make.
The tedious work is our strength.
The meat vendor comes between 10 to 10:30.
Next up is the second main dish.
This is veal from France.
It has a very nice pink color.
I’m removing the bones.
The veal feeds on straw so I thought it would match well.
We looked around here and couldn’t find it.
Amazon was the best choice.
This makes the pie crust uniform.
I thought it was a great dish.
Thyme and herbs are necessary.
It’s too much like a wall with just straw.
The machine evens it out.
You can’t do this by hand.
It’s adjusted five millimeters at a time.
We can make a wall for the house any time with this.
A traditional Japanese house.
Tasty food has to be matched with extraordinary experience.
Straw is inspired by visits to the farms.
I saw the veal lying down in straw.
I thought it’d make a good pairing.
By smelling the veal I thought it would make a good match.
This is Chef Simon.
His other name is the Frog Chef.
Mr. Frog.
Frogs are commonly found in the rice paddies in Japan.
So it’s covered in rice flour and made crispy.
I'm from Sweden originally.
Yeah, I started here a couple of weeks ago.
Even though it's like...
...Western food with a Japanese twist or French,
everything is made with a thought process of Japanese cooking,
You don't waste anything,
and are very respectful for all the ingredients.
The amount of labor that goes into this one-two biter is intense.
After I'm done breading them, I'm going to put them away.
Then right before we serve them, we're going to deep fry them,
and give them a quick flash in the salamander.
Then it goes straight out to the guests.
This is the pigeon which is a new item on the menu.
I thought about making consommé,
I didn't think it was interesting enough.
Dove ballotine.
It’s a dish made by boiling the pigeon.
This is another classic dish.
The liver, parts, and innards are used and ground.
This pigeon consommé,
it’s made with the meat, liver, and bones.
20 years ago, from my experience...
...it was very classic.
20 years later the classic is very new.
In New York City, nobody is doing this.
This is the pigeon breast.
I’m going to lightly pound it.
It’s done lightly to not destroy the fiber.
The thigh meat,
liver, gizzard, heart, all minced,
inside the breast.
And this is cabbage.
Then citrus, yuzu,
and ginger.
A bit of lemon ginger marmalade is added.
Piegon and foie gras make a great combination.
The first dish is the soup.
I want them to warm up.
I’m going to tightly wrap this.
I'm placing the pigeon inside of the stock.
It’s going to cook at low heat.
It’s cooked at 50 degrees Celsius for an hour and a half.
Consommé and...
It has citrus, rather than cognac.
A bit too much.
I thought this would match the flavors better.
Okay, when we open, whiskey flavor.
Citrus is coming.
It’s 2:00 p.m.
Every Tuesday at 2:00 p.m., he brings the best citrus in New York.
Everyone gets their inspiration from this.
This one, maybe with the syrup marinade.
Bringing Japanese citrus that's grown originally from Japan
to Japanese chefs is very, very different.
It's very nerve-wracking.
It's a very different experience.
I want to use this one. I want to use it!
Let’s try a new item with this one.
We create sample dishes.
This is yuzu fruit sorbet.
It’s a dessert he’s making on the spot.
It’s really tasty.
Adjustments need to be made.
Not bad.
We can use it today.
It's 2:30 p.m., we have our staff meal at 3:00 p.m.
We prepare the fish for service at 2:30 p.m.
This one is a local sea bass, branzino.
This is very French.
Soupe de poisson.
Don’t get nervous, Shuji.
Ok, fine.
Everyone is going to learn how to fillet from this video.
A million people will be looking at this.
How to cook fish.
No problem.
He's better than any chef.
Not bad.
Oh, not bad.
And I'm going to portion it before the service.
And then during the service,
I put it in a pan, like a pan sear,
and then finish it in a bouillabaisse sauce.
The pie is finalized before the staff meal at 3:00 p.m.
We still have to dry it after this.
It’s very time-consuming.
We stay on schedule with this dish.
Masaki decorates it accordingly for the guests or the weather.
It’s a type of art.
We’re using turtle from Shizuoka.
We're going to simmer it for like two, three hours.
Chinese softshell turtle is used often in Japanese cuisine.
I think that’s a great fusion of identities in a dish.
It’s a very important ingredient for us.
It's about to open the door.
Now it's five, so 90 minutes to go.
The suppon—the soft-shell turtle—it's been cooking for two hours.
So I start to strain it now.
This part is the fin.
It comes off easily.
This is the tastiest part.
Once the fins and meat are removed,
the remaining portions are minced.
This will be added to the flan.
We serve suppon broth soup on top of it.
And the garnish is white asparagus,
yamaimo, Japanese yam, topped with grilled matsutake.
This is charcoal.
The charcoal...
...we start at 6:30 p.m. today.
We prep this around 45 minutes to an hour before.
Okay guys, clean up!
Okay, now we close the curtain, waiting for the customers.
We're doing the final preparation.
It's 6:25 p.m., the guests will be arriving.
We close the curtain and get ready to plate.
Broadway starts.
Three kinds of amuse-bouche.
The amuse-bouche changes every season.
This one is duck liver mousse tart with grape.
Inside there’s gizzard and heart confit.
This is kelp-cured fluke.
Sushi with uni from Hokkaido.
And it’s served along with a bit of yuzu pepper.
This is daikon marinade with crab tartare along with finger lime.
Hi, good evening, everybody.
Thank you for coming to Restaurant Yuu.
Please enjoy our autumn menu.
So, ikimashō! Let's go!
Oui, Chef.
So this is wagyu from Miyazaki, A5 wagyu, our signature,
kind of our signature brioches, homemade wagyu brioche foie gras toast.
Our Japanese identity comes out in the menu we create.
And what we do is emphasize that identity.
For the Japanese-style barbecue, the sauce.
But the sauce is not soy sauce.
The sauce is bordelaise, French style.
So, homage.
Hello, thank you for coming tonight.
Wagyu plate.
Homemade brioche with wagyu from the Miyazaki A5 rank,
with foie gras and smoked shallot puree,
and the sauce bordelaise.
A hundred percent.
19 is quite a bit.
It’s both a strength and weakness to serve 18 seats at the same time.
I wish I could serve onion gratin soup à la carte,
but it would make the customers full.
I have to balance my ego and my customers' satisfaction.
The lobster is for the next course, lobster salad.
We cook in a cool bouillon.
And then after that, we're going to break it down,
making a dressing, and then we finish up the salad.
We have a lot of parts and all the ingredients,
so we need hands for everything, so it's good.
We have now six chefs, so very good.
I wanted to try something difficult.
Even if I roasted a whole veal.
It’s indirectly heated, so it won’t overcook.
This is the veal roast.
45 minutes in the oven.
It’s a 100% success.
It’s perfect.
The veal dish is served with salt bread.
The dough has straw and thyme.
It’s a great aroma.
Best sandwich in Greenpoint.
These are difficult dishes I wanted to challenge myself with.
We're finishing suppon turtle dish.
Egg custard is cooked and garnished on top
and now we're finishing with the soup.
Black pepper, and then matsutake mushroom from Oregon.
It's charcoal-grilled, and the flavor is perfect.
Chinese softshell turtle is high in gelatin.
It’s tasty as a soup, so I made consommé.
Ok, next dish is the oyster and then a sugar snap peas dish.
Oyster from Washington State, nice quality.
It's very creamy.
And then snap peas are very sweet.
So please enjoy the contrast of the sweetness of the snap peas
and then a little saltiness of the oyster.
This is the bouillabaisse.
The fish is the sea bass, branzino, and mussel, and fennel garnish.
The bouillabaisse is made from the northern gurnard.
sea bass bones, and lobster, mussel juice.
An invitation from Michelin.
I’m going to be traumatized if I don’t get a star rating.
Here we go.
So, 33 minutes, 40 seconds.
Yeah, very hard.
Not bad.
The climax is when the duck pie is cut.
I have my favorite song “Winter” from Chef’s Table play.
It’s a bit embarrassing when I cut the pie.
But it’s very fun.
I wanted to get customers excited and anticipating the item.
Customers would get excited for the main dish to come out.
It’s a type of performance.
I wanted to create a dish that others couldn’t replicate.
Very good.
Top of the top.
The same here, the same here, everything the same color.
We deeply respect French cuisine.
The bases of the dishes are classic items.
It’s a French restaurant.
I’m very particular about how to incorporate
the Japanese identity in our food.