A taste of what’s new at E&O Trading Co.
Friday - February 08, 2008
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I always think that one of the biggest differences between a home cook and a chef is the passion with which they rush to create new dishes. Most of us are grateful, I think, to have 10 or 12 really good dishes under our belts, and we spend our time trotting them out in various guises. Not so with someone like Nicholas Salvi, who is not only in the middle of revamping the entire menu at E&O Trading Company, but also is creating monthly tasting menus and a series of cocktail pairing menus that will run throughout the year.
“I like the challenge of creating new dishes,” he explains. Since opening, E&O has offered dishes with a Southeast Asian flair, and while Salvi wants to keep the flavorful dishes, he’s determined to kick them up and make them more accessible.“I want people to come into E&O and still get those Southeast Asian flavors, but I want them to be comfortable. I want them to recognize dishes on the menu and then enjoy the different flavors.“Hence the debut of six new dinner entrees at the trendy Ward Centre location.
“I’ve tried to totally change the flavors,“says Salvi.“There’s a comfort food element present in some of the new dishes, but at a fairly sophisticated level. The Mild Curry New York Steak, for example, comes with mashed potatoes and a ‘gravy,’ but the potatoes are Yukon Gold mashed with kabocha and served with Hamakua Himeji mushrooms, and the steak is marinated in curry paste, honey, mirin and Thai basil.Without becoming overpowering, there’s a welcome edge to the dish that adds a little fire and a lot of flavor to the steak.”
For duck devotees (like me), there’s a well-constructed Five Spice Seared Duck Breast with grilled papaya that comes with incredibly good rice. The jasmine rice, already fragrant and firm, positively pops with crunchy pieces of garlic and is utterly addictive. This may turn out to be one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, and certainly it should be offered as a side to accompany almost everything. I can imagine eating the rice with salmon, ahi, lamb and even simple grilled vegetables.
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Salvi is particularly happy with his Chili Plum Glazed Rack of Lamb, a variation on a Moroccan recipe that he’s been serving up in various forms for the past four or five years.
“This dish is really killer,“he says of the lamb that comes with a sweet onion curry risotto.
What Salvi hopes is that guests will come to E&O to enjoy the new flavors and then come back to see what he’s doing next.
“I want people to learn to trust me so that they know the food, whatever it is, will be good,“he says. That trust, he adds, is essential to creating dishes that go beyond the norm.
A series of cocktail-paired dinners are planned this year along with a monthly tasting menu of some of Salvi’s latest dishes.The first cocktail pairing happens Monday, Feb. 11, when Salvi and mixologist Joey Goettesman present a dinner where lobster with awamori, ahi with sake, foie gras with rum, and porcini-seared Australian filet with Gentleman Jack are just a few of the dishes and drinks on offer.
“When you learn to trust a chef,” says Salvi,“you know that the food is going to be good. I want to get to the point here where people trust me enough to try new things.”
E&O Trading Company
Ward Centre
second floor
591-9555
www.eotrading.com
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