Last week I went to see my little one Danielle in Chicago. She and Kevin bought all of us tickets to the restaurant "Next." Yes, you heard that right, tickets to get in! Every three months the Chef prepares a new menu and sells tickets for it. The current menu is "Present Thai." I believe the last one was "1906 French."

This perhaps may be the hottest restaurant in America right now. We got a kitchen table so we could see what was going on. I can't believe that the executive chef is from Syracuse, New York. Dave is his name, he is such a great chef, manager, and he's not afraid to try something new!

Considering he only had a month to study Thai food before debuting this menu I think he did a great job. He did Thai food "his way" which was smart. In a month no one would be able to conquer true authentic Thai flavors. I was so thankful that I got to pick his brain a little bit so I could understand his full vision. Congratulations brave Dave!

I am working on our new fall menu, I want to continue to do "My food, My way." As I have mentioned before, since we opened on July 20th 1994 we have not sold straight Thai food, it has always been Pacific Rim with a Thai accent and a Max twist! We will try to push further from the basic Thai concept, keeping it fresh and fun.

Your Chef,

Max

As you guys know we order our oysters from JP Seafood. They are the only ones that are really serious about what they are selling. They care about the environment and the cleanliness of their product. But most of all their quality is always the best!

Our oyster sales are up almost 40% and so far we have been very happy with them. However, a few weeks ago we found our selves in a funny situation. Our standing order has been three small boxes (180 oysters). They sent us three large boxes (300 oysters) and shipped it twice... so there we where in an Oyster Crisis!

So how do you sell 600 oysters in the time you usually sell 180??? We knocked the price in half and started call people. The news spread all over Armory Square. Our good friends the Hanford family came in with a large group and ordered dozen after dozen. Mike from the Blue Tusk and Adam from Empire Brewery also came in with some friends. Our good friend and long time customer Mr. Jacobson ate four dozen himself on Thursday night! We ran the special from Thursday lunch through Friday lunch and sold 450 oysters, leaving us with 150 just in time for the weekend!

We would like to thank everyone who came in and helped us out. We had such a great time with everyone we have decided to make this a bi-annual event. We will have an "Oyster Crisis" in January and July every year. We will kick it off with 200 dozen oysters and see how it goes. We hope to see you all there!

Your Chef,

Max

This heat is killing us! Its causing all kinds of problems with our equipment from refrigerators and freezers to our new AC units in the dining rooms. But the kitchen heat is the worst. It must have been over 100 degrees in there. We barely made it through the MOST Gala this year. Pook's balloons collapsed and we had to get a new tank of liquid nitrogen three hours before service to make a new batch. It was too hectic for me!

So after all this Pook and I decided to call Charles Heating to take a look at the kitchen to see how they can improve the working temperature. We need it at least 15-20 degrees cooler in there. We also need to fix the air circulation in the dish room. My poor dish jockeys are dying in there.

This is going to be an expensive year for Pook and I. We did some decor updates before my kid's wedding  and now we are looking at some back of the house maintenance and upgrades that need to be done. My sous chef Neal and I agreed we should expand our walk-in cooler and install a walk-in freezer. We have such limited space, I wish we had an extra 300-500 sq ft. We will start drawing up plans this week.

Okay enough about that. Lets get to some food.

We have a great supply of Florida shrimp and our supplier in Boston is sending us baby squid, Blue Fin tuna and a few different cuts of Kobe beef. We have been getting good stuff from this company but I wish we could get the same selection from our bigger suppliers.

We are gearing up for fall. All the staff is looking forward to the new school year, Lion King coming to town and the reopening of our Landmark Theater. We are all wishing for a busy fall.

Your Chef,

Max