December 20, 2011

Hello and happy holidays! Its been a while since my last blog -so this is a year in review blog.

I was so exhausted, as all of downtown was after the record breaking weather last winter. March was the worst ever since 1989, the first year we open our operation in Mattydale. Of course, the Grass faced a huge sales drop the first and third months of the year. February was good due to Valentine's day and dining weeks. After we survived the treacherous winter, we had a very busy spring and summer. We passed last year's sales in the beginning of December.

This year we changed quite a few things- the approach of our lunch menu, trimming the sushi menu down, and we will be adding more noodles this January. On our lunch menu we now have three different fried rice dishes, two of which are my new invention. From the Bistro kitchen we added beer battered fish and chips and rigatoni.

We began the year with 18 different kinds of sushi, now we have 2. Seven years ago we added sushi to our menu for marketing reasons. Now everybody is selling it- from all you can eat Chinese buffets, other Asian / Fusion, and even French restaurants.

We would like to keep sushi as part of our appetizers, not as an entire section by itself. This way we can offer new creations with more fun dishes. Please give us a chance to show all of you something that you can't find in this area. Sushi restaurants are on every corner of this town. You will come to Lemon Grass not to try something that you can get from others. If you're looking for adventure and excitement in your food, that's our specialty!

You also can surprise your guests with our menu. I really believe in a small and controllable menu. I am working on new recipes now and wish to be able to finish them and try them out very soon. For the past two months we've been very successful on a lot of new dishes, such as Steaky Bacon, Morning Roti, Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Salad and our Orange Ricotta Salat Salad. Thank you for your support and feedback.

On my drawing board are Panaeng Escargot, Chicken Curry Puffs, Thai Bolognes with Pappardelle, Grilled Thai Sausage  and a lot more.

There will be more fun waiting for all of you by early next year. Enjoy the holidays!

Your Chef,

Max