So.. 2nd post of 'T-bus', after I decided the flavor profile, I start working on 'tomato stained glass'. I have a concrete image in my mind and start working on it. The basic idea was croquant with dehydrated tomato seed. I was not sure about the shape, thought about making edgy kind of 'broken glass' shape. But after several presentation trial(listed below), I decided to make small round shape. The reason is this way as you see the picture above, the croquant working like 'mosaic' on cherry tomato towards the guest. I really like this idea, mosaic on cherry tomato. It's simple, but yet, nice presentation.
I told my cooks to plate this dish, there's one rule.... which is 'Plate always different!' So I always did different formation on the plate, Nobody get same presentation! Why? Simply I want to always think and inspire myself when I work, don't want to work like robot and plate like robot. 3 inch from left, 6 o'clock you put.... I did 'that' in the past. But it just no emotion, no inspiration and sorry but boring!! / laugh I mean how I can breath my passion if I plate like that? The plate is perfect, we present this way, we can say that, BUT...
When we stop something(not just cooking, in life), we never see what ahead and forward, isn't it??? I want to challenge myself every day and get inspired, so I want to plate with open mind and let my inspiration breath. Every day different images coming to my mind, let me flow with it. So... after I've plated over 100 of 'T-bus' over summer and never found the best presentation! ... always better than previous day, that's how it was.... Well, it's autumn, see you next summer, tomatoes!!!
T-bus: Heirloom tomatoes, black garlic lime aioli, ume powder, shiso puree, tomato stained glass, pickled pearl onion, lime fleur de sel and crutomato
*the picture below is dehydrated ume paste before grinding into powder... it looks like crystal rock and very inspired. Maybe for new dish.......
Baume summer menu... 'cavair a la Baume' next!