Please Your Palate
Championing sustainability and zero waste, the chefs at Pao by Paul Qui use different fermentation techniques to extend the life of short-season ingredients transforming them into palate-pleasing flavors with a whole new profile of tasting notes.
Pao’s house-made XO sauce is made with fermented chile fresno, smoked dehydrated fish gills, and king crab lumps resulting in an umami sauce that pairs perfectly with a Norwegian-sourced King Crab leg and an accompaniment of morita brown butter.
For the Wagyu Ribeye, no portion of the loin goes to waste. It is cleaned to the bone and the additional meat is used to make a sauce blended with spices and a farro miso-brown butter that is brushed onto the seared ribeye loin.
“This process allows us to utilize all parts of the high-quality cut while getting as much flavor as we can from it,” said Mauricio Quezada, Sous chef at Pao. The dish is served with a side of a side of celery root and potato frites topped with shio kombu and yuzu kosho alioli.
New dishes that will grace the summer menu include Hiramasa sashimi featuring fermented tomato XO sauce, topped with tomato marmalade dots, fresh Everglade tomatoes, kumquat and cilantro oil.
A vegetarian dish of marinated Chinese eggplant with sawsawan (a Filipino dipping sauce) is served with mustard seed caviar, two-month pickled shimeji mushrooms and a charred eggplant-miso puree. “By pickling our shimejis with our sweet-sour base, we cultivate so much flavor that only a few heads are enough to achieve the balance we were looking for in this dish,” explained Quezada.
