household staff - SoCal Restaurant Show

Podcasts

Segment One: Jeff Houck, food staff writer at Tampa Tribune
Segment Two: Keith Roberts, Executive Chef of the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Santa Monica
Segment Three: Fifi Chao, the restaurant writer for the Orange County Business Journal Part One
Segment Four: Fifi Chao, the restaurant writer for the Orange County Business Journal Part Two
Segment Five: Lorin Adolph, private chef based in Chicago
Segment Six: Gustavo Arellano, Editor of Orange County Weekly and creator of the syndicated and wildly popular, “Ask a Mexican” column

It’s tasting and traveling this week. We’re nibbling in Tampa, Santa Monica, and Chicago with a side trip to China. The entrée is everything you wanted to know about real tacos. Come hungry and have your passport handy…

Jeff Houck is the respected and provocative restaurant writer for the Tampa Tribune. He’s been writing for them since 2005.

Jet was in Tampa earlier in the year and did an incredible dine-around of Tampa with Jeff to glean the taste of the town. It was everything from the legendary Bern’s Steak House (a local landmark with an amazing wine cellar) to an incredible Cuban sandwich. No leftovers here…

For the last four years Keith Roberts has been the busy executive chef of the 342-room Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Santa Monica. He oversees a demanding $10 million culinary operation at the luxury beachfront hotel including banquets, weddings and special events, room service, and the hotel’s signature ocean view restaurant, Ocean & Vine.

Chef Keith will talk about his new menu and take us behind-the-scenes to better understand how he satisfies highly discriminating guests on a daily basis at a very busy operation.

He also makes the time to mentor students who are part of the Careers through Culinary Arts Program.

The always engaging Fifi Chao, a professional food, wine, and travel journalist, and cooking instructor has been profiling Orange County restaurants for The Orange County Business Journal since 1990. If she doesn’t have something positive to say about a restaurant she simply doesn’t write about it.

She also is the publisher of Chao’s Dinesty, a private subscription restaurant, wine and travel newsletter. Related to this she hosts special evenings (with her husband, Patrick, a veteran of the hospitality industry) at local restaurants of distinction. It’s a great way to sample a restaurant you might not be familiar with at their very best guided by gracious hosts who treat their guests like extended family!

In October Fifi and Patrick are escorting a small group on a exclusive VIP excursion to China. Along the way the fortunate participants will have private access to a hidden part of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Tour guests will walk the Great Wall, visit Xian and the Terra Cotta Warriors museum, go to the city of Wuxi via high-speed train, sail the Yangtze for three days on a brand-new ship, and experience the allure of Patrick’s hometown of Shanghai.

Fabulously wealthy people typically have private chefs as part of their regular household staff. At the highest levels these trusted chefs travel around with their employers to their various residences around the country and frequently across the globe.

Chef Lorin Adolph is part of this rarified, elite group. His multi-millionaire client lives primarily in Chicago but also has an estate in Malibu.

Chef Lorin joins us this morning to discuss his most unusual occupation and where you source the very best ingredients in the world for the pickiest of diners!

Our favorite “Ask a Mexican”, Gustavo Arellano, of Taco USA – How Mexican Food Conquered America fame and OC Weekly is no stranger to the show. Discovering worthy hole-in-the-wall eating spots are his daily joy.

This morning tacos are on his mind. We’ll get the 411 on their history and origins in Mexico and their tasty regional variations.

By the way Taco USA is newly released in paperback.