meticulous

honeydew. avocado. cucumber. lime. thai chili

staging the chips!

press for KO gains momentum...

March is shaping up to be insane. We’re releasing our book on the 1st and promoting the entire week at both restaurants for sales and signings! I’ll be at both places signing books like crazy. Really looking forward to it. SXSW just after that and a big push into April as KO continues to take stride and take it’s rightful place next to Uchi as sister establishments.

Ko staff had a goal: 400 covers on a saturday night. They labeled it project “cobra falcon”. I thought it would take at least another 6-12 months to get that many people in on one night, but WE DID IT last saturday night! 441 covers; over 50 of which were in our PDR. Lots of happy people, staff and customers alike. The energy was unbelievable. Next up is the crazy goal of 500 in a night. Names tossed around for that last night: the Cracken, Honey beaver, and bald eagle sashimi. LOL. (im open to suggestions!…but whatever it is, it has to be epic sounding. ) Love that our staff is having a great time and continues to push the envelope. Reminds me of another place of mine years back called….Uchi. I remember in 2004 i thought our max possible ever night would be $7k. I told people that $10k was impossible. By 2006, we had nights of $18k. The busier we got: the better,fresher the products….the more people came…and so it went. A spinning cycle of a kitchen line, a sushi line and a badass FOH staff ready to kick it out better and better every single day. The push continues, bring on the eagle!

i took an unusual thursday night off last night and had a fantastic meal at Barley Swine on South Lamar; great food and good people…think i’m just in love with the idea of the perfect restaurant. A show. A ballet of food. Welcomed into someone’s home you’ve never been to before. A sense value and undying culture to satisfy and satiate, great restaurants make me smile ear to ear. It was on top of a great day as it was: James Beard award semi-finalists were announced and to my surprise both Philip and Paul AND our Uchiko were all on the list! After starting this blog over a year ago to promote the idea of this new Uchi we were opening, and all the trials and tribulations of opening KO over the last 7 months….it was a just feeling of success and pride. So proud of every single person involved and giddy about what’s to come in the future for KO and it’s staff and customers.

Im thinking now of evolving this blog into phase 2: Uchiko’s day to day opps, and work starting this year in our push to replicate Uchi in another city: Houston. “Another one?!”, you ask. Why would i put myself through it again? Because Uchi is something so very special we couldn’t help but see what we could make it become if we kept pushing it like we’ve been for the last 8 years already. We’ve been planning and prepping for the Houston idea for almost a year, but the real fun starts over the next 9 months: build,finishes,hiring,training,opening and refinements. Let me at it!

Lots of fun at KO lately with fishes. We’ve been getting what’s been titled a “mystery box” of fish from our distributor in Japan three times a week to sell as sushi nigiri ; we pay a set price, the box shows up and we open it like it’s Christmas morning! So many new and exotic and delicious kinds of pacific/Japanese fish….sometimes we have to google the kinds and/or consult with our Japanese sushi chefs on what kind of fish some of them even are! Another step into making Uchiko the best new Japanese restaurant in America.

japanese sayori and friends

scallop under glass

Uchiko prep

carrot egg