Blue Bamboo

Dim Sum February 26th 11-2PM

This Sunday,February 26th, we will serve up our next Dim Sum Sunday at Blue Bamboo from 11-2. It’s no secret that we love our dim sum, and after the feedback from our previous Dim Sum Sundays, we just couldn’t wait to do it again.  During Dim Sum Sundays, we offer a la carte service of roast pork buns, turnip cakes, shrimp dumplings, pineapple buns, potstickers, and other dim sum favorites for that day only. This year, we have comitted to offering Dim Sum Sundays once every month, for as long as it is still fun for us.

If you are new to Dim Sum, Dim Sum is the way Cantonese people socialize and conduct business.  In any Chinatown around the World, there are Dim Sum restaurants where all menu items are served in mini steamer baskets, and small plates.  Some people describe Dim Sum as Asian Tapas, where you can order as many items as you’d like, and keep ordering until you are full.

Mark your calendar for our next Dim Sum Sunday if you can make it, and come on by from 11-2 on Sunday, February 26th.  Better yet, call us if you can make it.  We will set a table for you.

Spicy in the Kitchen Cooking Class at Blue Bamboo

Here’s a sampling of what we made in today’s ”spicy in the kitchen” cooking class:

Sichuan Green Beans

Kimchee Mandu-Fried Dumplings

Pad Kee Mao “Drunken Noodles.

Chocolate Terrine with Jalepeno Jam

In every one of our dishes, we made sure that the heat in each dish added flavor, and lots of it!  Some of the peppers that we used to add that flavor were grown on site, right here at Blue Bamboo.  Each dish in today’s class showed a different technique of developing heat in cooking.  Visit the “Cooking Class,”  section to the right to see what classes we have coming up next!  We’d love to have you with us in class.

Love is in the air. It’s Valentines week.

Love is in the air at Blue Bamboo, so let us make your Valentine’s day romantic and easy this year.

Alongside our regular menu this Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday, we will also offer a Lover’s pairing menu where we’ll feature 4 romantic-themed courses paired with 4 glasses of wine for $80. Menu specials this weekend will include Whole Snapper Cantonese, Spicy Curry-Rubbed Filet, Vahlrona Chocolate Terrine, and Passionfruit Creme Brulee.

Book your table today at www.bluebamboojacksonville.com, or call us at 904.646.1478.

For something fun this Valentine’s week, join us for our next cooking class, Hot and Spicy in the Kitchenon February 18th. We’ll start class at 10AM, and be done by 12 noon. It’s the perfect way to start your weekend. Tuition is $42, which includes lunch and a handcrafted cocktail. Call to reserve your space today!

Happy February, and thanks to all who selected us as “Most Romantic Restaurant in Jacksonville,” on urbanspoon.com in 2011, and one of the top restaurants in Jacksonville on opentable.com.

We hope to see you soon!

Cooking the recipes of the hottest Asian restaurants in the country.

People often compare us to the hottest Asian restaurnt in their favortie cities.  In those cities, modern Asian takes on a whole new meaning, with tacos added to menu mixes, and pork belly and steamed buns taking over entire bar scenes.

This weekend, some of our Blue Bamboo friends challenged us to cook the recipes from the hottest Asian restaurants in the country who happen to have cookbooks.

Never one to turn down a challenge, especially when food is involved, We did just that.  There was only one condition, though.  My friends had to cook along with me.  I wasn’t about to do all of the work myself. We took four days to source ingredients, prepare recipes, and cook our ultimate Hot Asian spot tasting.

In the end, my friends and I prepared Pork belly tacos, Sous vide glazed chicken wings, Ham hock rillette, Ground chuck-short rib-brisket burgers, and Passionfruit-coffee chocolate chip cake.

Every bit of work that we did to make buns from scratch, roll out taco shells, hand grind beef cuts, and hand-pick ham hocks to puree was worth it.  The meal was delicious, and I even learned some new techniques that will probably make its way on to our menu in the near future.

Recently, I added some fun new equipment to our collection to better the way that we cook at Blue Bamboo.  This equipment is made for laboratories, and since cooking is science, I thought they’d be perfect toys for our kitchen.  These toys really did come in handy for our menu.  We were able to cook our chicken wings to the exact temperature that we wanted them to be.

We hand rolled and then braided buns for our burgers.

In-between the layers of chocolate chip cake, there was passionfruit curd, passionfruit puree, chocolate chips, cocoa crumbles, and coffee frosting.

That made for an intersting pairing of flavors, that really worked.  All in all, the recipes that we made were delicious!  Look for some of these borrowed flavor combinations to appear on our Blue Bamboo menu soon!