Marcel's Quantum Kitchen (2011) s01e04 Episode Script
Sink or Swim
I'm Chef Marcel Vigneron.
I've had over 15 years of experience, and I use a new style of cooking referred to as molecular gastronomy, which is used by less than 5% of chefs worldwide.
Look at that.
After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a state-of-the-art kitchen With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
Do the work.
Last week, Marcel's team fell apart.
Do you see what I'm saying? No, I don't see what you're saying? Egos were bruised.
I don't get paid enough to deal with this crap.
Then Marcel realized he had crossed the line.
I may have really frustrated my crew tonight.
Tonight Marcel has to pull his fractured team back together.
He's then hired to pull off a modern luau for a legend in the surf world.
But Marcel faces his most difficult kitchen tests yet.
Oh, It's kind of imploding.
We just ourselves.
Marcel is losing it.
For the first time, Marcel fears Aah! every dish will fail.
Can Marcel simultaneously save his menu and his team? Fish here, cook there.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen".
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x04 Sink or Swim Original air date on April 12, 2011 Uh, I'm kind of excited.
I'm meeting with Antoinette, my new party planner, and Brandy, my new client, at Steve Walden's surf shop.
Steve Walden is considered by many to be the father of the modern longboard.
He's a master surfboard shaper, and a legend in the surf world.
- Hey, how are you! - Hello.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
I hired Marcel for this event because Marcel is an innovator in food and design, and Steve Walden is an innovator in surfing.
It's a perfect fit.
Steve has been shaping for 50 years.
He's built about 25,000 surfboards over his career.
That's crazy.
Amazing.
This party is about celebrating Steve's 50 years of making surfboards, and this is a giant milestone.
I don't know how many other shapers can say that they've been at it that long, and it's a really, really special time in his life and his career, and so I want everything about this party to be special and unique and different, just like he is.
We want to do, like, a modern take on a luau, we've been to so many, so we want to have you do something kind of different.
Like, reinvent the classics a little bit.
- Reinvent the classic, exactly.
- Okay.
I'm not that familiar with luaus, and it's gonna be difficult considering the fact that luaus typically take place in Hawaii, where all of those indigenous ingredients come from, and I've never done one before, so it's kind of nerve-wracking.
Robyn, who is one of my chefs, and also happens to be from Hawaii.
Great.
So you know what we're trying to achieve here.
Absolutely.
I just think Steve is gonna be blown away, 'cause we're gonna basically clear this whole place out, and do like a big tiki hut with a 16-foot table.
Well, a good thjng about this space is it's kind of rough.
I actually love the idea of having the outdoors come in.
I like it.
I'm excited.
I'm really excited.
All the people that are coming, they're surfers, surf legends.
They've been to a lot of luaus.
They're a tough crowd to impress.
We only have one shot at this party.
You don't get to celebrate 50 years twice, so I'm really counting on Marcel in getting it right.
He's gotta live up to his reputation on this one.
I want this to be really unique and really special.
So no pressure, no pressure.
No pressure.
I'm not feeling it.
You want to meet him? He's here working.
Okay, so I'm gonna go.
Okay, bye.
Let's go meet Steve.
You ready? Okay.
Steve.
- So nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you, too.
Hi, Robyn.
So, we're super excited about this party.
Yeah, I'm sure this will be unlike any other one that I've ever experienced, for sure.
To me, you know, growing up in Hawaii, he's a legend.
I've surfed on his boards, and yeah, I was really, really excited to meet him.
My family's also on an island.
Not a Hawaiian island.
- In Seattle, the Puget Sound.
- Oh, right.
Not a lot of surfing going on up there.
Well, speaking about surfing, are you up for it? That would be awesome.
I'm really looking forward to going surfing with Steve because I think it's a great way for me to find inspiration for the luau.
Any words of wisdom? The whole idea here is to just have some fun.
Catching my first wave was like creating my own first dish.
It's, um, an incredible experience.
I got see a whole new side of Marcel, now that we're finally out of the kitchen and away from the stress.
You guys did so good, I can't even believe it.
Really? Nice.
Awesome.
For me, I'm just drawing inspiration from nature.
From the oceans, the waves.
Even, like, these rocks right here.
Maybe, like, we could cook on top of these or something, you know? I'm super inspired, and I can't wait to get back into the kitchen and just kind of incorporate that into some new menu ideas during the brainstorming session.
That was wicked! - I know, it was so sweet.
- Oh, my God.
The perfect way to get inspiration for a luau.
- I know.
- There's so much riding on this party.
Our last party, I mean, you know it was a little hairy, right? Yeah.
No, it was like our toughest party yet.
- Yeah.
- It was ridiculously difficult.
Even the guys are feeling a little-- You think that Jarrid and Devon took it extremely personally? I think that they did.
I think that they absolutely did.
It's really hard to bring up issues, important issues to a boss, especially when you're the new person.
It was certainly a risk, because he really did not think feelings were as hurt as they were, so-- Yeah, like, maybe I, like, raised my voice a little bit.
What do you think.
I mean, do you think that I was too harsh? Yeah, you were a little heated, if I were to be completely honest.
I'm kind of a little bit surprised because, like, what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.
But they seem to take this one pretty personally.
I'm gonna have to think about this.
It's become clear.
I need to, like, handle the situation, and so I've come up with the idea of calling together a family meeting and just putting everything on the table because we're already having some, like, major hiccups in the road, and if I don't have my team, I don't have my business.
How's it going? That was a crazy party, man.
That was a crazy party.
Yeah.
I feel like we had a bunch of, like, issues that, you know, we need to sort of, like, hash out, put 'em all on the table.
I was trying to, like, wrack my brain and, like, figure out what went wrong, other than me just kind of, like, flying off the handle as usual, and the fact that I had the both of you guys working on your own projects, both of which, like, turned out amazing, and you probably shouldn't have, because know I'm gonna have you making stuff for every party.
Right? But the problem I feel as though was that you guys were kind of like working so diligently on those projects, maybe some of the other dishes-- No, yeah.
I felt like when I went to the food, I was lost.
I didn't know what was going on, so I was looking for that.
I was looking for some guidance.
I'll take a little bit of responsibility fothat, 'cause I know I put too much energy and just concentrating on the drink and forgetting about everything else.
After having some sleep and not caught up in the moment, it's just communication stuff, really.
I'm gonna work on my communication skills, speaking in a polite manner.
We just need to all be on the same page, and like, you know, I'll try not to be such an .
That's good.
All of my employees are like first and foremost my friends, and I need to make sure that I have my friends back together.
I like working with you guys, and hopefully you guys like working with me, and this upcoming party is gonna be awesome, and I think we have another opportunity to, like, kill it, you know.
Marcel can say "Sorry" and "We're cool now, we're on the same page", but when it comes down to it, when we get thrown back into the fire, we'll see how well that holds together, and see what happens during the next event.
- So, you guys ready to talk luau? - Yes! Robyn, you're our resident Hawaiian, so we need to take a list of all the classic luau dishes, and just flip and reverse 'em.
- Poke's a definite.
- I know what poke means.
It literally means "small pieces".
It's raw, but it's marinated in soy sauce and some Japanese vinegar and seaweed.
Poke.
Poke's a must, right? So I think we should reinvent that classic.
Yeah.
Whenever I think of Hawaii, I think of Taro, right? Oh, yeah, I've gotta have some poi.
What if we make the Taro the chips, and then make something else the poi? I gotta say, whenever I think of Hawaii, Spam always comes to mind.
That really salty, delicious meat? Yeah, yeah, totally.
- Jarrid: The mystery canned meat? - Mystery canned meat.
- Spam dip! - Yes.
Spam, yeah.
Um, what else? Lomi lomi salmon? Lomi lomi, like a tartar? Yeah, you don't cook it.
Sounds good.
There's that opihi, right? Opihi.
It is a delicacy, yeah.
- I love that stuff out there.
- Que es opihi? Opihi is shellfish, basically, but it's a barnacle.
I think that we need some meat on the menu.
- Short ribs.
- If we take the short rib idea, and then maybe, like, a hibachi or like a teppenyaki, and just cook the short ribs real quick, just flash it.
Awesome.
A pigs a little too traditional for us.
What about volcanoes? What if we could cook with some lava? You know what? I can build volcanoes that erupt sauce, and it's edible.
Yeah, perfect.
I think it'd be cool if we had something that looked like a coconut, and tasted like a coconut, and we could call it the fauxconut.
That is genius.
Bravo, my friend.
- Yeah.
- That sounds good.
I'm kind of liking this menu.
We've got all these amazing Hawaiian ingredients.
This party's unusual because no one's coming in for a tasting, and it's all on me to make sure that we get everything right.
And this is also one of the most complicated menus we've tried yet.
We're gonna try to execute the taro chips and poi, cook the short ribs on hot rocks table side, make an opihi poke, an amadai lomi lomi, and lastly, we're gonna make the fauxconut.
Robyn, what I want us to do is utilize these beautiful shells.
For the opihi poke, I want to incorporate all of the traditional ingredients, but utilizing new techniques.
For the opihi, I'll use real opihi shells as a mold to make a version that's edible.
I'll paint them with edible clay.
When the clay dries, I'll pry them apart and put the real opihi into the newly formed shell.
And then, for the tuna poke, my idea is to freeze the tuna and shave it on a shaved ice machine, which will give the texture of tuna snow.
And then I'll place it on a bed of wakame, and diced Asian pears.
The only problem is I've never used a shaved ice machine before, but I want to do it because it's really popular in Hawaii and at luaus.
So, what we want to do is make a mixture of these three ingredients right here.
We have kaolin.
It's like an edible clay.
And milk powder.
And this is just dashi, to emphasize that fish flavor.
When we combine these three ingredients together, We're gonna go ahead and make, like, an edible shell.
Ooh, very cool.
And we'll make it out of these opihi shells.
As soon as you make the mixture, I'm gonna come back, and we'll go ahead and make some of the edible shells together.
- Fantastic.
- All right, sweet.
Jarrid, can you put a rock in the oven? Essentially, we want, like, the short ribs to kind of like finish cooking tableside on the rocks.
I'm testing different types of rocks, including the one I found on the beach, to see which one works the best.
In order to cook the short ribs on these rocks, I need to get the rocks up to 500 degrees, so I've placed some of them on top of the burners so they get hot enough.
Oh, .
My rock just exploded all over the place.
Holy-- Not so good.
That's not gonna work.
Ooh, that sucks.
This could be the first complete and total failure inside the quantum kitchen.
This .
I'm so stressed out about this party.
Oh, .
Holy-- My rock just exploded all over the place.
- Did it split? - Yeah.
- Oh, my God.
- Yeah, that just blew up.
So that's not gonna work.
I'm testing different types of rocks, including the one I found on the beach, to see which one works the best.
In order to cook the short ribs on these rocks, I need to get the rocks up to 500 degrees, but unfortunately, these rocks can't be heated up to 500 degrees without exploding.
I put some in the oven, and maybe we can experiment with that.
I put these in when it was low heat, so it's coming up with the heat, so maybe that will-- With the heat, it won't shock 'em, and hopefully they won't explode.
Hopefully.
We gotta make sure that it doesn't explode when we put the short ribs on it, too.
I decided to try the quarry rock because it's less porous and it retains it's heat a lot better.
All right, I'm just gonna pull this stone out.
Oh God, that's hot.
Oh God, oh God, oh dear, oh dear.
Ah, yeah.
Look at that, smoke coming off the towel.
I think we're gonna hear some searing.
- That thing did not crack.
- And it smells delicious.
So, we have to think about something here.
Are the guests going to be able to pick this off the rock? Is this really safe? I think they can take on food with instructions.
This is withstanding temperature really well.
- It's not exploding.
- Not exploding.
That's a good thing.
I have finally actually found a rock that is not only able to withstand these temperatures, but also retain that internal temperature, thereby allowing me to cook the short rib all the way through.
- So, for the pineapple sauce? - Yes.
The pineapple sauce is going to be erupting out of the volcano? Yes.
I bought this pump to try it out with.
I'm gonna build the volcano around this, it's gonna shoot out the top, and come running down into-- And should we have a reservoir that goes all the way arnd, so people on both sides can kind of, like, eat? - Sounds ambitious? - It is.
This volcano is gonna be pretty bad ass.
- Are you gonna try to peel that off? - Yeah.
We're trying to paint a kaolin clay mixture on these opihi shells, and after it bakes, we peel it off, and hopefully it looks just like an opihi shell Ahh.
Oh, man.
The shell business is not working out so well.
It's not that it won't go on, it's just that it won't stay on.
Every single time I painted on these dang shells, the clay just melted right off, and I am frustrated.
Okay, let me see.
I'm trying, Marcel's trying.
We're pouring it on there, and it just bleeds right off.
I have not had a successful shell.
We've gotta make this work.
I don't know.
I really don't know what to do here.
Man, it's just running right off.
What if we tried corn starch or something on the Saran wrap ? Maybe it would stick a little better, you think? You think that we're gonna have any problem getting these off here? I don't know, that's why I added the oil.
This time I wrapped the opihi shells in Saran wrap, and then I put a very, very little bit of oil on the top, dipped it in corn starch, and then I painted on the edible clay.
It looks like it's working.
Just when I'm starting to feel as though we're not gonna be able to make this happen, that's when Robyn comes up with the idea of dipping them in corn starch, so that way our clay mixture actually adheres to the opihi shells.
I think that that corn starch was exactly what we needed in this whole situation.
- Yeah.
- That totally worked, and was a brilliant idea, and Robyn is totally killing it.
Go ahead and pop those in the oven.
- Absolutely.
- At 220? These guys are going in.
Did you make the pineapple sauce? I did.
This is it right here.
Do you think this might be too thick to go through the pump? I don't know.
There's only one way to find out.
I want to create a volcano that erupts pineapple saffron sauce to go with the short ribs.
And the volcano is gonna be the centerpiece on the table.
It's going.
It's slowly making it's way to the top.
I think it might be clogged.
Can't tell.
The vibe in the kitchen's good.
Marcel's not being a , and we're able to joke around and still get some stuff done, and things are starting to get back to normal.
We gotta make sure that we don't get the guests dirty.
Yeah, well, we can turn it down.
Take two.
See, that's not bad.
Oh, yeah, that's what we want, right there.
Now that we've got the pump figured out, Jarrid just has to actually construct something that resembles a volcano.
So, now that we've baked the opihi shells, we take them out of the oven, now we just need to see and hope and pray it tastes okay.
Let's try one of these.
I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I just don't like it.
They're gonna try it, and they'll be, like, "Ooh, that sucks.
Damn.
" The seashells taste like when you're surfing, and you, like, eat it face first into the sand, and your whole mouth is full of water and sand.
That's what it tastes like.
I'm thinking this could be the first complete and total failure inside the quantum kitchen.
This .
Look at these volcanoes.
They're dry, I can start carving 'em here.
So, it's day two of prep, and we have to make all of the components for all of the dishes, plus the volcano centerpiece.
We want to erupt pineapple sauce up and out of the volcano.
And it'll have some gaps in it, which is good.
If you look inside, you can see where it's thinner, or where there's some holes.
All I did was take bowls, and I wrapped them in cellophane, and then I used expansion foam.
It's a construction type of foam that gets hard enough to where I can carve it.
But I still have a lot more to do if I'm gonna make this thing a volcano.
And light up, and blow smoke.
I'm just too ambitious.
All right.
Looks like you've got a lot of work cut out for you.
Opihi take two.
I need to go back to the drawing board with this entire concept.
They don't meet our quality standards, right? I essentially threw out the idea of making a clay shell, and instead have decided to go with a cracker shell, which I think will not only look, but also taste better.
And we'll still use the opihi shell as a mold.
What I'm thinking is to actually have two different colors.
Like the two different colors you actually get on the shell.
Maybe add some kelp powder, right? Kind of a very opihi-ish.
A little bit of squid ink.
- Get it, baby.
- I kind of like that, actually.
- Like the nice marble, kind of? - Yeah.
I'm just really nervous because I spent an entire day without creating one shell.
I'm really hoping that this new idea will work.
- Test it all, test it all.
- I'm testing it.
Okay, I just want to start over.
I'm working on trying to create a trail on these volcanoes that the sauce can follow.
I thought this would be simpler, but with the time crunch, it's just a lot more complicated than I thought it was gonna be.
The base of the volcano looks great.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean .
If it doesn't erupt, it's pointless.
Wait, it's not gonna erupt? I have a vision in my head, but I keep doing the wrong thing to make that vision happen.
This looks just like crap to me.
As soon as this pineapple sauce comes out, it's just gonna be running down these tubes that are hanging down the side of a mountain? That doesn't make any sense.
When have you ever seen a volcano with tubes coming out to direct the lava? What if it was made out of bamboo or something? Like, a little bamboo ramp or something? I don't know.
That would look tacky, too.
Who puts a bamboo ramp up against a volcano? It's becoming abundantly clear that we may have some issues with this volcano, and this is the centerpiece for the party, so we've gotta get this thing working.
Never fear, man.
There's one thing my brain is able to do, is in the heat of the moment, come up with another idea.
So, Robyn, what's going on with those edible shells? We can check 'em and see what's up with them.
So, this is our new cracker base here.
I'm hoping Robyn's edible opihi cracker actually works, because if not, we're totally screwed on this one.
It's pretty cool that, you know, the outside now looks a little bit more like it came from the ocean.
hot.
See if it actually works.
Oh, my God, it's beautiful.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I really like the inside.
And these, I think, have such a cool appearance, and such an amazing texture.
I mean, you can actually see the grooves.
- Let's check the flavor.
- Okay.
It's super-buttery, nice and salty.
I've got that kelp flavor.
Love it.
Thank God that actually works.
- All right.
- Finally-- I feel much better about this.
We actually solved it.
I don't know about you, but I was losing sleep over this.
I was, too.
- How's it going, coconut? - Good.
For the fauxconut, I want to make something that resembles a coconut, but isn't actually a coconut.
I'm going to try taking a coconut ice cream base, and load that inside of a balloon, and then roll that balloon over liquid nitrogen, to form a frozen sphere of coconut cream.
I'll then peel off the balloon, and dust cocoa powder over the sphere to create the fauxconut.
I want the dish to look like a coconut just fell right out of the tree and onto the beach.
So for the fauxconut, we're going to put our coconut ice cream base inside of the balloon-- Stop, stop, stop.
Okay.
Pull the trigger.
Blow up with nitrous oxide.
Stop.
Drop inside of the nitrogen, roll it around, and hope that it creates a circle.
I think that thing's gonna shrink up.
All right, let's see what happens.
The idea here is that as I'm rolling the balloon through the nitrogen, the liquid is staying on the bottom and also freezing simultaneously.
It looks like something's going on here.
Not so good.
It's kind of imploding.
That's what I was thinking it was gonna do.
That's totally crumbling.
How's it taste, though? - Tastes really good.
- Devon: It's delicious.
All right, let's try it again.
All right.
So how many of these do we have to make? Fifteen, right? How many have we made so far? Zero.
So we learned two things when making the fuaxconuts, one of which is you need to make sure you have enough ice cream base inside the balloon to actually create a sphere.
And then the other thing was that if you poke the balloon with a needle halfway through the freezing process, it prevents it from compressing on top of itself.
- Robyn: Yay.
- We got one.
We're able to execute one perfect coconut balloon.
This is the beginning of the fauxconut, yeah? Yeah.
So we want to take this fauxconut and inject it with our coconut cream, right? Filling this with that.
Doesn't really look like it's gonna work, though.
The fauxconut is nowhere near completion, and the balloon technique is so time consuming.
Obviously, we have a lot of work to do with this dessert, not to mention all of the other dishes.
I didn't even have the time to test out the amadai lomi lomi, or the taro chips, and Jarrid's volcano still is not working.
We haven't even finished testing, let alone prepping.
Honestly, we're gonna be up all night working on this menu.
I'm so stressed out about this party.
And are we ready? Every single dish is plated with multiple components.
How many have you made so far? One.
Things are gonna be freezing, melting.
Go for it.
Are you serious? This volcano looked like elephant dung.
Okay, we literally have to go to plan B.
Can I get an ETA? This is complete chaos.
Welcome to Walden Surf shop, guys.
Oh, look at all this sand.
Nice.
The actually did it, huh? Walking into the surf shop the day of the party, there's literally six tons of sand on the ground.
It looks pretty cool.
Let's find the kitchen.
Cookin' outside this time.
It's tiny.
Another makeshift kitchen.
I'm extremely nervous about my team coming together, because when you're working in small kitchens, it can be kind of stressful.
We really struggled at the last event and we can't afford to do that again.
This party, the main thing that we want to focus in on is organization, execution, and communication.
Let's do work, girls.
All right, let's do it.
The big challenge with our edible opihi shells is they're so fragile that I could have opened up the box and seen just crackers everywhere.
But they were beautiful.
Oh, they look so pretty.
So I was up all night and I was working on the volcanoes, and it's turning into a nightmare.
I never want to see a volcano again.
I mean, it's getting to the point where I just want to smash this and throw it away.
No wonder kids fail Science all the time when they have to do science projects.
It sucks.
- Hey, Marcel.
- Hi.
- How are you? - Good.
How are you? - Good to see you.
- Good to see you, too.
So the volcano's right over here.
This is what we call operation Jarrid versus the volcano.
This looks scary.
I'm thinking to myself, praying, that I'm being punked, because I'm thinking there's no way that they could possibly think that that thing is gonna look good on any table, let alone a gorgeous luau table that I'm creating for Steve Walden.
What-- what's gonna happen with that, exactly, just so I know where the guests should sit? Awesome.
Glad you asked that.
Okay.
If we could somehow leave this space where the actual lava will come down.
Is that hot sauce coming down or it's cold? It's liquid hot magma.
We'll tone it down to where nobody gets splattered with it, and if they did, it wouldn't burn them.
Are you serious? Hold on.
Okay, this sounds dangerous, like it could spout out pineapple sauce onto the guests.
So I'll leave you two to that, and I'll just exit stage left.
How is that gonna look visually appealing? You know, maybe we should tell the guests that the dress code is retardant casual.
All right.
Can I help you with your chips and dip? Yeah.
Basically, I'm making a Spam puree, soaked in some cream and milk, which will pull out some of that salt, and then it'll be nice and smooth as a little first course dip.
- We need the stencil for the surf boards.
- All right.
Spam is all over Hawaii, so we're doing a Spam poi to do a play on the original Hawaiian poi.
But instead of doing a taro root puree, we're doing actual taro chips.
Go for it.
Now we're starting to make 'em look like cool little surf boards to dip into our Spam poi.
That's fantastic.
It looks really good.
Jarrid's volcanoes, these are supposed to be the big, huge theatrical moments of the party, and he's running out of time to get it right.
Is this all we have? Yeah.
We have to make a bunch more.
Oh, my God.
I'm stressin' about those damn volcanoes.
- Yeah.
- Robyn: Just sayin'.
Go ahead and go for it.
- Jarrid: Really? - Marcel: Jarrid, is it working? Dammit.
This one is spraying all over the place.
Honestly, look at the situation.
I don't know if I'm gonna pull this off.
What is all the red stuff? It's edible ink.
Doesn't look very edible.
As a backup plan, I'm gonna make another batch of pineapple sauce so just in case the volcano doesn't work, I'll still be able to plate my short ribs.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna work on the amadai.
This is my first time preparing the amadai lomi lomi because I ran out of time in the test kitchen.
And cutting through the scales is not something you really want to do a lot of.
Amadai has tiny, edible scales, and when they come into contact with hot oil, it creates a chemical reaction explosion.
And that explosion propels the scales up, making them super crispy and delicious.
- Holy crap.
- Okay.
Where are we putting this now, exactly? I made two, one for this side, one for this side.
There are two coming? Yeah.
He's got two.
Okay, not one volcano, two volcanoes.
Only one volcano will work on the table.
When it was brought up to her, I could tell Antoinette wasn't into those volcanoes at all.
I'm gonna go grab the other one.
Not happy.
This is a nightmare, dude.
I'm gonna try to stay calm.
Okay.
We need two volcanoes.
I would like one volcano on the table.
You can't have 15 guests trying to get pineapple sauce from one volcano.
So I wasn't gonna take, no, it's not going on the table for an answer.
At this point, if we just wrap it in the bottoms with banana leaves or do whatever we're gonna do-- Right.
All right.
Let's go.
Two volcanoes.
'Cause that's the easiest thing with our time.
Yeah.
So Aleta.
We need to-- we need to figure this out.
This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
Respectfully, I say that.
This volcano looked like elephant dung.
Oh, my God.
It's really important to me that Steve gets the celebration that he deserves.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at it.
Wow.
This is incredible.
And so I want everything about this party to be special.
I'm just absolutely amazed.
It's total Hawaii.
How are you? This looks amazing.
- Brandy: Isn't that cool? - Steve: Yeah, it is.
I'm afraid to touch anything.
- Antoinette: Hey, Marcel.
- Marcel: Yes? Steve and Brandy are here, we're kind of running a little bit behind.
- We lookin' okay? - Marcel: Five minutes.
We have rare and perishable ingredients from all over the world that we can't mess up.
Oh, my God.
I'm a little nervous about the shaved ice machine to make the frozen tuna snow.
Not only have I never used it before, but I'm doing it tableside.
- Are we ready? - Antoinette: We are so ready.
On top of that, every single dish is plated with multiple components and different textures and temperatures.
Things are gonna be freezing, melting.
This is the most ambitious menu my team has ever tried to execute.
Welcome.
Good evening.
I hope you guys enjoy the chips and dip.
They're made out of taro, one of the most predominant vegetables from Hawaii.
And then the dip is actually the Spam poi.
It's kind of a little fun plate.
Did you guys try that? No? My first initial reaction is, like, holy .
The guests missed the entire first course.
Well, feel free to try it now.
There should be some chips and dip.
We had decided to have them sitting out on the table, but the guests didn't get it.
Clearly, that was a mistake, and I'm totally stressed out because already I'm afraid this party is off to a bad start.
That's good.
For your next course, we actually have our-- our version of poke, and it's actually gonna be a tuna shaved ice poke.
Right down the middle you have ponzu fluid gels.
Over on the other side, we have the opihi, and the shells are edible.
This is big eye tuna from the Big Island.
So first, the guests missed the first course.
And now it sounds like Marcel's chopping up a body in an ice machine.
This is awesome.
Awesome.
MarcelLet me do the first one, then you can follow my lead.
Nice and sexy, yeah? Probably one of the best ways to eat this is to maybe just smash it and mix it all up.
And mix all the ingredients together.
Have a little fun with it and just, hopefully, enjoy.
Wow, this looks so neat.
I loved the edible shells.
I was a little nervous because I thought we were gonna be eating shells, but delicious.
Gosh.
Everything tastes so good.
For each dish, timing is very, very important.
Brandy has a surprise for Steve.
He hasn't met his grandson yet, it's a little baby, and so his daughter is flying in with the grandson to the event.
So there is a time factor, and I'm-- I'm very concerned.
Okay, start plating.
Fire up the pans.
Do we have oil? Anybody? There is oil here somewhe.
kidding me.
It's gonna be a show.
This is complete chaos.
We can't find the frying oil for the lomi lomi.
What's happened? I can't fry the fish without oil.
If we don't find this oil, we're not gonna be able to cook the fish to get the next course out.
No, dude, I know that there is oil.
We need it, like, rightnow.
I know, I know, I know there's oil.
Oh, my God.
I didn't want to be responsible for ruining an entire course.
Woo-hoo! I found it.
Oh.
All right, you guys, move your ass.
We're seriously in the weeds.
Can I get an ETA, please? Marcel, ETA? We got somebody on the other side? It's kind of like a frantic scramble to catch up.
No, no, no, no.
Keep it there.
ETA, somebody? I feel like I'm being pulled all over the place.
Marcel, are we almost ready? Fish here, cook there.
Go around to the other side, other side, other side.
This is nuts.
It was all hands on deck.
Right behind ya.
And we all worked together as a team.
Ready to go? Excuse me.
For your next course, we have my interpretation of lomi lomi.
Instead of using salmon, I'm using this fish called amadai, and so I've got tomato concasse, a little scallion puree, and then lastly we have a broth.
And the cool thing about the amadai is actually, when I cook it like this, you can actually see the scales, they'll all start to rise up and get super crispy.
Thank you.
Well, enjoy.
- Steve: Boy, that is so tender.
- Brandy: Is it? It's bringing a little flavor to the Hawaiian style.
Wow, what a combination of flavors.
Okay, so we drop all the plates, then we go through with the meat.
We drop all the meat on the rocks? Yes.
Where's the other rocks? The other rocks, other rocks? Other rocks, oven, oven, oven.
Hotel pan, hotel pan.
It's so hot.
It's so hot.
Oh, you got gloves on.
This is, potentially, a very dangerous dish.
Can you imagine if one of these rocks drops on a guest? It could seriously burn them.
Servers, you hear us how excruciating this is? With this dish, there's so many things that can possibly go wrong.
Jarrid, go turn on your volcanoes.
So I wonder how this is gonna work.
I feel like I actually might have made a big mistake with this course.
I'm just, like, oh, my God.
I'm gonna drop the meat while you heat the volcano.
Oh, Everyone is extremely nervous about this dish.
These rocks are hot.
Please warn the guests, the rocks are hot.
I was so nervous that I could actually hear the dishes shake.
Careful.
It's hot.
The rock was really scary, having a really hot rock right in front of you.
- Man: Do not touch the rock.
- Okay.
But thrilling at the same time.
The hot stone was just a tremendous, tremendous presentation.
I'm so relieved that the guests are okay and they were happy.
But I am totally concerned about the volcano.
Jarrid, turn on your volcanoes.
I'm dreading the moment that this volcano is supposed to erupt.
For your next course, we have pineapple short ribs.
You have your hot rocks right in front of you, which I'm gonna cook your first piece on.
This dish is actually in twos.
On top of the hot rocks, we have some lava sea salt.
Then we also have two types of onions.
There's a Maui onion puree and little crispy Maui onion rings served with a little bit of watercress.
And we have the volcanoes, which are about to start flowing any moment now.
Everybody's feeling, okay, when is the moment gonna happen when this volcano decides to do it's thing? I hit the switch, the volcanoes lit up, but no pineapple sauce.
God! - So it didn't erupt? - Jarrid: It didn't erupt.
So what do we have? We have a couple of lights that look like volcanoes.
Yay! Yay, I'm a frickin' genius.
I'm just gonna run away now.
I'm glad I served an additional pineapple sauce but it still actually looked pretty cool.
It had that appearance of lava, there was just no lava floating down it.
But at least my short ribs on the hot rocks seemed to be a huge success.
Mm.
Oh, man.
Never had meat cooked on a rock.
The flavor was incredible and really special.
Never had anything like it in my life.
Devon, where we at with that dessert? We're down to our last course.
How's it comin', Devon? The fauxconut dessert.
How many have you made so far? One.
Ugh! The problem is we have to make 15 of these frozen desserts, and it took us half an hour to make one.
Using the balloon technique doesn't look good.
All right, here's another idea.
It was at that moment when I came up with the idea to initiate a plan B.
We're gonna do a coconut cream instead of doing the balloon.
Okay, we literally have 10 minutes to do this dessert.
Ten minutes to get these desserts out.
We're goin' down, baby, goin' down.
Nitrogen, yes? Now I'm gonna have to give everybody a crash course Coconut, coconut.
on how to inject the coconut foam into the ladle and dip that into the liquid nitrogen so it freezes around the outside but it's still liquid and creamy in the center.
Make it really nice and frosty, yeah? Okay.
I want to take a minute and thank everybody for coming to celebrate Steve's 45 years in the business and 50 shaping.
And there's one more surprise that I think will really make you feel like home.
Oh, my God.
Steve's daughter, Lizzie.
That is the one I haven't seen yet.
Kaleo.
Steve has a large family in Hawaii, and they couldn't come over, but we flew in his youngest daughter with Steve's grandson who he's never seen.
Oh, gosh.
Hey.
Hey, you.
Just to be able to hold him and seeing him for the first time just topped the whole thing off.
Very emotional for me.
This is Kaleo.
Hi, Kaleo.
Do we have any more ladles? We only have a few minutes to make the fauxconunt.
Hopefully, it works because there's no time to do anything else.
Okay.
Well, then, let's all pray.
Fill it up with cream.
This dish is testing our team work.
You're gonna give it a quick little baste, so outside frozen, inside cool.
Keep 'em comin'.
Feels like six different components.
The lava cakes, coconut gels, and, of course, the fauxconut.
It's lookin' good so far.
- Marcel: How are you doin'? - Robyn: Good.
Marcel is reacting well under the pressure.
I'm actually impressed by how calmly he's managing the team.
Great work, everybody.
We managed to get all the desserts out.
Were we able to make any successful balloons earlier? One.
Got this one ready to go.
- Marcel: Hold on.
- Devon: Just tell me what to do.
Just put that down.
I'm using this.
Devon was able to actually execute one fauxconut by using the balloon technique.
Hey, Devon, does this thing work? I'm gonna use the coconut cream, which is the same component that all the guests are eating, to fill this big, hollow balloon fauxconut.
And this bad boy is gonna be for Steve, our guest of honor.
Oh, my God.
A big coconut.
You get the big coconut.
All right, man.
So here we have the fauxconut with a little bit of macadamia lava rock, and there's a little cacao soil, there's a coconut fluid gel, some fresh Thai coconuts, and a couple different textures.
- Enjoy.
- Thank you.
Ooh, gosh.
Look at that.
It's just like coconut stuffed inside there.
The presentation of the dessert was really fun because it looked like we each had our own little personal coconut.
but I break into it and it's got ice cream on the inside and it was incredible.
Oh, my gosh.
Besides the dormant volcano, Marcel achieved what I had hoped for and brought it to another level.
Given all the trials and tribulations that we faced to execute this amazing luau, it's a miracle that we even got it done.
You guys.
Thank you.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- How do you feel? - It was good.
- I feel pretty good.
- I would have liked a little more eruption on my volcano, but, whatever.
Marcel's stepping up and actually acknowledging the work that we're doing, and he should after what happened last time.
So it's a good start.
We worked like a team, and that's the most important thing.
- Know what I mean? - Yes.
We killed it.
Bring it in.
Group hug.
Thanks, guys.
I'm glad the team came together and I feel like, I don't know, we were like one big happy family.
Robyn, welcome to the family.
We all gotta do it-- - Marcel: Yeah.
- Devon: Sometime.
Welcome to the family, Robyn.
To make it a real official initiation, I think you get the lei.
Welcome to the family.
I'm comin for you.
I've had over 15 years of experience, and I use a new style of cooking referred to as molecular gastronomy, which is used by less than 5% of chefs worldwide.
Look at that.
After "Top Chef", I needed my next challenge.
So I decided to give catering a shot.
I've set up a state-of-the-art kitchen With my team in place, my new adventure begins.
To Marcel! Real people, spectacular parties, and the most outrageous food you've probably ever imagined.
Do the work.
Last week, Marcel's team fell apart.
Do you see what I'm saying? No, I don't see what you're saying? Egos were bruised.
I don't get paid enough to deal with this crap.
Then Marcel realized he had crossed the line.
I may have really frustrated my crew tonight.
Tonight Marcel has to pull his fractured team back together.
He's then hired to pull off a modern luau for a legend in the surf world.
But Marcel faces his most difficult kitchen tests yet.
Oh, It's kind of imploding.
We just ourselves.
Marcel is losing it.
For the first time, Marcel fears Aah! every dish will fail.
Can Marcel simultaneously save his menu and his team? Fish here, cook there.
Welcome to the future of food.
Welcome to "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen".
Marcel's Quantum Kitchen 1x04 Sink or Swim Original air date on April 12, 2011 Uh, I'm kind of excited.
I'm meeting with Antoinette, my new party planner, and Brandy, my new client, at Steve Walden's surf shop.
Steve Walden is considered by many to be the father of the modern longboard.
He's a master surfboard shaper, and a legend in the surf world.
- Hey, how are you! - Hello.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
I hired Marcel for this event because Marcel is an innovator in food and design, and Steve Walden is an innovator in surfing.
It's a perfect fit.
Steve has been shaping for 50 years.
He's built about 25,000 surfboards over his career.
That's crazy.
Amazing.
This party is about celebrating Steve's 50 years of making surfboards, and this is a giant milestone.
I don't know how many other shapers can say that they've been at it that long, and it's a really, really special time in his life and his career, and so I want everything about this party to be special and unique and different, just like he is.
We want to do, like, a modern take on a luau, we've been to so many, so we want to have you do something kind of different.
Like, reinvent the classics a little bit.
- Reinvent the classic, exactly.
- Okay.
I'm not that familiar with luaus, and it's gonna be difficult considering the fact that luaus typically take place in Hawaii, where all of those indigenous ingredients come from, and I've never done one before, so it's kind of nerve-wracking.
Robyn, who is one of my chefs, and also happens to be from Hawaii.
Great.
So you know what we're trying to achieve here.
Absolutely.
I just think Steve is gonna be blown away, 'cause we're gonna basically clear this whole place out, and do like a big tiki hut with a 16-foot table.
Well, a good thjng about this space is it's kind of rough.
I actually love the idea of having the outdoors come in.
I like it.
I'm excited.
I'm really excited.
All the people that are coming, they're surfers, surf legends.
They've been to a lot of luaus.
They're a tough crowd to impress.
We only have one shot at this party.
You don't get to celebrate 50 years twice, so I'm really counting on Marcel in getting it right.
He's gotta live up to his reputation on this one.
I want this to be really unique and really special.
So no pressure, no pressure.
No pressure.
I'm not feeling it.
You want to meet him? He's here working.
Okay, so I'm gonna go.
Okay, bye.
Let's go meet Steve.
You ready? Okay.
Steve.
- So nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you, too.
Hi, Robyn.
So, we're super excited about this party.
Yeah, I'm sure this will be unlike any other one that I've ever experienced, for sure.
To me, you know, growing up in Hawaii, he's a legend.
I've surfed on his boards, and yeah, I was really, really excited to meet him.
My family's also on an island.
Not a Hawaiian island.
- In Seattle, the Puget Sound.
- Oh, right.
Not a lot of surfing going on up there.
Well, speaking about surfing, are you up for it? That would be awesome.
I'm really looking forward to going surfing with Steve because I think it's a great way for me to find inspiration for the luau.
Any words of wisdom? The whole idea here is to just have some fun.
Catching my first wave was like creating my own first dish.
It's, um, an incredible experience.
I got see a whole new side of Marcel, now that we're finally out of the kitchen and away from the stress.
You guys did so good, I can't even believe it.
Really? Nice.
Awesome.
For me, I'm just drawing inspiration from nature.
From the oceans, the waves.
Even, like, these rocks right here.
Maybe, like, we could cook on top of these or something, you know? I'm super inspired, and I can't wait to get back into the kitchen and just kind of incorporate that into some new menu ideas during the brainstorming session.
That was wicked! - I know, it was so sweet.
- Oh, my God.
The perfect way to get inspiration for a luau.
- I know.
- There's so much riding on this party.
Our last party, I mean, you know it was a little hairy, right? Yeah.
No, it was like our toughest party yet.
- Yeah.
- It was ridiculously difficult.
Even the guys are feeling a little-- You think that Jarrid and Devon took it extremely personally? I think that they did.
I think that they absolutely did.
It's really hard to bring up issues, important issues to a boss, especially when you're the new person.
It was certainly a risk, because he really did not think feelings were as hurt as they were, so-- Yeah, like, maybe I, like, raised my voice a little bit.
What do you think.
I mean, do you think that I was too harsh? Yeah, you were a little heated, if I were to be completely honest.
I'm kind of a little bit surprised because, like, what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.
But they seem to take this one pretty personally.
I'm gonna have to think about this.
It's become clear.
I need to, like, handle the situation, and so I've come up with the idea of calling together a family meeting and just putting everything on the table because we're already having some, like, major hiccups in the road, and if I don't have my team, I don't have my business.
How's it going? That was a crazy party, man.
That was a crazy party.
Yeah.
I feel like we had a bunch of, like, issues that, you know, we need to sort of, like, hash out, put 'em all on the table.
I was trying to, like, wrack my brain and, like, figure out what went wrong, other than me just kind of, like, flying off the handle as usual, and the fact that I had the both of you guys working on your own projects, both of which, like, turned out amazing, and you probably shouldn't have, because know I'm gonna have you making stuff for every party.
Right? But the problem I feel as though was that you guys were kind of like working so diligently on those projects, maybe some of the other dishes-- No, yeah.
I felt like when I went to the food, I was lost.
I didn't know what was going on, so I was looking for that.
I was looking for some guidance.
I'll take a little bit of responsibility fothat, 'cause I know I put too much energy and just concentrating on the drink and forgetting about everything else.
After having some sleep and not caught up in the moment, it's just communication stuff, really.
I'm gonna work on my communication skills, speaking in a polite manner.
We just need to all be on the same page, and like, you know, I'll try not to be such an .
That's good.
All of my employees are like first and foremost my friends, and I need to make sure that I have my friends back together.
I like working with you guys, and hopefully you guys like working with me, and this upcoming party is gonna be awesome, and I think we have another opportunity to, like, kill it, you know.
Marcel can say "Sorry" and "We're cool now, we're on the same page", but when it comes down to it, when we get thrown back into the fire, we'll see how well that holds together, and see what happens during the next event.
- So, you guys ready to talk luau? - Yes! Robyn, you're our resident Hawaiian, so we need to take a list of all the classic luau dishes, and just flip and reverse 'em.
- Poke's a definite.
- I know what poke means.
It literally means "small pieces".
It's raw, but it's marinated in soy sauce and some Japanese vinegar and seaweed.
Poke.
Poke's a must, right? So I think we should reinvent that classic.
Yeah.
Whenever I think of Hawaii, I think of Taro, right? Oh, yeah, I've gotta have some poi.
What if we make the Taro the chips, and then make something else the poi? I gotta say, whenever I think of Hawaii, Spam always comes to mind.
That really salty, delicious meat? Yeah, yeah, totally.
- Jarrid: The mystery canned meat? - Mystery canned meat.
- Spam dip! - Yes.
Spam, yeah.
Um, what else? Lomi lomi salmon? Lomi lomi, like a tartar? Yeah, you don't cook it.
Sounds good.
There's that opihi, right? Opihi.
It is a delicacy, yeah.
- I love that stuff out there.
- Que es opihi? Opihi is shellfish, basically, but it's a barnacle.
I think that we need some meat on the menu.
- Short ribs.
- If we take the short rib idea, and then maybe, like, a hibachi or like a teppenyaki, and just cook the short ribs real quick, just flash it.
Awesome.
A pigs a little too traditional for us.
What about volcanoes? What if we could cook with some lava? You know what? I can build volcanoes that erupt sauce, and it's edible.
Yeah, perfect.
I think it'd be cool if we had something that looked like a coconut, and tasted like a coconut, and we could call it the fauxconut.
That is genius.
Bravo, my friend.
- Yeah.
- That sounds good.
I'm kind of liking this menu.
We've got all these amazing Hawaiian ingredients.
This party's unusual because no one's coming in for a tasting, and it's all on me to make sure that we get everything right.
And this is also one of the most complicated menus we've tried yet.
We're gonna try to execute the taro chips and poi, cook the short ribs on hot rocks table side, make an opihi poke, an amadai lomi lomi, and lastly, we're gonna make the fauxconut.
Robyn, what I want us to do is utilize these beautiful shells.
For the opihi poke, I want to incorporate all of the traditional ingredients, but utilizing new techniques.
For the opihi, I'll use real opihi shells as a mold to make a version that's edible.
I'll paint them with edible clay.
When the clay dries, I'll pry them apart and put the real opihi into the newly formed shell.
And then, for the tuna poke, my idea is to freeze the tuna and shave it on a shaved ice machine, which will give the texture of tuna snow.
And then I'll place it on a bed of wakame, and diced Asian pears.
The only problem is I've never used a shaved ice machine before, but I want to do it because it's really popular in Hawaii and at luaus.
So, what we want to do is make a mixture of these three ingredients right here.
We have kaolin.
It's like an edible clay.
And milk powder.
And this is just dashi, to emphasize that fish flavor.
When we combine these three ingredients together, We're gonna go ahead and make, like, an edible shell.
Ooh, very cool.
And we'll make it out of these opihi shells.
As soon as you make the mixture, I'm gonna come back, and we'll go ahead and make some of the edible shells together.
- Fantastic.
- All right, sweet.
Jarrid, can you put a rock in the oven? Essentially, we want, like, the short ribs to kind of like finish cooking tableside on the rocks.
I'm testing different types of rocks, including the one I found on the beach, to see which one works the best.
In order to cook the short ribs on these rocks, I need to get the rocks up to 500 degrees, so I've placed some of them on top of the burners so they get hot enough.
Oh, .
My rock just exploded all over the place.
Holy-- Not so good.
That's not gonna work.
Ooh, that sucks.
This could be the first complete and total failure inside the quantum kitchen.
This .
I'm so stressed out about this party.
Oh, .
Holy-- My rock just exploded all over the place.
- Did it split? - Yeah.
- Oh, my God.
- Yeah, that just blew up.
So that's not gonna work.
I'm testing different types of rocks, including the one I found on the beach, to see which one works the best.
In order to cook the short ribs on these rocks, I need to get the rocks up to 500 degrees, but unfortunately, these rocks can't be heated up to 500 degrees without exploding.
I put some in the oven, and maybe we can experiment with that.
I put these in when it was low heat, so it's coming up with the heat, so maybe that will-- With the heat, it won't shock 'em, and hopefully they won't explode.
Hopefully.
We gotta make sure that it doesn't explode when we put the short ribs on it, too.
I decided to try the quarry rock because it's less porous and it retains it's heat a lot better.
All right, I'm just gonna pull this stone out.
Oh God, that's hot.
Oh God, oh God, oh dear, oh dear.
Ah, yeah.
Look at that, smoke coming off the towel.
I think we're gonna hear some searing.
- That thing did not crack.
- And it smells delicious.
So, we have to think about something here.
Are the guests going to be able to pick this off the rock? Is this really safe? I think they can take on food with instructions.
This is withstanding temperature really well.
- It's not exploding.
- Not exploding.
That's a good thing.
I have finally actually found a rock that is not only able to withstand these temperatures, but also retain that internal temperature, thereby allowing me to cook the short rib all the way through.
- So, for the pineapple sauce? - Yes.
The pineapple sauce is going to be erupting out of the volcano? Yes.
I bought this pump to try it out with.
I'm gonna build the volcano around this, it's gonna shoot out the top, and come running down into-- And should we have a reservoir that goes all the way arnd, so people on both sides can kind of, like, eat? - Sounds ambitious? - It is.
This volcano is gonna be pretty bad ass.
- Are you gonna try to peel that off? - Yeah.
We're trying to paint a kaolin clay mixture on these opihi shells, and after it bakes, we peel it off, and hopefully it looks just like an opihi shell Ahh.
Oh, man.
The shell business is not working out so well.
It's not that it won't go on, it's just that it won't stay on.
Every single time I painted on these dang shells, the clay just melted right off, and I am frustrated.
Okay, let me see.
I'm trying, Marcel's trying.
We're pouring it on there, and it just bleeds right off.
I have not had a successful shell.
We've gotta make this work.
I don't know.
I really don't know what to do here.
Man, it's just running right off.
What if we tried corn starch or something on the Saran wrap ? Maybe it would stick a little better, you think? You think that we're gonna have any problem getting these off here? I don't know, that's why I added the oil.
This time I wrapped the opihi shells in Saran wrap, and then I put a very, very little bit of oil on the top, dipped it in corn starch, and then I painted on the edible clay.
It looks like it's working.
Just when I'm starting to feel as though we're not gonna be able to make this happen, that's when Robyn comes up with the idea of dipping them in corn starch, so that way our clay mixture actually adheres to the opihi shells.
I think that that corn starch was exactly what we needed in this whole situation.
- Yeah.
- That totally worked, and was a brilliant idea, and Robyn is totally killing it.
Go ahead and pop those in the oven.
- Absolutely.
- At 220? These guys are going in.
Did you make the pineapple sauce? I did.
This is it right here.
Do you think this might be too thick to go through the pump? I don't know.
There's only one way to find out.
I want to create a volcano that erupts pineapple saffron sauce to go with the short ribs.
And the volcano is gonna be the centerpiece on the table.
It's going.
It's slowly making it's way to the top.
I think it might be clogged.
Can't tell.
The vibe in the kitchen's good.
Marcel's not being a , and we're able to joke around and still get some stuff done, and things are starting to get back to normal.
We gotta make sure that we don't get the guests dirty.
Yeah, well, we can turn it down.
Take two.
See, that's not bad.
Oh, yeah, that's what we want, right there.
Now that we've got the pump figured out, Jarrid just has to actually construct something that resembles a volcano.
So, now that we've baked the opihi shells, we take them out of the oven, now we just need to see and hope and pray it tastes okay.
Let's try one of these.
I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I just don't like it.
They're gonna try it, and they'll be, like, "Ooh, that sucks.
Damn.
" The seashells taste like when you're surfing, and you, like, eat it face first into the sand, and your whole mouth is full of water and sand.
That's what it tastes like.
I'm thinking this could be the first complete and total failure inside the quantum kitchen.
This .
Look at these volcanoes.
They're dry, I can start carving 'em here.
So, it's day two of prep, and we have to make all of the components for all of the dishes, plus the volcano centerpiece.
We want to erupt pineapple sauce up and out of the volcano.
And it'll have some gaps in it, which is good.
If you look inside, you can see where it's thinner, or where there's some holes.
All I did was take bowls, and I wrapped them in cellophane, and then I used expansion foam.
It's a construction type of foam that gets hard enough to where I can carve it.
But I still have a lot more to do if I'm gonna make this thing a volcano.
And light up, and blow smoke.
I'm just too ambitious.
All right.
Looks like you've got a lot of work cut out for you.
Opihi take two.
I need to go back to the drawing board with this entire concept.
They don't meet our quality standards, right? I essentially threw out the idea of making a clay shell, and instead have decided to go with a cracker shell, which I think will not only look, but also taste better.
And we'll still use the opihi shell as a mold.
What I'm thinking is to actually have two different colors.
Like the two different colors you actually get on the shell.
Maybe add some kelp powder, right? Kind of a very opihi-ish.
A little bit of squid ink.
- Get it, baby.
- I kind of like that, actually.
- Like the nice marble, kind of? - Yeah.
I'm just really nervous because I spent an entire day without creating one shell.
I'm really hoping that this new idea will work.
- Test it all, test it all.
- I'm testing it.
Okay, I just want to start over.
I'm working on trying to create a trail on these volcanoes that the sauce can follow.
I thought this would be simpler, but with the time crunch, it's just a lot more complicated than I thought it was gonna be.
The base of the volcano looks great.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean .
If it doesn't erupt, it's pointless.
Wait, it's not gonna erupt? I have a vision in my head, but I keep doing the wrong thing to make that vision happen.
This looks just like crap to me.
As soon as this pineapple sauce comes out, it's just gonna be running down these tubes that are hanging down the side of a mountain? That doesn't make any sense.
When have you ever seen a volcano with tubes coming out to direct the lava? What if it was made out of bamboo or something? Like, a little bamboo ramp or something? I don't know.
That would look tacky, too.
Who puts a bamboo ramp up against a volcano? It's becoming abundantly clear that we may have some issues with this volcano, and this is the centerpiece for the party, so we've gotta get this thing working.
Never fear, man.
There's one thing my brain is able to do, is in the heat of the moment, come up with another idea.
So, Robyn, what's going on with those edible shells? We can check 'em and see what's up with them.
So, this is our new cracker base here.
I'm hoping Robyn's edible opihi cracker actually works, because if not, we're totally screwed on this one.
It's pretty cool that, you know, the outside now looks a little bit more like it came from the ocean.
hot.
See if it actually works.
Oh, my God, it's beautiful.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I really like the inside.
And these, I think, have such a cool appearance, and such an amazing texture.
I mean, you can actually see the grooves.
- Let's check the flavor.
- Okay.
It's super-buttery, nice and salty.
I've got that kelp flavor.
Love it.
Thank God that actually works.
- All right.
- Finally-- I feel much better about this.
We actually solved it.
I don't know about you, but I was losing sleep over this.
I was, too.
- How's it going, coconut? - Good.
For the fauxconut, I want to make something that resembles a coconut, but isn't actually a coconut.
I'm going to try taking a coconut ice cream base, and load that inside of a balloon, and then roll that balloon over liquid nitrogen, to form a frozen sphere of coconut cream.
I'll then peel off the balloon, and dust cocoa powder over the sphere to create the fauxconut.
I want the dish to look like a coconut just fell right out of the tree and onto the beach.
So for the fauxconut, we're going to put our coconut ice cream base inside of the balloon-- Stop, stop, stop.
Okay.
Pull the trigger.
Blow up with nitrous oxide.
Stop.
Drop inside of the nitrogen, roll it around, and hope that it creates a circle.
I think that thing's gonna shrink up.
All right, let's see what happens.
The idea here is that as I'm rolling the balloon through the nitrogen, the liquid is staying on the bottom and also freezing simultaneously.
It looks like something's going on here.
Not so good.
It's kind of imploding.
That's what I was thinking it was gonna do.
That's totally crumbling.
How's it taste, though? - Tastes really good.
- Devon: It's delicious.
All right, let's try it again.
All right.
So how many of these do we have to make? Fifteen, right? How many have we made so far? Zero.
So we learned two things when making the fuaxconuts, one of which is you need to make sure you have enough ice cream base inside the balloon to actually create a sphere.
And then the other thing was that if you poke the balloon with a needle halfway through the freezing process, it prevents it from compressing on top of itself.
- Robyn: Yay.
- We got one.
We're able to execute one perfect coconut balloon.
This is the beginning of the fauxconut, yeah? Yeah.
So we want to take this fauxconut and inject it with our coconut cream, right? Filling this with that.
Doesn't really look like it's gonna work, though.
The fauxconut is nowhere near completion, and the balloon technique is so time consuming.
Obviously, we have a lot of work to do with this dessert, not to mention all of the other dishes.
I didn't even have the time to test out the amadai lomi lomi, or the taro chips, and Jarrid's volcano still is not working.
We haven't even finished testing, let alone prepping.
Honestly, we're gonna be up all night working on this menu.
I'm so stressed out about this party.
And are we ready? Every single dish is plated with multiple components.
How many have you made so far? One.
Things are gonna be freezing, melting.
Go for it.
Are you serious? This volcano looked like elephant dung.
Okay, we literally have to go to plan B.
Can I get an ETA? This is complete chaos.
Welcome to Walden Surf shop, guys.
Oh, look at all this sand.
Nice.
The actually did it, huh? Walking into the surf shop the day of the party, there's literally six tons of sand on the ground.
It looks pretty cool.
Let's find the kitchen.
Cookin' outside this time.
It's tiny.
Another makeshift kitchen.
I'm extremely nervous about my team coming together, because when you're working in small kitchens, it can be kind of stressful.
We really struggled at the last event and we can't afford to do that again.
This party, the main thing that we want to focus in on is organization, execution, and communication.
Let's do work, girls.
All right, let's do it.
The big challenge with our edible opihi shells is they're so fragile that I could have opened up the box and seen just crackers everywhere.
But they were beautiful.
Oh, they look so pretty.
So I was up all night and I was working on the volcanoes, and it's turning into a nightmare.
I never want to see a volcano again.
I mean, it's getting to the point where I just want to smash this and throw it away.
No wonder kids fail Science all the time when they have to do science projects.
It sucks.
- Hey, Marcel.
- Hi.
- How are you? - Good.
How are you? - Good to see you.
- Good to see you, too.
So the volcano's right over here.
This is what we call operation Jarrid versus the volcano.
This looks scary.
I'm thinking to myself, praying, that I'm being punked, because I'm thinking there's no way that they could possibly think that that thing is gonna look good on any table, let alone a gorgeous luau table that I'm creating for Steve Walden.
What-- what's gonna happen with that, exactly, just so I know where the guests should sit? Awesome.
Glad you asked that.
Okay.
If we could somehow leave this space where the actual lava will come down.
Is that hot sauce coming down or it's cold? It's liquid hot magma.
We'll tone it down to where nobody gets splattered with it, and if they did, it wouldn't burn them.
Are you serious? Hold on.
Okay, this sounds dangerous, like it could spout out pineapple sauce onto the guests.
So I'll leave you two to that, and I'll just exit stage left.
How is that gonna look visually appealing? You know, maybe we should tell the guests that the dress code is retardant casual.
All right.
Can I help you with your chips and dip? Yeah.
Basically, I'm making a Spam puree, soaked in some cream and milk, which will pull out some of that salt, and then it'll be nice and smooth as a little first course dip.
- We need the stencil for the surf boards.
- All right.
Spam is all over Hawaii, so we're doing a Spam poi to do a play on the original Hawaiian poi.
But instead of doing a taro root puree, we're doing actual taro chips.
Go for it.
Now we're starting to make 'em look like cool little surf boards to dip into our Spam poi.
That's fantastic.
It looks really good.
Jarrid's volcanoes, these are supposed to be the big, huge theatrical moments of the party, and he's running out of time to get it right.
Is this all we have? Yeah.
We have to make a bunch more.
Oh, my God.
I'm stressin' about those damn volcanoes.
- Yeah.
- Robyn: Just sayin'.
Go ahead and go for it.
- Jarrid: Really? - Marcel: Jarrid, is it working? Dammit.
This one is spraying all over the place.
Honestly, look at the situation.
I don't know if I'm gonna pull this off.
What is all the red stuff? It's edible ink.
Doesn't look very edible.
As a backup plan, I'm gonna make another batch of pineapple sauce so just in case the volcano doesn't work, I'll still be able to plate my short ribs.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna work on the amadai.
This is my first time preparing the amadai lomi lomi because I ran out of time in the test kitchen.
And cutting through the scales is not something you really want to do a lot of.
Amadai has tiny, edible scales, and when they come into contact with hot oil, it creates a chemical reaction explosion.
And that explosion propels the scales up, making them super crispy and delicious.
- Holy crap.
- Okay.
Where are we putting this now, exactly? I made two, one for this side, one for this side.
There are two coming? Yeah.
He's got two.
Okay, not one volcano, two volcanoes.
Only one volcano will work on the table.
When it was brought up to her, I could tell Antoinette wasn't into those volcanoes at all.
I'm gonna go grab the other one.
Not happy.
This is a nightmare, dude.
I'm gonna try to stay calm.
Okay.
We need two volcanoes.
I would like one volcano on the table.
You can't have 15 guests trying to get pineapple sauce from one volcano.
So I wasn't gonna take, no, it's not going on the table for an answer.
At this point, if we just wrap it in the bottoms with banana leaves or do whatever we're gonna do-- Right.
All right.
Let's go.
Two volcanoes.
'Cause that's the easiest thing with our time.
Yeah.
So Aleta.
We need to-- we need to figure this out.
This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
Respectfully, I say that.
This volcano looked like elephant dung.
Oh, my God.
It's really important to me that Steve gets the celebration that he deserves.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at it.
Wow.
This is incredible.
And so I want everything about this party to be special.
I'm just absolutely amazed.
It's total Hawaii.
How are you? This looks amazing.
- Brandy: Isn't that cool? - Steve: Yeah, it is.
I'm afraid to touch anything.
- Antoinette: Hey, Marcel.
- Marcel: Yes? Steve and Brandy are here, we're kind of running a little bit behind.
- We lookin' okay? - Marcel: Five minutes.
We have rare and perishable ingredients from all over the world that we can't mess up.
Oh, my God.
I'm a little nervous about the shaved ice machine to make the frozen tuna snow.
Not only have I never used it before, but I'm doing it tableside.
- Are we ready? - Antoinette: We are so ready.
On top of that, every single dish is plated with multiple components and different textures and temperatures.
Things are gonna be freezing, melting.
This is the most ambitious menu my team has ever tried to execute.
Welcome.
Good evening.
I hope you guys enjoy the chips and dip.
They're made out of taro, one of the most predominant vegetables from Hawaii.
And then the dip is actually the Spam poi.
It's kind of a little fun plate.
Did you guys try that? No? My first initial reaction is, like, holy .
The guests missed the entire first course.
Well, feel free to try it now.
There should be some chips and dip.
We had decided to have them sitting out on the table, but the guests didn't get it.
Clearly, that was a mistake, and I'm totally stressed out because already I'm afraid this party is off to a bad start.
That's good.
For your next course, we actually have our-- our version of poke, and it's actually gonna be a tuna shaved ice poke.
Right down the middle you have ponzu fluid gels.
Over on the other side, we have the opihi, and the shells are edible.
This is big eye tuna from the Big Island.
So first, the guests missed the first course.
And now it sounds like Marcel's chopping up a body in an ice machine.
This is awesome.
Awesome.
MarcelLet me do the first one, then you can follow my lead.
Nice and sexy, yeah? Probably one of the best ways to eat this is to maybe just smash it and mix it all up.
And mix all the ingredients together.
Have a little fun with it and just, hopefully, enjoy.
Wow, this looks so neat.
I loved the edible shells.
I was a little nervous because I thought we were gonna be eating shells, but delicious.
Gosh.
Everything tastes so good.
For each dish, timing is very, very important.
Brandy has a surprise for Steve.
He hasn't met his grandson yet, it's a little baby, and so his daughter is flying in with the grandson to the event.
So there is a time factor, and I'm-- I'm very concerned.
Okay, start plating.
Fire up the pans.
Do we have oil? Anybody? There is oil here somewhe.
kidding me.
It's gonna be a show.
This is complete chaos.
We can't find the frying oil for the lomi lomi.
What's happened? I can't fry the fish without oil.
If we don't find this oil, we're not gonna be able to cook the fish to get the next course out.
No, dude, I know that there is oil.
We need it, like, rightnow.
I know, I know, I know there's oil.
Oh, my God.
I didn't want to be responsible for ruining an entire course.
Woo-hoo! I found it.
Oh.
All right, you guys, move your ass.
We're seriously in the weeds.
Can I get an ETA, please? Marcel, ETA? We got somebody on the other side? It's kind of like a frantic scramble to catch up.
No, no, no, no.
Keep it there.
ETA, somebody? I feel like I'm being pulled all over the place.
Marcel, are we almost ready? Fish here, cook there.
Go around to the other side, other side, other side.
This is nuts.
It was all hands on deck.
Right behind ya.
And we all worked together as a team.
Ready to go? Excuse me.
For your next course, we have my interpretation of lomi lomi.
Instead of using salmon, I'm using this fish called amadai, and so I've got tomato concasse, a little scallion puree, and then lastly we have a broth.
And the cool thing about the amadai is actually, when I cook it like this, you can actually see the scales, they'll all start to rise up and get super crispy.
Thank you.
Well, enjoy.
- Steve: Boy, that is so tender.
- Brandy: Is it? It's bringing a little flavor to the Hawaiian style.
Wow, what a combination of flavors.
Okay, so we drop all the plates, then we go through with the meat.
We drop all the meat on the rocks? Yes.
Where's the other rocks? The other rocks, other rocks? Other rocks, oven, oven, oven.
Hotel pan, hotel pan.
It's so hot.
It's so hot.
Oh, you got gloves on.
This is, potentially, a very dangerous dish.
Can you imagine if one of these rocks drops on a guest? It could seriously burn them.
Servers, you hear us how excruciating this is? With this dish, there's so many things that can possibly go wrong.
Jarrid, go turn on your volcanoes.
So I wonder how this is gonna work.
I feel like I actually might have made a big mistake with this course.
I'm just, like, oh, my God.
I'm gonna drop the meat while you heat the volcano.
Oh, Everyone is extremely nervous about this dish.
These rocks are hot.
Please warn the guests, the rocks are hot.
I was so nervous that I could actually hear the dishes shake.
Careful.
It's hot.
The rock was really scary, having a really hot rock right in front of you.
- Man: Do not touch the rock.
- Okay.
But thrilling at the same time.
The hot stone was just a tremendous, tremendous presentation.
I'm so relieved that the guests are okay and they were happy.
But I am totally concerned about the volcano.
Jarrid, turn on your volcanoes.
I'm dreading the moment that this volcano is supposed to erupt.
For your next course, we have pineapple short ribs.
You have your hot rocks right in front of you, which I'm gonna cook your first piece on.
This dish is actually in twos.
On top of the hot rocks, we have some lava sea salt.
Then we also have two types of onions.
There's a Maui onion puree and little crispy Maui onion rings served with a little bit of watercress.
And we have the volcanoes, which are about to start flowing any moment now.
Everybody's feeling, okay, when is the moment gonna happen when this volcano decides to do it's thing? I hit the switch, the volcanoes lit up, but no pineapple sauce.
God! - So it didn't erupt? - Jarrid: It didn't erupt.
So what do we have? We have a couple of lights that look like volcanoes.
Yay! Yay, I'm a frickin' genius.
I'm just gonna run away now.
I'm glad I served an additional pineapple sauce but it still actually looked pretty cool.
It had that appearance of lava, there was just no lava floating down it.
But at least my short ribs on the hot rocks seemed to be a huge success.
Mm.
Oh, man.
Never had meat cooked on a rock.
The flavor was incredible and really special.
Never had anything like it in my life.
Devon, where we at with that dessert? We're down to our last course.
How's it comin', Devon? The fauxconut dessert.
How many have you made so far? One.
Ugh! The problem is we have to make 15 of these frozen desserts, and it took us half an hour to make one.
Using the balloon technique doesn't look good.
All right, here's another idea.
It was at that moment when I came up with the idea to initiate a plan B.
We're gonna do a coconut cream instead of doing the balloon.
Okay, we literally have 10 minutes to do this dessert.
Ten minutes to get these desserts out.
We're goin' down, baby, goin' down.
Nitrogen, yes? Now I'm gonna have to give everybody a crash course Coconut, coconut.
on how to inject the coconut foam into the ladle and dip that into the liquid nitrogen so it freezes around the outside but it's still liquid and creamy in the center.
Make it really nice and frosty, yeah? Okay.
I want to take a minute and thank everybody for coming to celebrate Steve's 45 years in the business and 50 shaping.
And there's one more surprise that I think will really make you feel like home.
Oh, my God.
Steve's daughter, Lizzie.
That is the one I haven't seen yet.
Kaleo.
Steve has a large family in Hawaii, and they couldn't come over, but we flew in his youngest daughter with Steve's grandson who he's never seen.
Oh, gosh.
Hey.
Hey, you.
Just to be able to hold him and seeing him for the first time just topped the whole thing off.
Very emotional for me.
This is Kaleo.
Hi, Kaleo.
Do we have any more ladles? We only have a few minutes to make the fauxconunt.
Hopefully, it works because there's no time to do anything else.
Okay.
Well, then, let's all pray.
Fill it up with cream.
This dish is testing our team work.
You're gonna give it a quick little baste, so outside frozen, inside cool.
Keep 'em comin'.
Feels like six different components.
The lava cakes, coconut gels, and, of course, the fauxconut.
It's lookin' good so far.
- Marcel: How are you doin'? - Robyn: Good.
Marcel is reacting well under the pressure.
I'm actually impressed by how calmly he's managing the team.
Great work, everybody.
We managed to get all the desserts out.
Were we able to make any successful balloons earlier? One.
Got this one ready to go.
- Marcel: Hold on.
- Devon: Just tell me what to do.
Just put that down.
I'm using this.
Devon was able to actually execute one fauxconut by using the balloon technique.
Hey, Devon, does this thing work? I'm gonna use the coconut cream, which is the same component that all the guests are eating, to fill this big, hollow balloon fauxconut.
And this bad boy is gonna be for Steve, our guest of honor.
Oh, my God.
A big coconut.
You get the big coconut.
All right, man.
So here we have the fauxconut with a little bit of macadamia lava rock, and there's a little cacao soil, there's a coconut fluid gel, some fresh Thai coconuts, and a couple different textures.
- Enjoy.
- Thank you.
Ooh, gosh.
Look at that.
It's just like coconut stuffed inside there.
The presentation of the dessert was really fun because it looked like we each had our own little personal coconut.
but I break into it and it's got ice cream on the inside and it was incredible.
Oh, my gosh.
Besides the dormant volcano, Marcel achieved what I had hoped for and brought it to another level.
Given all the trials and tribulations that we faced to execute this amazing luau, it's a miracle that we even got it done.
You guys.
Thank you.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- How do you feel? - It was good.
- I feel pretty good.
- I would have liked a little more eruption on my volcano, but, whatever.
Marcel's stepping up and actually acknowledging the work that we're doing, and he should after what happened last time.
So it's a good start.
We worked like a team, and that's the most important thing.
- Know what I mean? - Yes.
We killed it.
Bring it in.
Group hug.
Thanks, guys.
I'm glad the team came together and I feel like, I don't know, we were like one big happy family.
Robyn, welcome to the family.
We all gotta do it-- - Marcel: Yeah.
- Devon: Sometime.
Welcome to the family, Robyn.
To make it a real official initiation, I think you get the lei.
Welcome to the family.
I'm comin for you.