First Ramps of the Year!!! Also Red Wood Sorrel and Wild Salad Mix

That’s right we received our first (very limited) shipment of ramps this morning.  All the pictures below were taken in our warehouse as they arrived.  As you can see they are fairly clean for a 1st arrival and they have good-sized green leaves on them.  These were foraged in Washington  St, there should be more arriving from other areas in the coming weeks and hopefully more from WA too.  I will keep everyone updated on availability.

Also available right now is Red Wood Sorrel and Wild Salad Mix.  The Red Wood Sorrel sometimes called “Red Wood Clover” is being foraged in Washington state.  This wild product has a strong green apple/citrus flavor to it.  It has amazing color as you can see from the picture taken this morning.  The sorrel is $7.95 per Half LB and is available for delivery.  Also coming from the same general area is our Wild Salad mix.  The mix is composed of 6-8 varieties of wild foraged greens, herbs and flowers.  This is a great “wild” addition to any spring menu.  The mix is available for delivery to you at $11.95 per LB.

If you need any further info or would like to place an order please don’t hesitate to cal call or email.

As always we appreciate your business!

Mikuni Weekly Update 3/23

There is so much going on, especially in my fish and wild greens departments. We are so fortunate to have personal relationships with tribal and individual, small commercial fisherman and foragers. Our guy in Puget Sound who is out working with WA fishermen, looking at and shipping the freshest NW seafood on the market, everyday. Different local foragers pick spring wild greens for us every spring, including Running Squirrel.

NW Wild Fish

WA halibut is very, very fresh, snow white and still slimy from the sea. Size averages from about 13 lbs to 35 lb. The pricing depends on the size that you order and does’t exceed $11.95/lb. On all of my fish, delivery charges are always included with a minimum order. The black cod program has taken off. We have not had a single negative response after shipping literally tons of product. Again, @ 11.95/lb delivered, this is a great value for the freshest available from anyone. Spring Chinook salmon starts today, so we’re hoping to have some nice kings for you tomorrow. Steelhead are still coming in nice, but fewer of them. Sturgeon are beautiful from the Quileute and Quinault tribal fisheries.  

Wild Greens         

Fiddleheads, nettles, wild salad, and miner’s lettuce are all available now. The color in the salad is vivid with fresh mustard flowers and wood violets. As it’s so early, availability is very limited on the salad.

Wild Mushrooms        

Morels will begin switching over soon from the CA orchard variety (morchella deliciosa) to the early thimble caps (verpa bohemica), and then to the black morels (morchella esculenta). Pricing will go up for true morels until the late spring flush begins in earnest. Verpas are just starting to show up and their price should settle very quickly into the low or mid-teens. Black trumpets are still really nice quality and affordable. Chanterelles are winter quality, or a little better. Yellowfoot are always damp to the touch, but good. Hedgehogs are damp, saturated, broken and about done for the season. Hopefully, we’ll continue to see the other winter varieties until morels are in full swing, but don’t count on it. Spring porcini should be getting close.

Santa Monica Farmer’s Market 

Nice beans and peas are starting to come into the market. Different mandarins and Meyer lemons make nice citrus offerings, while baby root veggies like beets and carrots are gorgeous. Remember that these all have to be organic to be sold at Santa Monica. We pre-order these to be cust for us the day before we pick them up and you receive them on Friday. It’s amazing produce, especially after such an incredibly bad winter and late start elsewhere.

New Products    

Iroquois Indian corn meal is roasted from the famous white Iroquois corn. We package it by the pound for 16.95 and it’s available immediately. Fresh hearts of palm from the big island of Hawaii are wonderful quality. This is nothing like the vacuum-packed stuff from Costa Rica. If you haven’t tried either of these yet, it’s time you did.

Thanks very much for your great business with me. I hope you have an exceptional week in the kitchen 

Weekly Update: Wild Spring Onion and Yelloweye Rockfish Available for this weekend!

For Saturday we will have YELLOW EYE ROCKFISH available (Pictured Below).  They are running between 6-8 LB and is $8.95 per LB delivered to you.  They are coming from Umnak Island and Prince William Sound, Alaska.  They will give you about 60% yield because of the large head, but the flavor and color is amazing.  It is comparable to that of a red snapper.  If you would like me to bring you in some for Saturday I will need to know by 1 PM Fri.

This is a great time for wild spring products, morels, fava beans, english peas, miners’ lettuce and now WILD SPRING ONION!  Pictured above these have a great onion taste to them and are great for grilling or saute.  Coming out of northern California Wild Spring Onion can be used similarly in preparations you would use Ramps in.  At just $8.95 per LB these will make a great “Wild” addition to your spring menus.  Available for tomorrow so if interested please let us know.

Chris

Product Feature: Linen Smoked Paprika and Tahitian Vanilla Beans

We are going to be featuring a few of our products from Mikuni Las Vegas and also giving you some information and stories on them.  If you have any questions or you are interested in ordering for your restaurant please feel free to contact me anytime.

Linen Smoked Fancy Spanish Paprika

The paprika is smoked by Mikuni in small, 5 lb batches. It takes 4 hours per batch. The Paprika is a fancy grade, sweet Spanish paprika.  Each batch is smoked on linen trays so that 1. The smoke can come up through the cloth, enabling more complete absorption and a broader smokiness, and 2. So there’s no chemical reaction and off taste from being smoked on a metal surface. They are also turned and mixed each hour throughout the smoking process to make sure they’re evenly smoked. The paprika is smoked with WA alder.  This is a premium spice available to you, with so much care taken in the production process, it will ensure that you have the finest smoked paprika on the market available for your menu.

Tahitian Vanilla Beans

Tahitian vanilla beans are the most prized of the four most common varieties (Bourbon, Mexican, and Madagascar are the other three).  They are fragrant, with strong fruit and floral notes, reminiscent of cherries, prunes, raisins and anise. They have a moisture content of about 34%. They are approx. 18-20 cm long and there will be approx. 72-80 beans in a pound.  This will vary with the size of the beans as they are sold by weight.  Our beans are brought in bundles and then cured by a Mikuni culinary expert to ensure the longest possible shelf life for this high quality bean.  These beans have been highly sought after by many of the top chefs here in Las Vegas and we would be happy to bring you out a sample if you are interested.

Custom orders for our smoked paprika or smoked salts are available to you and will be completed for you with 21 days lead time.

Thanks and as always if you need anything please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Chris Palmeri

Mikuni Las Vegas

702-423-3639

cpalmeri@mikuniwildharvest.com

Michelle Covington

Mikuni Las Vegas

702-575-8121

mcovington@mikuniwildharvest.com

Mikuni Weekly Update 3/15

This is a great time for wild products from Mikuni Las Vegas this week.

We are seeing amazing Halibut from Washington State and from Alaska right now.  Here are some pictures from last week’s fish.  The Washington Halibut are coming in from the strait of San Juan de Fuca and a bit smaller than the Alaskan variety but every bit as nice.  We are getting them from the Quinault Indian Tribe and several fisherman in the area as well.  On the Alaskan side we are working with a smaller family fishery and we are getting any size we need all the way from 10-15 LBS up to 60 LBS.  Both areas have been pristine and all chefs that have brought them have commented on the quality and taste.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with our seafood program I would like to let you know about it.  We have a seafood expert named Jeff that lives on the Olympic Peninsula.  Jeff is our man for all things seafood out of the Pacific Northwest.  On the wild seafood side Jeff hand picks out our fish on the docks from that morning’s catch.  Jeff then carefully packages and ships them overnight to Las Vegas, thus ensuring you get the freshest, high quality seafood available in the city.

Also this week, MORELS, MORELS, MORELS!!  The quality on these “Orchard Morels” out of northern California is amazing.  The price is down and availability has been great.  Just a quick side note…these morels grow in the sandy soil of the olive orchards, so a quick rinse before cooking might be necessary.  Don’t hesitate, Morel season is in full bloom right now and will make an amazing addition to everyone’s menu this week.  Pictures below are from what came in from the orchards this morning.  Call me at 702-423-3639 to get some of these gems in your kitchen.  Quick side note on wild mushrooms for your menus, Black Trumpets, Chanterelles, Yellow Foots and Hedgehogs are still coming in and have been good quality but this is extremely late on these mushrooms and the season should be winding down in the near future.

Wild Greens this week.  Hand and hand with the morels are wild greens out of the Pacific Northwest.  The weather has been ideal and we are seeing from the field Stinging Nettles, Miners’ Lettuce and West Coast Fiddlehead Ferns.  We are also looking for our wild salad mix from “Running Squirrel” towards the middle to end of this week.  I will keep you posted on that.

Finally Truffles, we still have all three varieties that are in season right now; Perigord, Bianchetti and Burgundy.  The  quality on all three is the same order they are listed in.  Arriving fresh overnight from New York Mikuni can take care of all of your fresh truffle and truffle product needs.  If you are interested in fresh truffles we can even bring our “box of truffles” right to your restaurant and help you hand pick out your truffles.

Thank you for your time and business and don’t forget if you need anything from the Santa Monica Farmers’ market this week please let me know tonight.

Chris

Mikuni Las Vegas

702-423-3639

cpalmeri@mikuniwildharvest.com

Staff Training Classes Now Available!

Mikuni Las Vegas would like to extend our staff training classes to you and your restaurant staff.  We have offered these classes in the past with our fresh truffle program and they were very successful.  It helps to educate your servers and staff about the items you are using from Mikuni on your menu.  We would now like to offer classes on our full line of products, tailored specifically to your restaurant and menu.  Please contact me at cpalmeri@mikuniwildharvest or Michelle at mcovington@mikuniwildharvest.com to set up a convenient time for you.  These classes are very beneficial and educational, but the bottom line is servers will sell what they know and this translates to higher sales for your menu.