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Kabawa is one of NYC's hottest new restaurants, serving up Pan-Caribbean cuisine and led by executive chef Paul Carmichael. The fine dining space offers a prix fixe menu featuring modern takes on traditional Caribbean dishes such as pepper shrimp, chuletas can can, goat with spicy scallop Creole, and "jerk" duck sausage. Right next door is Bar Kabawa, a casual offshoot known for its popular fried and baked patties with a variety of fillings including duck, beef, and shrimp.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Kabawa is a pan-Caribbean restaurant that 100% celebrates everything from the
00:08West to the Caribbean. From music, to the design, to the food, to hospitality. It is
00:13a place that celebrates Caribbean culture in every way. Kabawa presents a
00:20prefix menu. It's a choice of three. You pick one from its section, appetizer, main
00:25course for dessert, and we fill in the gaps so you can have a full experience.
00:30When you eat in a Caribbean home, it is bountiful and it is generous, and I want
00:36people that eat here to feel joy and hospitality. You feel good in someone's house.
00:48This is a wonderful piece of pork from Pennsylvania. So we have the loin going
00:55into the belly, all attached. This essentially is what we serve in the
01:00restaurant. Chuletas Can-Can. It is also a dish from Puerto Rico, and the intent for
01:07this is to have a perfectly cooked piece of meat, but with really crispy skin.
01:12Every day we do this, we wish we had a bandsaw. So what Dylan's gonna do next is
01:17clean these up and score the skin, and that's where the name Can-Can comes from.
01:22Because the skin flares out like a dress. I lived in Puerto Rico for three years.
01:28The Can-Can is like one of those things that I just loved always, even though it was fully
01:35overcooked every time. Traditionally, this whole thing is like deep-fried, but with
01:40deep-fried it, you end up overcooking the loin, but you still get really good texture.
01:46So I wanted to find happy space to do both.
01:50What I'm doing is just getting this skin crispy in parts. That's it.
01:54You see, it's starting to get puffy. So you see how it's changing color. All these little
01:59bubbles are popping up, but then we'll pop away here, get good contact, quick coloring.
02:06So from here, just get seasoned with black pepper, coriander. This one's dry ricayito,
02:13which is culantro, onion, garlic, oregano. So we just pop it in the oven and cook this bit to temperature.
02:28Finish it with a bit of culantro oil. That's it.
02:32We got some goat shoulders here to get from New Jersey. They're coming out of brine.
02:44They're going to just confit them. Processed days go three hours. These have been in brine for
02:49three days because we've been waiting for your ass to get here.
02:53We start by brining it, then it's confit, it's pressed, and we cut it into a little block,
02:58so we serve it with this like really flavorful, spicy scallop sauce.
03:05This is grapeseed oil that we're bringing up to temp. We'll put the goat into the oil and bring that
03:12up to like 200 degrees. This is definitely not a traditional Caribbean technique. This is a personal
03:19choice to get to the point I wanted to get to. Intentional steps to give joy. We are going to wrap
03:24these bad boys up, pop them in the oven at 250 for about three and a half hours.
03:38This is the wonderful Gabby. She is one of the pastry cooks here. We're about to start making
03:43one of our patty doughs for your fried patty. And this is a really like simple dough, but it's really
03:47about like the technique of making it. Then in goes turmeric, salt and sugar. You know, we got two
03:54types of patties on the menu, fried and baked. The baked is more traditional inverted puff pastry,
04:00whereas this one, it's still a lamination, but the ratios of butter to flour work so it doesn't just
04:07blow apart when you put in your fryer. And they're sold exclusively at Bar Kabawa. In this space, there's
04:12eight extra place and 12 extra place. In eight extra place, there's Kabawa, the main dining room,
04:20the main event. You come here for dinner, you bring your parents, you propose here. Then at 12 extra
04:27place, we have Bar Kabawa. Kabawa is the parents. Bar Kabawa are the rowdy children. It is wine and
04:34cocktail focus. The cocktail that it focuses on is the daiquiri. And we serve patties there and other small
04:41little bites. Right now, it's looking a little bit rough and rugged, kind of like me on a Friday
04:47night. And we need it to look more smooth and cohesive. Next steps, Gabby's just gonna portion
04:56this and wrap it so it can rest. Then we'll make the butter packet. Then that'll rest. And then we'll
05:03combine it all together.
05:09When we started this, we were doing it by hand. And we quickly realized that that
05:13shit was not gonna fly. We had to invest in a sheeter and it changed our world. Doing this by
05:19hand is not fun, especially when you're making hundreds of them. One sheeter plus Gabby equals success.
05:25This is Max. He's the CDC here. We have made the dough. This is the final product before we start
05:36portioning it. We call this our swirl dough because of this. And this ends up being a pattern on the
05:43patties after we make them. The thickness that I'm cutting it is for the weight of the dough to be
05:49consistent. We want a consistent shape as we go to sheet it. Because after we sheet it, depending on
05:55the patties, it's cut to a certain shape. For ease of service, for guests, we've decided to make
06:04PlayStation shapes. So squares, triangle, and circle. And each shape is a particular filling. Duck is square,
06:13circles, beef, triangle, shrimp. I was born in a Haitian bakery where my father showed me how to make patties.
06:25Funny story, when Paul was looking for a CDC and he interviewed me, one of the questions he asked me is
06:31like, hey, do you know how to make patties? And I'm like, bro, I know how to make patties? What was the other
06:36question I asked you? I asked him because he was in Boston. Yeah. Patriot fan, yes. I was like, you're
06:43a patriot fan? I was like, there's a wrong and right answer. So we'll just build a few patties. This is
06:52going to be very Italian grandma now making pasta. We're just spritzing it with water so that the dough
06:57could stick to each other. This is our short rib stuffing. So there's short rib, a bunch of alliums.
07:04We make essentially like a stew. Then on top, Max is putting conch from Long Island and bone marrow.
07:10And then we'll fill the patties. So this is essentially a take on a traditional beef patty.
07:16But I wanted to use short rib, you know, surf and turf. Conch, bone marrow adds fat. Getting the air
07:23out. I live in Flatbush now and there's tons of patties. When we were doing RD, Max and I walked
07:28around and ate a bunch of patties from different spots. They're a lot of the same. And we really
07:34wanted to differentiate ourselves with technique and few Lux ingredients.
07:42So these goats just came out of the oven. They're going to sit and rest for a little while. And then
07:50my buddy Sherwin will pull them and press them into a hotel pack. This is Sherwin. Sherwin's been with
07:58us for how long, Sherwin? A month and a half. A month and a half. So essentially, we're going to take
08:03these out and bring in some of the fat off. We're pulling all the meat off and we're going to save as
08:08much meat as possible and get rid of all the tendons and most of the fat while keeping it as chunky as
08:14possible. Instead of it being shredded, I want it to be to feel like you've pulled this piece off a
08:20cooked shoulder. You know how you have like pulled pork and you just grab a chunk and want it to feel
08:26like, hey, this is a chunk that we've pulled off and it's on your plate. Rather it be like patΓ©.
08:32We get rid of a lot of the veins and sinew. These shoulders today are quite large, so they're quite
08:39fatty. Then start laying these chunks in. So right now, all I'm looking for is to make sure
08:45there are no air pockets. I want to just keep the chunky bits like this so that when we go to
08:50portion it and you as a guest get it, you're getting a good piece of meat and not like just a bunch of this.
09:09I'm going to start a duck sausage. This is one of our main courses.
09:13This is a sausage that is inspired by another sausage from Puerto Rico,
09:19but it's flavored in a way where it could mimic jerk.
09:24It's flavors of jerk. It's not really jerk. Because to have real jerk, you need a lot of smoking,
09:32blah, blah, blah. You know, so we're taking some creative liberties with the term and presenting
09:38a flavor rather than a cooking style. We're taking the leg and the thigh bone out of the
09:44duck legs. Trying to get, you know, a good amount of meat off of there.
09:47Dylan's just going to roast these bones quickly and that'll go into the to the braise to just add
09:55roasted flavor. I always tell my crew here our most important ingredient is time. Letting something
10:02marinate, letting something cure, letting something ferment, letting, you know, whatever it might be.
10:08Everything here presents incredibly simple, but there's a lot of back-end work that's done by Dylan,
10:15myself and the prep team to get things ready for the line cooks and the guests.
10:19This is scotch bonnets. They're going whole. Scotch bonnet. Incredible pepper. They have a very long
10:28and building heat and they're quintessential to Caribbean cooking. We keep them whole because
10:35I want it when it's braised that the flavors of the chili come out more than the heat, which is
10:44inside mostly the seeds and the veins. Garlic. We keep whole as well. Onion. These are poblano peppers.
10:52Celery, ginger, salt and allspice. And then this is a mixture of green seasoning, which is one of these
11:02seasoning bases we use here and lots of time. Different time this time. And this adds some color
11:09color and essentially we'll just layer it in and then this will marinate overnight. The menu is written
11:19in a way where it intentionally honors different parts of the Caribbean and not in a very loud way.
11:26There is the English speaking Caribbean and the French speaking Caribbean, Spanish speaking, Dutch.
11:31And we all have little things in every space to represent those regions.
11:40We're an hour and a half out from service. We are incredibly behind because Connor's been here all
11:46day. You know, but yes, we're an hour and a half out of service. The prep team is starting to wrap up
11:52so they could go home and the line cook have just gotten here like half an hour ago. But we have this
11:58goat to finish and duck sausage to finish before service. Okay. Ducky's done. There's a ton of fat
12:06and we are just going to strain this off. Everything in here we will use for said sausage.
12:13The liver adds richness, iron, added some rice. It gives body, it gives texture from here. We're going
12:26to add some fat. This is essentially done. We're just going to test for seasoning at the moment.
12:32We need a little bit of heat in this particular mix. And here we have fermented scotch bonnet. And we'll
12:44add a tiny bit of that to up the ante because this isn't spicy enough. Dylan and I do this every week
12:53and it's been a good bonding experience for us. Right? Right, Dylan? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we really
12:58know you. We get to know each other really well. We prick this to get rid of any sort of ear pockets.
13:05We'll go back around after it's linked. So these get poached afterwards. We're going to poach them for
13:11about six to seven minutes just really to cook the intestine because obviously everything else inside
13:18is cooked. Then we cool them down. We hang them for a day to form dry skin. Then we smoke them and then
13:27they're ready to serve.
13:35This is starting to prep for the pepper shrimp. These are awesome Montauk shrimp. We save all the heads
13:41and shells for stock and sauce. So pepper shrimp is quintessential Jamaican street snack. Think about
13:50shrimp cocktail but shell on and spicy. So we'll peel all of these and then we'll get to de-veining them.
13:58They get served with hibiscus, scotch bonnet, thyme. The entire region we're trying to showcase.
14:04Lesser known countries because the Caribbean isn't just about Jamaica and Trinidad and Barbados.
14:10That messy menu evolves and change. We'll highlight different regions of the Caribbean. I've said Caribbean a
14:17lot. Happy Tuesday folks. Tonight we're at 45 covers. You already know what the name of the game
14:25is. Communicating, following the ticket as it comes in on royalty. Other than that,
14:31let's do what we always do. Be great on three. One, two, three. Be great!
14:43First thing the guest gets is a creative roti, a bust-up shot with bammy. It comes with four dips,
14:50pepper jelly with butter, plantain, guava chutney, and our chickpea curry.
14:56Put it nice and crispy. Let me rip it up. Here's our bammy made from cassava root.
15:06There we have it.
15:10Order in two. Fire pepper shrimp, mushroom, followed by a goat and a bass. Happy Tuesday.
15:17Let's have a great service.
15:18Every main course here is essentially a protein or a vegetable and a sauce element.
15:26Order in two. Fire mushroom cassava dumpling, followed by a goat and a bass.
15:31That's a turnover on the board.
15:33Leaving a cabal you should feel like a million dollars. You should feel you've been taken care of.
15:39You should feel that people gave a about you. You should just feel good. That is bottom line.
15:46That is our goal. That's what we want to do. From the dishwasher to the GM.
15:52You know, our MO is to just try and make people feel good.
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