Author: John Fladd

New casino offers a full house of restaurants and bars

By John Fladd

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When The Nash, the new casino in the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, opens its doors this week, there will be a lot of food and drink involved. It boasts four restaurants and two additional bars, plus catering for private parties and service to guests practicing their golf swings or watching sporting events on a gigantic television screen — but perhaps the most surprising food fact about The Nash is how staggeringly good its pancakes are — lightly crispy around the edges, not too thick, and gently sweet with the tang of buttermilk.

“In the state of New Hampshire,” said Eric Althaus, the general manager of The Nash, “no casino is allowed to be open 24 hours. We have to close for at least five hours a day. Every day we open at 9 a.m. Sunday through Thursday we close at 2 a.m. and then on Friday and Saturday we close at 4 a.m.” Even for guests and staff on a civilian schedule, that means a lot of breakfasts.

The Woodlands Cafe on the casino’s lower level is a casual three-meals restaurant, where you would probably order the pancakes. It has “everything from obviously breakfast items to your sandwiches and burgers to more fine dishes at night as well,” Althaus said. The lower level is also the home of Stadium Social Sports Bar & Grill, where guests might order food and drinks while they watch the big game. There is also a coffee bar. On The Nash’s main level are two more restaurants: the Lucky Lantern Noodle House, and Proper Chophouse & Cocktails, The Nash’s formal restaurant, which will stock more than 1,000 bottles of wine. There is also an additional bar, the Electric Pheasant.

“Lucky Lantern was going to be the late night dining outlet,” Althaus said. “We’re not going to be ready for that at opening; we’re still making some fine enhancements to the cook line. So we are modifying the hours here [at two of our other restaurants] to ensure that we do have the food offering because we’re serving alcohol all the way until two o’clock .”

The goal, Althaus said, is to present guests with a wide variety of food options. There are luxury dishes, like premium steaks and cocktails, to luxe interpretations of popular dishes, like lobster benedict, or sliders made with wagyu beef. Special attention has gone to perfecting classic snack foods, such as house-fried potato chips and perfectly crisp french fries, fried pickles.

For the most part, food for all the restaurants will be prepared in a large central kitchen, then served at each restaurant.

“There’s one production kitchen,” Althaus said. “The Lucky Lantern Noodle does have an action station that will produce additional food as ordered, but a lot of the broths and most of the other dishes are still prepared back of house in the production kitchen.”

Once The Nash has opened (the opening is slated for March 5), serving food and beverages throughout the casino will require precision and attention to details. Althaus said the casino’s staff has been working hard to prepare.

“They’re excited,” he said. “A lot of them have been working for months, getting prepared, making sure that we’re training. We’ll be pushing through over 4,000 people just in the restaurants to work on ticket time [orders that come into the kitchen], work on consistency, presentation, everything that goes with it.”

The Nash Casino

Where: 310 DW Highway in Nashua
Restaurants & bars: Woodlands Cafe, Stadium Social Sports Bar & Grill, the Lucky Lantern Noodle House, and Proper Chophouse & Cocktails and the Electric Pheasant.
More info: thenashcasino.com

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Chefs can stay sharp with proper knife care

By John Fladd

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The first thing Jim Renna wants you to know about kitchen knives is that the sharper a knife is, the less likely it is that you’ll cut yourself.

“There’s more injuries on a dull knife than a sharp knife,” he said, “because you’re using more pressure on a dull knife.” And if the knife slips while you’re cutting, all that pressure you’ve been applying to an onion gets directed to your hand or fingers.

Renna has been a chef and cafe owner for 30 years. He has recently expanded his business to sharpening blades, particularly kitchen knives, at Kitchen on Demand Knife Sharpening (3 Executive Park Drive, Bedford). Last spring, Renna bought a new toy.

“I purchased this unit back in June,” he said, proudly nodding at his sharpening machine. “This is a Tormek T8. It’s water-cooled. It’s got all types of jigs for axes and scissors, pocket knives, just all different kinds of anything that needs to be sharpened. I did a lot of practicing, reading up and watching a lot of videos online, so for five months that’s all I did was practice, because I didn’t want to start advertising until I knew what I was doing and everything was going to be perfect.”

After decades of using knives professionally, Renna knew there is much more to kitchen knives than most home cooks think about.

Different styles of knives, for instance, are not interchangeable with each other. Each is designed for a particular use.

“You’ve got your paring knife,” he said, “which is a smaller one. You’ve got your boning knife with a thinner, more flexible blade. Then you’ve got your regular chef knives, which everybody uses for cutting. And you’ve got your serrated knives for bread and things like that.” He said that when choosing a chef’s knife, for instance, a cook should look for one that fits well in their hand and is heavy. ”So you want a heavy, balanced knife that you don’t have to apply a lot of pressure to,” he said. You’ll get safer, more exact cuts.

Renna said most home cooks don’t get their knives sharpened nearly often enough. “The recommended [frequency] is six to eight months,” he said. “Most people do like five years. Most people don’t even think to have them sharpened.”

Each knife has an ideal angle that it should be sharpened at.

“Most kitchen knives are sharpened at a 15-degree angle,” Renna said. “But a customer just brought a knife in that’s supposed to be sharpened at a 20-degree angle, so that’s a big difference. Shun [brand] knives are at 16-degree angle, so that’s a one-degree difference, but it does make a lot of difference.” Renna’s sharpening unit has several ways to ensure an exact angle when he sharpens a blade, but it gets even more complicated — as he sharpens blades on the grindstone wheel of his sharpener, the wheel wears away slightly. He needs to measure the wheel regularly and work its new size into his calculations.

One other thing Renner wishes more home cooks knew about is the difference between honing and sharpening.

If you have a round “chef’s steel” in a knife set — the type you see television chefs running their knives along — its job is not to sharpen a knife. It hones it. As you put a knife to work, the microscopic edge of the blade gets bent out of shape.

“Honing straightens the edge of the blade,” Renner said. “If you use [your chef’s steel] often, your old knives will stay really sharp for a long time. There’s a skill to it, and [cooks] should find out how to use it.” He gives the example of a barber running a straight razor along a leather strop. The leather isn’t grinding away at the blade; it’s pulling the edge into line.

Kitchen on Demand Knife
Sharpening

3 Executive Park Drive, Bedford
The cost to sharpen a blade is $1.50
per inch of blade, or scissors for $7 each.
Turnaround is about 24 hours, or over the
weekend for a Friday dropoff.
Visit the Kitchen on Demand page on
Facebook.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.