RESTAURANT REVIEW- Tsunami

A cornerstone of the Cooper-Young District, Tsunami (928 South Cooper Street, www.tsunamimemphis.com) has established itself as one of the most unique dining experiences in Memphis. Founder, owner, and head chef Ben Smith has devoted himself to captivating diners with his talents for many years, and so when it was my wife’s birthday, Tsunami was the place we chose for her special night.
The first thing you should know about Tsunami is that it is a lively place. Driving past it on any given night, the window tables are full of diners, and the tables themselves are packed with wine glasses and dishes. Walking into the restaurant can be quite intimidating, as your first step is basically into the bar where guests are boisterous and greet you even before the hostess can. On this night, a Saturday, the place was packed and the dining room was loud, which takes a lot for me to say because no place is usually too loud for my likings.
The décor of Tsunami is impressive. Every decoration supports the theme of the restaurant, which is Pacific Rim cuisine, and no detail is left spared. Our table was a small, cozy table by a wall towards the back of the restaurant. If you make reservations, (as I had but did not know) I would suggest that you request a window table. The tables face Cooper which can be very fun people-watching.
Our server was very sweet and capable. She was accommodating, even adjusting the thermostat for my wife, but her service was not what I would consider professional, as she used casual and lax comments with us, such as, “That’s awesome,” but she did a great job overall.
The wine list is in-depth, with many choices, but nothing too far off the beaten path. Tsunami does offer a nice selection of splits, which is great because my wife drinks white, and I usually drink red, so we both got our own half-bottle.
For appetizers, we were going to have Shrimp and Tasmanian Sweet Crab Ceviche and Chilled Avocado Soup with Pico de Gallo, but we were told by our server that they were out of both items. Instead, we ordered the Sake Steamed Mussels in Thai Red Curry Sauce and the Crispy Calamari with Chipotle Aioli.
The calamari was fresh and well prepared. No risks were taken in this dish, just like fried calamari anywhere else, but the quality of it was apparent. And the portion was enormous. They could actually cut the portion in half and it would still be a lot of food. The mussels were forgettable. The mussels themselves were tough, and the sauce had no flavor. I usually relish in a big bowl of steamed mussels, wanting to sop up every bit of broth with bread, but not this sauce. It was bland and tasteless.
For dinner, my wife ordered the Spice Crusted Tuna on Cucumber Salad with Wasabi Vinaigrette, and I, though knowing I should have thought better of ordering a steak at a restaurant known for great seafood and fish, ordered the Marinated Grilled Ribeye with cornmeal crusted onion rings. The server supported the choice, telling me it was probably her favorite thing on the menu. I am a strong proponent that any chef must be proud of each and every item on his menu and would not prepare anything sub-par, just to provide a red-meat option for his guests. But my ribeye was anything but good. The one positive was that it was cooked to temperature, but that was the only positive. The marinade tasted like a fish rub, and it was served with mashed potatoes and sautéed vegetables. My plate looked more like something from Piccadilly than a fine restaurant. Even the plate itself was bland. They serve all of their other dishes on exciting and interesting porcelain saucers that shape the dish, but my steak was brought out on a nine-inch round white plate. It was disappointing. I enjoyed my mashed potatoes more than the meat. The tuna, on the other hand, was phenomenal. It was cooked perfectly to my wife’s specifications (rare), and the crust was the perfect thickness and crispness. The fish melted in your mouth, and the cucumber salad was a perfect match. The dish is highly recommended, and when I return to Tsunami, I will be ordering that and not red meat.
In the scheme of restaurants, Tsunami is a good restaurant, but another visit would have to convince me that it is a great restaurant. The establishment has a solid following, and it is beloved by most diners in Memphis, but with a check that totaled over $150, I can think of other local restaurants where I would rather spend my next special occasion.

2.5 out of 5 stars
Category of Fine Dining (Level 4)

Restaurants According to Ben

So I guess I should just come out and say it. “I love restaurants!” There it is. So there is no confusion. So no one on down the road can say, “You must hate dining out.” Absolutely not. In fact, the opposite is true. I do love restaurants. I enjoy them so much, I made it my livelihood for a number of years. I enjoy entertaining people. I enjoy crowds. I enjoy great tasting cuisine, prepared with impeccable ingredients, and served with enthusiasm. I love restaurants so much, that I admire great ones. I love restaurants and would dine out each night of the week, if I didn’t understand that not every restaurant is value, and that some of them use techniques to increase their margins, which directly affect the experience of dining out.
So dining out becomes an evaluation for me. And that is why I was paid to do just that, evaluate restaurants. Sitting at a table in a restaurant, I can gauge in just a few seconds how well run and well-maintained the establishment is. Spotted flatware shows the utensils weren’t wiped dry but left to “drip-dry,” a server involved in mindless chatter to an employee about that evening’s events after they are off work, diners at another table with empty glasses, and uncleared tables throughout the dining room with dirty dishes from past guests. These are obvious, but clear examples of details that calculate the worth of the experience because every restaurateur encounters thousands of decisions each day that will affect his guests’ experience.
Let’s role play… and not like that.
You are a restaurateur. You have three main expenses: food and beverage, labor, and operating expenses. Your operating expenses, such as utilities and rent, do not change that much. In the winter they may go up from running the heat, but in the summer they could also rise from running the air conditioning. The bottom line is that unless your landlord hikes up your lease, or someone leaves the A/C on 60 overnight, your operating expenses should remain nearly the same. Your labor cost should dabble at 20% and your food cost should be concrete at 30%, some places can get down to 25%, and Chinese and Mexican restaurants can boast 15-20% food costs.
But to maintain these labor and food costs, you have decisions. Jumbo Lump Crabmeat goes up $2/lb. Do you continue to buy it for your crab cakes, or do you drop to lump instead? What would your guests prefer? It’s Friday night, you have a new line cook working, should you bring in an extra guy to back him up? This will cost you more on your labor, but what if the newbie can’t get food out in time? What if tickets run slow? How will that affect your guests? It is 8 o’clock on a Tuesday, your servers beg you to cut someone, leaving you with less staff on the floor, but leaving your servers with an opportunity to make more money? What do you do? What if 12 people come in all at once, and your servers get weeded? What if you say no, and your servers make no money because it is slow? Finding good staff is hard, and if they aren’t making good money, they won’t stay long.
These dilemmas occur daily for a restaurant owner. But they must always be mindful of the guest experience. But how do I know whether or not the place I have just sat down at, with the spotted utensils, and the thirsty diners at table 23, will provide me with a good guest experience? I don’t. And that is why I stopped dining out so much, and I started dining in.
I realized that I could apply the insights from running a commercial kitchen, such as, creating specials to burn-out old product, to never waste anything, and to create menus with overlapping ingredients to keep overhead down and upkeep simple, to my own kitchen at home and save me and my family a bundle of money while maintaining a enlivened palate.
Let’s be frank. I already told you that most restaurants hover around a 25% food cost. So what does that mean for someone dining out? The bill you are paying is only 25% food. The other 75% is for the experience and the preparation. Service is not included in the U.S. That cost you another 15%-20% more. So 75% of each meal dining out is paying for your experience and the preparation of the meal. So each meal should be evaluated. How much value does it hold? Should you spend $8 on a sandwich from a deli? And how about take out, or to-go-orders. Restaurants love this. Why do you think the national chains have now gone out of there way to accommodate call-in orders to the point that they will rush the food out to your car? Think about it? They are selling you food at the same price as if you came in and dined in their restaurant. But you aren’t taking up a seat in their dining room. They don’t have to consider your guest experience as much as a table of four inside. It is a win-win for them. 75% of that pickup order is paying for the upkeep, maintenance and profit margin of the business. To-go orders are a waste of money. I never order them. Why would I want to pay the same price as someone getting full-service at a table, and have to take home a meal that steams itself gooey inside a styrofoam container to come to my home, where I have to use my condiments, my silverware, and I have to clean it up afterwards? That is not a good guest experience.
But let me backup by saying, some places are worth it. My favorite sandwich shop in Memphis, called Fino’s, makes a sandwich that I would never try to recreate or duplicate myself. The preparation they go through is perfect. If I want that sandwich, then I am going to get it from then. And that is what a good guest experience is all about. My lessons through being a restaurateur have taught me, though, to keep those instances for certain nights, and to not rely heavily on dining out for your everyday meals. By doing so, you are missing out on the ability to save yourself money and eat healthier than picking up dinner somewhere every night of the week.

So, Ben, you have convinced me that dining out is not practical, what am I supposed to do now?

Well, as you will discover, I am not a professional chef. I do not get my recipes from the Food Network because you will slit your wrist trying to track down an organic mushroom farm to pick your own wild mushrooms for a risotto or some other obscure item that they try to impress you with. More than a chef, I am a home economist. You’ve heard of that, right? HomeEc. We didn’t have to study that when I was in school, and I think that is both good and bad. I think it has left us somewhat deprived and ignorant of basic cooking instincts, which are truly instincts. You basically know when you are following a recipe if or when something smells wrong, looks wrong, or worse… taste wrong.
By not being a chef, nor wanting to be a chef (I have worked with enough to know how hard it can be), I have more of a simplified approach to cooking. None of my recipes are complicated, they aren’t even challenging, but what they are is good, fresh, inexpensive ingredients, brought together in a timely fashion.
Take this story for example. As I was consulting a chef once, I noticed there was frozen broccoli in her freezer. I asked her what it was for, and she said it was for broccoli cheese soup. I challenged her to make her finest broccoli cheese soup, and we would have a competition the following day to see whose tasted better. I left the restaurant and purchased fresh broccoli from a local produce market. As I was making my soup that night, I called the chef and said, “Don’t forget to cost out your soup.”
She couldn’t believe it. “But I put fine European cheese in it!”
“Exactly. We must know the cost.”
The ingredients for my soup were: broccoli, cheddar cheese, flour, milk, butter, cream, and salt and pepper. As simple as you can get.
The next day, what would you know, the wait staff unanimously chose my golden rue full of fresh, broccoli florettes to her paltry, bland, thin dish. The cost of my soup was fifty-eight cents a portion, hers was $2.34.
“How can we sell that?” I asked her.
“We can’t,” she said.
The point was made.

A very simple, quick, cost-effective approach is what we will take in our klitchens because that is what successful restaurants do in theirs.