THE RETURN OF FOOD
Under Rob Frias, Tarakaa resumes meal service bu with a Southeast Asian and sushi emphasis
When Rob Frias was asked to do a pop-up brunch at Tarakaan in March, he might have guessed that he was being auditioned as the restaurant’s new chef. But he didn’t anticipate that getting the job entailed rolling out meal service almost immediately.
“He gave me four days to open a restaurant,” Frias says of Tarakaan operator Piran Esfahani.
And when opening day came, Frias realized it was April 1: April Fool’s Day. That first day they were expecting only 50 covers; they got 200.
With that baptism by fire behind him, Frias is now comfortably settling into a new role in a new home that he says feels right. He got a good vibe from the first time he set foot in the Midtown restaurant and lounge just before the pop-up. “I said this is something unique to Houston. I said it would be a shame if we didn’t do food here,” he recalls.
Yet food hadn’t been done for a while. In February, Esfahini took the unusual step of suspending restaurant operations at the chic Asian-themed spot that had opened last September with no small amount of fanfare (the boldly designed restaurant/lounge was touted as comparative to Tao in Las Vegas, Buddakan in New York and Hakkasan concepts around the globe). Tarakaan had parted ways with opening chef Micah Rideout and decided to forgo the fancy pan-Asian menu to concentrate on the hot bar’s liquor sales.
It was a decision Tarakaan’s owners wish they had reconsidered. By March, a plan to bring back a menu was on the table. And Frias, who is a partner in a high-end private catering company called Eminent Events, came highly recommended. It didn’t hurt that Frias, whose résumé includes work as both chef and musician, worked as chef de cuisine for Donald Chang at the shuttered Nara in West Ave.
Frias wasted no time (not that there was a lot of it) putting together a menu focused on Southeast Asian plates and a sushi menu that Esfahani said better complemented the cocktail list and the largely female clientele that liked to dress up for nights on the town. Now the Buddhadecorated Tarakaan interior is graced by stunning signature-roll sushi presentations, sashimi and nigiri, and small-plate options that include slowroasted pork belly bao; beef tenderloin carpaccio; green papaya salad with roasted nuts and Thai chile; large fried prawns glossed with gochujang; butter/Champagne-poached lobster wontons; braised short rib rice cakes; and fried baby octopus with eel sauce. There are larger plates, too: pork belly ramen (courtesy of sous chef Jared Stork, who also is planning lobster ramen soon); Korean fried chicken with kimchi and nasi goreng fried rice; Thai coconut curry; seared striped bass and miso-glazed short rib with cauliflower purée.
Frias says he’s got a great crew that includes chef de cuisine Andy Hodson and new pastry chef Cait Laub, who, in addition to serving poached Asian pear with star anise and green tea mousse, is planning special fortune cookies flavored in red velvet, chocolate sesame and orange peel.
Even though it was a rush to restart food service at Tarakaan, Frias said the shell shock has worn off and the kitchen is putting out “some cool stuff.”
Esfahani’s just happy that Tarakaan’s kitchens are humming again.
“It needed the right match,” he says. “And I’m glad we found it.”