Northern Ohio Live : September 2007 : In The Kitchen

recipe file
Seared Sea Scallops with Truffled Ohio Sweet Corn and Shaved Parmigiano

Ingredients
• 8 sea scallops, preferably diver scallops, U-10 size
• 4 ears Ohio sweet corn, unshucked
• 10 asparagus spears, bottom half peeled
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, about one ounce
• White truffle oil, about one teaspoon
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• Kosher salt, to taste
• Fresh ground pepper, to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place unshucked corn on a baking sheet and cook in oven for 30 minutes, or until almost fully cooked. Let corn cool, remove husk, clean off corn, slice corn off the cobs. Place corn in pot with heavy cream and bring to a simmer, reduce to desired consistency, add salt and pepper to taste.

Place asparagus spears and butter in a small sauté pan with a pinch of salt and pepper and place in 400-degree oven.

Season scallops with salt and pepper. In the largest, heaviest sauté pan you own, heat the canola oil until it starts to smoke, then add the scallops and cook them to almost medium, about two minutes per side. The asparagus should be ready now, so remove from oven.

On a warm plate, spoon some of the creamed sweet corn, making sure it is not too thick as the runny cream will become the sauce for the dish. Top the corn with four scallops and five asparagus spears. Lightly drizzle white truffle oil over everything (too much will ruin the dish), and shave Parmigiano on top. Serve immediately.

– recipe courtesy of Robert Neimojewski, chef/owner, Nemo Grille in Avon

Tastemaker: Robert Neimojewski, chef/owner, Nemo Grille,
36976 Detroit Road, Avon; 440-934-0061; www.nemogrille.com

Ivan J. Sheehan: Is being a chef and restaurant owner something you always envisioned yourself doing, or something you fell into?

RN: I sort of fell into it, but it’s a passion now – it’s grown into a passion. I don’t think I dreamed about it when I was a kid. My first job was in a restaurant. I started off at 14, working as a dishwasher and stuff like that. I’m 33 now. So far, so good.

IJS: So, your earliest restaurant experiences were positive enough that you wanted to stick with it?

RN: I worked some construction jobs in between here and there, in the summers, when the restaurants would slow down a little bit. But I always ended up going back to the restaurants in the wintertime. Luckily, I got to work with people who inspired me. That is the biggest thing: I never worked at a franchise place. I also worked at locally owned places, family-owned businesses. Portofino was the big one, out in Strongsville – that was an Italian restaurant, I spent about seven or eight years there. I actually ended up being a partner in there for a few years before we did this.

RN: I live about four miles up the road. We [Robert and his wife Denise] were partners in Portofino for two or three years, and we decided maybe it was time to do something on our own. This was before we had any kids – I have three girls now. We were thinking Westlake for a restaurant, but we kept driving by this building, it was vacant for like five years. I called the landlord, and [he], at that point, was getting some heat from the city to do something with the building because it had been sitting vacant, overgrown [with] weeds… we worked something out, and they made it happen where I could come in here and do most of the work.

RN: Everything, man: building the bar, putting the ceiling up, putting the floor in, all the trim ware. In the original three rooms of the house [dating back to 1850]… we didn’t really do much. We sanded the floors and painted the walls, and opened the doorways up a little bit, here and there. Obviously, we had to create a whole kitchen from scratch… Me and my father-in-law Norm Rak, he was a steel worker. He took an early retirement from a steel mill right as I was opening this place… we were here 12 to 16 hours a day for about 16 months.

IJS: What exactly drew you to this house? You mentioned going to Westlake, and you may have been able to get a place that was much less labor intensive.

RN: We were looking at plazas in Westlake, but the idea in the back of my head was [to have] a free-standing building, but then I’m thinking that’s a bit out of my reach, can’t afford it at this point. Then this came along, and it was the best of both worlds: You’ve got the charm of an 1850 house, on a major intersection in an up-and-coming city – it was kind of a no-brainer. It was a ton of work, but it was totally worth it. I think it’s really cool; I like it a lot. It’s unique.

IJS: When you first envisioned this restaurant, what were some of the initial thoughts about the cuisine and vibe?

RN: It’s ever evolving. That’s the biggest problem I have: people asking, “What kind of restaurant is it?” It’s not Italian. It’s not a steakhouse. It’s not Mexican. How do you explain to people, it’s globally influenced American food? …Every three or four months, we look at what’s selling and what’s not. We take off a few things, we add a few things, and see how things go. We do different specials all the time, try to dabble in different cuisines – what takes off? What do people like?

RN: She was involved in mostly the decorating of the restaurant. She’s a stay-at-home mom now, so she’ll take care of all the paperwork at home for the accountant and payroll, and everything else like that.

IJS: You mention that the menu is ever evolving, and a lot of that has to do with seasonal items.

RN: We have a local grower right here in [North] Ridgeville. Her name is Joyce Solomon. She comes to us in the springtime and says, “What do you want us to plant?” and we tell her all the stuff, and we have produce all year. Everything we can get local, we get local. I can’t say all our food is organic, but all our food from her is. She does a great job: tomatoes, all the herbs we do, beans, eggplants, everything.

IJS: Has using local ingredients been something you have always felt strongly about?

RN: Absolutely. They’re obviously better if they’re left in the ground longer and picked when they’re ripe, rather than picked green and shipped on a truck. You definitely taste the difference.

RN: I’ve made a lot of friends… that’s the best part. Ninety-five percent, if not 98 percent, of the people who walk out this door are very happy… That never gets old, when people genuinely are happy, and they say, “We will be back, and we are going to tell our friends.” Overall, it’s great.

IJS: You spend most of your time behind the bar, out meeting people on the floor or in the kitchen?

RN: I spend most of my time in the kitchen. I get behind the bar a little bit. Right now, I’m in the kitchen every day. Summer slows down a little bit, so I’m spending a lot more time in the kitchen. I prefer to be in the kitchen, and I prefer to come out and see how things are going. Then again, it’s really hard to run a restaurant from the kitchen, because you can’t see anything that’s going on out [in the dining area]. It’s nice to be able to do both; it’s nice to have a break. I wouldn’t want to be in the kitchen if I had to be in there all the time, every time.

RN: Sweet corn. I like scallops. I like everything. I never was a big seafood eater, but more and more, now that I have the opportunity to eat good seafood, it’s all good. I try to eat everything at least one time. It’s fun to try stuff.

RN: I think I’d be a pool cleaner. It seems like a relaxing job – get to be outside a lot, hang out at some nice houses [laughing].

RN: I would like to do one or two more interesting locations. I would like to stick in Ohio, maybe go as far as Columbus or the east side of Cleveland – not too close to this area. They’d be pretty similar food-wise – just interesting locations, old buildings.

IJS: With three young kids, it would seem you leave one busy house and come to another one, here.

RN: This is where I come to relax, really. At this point, with their ages [six, four and one], this is quiet time for me. I don’t know how my wife does it, she’s home all day with them. They’re good kids, but it’s non-stop.

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