Ok, There are a few good reasons why I moved:

1 - I did like working with Chef Peter. I consider him my first chef out of culinary school... well next to my mom and my grand mother of course who were my chefs in my lifetime. I must admit I learned a lot during my internship with Chef Peter. In his kitchen, you have to run as fast as you can and get a plate up or his bullet will hit you right in the head. Ok, I'll get on that later.

2 - I'll get to work with Acacia and Brian, people I loved working with at Aqua. I learned so much from them

3 - I miss fine dining. After working at 2 other restaurants that are just as fast paced but are not really fine dining restaurants, I started missing the logistical nightmare of working in a fine dining kitchen... coordinating plates, timing everything fired at the same time, fine chiffonades and perfect micro brunois.

4 - I miss the seasonal menu of California Cuisine. I like witnessing the season change with the menu change. It's exciting!

So meet Brian Starky. He's a cool cook!
I respect his opinion when it comes to how food should taste.
If he says it's delicious. It's DELICIOUS!

And the crazy lady below is Acacia O'boyle. O boy O'boyle!

She's the craziest and probably the fastest person I've ever worked with.

You turn around and the next minute she got a sturgeon mousse together, ready to be piped in fragile fried canolis. Not to mention she sneaked out and smoked a cigarette in between prep work.

We got along well and worked very well together too! We set up a station without really talking. We can mentally communicate! She's half Filipina so sometimes we I call her my other half.

We seem to be like 2 people with the same person. Well, we were born on the same day, 5 years and 50,000 miles apart.

We're planning on getting our own thing going.
Frenchy Filipino cuisine and we'll call it Chez Pinay!

Meet Chef Peter. I don't have to say much...