- [Ross] What up, Shane? - [Shane] How you doing, chef? Good afternoon. - [Ross] How big are the fish today? - [Shane] It's a good size one. (upbeat music) - Pretty nice size. Still a little bit of rigor. We buy a lot of mackerel.
- Oh yeah, you guys kill it. - So the mackerel toast is a
dish that looks really simple but takes four or five days
to create the end product. - And the mackerel at
Mabel's probably, like, the best mackerel I've ever had. You know, mackerel is probably
the hardest-worked fish, you know, even for the chefs too, just because they're small. - But we find that the
medium to large size mackerel are able to sustain the smoke
without getting overcooked. Such a simple dish that, you know, there's really no place to hide. We're not putting a bunch
of condiments on it. It's all about the, you know,
the fresh fish and the smoke. (upbeat music continues) There we go. Let's call it there. - We like to process
'em as soon as possible, just to keep the freshness of it. So what he's gonna do is
gonna basically filet 'em off. After he is done fileting,
he'll debone them, and then we'll start our curing process, which is a sugar and salt mixture. And then we just serve it with our, you know, Secret Sister country bread, a couple Guindilla peppers, some lemon. That's all you need. - We couldn't open Mabel's without having opened the bakery first. The schedule over at
Secret Sister, the bakery, is they start at 3:00 in the morning, they finish baking around noon, they bring the bread to Mabel's. Neale is about to shape
bread for tomorrow. This is the country loaf. This is the first step in
our mackerel toast dish that we serve at Mabel's. It gets served on a nice thick,
fresh slice of country loaf. - We obviously do all of our bread here, and we sell it at the bakery, and then we use it for
Mabel's and The Rose. But what's cool about the mackerel, and what I think is special with it too, it's one of the places that
the country gets served fresh and not toasted. And so it has to be made day of, and that's really what
makes it so good, I think. I don't think it would be the same product if it was on, you know, grilled bread. - So, three days before the
bread gets to the customer, that's when the first ferment starts. Five days before the fish
gets to the customer, that's when the processing
of the mackerel starts. - Nacho's just finished up a batch, fileted them and v-cut them. V-cut just removes the
pin bones from the middle, makes it a little easier
to clean after smoking, so he's going to cure them lightly. What we have in this little shaker is equal parts salt and sugar. And then we're gonna let these hang out for a full 24 hours in the walk-in. The walk-in's going to
circulate cold air around them. The salt's gonna pull moisture out. That cool air is gonna
pull the moisture off, creating a nice pellicle
for the smoke to adhere to, and that's crucial to
getting that flavor right. (upbeat music continues) - So all this bread gets
shaped the day before and then it cold-proofs
overnight in its bannetons, and then we bake it from
cold in our deck ovens. So we're just scoring it
and we're about to go in. So, because of our space, too, all of our bread is
hand-loaded on the boards. We don't have a loader or anything, so it gets a little tricky sometimes, but we have figured it out. And then we double steam it. - 24 hours later, so we've
cured these last night, and it gives the smoke
something to adhere to, which gives it, like, a nice color. But also, obviously, flavor
is what we're going after. These will be in the
smoker around an hour. Single box. We got about three levels in here. We use a soft wood, typically fruit. Right now we're using applewood. So we put that in there,
turn this puppy on, it's got a timer on it, an hour later, we'll
come back and check it. (upbeat music continues) - [Neale] So all of our bread
that's been baked this morning is gonna get bagged and ready for Mabel's. So when I think about sourdough, and the loaf of bread that I really like, I want color on it. I want a good, deep crust and I want it to be soft
and chewy on the inside. - Bread delivery usually
comes from Secret Sister right around, like, 12:30. Neale, after her shift,
brings it over to us. Bread stays uncut until closer to service. So we'll just put that away
and starting to clean mussels, get that process going. We found the best mussel
was Saltspring mussels. They're super plump and they have, like, a nice little, like,
orangey-reddish hue to them. It's really aesthetically pleasing. But they're larger and
they tend to be just a... Just have that like real
nice, toothsome bite but still remaining tender. (upbeat music continues) - Dan and Ross had worked
at The Rose with me before we came over here, and Dan developed that mussel dish, and it's been on the menu since day one. - Yeah, we're gonna
throw 'em on the stove. (upbeat music) Now they'll probably steam
for eight to 10 minutes until they're fully open. We'll save the liquor, and that will be incorporated
into our marinade. - The local fisheries here in San Diego were historically really strong, and now it's becoming
more and more difficult to be a fisherman in San Diego. So we really wanted to try to do our part to support the industry
here and keep it viable. (upbeat music continues) One of the things that we care about here is making sure that we're
honoring the product, not manipulating it too much so that you can still really understand that what you are eating here is extremely fresh, delicious fish. - [Dan] Help these guys cool off. After that we will debeard 'em, and then we'll marinate it. (upbeat music continues) - What's up chef?
- Hey! - Got your prawns here. So these are soft-shell prawns. So these guys are the ones
that have molted this week. And then these guys here,
those are your popcorn prawns. Our typical cycle's about 15 weeks. These guys are probably
about seven weeks old, so they're about seven
gram, eight gram average. And our typical big boys
are around 30 gram average. - Steve was talking to him
about all the different sizes and ages that he sells, and this one definitely
stood out to Dan and I. These are the popcorn king prawns, and we just dredge 'em
in a little rice flour and fry them whole. Dan and I loved eating the heads of prawns and this way it was like you
could just eat the whole thing and think it was something new
and exciting to our clientele and our guests here at the restaurant. (lively music) We'll lightly season. We'll hit this with a
little sherry vinegar, some fresh lime juice, and then right before
we get to go to plate, some garlic chives. (lively music continues) There it is. Now our guy Nacho is starting the next process on the mussels. They've been steamed, cooled slightly. And so what he is doing now, is kind of shucking 'em out of the shell and de-bearding them. We find that debearding them
after they've been cooked, they come out a little cleaner, and there's nothing left residing in the flesh of the mussel themself. So what we're gonna marinate
these Saltspring mussels in, they've been cooked, debearded. And here we have the finish escabeche. It is a combination of, like, a smoked paprika and orange
oil, lots of aromatics. That's cooked on low to kind of pull out the natural oils from everything. And then on the bottom is the vinegar and cooking liquid, or
mussel liquor, if you will, from the cooking process. These are gonna sit for
a minimum of 24 hours, but we like to go 48, optimal. All right, it's been
a little over an hour. Got a small little batch
of freshly smoked mackerel. We do it in small batches, one, so these things can get full smoke. And what we're looking
for is some nice color, which we have here, all because we allow them
to cure for 24 hours. So these are smoked perfectly. - So yeah, the mackerel's
been butchered, cured, and now we're just gonna clean 'em up. Take a little bit of bloodline
off, take the skin off, and then drop it into our aromatic oil, and nestle 'em in there. (upbeat music) - So for our mussels, grilled sourdough, it comes straight off the grill, rub it with some raw garlic. The camera doesn't lie. I mean, they were nice, they were plump, but
they weren't this plump. After they spent the time in the marinade, they just kind of, like,
accept all that in, and they just plump up
really, really nice. (upbeat music continues) Steve brought us these
beautiful soft-shell jumbos, which are definitely a specialty. You know, the way he harvests them, they're not always available. Sometimes he needs to let 'em grow. So Chef Dan and I, pre-service, we're just gonna mess around with these, try a couple concepts that we have. Just gonna season 'em with
a little bit of salt here before they hit the grill. We got this, like, little
hotspot in the back, so we want that char and
we want that intense heat. So we're gonna put those
right on that hotspot, not let 'em sit too long. The popcorns we did,
because it seemed like the perfect kind of,
like, little bar snack to have on our menu. But here, you get that added
caramelization, that char. We're always looking to
innovate, change our menu, excite our cooks and ourselves,
and our customers for sure. You know, but it's really cool when our favorite purveyors bring us something a little different. You don't get prawns in
that mid-molting process when you order frozen prawns
or tiger prawns from overseas. So this is super special and not many people get to work with this. I like to hit 'em directly
with a little bit of citrus because as they relax, they're
gonna suck that back in and it's gonna be part of the shrimp. I'm gonna hand 'em off to Chef Dan. - So we'll probably try
these two different ways. We'll just do 'em as-is so
we can just taste the flavor. And then I made this, a spicy
fennel garlic scape condiment that we'll try it with. A little fennel pollen. Sea salt. - To me, the most important
part about this restaurant is that you can trust what we're doing, that we're using quality ingredients, and it's still fun and approachable, and everybody feels welcome here. (upbeat music continues) - What do you think? Menu ready? - I don't think anyone would be mad at it. - Like, the shell's there,
but it's so not a factor in such a great way that eating all of it is definitely accessible. Even for the more timid diner, I think they're gonna be timid until they take that first bite. All right, that was fun. Service time. (upbeat music continues) - If you think about the mackerel toast, which is a super simple dish - just bread, fish, Guindilla
pepper, salt, olive oil - that's something that takes
us five days to create. It starts with Shane
bringing us the fresh fish. We process it, we cure it, we smoke it, we then marinate it, and then five days later it
can make it to the plate. The bread starts three days before it can make it to the plate with the initial sourdough ferment. Sounds simple and it's not. Sometimes I think people even
think we're opening a can. - And that's basically it. The dish, fresh country
bread, our mackerel. It's been cured, smoked,
couple Guindilla peppers, extra virgin olive oil, a little crunchy sea salt, and a lemon. (funky music) - The idea for Mabel's, we wanted to create a neighborhood space. We wanted to create really good food in this place I've lived in for 15 years. We wanted to pay homage to a
certain style of dining culture that you can find in Spain and Portugal where you can get a
small snack and a drink, or a full meal, and
you can take your time, or you can be fast about it. You can sit outside, you can
be a part of your neighborhood. I think San Diego is seeing a renaissance, for sure, of homegrown. We very recently got a direct-to-market fisherman's
market in San Diego only, like, three years ago. (funky music continues) One thing I think is really cool is there's lots of us that grew up here that are now able to put
themselves into a business and have come back from other markets to open restaurants here. (funky music)
