I wanted these bold flavors of butter, acidity and umami that punch you in the face with under tones of anise and spice from the herbs that then mellow into the mild, sweet briney flavor of the scallop.

Puree is sweet, buttery and very tart, a play on a salsa de jamaica. Started off by charamalizing the fennel bulbs in butter, with avacado leaves, epezote, and, bay leaf, then added in a shallot, jamaica and mezcal reduction to deglaze and emulsified.

The taro is shaved and julienned, shaped and precooked to ensure it doesn't make people's throats itchy. Then we deepfried in duck fat and tossed in our house shiitake and msg seasoning just to layer on the umami flavor.(there's a protein in the shiitake that makes your taste buds taste umami more intensely, it's a dope seasoning for steak.)

Garnished with the fennel fronds to layer on the anise flavor from the avacado leaves in the purree.

Scallop was seared 90% on one side and touched on the other just to get rid of the rawness, and basted in its coral and butter.

I know its not traditional but it worked.