Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sous chef

As some of you might know, The Jones' sous chef left for greener pastures at the end of April and ever since the chef has been working an average of 6.75 days a week. I, as the only other full time kitchen employee, have also been working an extra 6-8 hours a week more than I was before. About 3-4 of which are over time. I was working about 37 hours a week before, but I digress. Whenever I talk to friends or family about the sous chef leaving they invariably ask if I'm going to be promoted to sous chef. I suppose that's a reasonable question for a lay person to ask but the fact is, sous chef in a kitchen like The Jones' is a position for someone with at least 4 years good cooking experience in the right sorts of places. I just don't have that. But guess what? Now I'm sous chef anyway. [doing my best Stephen Colbert impression...] "WHOOOOO, We did it! [spinning around in my chair as balloons fall from the ceiling]. Chef said so, and hey if you look at every restaurant kitchen as definitely having a chef and a sous chef than I'm totally sous chef by default anyway. So from now on when people ask me what my job is I'm going to say "Oh, I'm sous chef over at The Jones." which is awesome.

Fuckin' sous chef yo! Hooray for me!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Sauteing Again

Last night I worked the saute station for the 3rd or 4th time. It went ok, certainly better than last time. Some of my risottos were a little tight and on the whole I'm sure I was working much to slow but I avoided any major catastrophes. A couple came in that was getting engaged at some point during the evening and ordered two tagliatas which I made and I was told they loved. It was a really special feeling knowing that I made something that they will both remember for the rest of their lives.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Free Bacon!

Today a woman demanded that she not be charged for the bacon on her burger because "one piece was warm and one piece was cold." Everyone agreed that was a new one and she was totally full of shit. Both pieces were definitely warm and the same temperature. The bacon plate sits above the very warm range in the 90 degree kitchen all day. Then it gets briefly tossed on the grill to order. Then we place it on top of the also warm burger patty. THEN it sits under a heat lamp for 0-1.5 minutes before its run to a table. Its pretty much the same every time someone orders a bacon burger. This order was early in the day before we were very busy and so it probably went out pretty quick.

People who try to get free things at restaurants by making up bullshit problems with the food: You can usually get away with it because we have to be polite, avoid a scene, et cetera, but we know when you're lying, exaggerating, or whatever, and we hate you. We (well, me at least) hope you choke on your free bacon and realize the karmic irony just before you lose consciousness. Good thing I don't deal with customers, huh?

Speaking of the bacon plate, it sits at eye level right next to my station all day and this results in me eating 10-16 pieces of bacon per week.

I hope reading this entry made you want some bacon!

Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Do Not Order Your Salad Dressing "On The Side"

Dressing a salad is a fairly simple task. I do it everyday. Usually many times a day. It's my job. Sure you could probably train a monkey to do it, but I like to think I'm pretty good at it anyway. Some people don't trust me to put dressing on their salads though. They come to the restaurant were I work to get some dinner, sit down at their table, look over the menu and decide that a crisp, refreshing pile of various lettuces is just the thing to knock off the dust of the day. "But wait" they say to themselves "The menu says that salad comes with dressing. What do I know about the person who might be preparing my salad? Can he be trusted to figure the proper dressing lettuce ratio? No, its too risky. I need that dressing on the side." If you don't trust the kitchen staff to not fuck up the dressing on your salad than why did you go to eat there at all? How can you trust them to prepare more complicated dishes? Requests for light or heavy dressing, while still annoying, are at least not insulting.

Furthermore when dining out you should always keep in mind that every time you make a special order you are making someones job more difficult. Unless you have problems with food allergies you really shouldn't make special orders at all. Order what's on the menu and stop being so goddamn picky. Picky eaters suck.
Locations of visitors to this page