Day 3: Fifty Dollar Stemware and Coffee.

Finally a day at the freaking FOH. Actually, they decided that a better segue into actual training would come via the barista station, one of the many duties of the back server.

Again, not too interesting a night, the silverware kept coming in from the dishwashers, polished, and sorted into the stations in the dining room, with each batch perched oh-so-prettily on silver platters whilst walking amongst the royalty customers. The same had to be done with what I found out to be fifty dollar+ a pop stemware. Ouch. I’m glad they don’t charge for breakages, otherwise I’d probably end up with a paycheck of all of $00 and 00 cents.

Because I was the barista-in-training for the night, they had me practicing making coffee orders: everything from plain old coffee to cappuccinos, macchiatos, lattes, and what have you. The entire staff was cracked out on espresso as I perfected my milk steaming technique.

Inventory was yet another task. Apparently the ‘tard that did inventory last decided to buy three 10 pound bags of decaf espresso, yet only 1 of the regular stuff was found. Extra bags of normal coffee were nowhere to be found, and none either for the french press roasts… Oy vey. I’m looking forward to working with this dude.

 

An Interlude

It’s 2:50 am. I finished up Day 3 of my Training (with-a-capital-T), my first day doing things applicable to the job for which I was hired. And I’ve some things to share, unrelated to Training.

Anyway, thougts:

I do believe I’ve stumbled across the equivalent of waiter heaven.

In looking at the plethora of waiter horror stories circulating this series of tubes, I realize that I have really, truly lucked out in stumbling across this job.

Perhaps it’s the pooled tips, shared across Captains, Front Servers, Kitchen Servers and Back Servers; Or  that, because we only clear at most two guest’s plates at a time,  every member from the lowly Back Server that I am, to M and A, the Service and General Manager, is willing to help clear 61’s 2-top and 52’s 8-top; Or even the ~$135 a head average meal prices at this dang place.  Perhaps it’s because of this that I’m not stuck in a realm of distrust, drama, shitty customers, and pain-in-the ass moments. Shit, I’m lucky.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve not yet been jaded as I’ve been here only 3 days…

But really, I don’t get “jaded” from any of the staff there. They are all passionate about what they do, the food presented, the wines served. Pre-service, a wine gets hilighted, tasted, analyzed, all of the front of house does it, it’s like being in school, but everybody loves it.

Shit. I’m damn lucky.

Day 2: On Picking Herbs and Standing Around

I found myself back in the kitchen, this time though at a much saner hour, 12:30 pm to be exact. The sous foisted me off to the fish station’s entremetier, wherein I spent the next few hours picking and sorting through the various herbs needed for that day’s garnish. Mint, pea tendrils, and cilantro were picked all approximately the same size, all gorgeous in nature, no black spots or rips; Parsley was picked, and garlic sliced thin, both to be deep fried to crispiness. All in all a not-that-painful though not-that-interesting experience.

Except for the green almonds.

Almonds, young and still developing, found in fuzzy green fruit-pod-things, easily halved with a paring knife. Easily when they’re at the peak of their season. Surprise, surprise, it’s the end of the season. Instead of being handed a knife, I was handed a heavy ass meat mallet, and told to go to town. Except… they wanted the almonds whole.

So I whacked away, trying to find the right amount of pressure so the damn things cracked open but didn’t crush the wee-teeny little things inside. It took myself, the entremetier I was working with, the sous, and the executive sous to finally figure out the easiest way to do it. Herp.

—

After the staff meal, I breifly helped the meat station’s chef de partie make wee-little duck and liver stuffed puff pastries, then scrubbed the entire meat room down. Again, not too exciting.

Service wasn’t any better. I had spoken to the manager and he wanted me to “observe” what went on. While learning about the food was indeed interesting, there’s not much to talk about. I spent the entire night standing around watching thing happen, and feeling absolutely useless. Though, the garde manger’s chef de partie was wonderful, as was the same meat chef de partie I’d mentioned earlier — They were perfectly happy to give an explanation of every dish they put out, and gave me small tastings from whatever trimmings they had around. Delicious!

The peak of the night was when I was surprised with a 5 course tasting of the food served. Of course, I was awkwardly stood in front of the private dining room in the kitchen, in full view of the 9 or so patrons using it that night. More awkwardly, I was given the whole service song-and-dance by collegues that had been at the restaurant, and the food industry in general, for years more than I had. Derp. At one point the server working that room came over and laughingly said to me “The entire chef’s table all would like to know what job you have and if they can have it as all you do is stand there and eat!”

Oh if you only saw me with my hands all up in a chicken’s business, you’d change your tune…

—

While I really couldn’t help feeling like a lost puppy through these past two days, being passed around chef to chef doing whatever tasks needed to be done, tailing them through the kitchen as, being new there, I had no idea which walk in was for which restaurant, which type of food, and where things went, I enjoyed myself. I know where the food comes from (all wonderful places, most locally sourced smaller farms), and how much fucking work it takes to get it to be the beautifully presented meal we serve.

Gosh, this is cheezy. Herp derp.

Day 1: A Walk in the Saucier’s Shoes

At the base of every meat, fish, or veg dish, there are the stocks. On the top of various meat and fish dishes, are the sauces. These can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to prepare, or so I found out. So when the heck do kitchens find the time to do this? Apparently at 7 in the effing AM

When the chefs come in, they expect all their ingredients to be there, ready to be minced, picked, chopped, diced, and peeled, and all organized, sorted, chilled, preserved. When the heck does this happen? At 7 in the effing AM.

I found out which stocks and sauces were used, the stages they go through, how exactly they were made. Fun stuff.

Even more fun was when I was handed a huge-ass meat cleaver and told to chop up the poultry, just give it a whack right down the middle. It would’ve been very cathartic if I wasn’t half zombified and half crackified from the combination of a lack of sleep and the arse-tons of coffee I had just ingested.

The most coordination that was required of me during pre-prep was skinning and de-fattening chicken. I’ll not describe the process to save your pretty brains from the horrors, but I’ll say that skinning is horrifyingly easy to do.

Waugh.

Inventory wasn’t all that exciting, dairy goes one place, veg for one restaurant goes in another, veg for the other restaurant goes in a different bit. Things got binned, labeled and sorted, all ready for the prep cooks. Wheeeee! (Really, for being hyper and tired, it was the best job.)

With the inventory sorted and the stocks boiling away, I got foisted off to the prep staff which had just come in. And I learned two very important things:

Fava Beans Suck. A lot.

Stinging Nettles Suck. Also a lot.

The set me to prepping shucking and shelling fava beans, where four or five beans were extracted from a pod, and then each bean’s soft squashy shell had to be oh-so-gently peeled off, keeping the bean nick-free and whole. Waugh.

Stinging Nettles. To be used in Ravioli. Sorting the good ones from the bad, a whole 8 quarts of it. Pain. So much pain.

—

Really though, that was the worst of it, I was saved by the chef at the fish station, T, who had me sorting through shellfish, messing about with lobster, and cutting the roe from scallop skirts. All very messy, but really not all that bad.

Also, he fed me bits of lobster that were to torn up to use. Lobster that had just been alive a few hours before, I know I sorted through them during inventory.

OM NOM. Lobster.

I liked him.

—

So after 10 hours of pre-prep, prep, the family meal, and putting away the last of the sauces, I was sent home. I promptly collapsed and passed out with my computer on my lap, only to wake up 8 hours later (at a lovely 2 o’clock in the morn) starving.

Om. Nom. Late night chinese.

Prologue

I’ve just finished my second year in university, and I can’t say I’ve been too happy the last couple of months. My solution? Take a break — I’ve been doing poorly, I’ve been feeling poorly, do I need any other reason? Not really. It took me a bit to break it to my parents that I’m taking a break, but I’d really not waste my time (and their money) on an education that doesn’t motivate or excite me.

Therefore, I’m taking some time to work.

Two and a half weeks ago, I started scouring Craigslist for jobs, the majority of them restaurant businesses, probably losing workers due to departing college students. Never having worked in a restaurant in my life, I had sent out approximately 20 emails for nearly any position that did not require years of previous experience: anything from bussers, to hostesses, backservers, and a few server positions where restaurants were willing to train. In batches of about 5 emails every few days, I plugged and chugged my info into what, by the end, became the default format for my cover letter.

I heard back from two restaurants.

The first came from my second batch of emails, with the response inviting me to schedule an interview, noting that they had already seen my resume. Wonderful! They know I have absolutely no experience -at all- with any sort of restaurant service and they’re willing to give me a chance.

By the time we had come to an arranged interview time, the Service Manager (let’s call him M) had CC’ed who I would later discover to be the General Manager (A) and the Asst. General Manager (D). Do keep in mind that I was applying to be a back server, the one that refills water glasses and clears plates. This caught my eye, all this for that measly position? Welp.

I went in with my nice white shirt and my nice black pants and shoes, and interviewed with M and D, though A was not there at the time. I apparently talked my way through an interview I was woefully unprepared for, and I was invited back for a stage (pronouced stahdj or stahjjh, in the oh so french manner) wherein I was told to follow one of the veteran backservers, N (the most wonderfully patient woman in the world), and tossed to the wolves of the dining room.

Again, I apparently picked up on (what is definitely more than just) serving water and bread and clearing plates that they invited me back (Again!) to meet the GM, A.

Holy cow.

Two interviews, a trial day, and a third interview. Geez. They take this hiring thing seriously.

Once again, I talked my way through the interview with A. Apparently I impressed him as, at the end of that afternoon, I once again briefly met with M and was given a job offer on the spot.

Within the next few days, I was given a schedule of my training and I dove right in.

(By the way, I never responded to the second restaurant, this was just too good.)