A Day at the Restaurant

Duration 10.5 Hours - 630 minutes - Weekend

1. Get to work - 35 minutes - 595 left - Time 2:00pm
2. Park bike - 1 minute - 594 left
3. Greet Chef
4. Change into Whites- 5 minutes - 589 left
5. Empty bladder - 1 minute - 587 left
6. Check schedules - 1 minute - 586 left
7. Check bookings - 2 minutes - 584 left
9. Check fridge - 1 minute - 583 left
>extra!> Empty Bladder
10. Grab ingredients from walk-in - 3 minutes - 580 left
11. Prepare proteins for staff/family meal, get cooking- 30 minutes - 550 left
12. Empty bladder - 1 minute - 549 left
13. Set up station - 2 minutes - 547 left
>extra!> Relieve Bladder
14. Prepare mise - 2 hours - 427 left
15. Finish staff/family meal, sit down to eat - 30 minutes - 397 left
16. Empty bladder x3 - 1 minute - 396 left
17. Oven pilot dies, curse and bitch while trying to bring the damn thing back to life, drink 1 espresso - 5 minutes - 391 left
18. First seating has started, not too busy. Send out orders while doing minor prep for the next day, drink water- 3 hours - 211 left
19. Second seating, oven pilot dies AGAIN! Curse, bitch and hijack co-workers oven while cooking mains for a huge order along with many others. Printer is going nuts... 5 minutes - 206 left
20. Finished clearing out first wave of second seating tickets. AN OPENING! Empty bladder. Quench my thirst - 1 hour - 146 left
21. Grab a quick snack (SANDWICH!) - 2 minutes - 144 left
22. Second wave of orders come in, time flies now. Quench thirst repeatedly while emptying bladder - 1.5 hours - 94 left
23. All orders sent, scrubbing down kitchen. Have an espresso - 30 minutes - 64 left
24. Survey kitchen and place produce orders for next day - 30 minutes - 34 left
25. Empty bladder, change clothes and relax before going home. Well Done! - 34 minutes

Time 12:30am

Just a typical end of week night at the restaurant.

NOTE: For those that know me well, you'll probably spot a specific trend on my daily timeline. ^________^

^^Chandelier^^

^^Server Notes^^

^^Lobster^^

^^Secret Brew^^

^^STAFF MEAL!! - Butter Chicken, Tempura Sablefish, Kai-Lan^^

^^Oil Seared Hamachi^^

^^Stove^^

^^Station^^

Family Meal!!!!!

Ahhh, family meal, or as I usually call it 'staff meal'. It is what fuels the restaurant staff who work grueling days on the dining floor as well as back in the kitchen.

Usually prepared on a meager budget of almost nothing, the kitchen staff are left to improvise and provide a healthy (somewhat) and tasty (sometimes delicious) meal for whoever is working on any particular day. The daily creations can sometimes be quite marvelous to foreign, to downright insipid depending on the flow of the day. Though the persistent theme of getting everyone well fed is stressed throughout.

The Chef, who is always out and about early each day, purchasing the raw ingredients for the walk-in will pick up a couple of days worth of protein and vegetables, specially reserved to prepare the staff meal of the day. An example would be say, on Monday we get chicken legs and some cabbage. Tuesday, chicken legs and cabbage. Wednesday, chicken legs and some napa cabbage... You see the trend??

From these, many possible dishes are produced and at my restaurant, we try to inject variety into each day's meal, using the many other ingredients on hand to cook. Usually each station chef will be in charge of a particular part of the meal meaning one will prepare the protein and another, the vegetable component. Producing enough food to feed up to 20 staff members on any given day.

To me, the restaurant staff is seen as a second family, we know each other well and are for the most part, close friends. I take staff meal as an opportunity to be creative while providing a home cooked meal which FOH and BOH would be missing.

Bon Appetit!

^^Tuesday^^

^^Thursday^^

^^Saturday^^

Tonkotsu

During my trip last year in Tokyo, I had the opportunity to try ramen in Tonkotsu broth. To say the least I was hooked but the week long trip did not satiate my new-found appetite for this delicious elixir.

To put it simply, Tonkotsu is a broth made from roasted pork bones, preferably marrow filled ones such as the thick leg bones and a sheet of kombu which has been simmered/boiled to the pits of hell and back, to be transformed into a milky white and addictive soup base.

The night was slow so with the help of my cohort, I set out to recreate this thick and flavourful broth that I have come to love.

Roasted bones boiling away...

Jae chopping up the softened bones which were strained out of the half finished Tonkotsu. This step is very important in which the broken bones release the maximum amount of rich marrow hidden inside.

Mmmm... These bones have magical properties! Note, bits of cartilage lying around, they'll be melted down to nothing on the second boiling.

The images are from yesterday, I had more bones on hand today and added them to the Tonkotsu and redid the whole process again, doubling the flavour intensity (YEAH!). In total, the Tonkotsu was prepared over two days at a constant rolling boil for approximately 16 hours resulting in a mind blowing blast of porky goodness.

I'll post a final product, as in a complete bowl of ramen with all the fixings. Though that'll be in the near or late future.

Katsura Muki

During my time at Blowfish, I had the opportunity to work on the sushi bar for a period of approximately four months. I had learned an important knife skill which is used to transform kyuuri, daikon, renkon, ninjin, etc into thin sheets, later to be cut in to a fine julienne garnish. In the beginning it was the most difficult thing to do, due to my classic training in the use of the French knife and using a Yanagi was somewhat foreign to me at the time. Well to say the least, practice makes perfect and I had figured it out after many cucumber casualties, for the most part...

Yeah I'm using a french knife, though Katsura Muki is usually done with a yanagi, usuba, or nakiri.

Tadaaa!

Something New

Hey everyone! Having nothing else to do with my limitless time I've decided to start a blog around my journey as a cook and random miscellany along the way. This is something new to me and I want to document the daily antics and lessons learned while working in the kitchen and loving what I do.

Ahahahhaha!

As Lin would say: "Yes Tim, velly nice ass-pella-gut!"