Kitchen designers part two

If you didn't read the previous posting I will give you  a bit of background.  The topic was hotel kitchen designers and how many of them don't even have kitchen experience which makes for some interesting (or stupid) kitchen designs.  In my previous post I was talking about the hotel I opened in Bombay, India so let's continue shall we?

What was also funny about this kitchen was the design of the restaurant itself.  We had four restaurants in the hotel and one of them I was in charge of was downstairs with an open top.  The design was like a hole was cut into the ceiling and you look up and you could see two of the other restaurants up above you.  There was a glass railing along the edge above so the people sitting along it could look down into this restaurant.  The idea was nice in principle, but on those rare occasions someone dining above dropped their plate, glass or whatever down into the lower restaurant, (once on a guest) it ceased to seem to be a good idea.

The design of the upper restaurants was open with no walls which didn't exactly help in creating character for each restaurant.  You could sit in one restaurant and look over at the other ones.  These restaurants were situated near the front desk and corridors leading to guest elevators and the shopping mall as well.

The lower restaurant's theme was based off of an American grill so you can probably guess there were a lot of grilled items on the menu. (DUH) That is all fine and good except for one small problem; whenever the restaurant got busy and the grill was loaded up, the exhaust couldn't cope with all the smoke coming off the grill. This isn't the first time I have worked in a restaurant that had an exhaust system that couldn't cope with the kitchen output come to think of it.  What is it with poor exhausts anyways? What would end up happening when the restaurant got busy is all the smoke would rise (as it normally does) and blanket the other two restaurants in the immediate vicinity and the entire lobby and reception desk.  

If you have ever seen a fire and how the smoke blankets the top half of a room than you can visualize what the upper restaurants and lobby looked like. It was hilarious in a pathetic way. The fire alarms would go off at times and we would get complaint after complaint, consequently buying some meals for the really pissed off guests.  I don't know what was worse, the fact that the lobby resembled Los Angeles more than a hotel lobby or that all those vegetarians were engulfed in smoke that smelled of grilled meat.   

I am the type that can find humor in anything so to imagine all those vegetarians going home with their clothes reeking of grilled meat much like your clothes reek of cigarettes after going to a bar just cracks me up. Sorry all my vegetarian friends out there:) Having said that it makes me wonder when those people went home, smelling of grilled meat, if their significant vegetarian other half looked at them as if they cheated on them like your wife smelling the perfume of another woman on your shirt.

India's population is about 75% vegetarian with some adamantly opposed to meat as if it was a sin as opposed to a dietary choice.  I can remember a number of times while servicing a banquet how vegetarians would complain that the non-vegetarian food was too close to the vegetarian food. I mean this is food we are talking about, not the cross pollination of flowers.  Buffalo wings can't cross pollinate last time I checked. If so, tell me where to get some buffalo wing seeds and I will plant some buffalo wing plants. While I am at it I will plant some quesadilla seeds.  I can have a garden full of bar food. Nacho plants, potsticker plants, onion ring plants, hell, if I am lucky I can grow some Long Island ice tea plants as well. OK sorry, I pulled a "Star Trek" on you guys there and went into deep space, I am back on earth now.

I remember the first time we were busy and the grill smoked up the place, the manager on duty came running down the stairs in a panic thinking the place was on fire.  

"Curt, what the hell are you doing?" He asked frantically.

"Cooking, what do you think chefs do man?" I replied sarcastically.

"Shit man the entire lobby is engulfed in smoke, you have to stop the grill from smoking?"

"What the hell do you want me to do? Turn off the grill and just serve baked potatoes?!"

He became more excited and was starting to lose his head, then giving me shit. I didn't like the bastard anyways so him coming down and giving me shit for something I had no control over pissed me off even more.

"Look man, there is nothing I can do, serious."

He then ran upstairs to do god knows what and then a good idea popped in my head.  

We always kept a rolled up towel dipped in oil for cleaning the grill so I told my cook to dip it in more oil and cover that damn grill. He rubbed it back and forth over the grill repeatedly and a huge cloud of smoke rose up from the grill that resembled a small mushroom cloud. The other cooks were watching, laughing as we had our fun for the evening.  

I never liked people who can't keep their cool and I am the type to twist the screws tighter if I see you unraveling at the seams.

To be continued

Kitchen designers

All
Sorry for my absence but I have been experiencing a bit of writer's block.  I am on about half-block right now so I think I can come up with something for you.  I am working on a number of blogs that require some research but my blog needs some attention so here you go.

As I have done in past blogs I want to continue to give you an inside look at the crazy (but lovable) world of hotels and restaurants. Today I want to tell you about a challenge every chef will deal with most of the time during his or her tenure in professional kitchens; poorly designed kitchens.

Often, kitchen designers have never worked in a kitchen.  Yes, I know, it makes no fucking sense but it is true.  The way I would summarize my experience in a professional kitchen regarding this topic is like this.  "Expending vast amounts of energy to make something inefficient, efficient."  You can ask any chef and we will all tell you the same thing, "just give us a smart kitchen that works."

When I opened the Grand Hyatt in Bombay one of the restaurants I was in charge of had a beautiful open kitchen with a Molteni range.  For those of you not in the business, Molteni is like the Aston Martin of ranges.  It is elegant in its simplicity.  Anyways, one of the other features of this kitchen was refrigerated drawers.  I think there was about 30 of them and I had to get copies of all the kitchen keys made. There was no proper locksmith in Bombay, nor was there any key machine in the city so it's not like I could have just gone to the local Home Depot (there wasn't one) and had keys made.

I spoke to the purchasing manager and asked him to get me someone who can make keys for me.
A day later some homeless looking dude came up to me who I thought was going to ask me for money but he asked, "you need keys?"  I said, "yes, are you the key master?"  I was thinking of that line from the movie Ghostbusters.

I showed him the keys I needed copies of and he then proceeded to sit down with a bunch of metal pieces he then cut into keys.  Since he didn't have a mechanical key cutter, he used an assortment of tools that looked like a bunch of chisels and was just chopping away at those little metal pieces until he had keys...or what resembled keys.  Actually, it looked more like a bunch of metal he chewed on.

What I didn't realize at the time was that every damn drawer needed a different key. I don't know what the idiot kitchen designer was smoking at the time while designing this but it must have been some good shit.  Hell, I don't do drugs but I wanted to try whatever he was on. To make matters worse, once I finally got the keys, I had to fool with each one to get each drawer open. Because they keys were not cut with a machine using them felt more like fitting a square peg in a round hole. My Indian assistant had some trick to get all the drawers open quickly but anytime I had to go and open up the kitchen it took me like 20 minutes to open all those fucking drawers.  Brilliant design assholes!

What was also funny about this kitchen was the design of the restaurant itself.  We had four restaurants in the hotel and one of them I was in charge of was downstairs with an open top.  The design was like a hole was cut into the ceiling and you look up and you could see two of the other restaurants up above you.  There was a glass railing along the edge above so the people sitting along it could look down into this restaurant.  The idea was nice in principle, but on those rare occasions someone dining above dropped their plate, glass or whatever down into the lower restaurant, once on a guest, it ceased to seem to be a good idea.

The design of the upper restaurants was open, no walls which didn't exactly help in creating character for each restaurant.  You could sit in one restaurant and look over at the other ones.  These restaurants were situated near the front desk and corridors leading to guest elevators and the shopping mall as well.
The lower restaurant was a grill so you can probably guess there were a lot of grilled items on the menu. That is all fine and good except for one small problem; whenever the restaurant got busy, the exhaust couldn't cope with all the smoke coming off the grill because it wasn't designed to handle that much smoke. (another brilliant design idiotic kitchen designers) What would consequently happen is the smoke would rise (as it normally does) and blanket all of the upper restaurants and lobby.

To be continued

Home made stock

I realized I haven't given you guys a kitchen tip in a while so here you go.

Have you ever tried to make any kind of stock at home?  Chicken, beef or other kind?

Here are a few quick tips.

1.  Make sure you rinse the bones well.  If they are bloody, your stock will be ugly.

2.  Make sure you use very cold water

3.  Fill the water up to the level of the bones.  If you fill it higher you will have a weaker stock.

4.  Put the stock on medium heat, not high.  You want the stock to come up to temperature slowly which will help make it more clear.  

5.  Skim, skim, skim.  Always skim your stock.

6.  I was taught that you won't extract any more flavor from bones after eight hours of cooking so keep that in mind.  Fish stock doesn't take as long though.

Now go make some chicken soup or something

Don't complain

I am sure you have heard stories of what happens when you complain about your food.  I know many people who are afraid to send something back to the kitchen for fear of what the chef will do to it.
If you have ever seen any of these exposes showing what happens in some kitchens it is a wonder why anyone would want to eat out again.  I saw one that showed a waitress putting rat feces in someone's coffee.  One lady blew her nose in a handkerchief and then put her hands in the customer's salad without washing her hands.  There were other unspeakable acts of pure disgust.

Here is a story about something I witnessed while working in a restaurant that is both sad and funny at the same time.

It was the middle of a Saturday night,the dining room was pumping with about 150 people to the soundtrack of conversation, silverware clanking on plates and glass being chimed.  Someone ordered a medium rare steak.  I was on the saute station and Juan was working on the grill, the station that prepared the steaks.  The order was cooked and plated.  The manager returned to the kitchen stating that the guest had complained his steak was not cooked properly.  We looked at the ticket to make sure we read it correctly and it said medium rare.  We then looked at the cut portion of the meat revealing the inside and it in fact, was cooked medium rare.  We asked him how the guest wanted it cooked and the manager replied, "medium rare."  We both looked puzzled and replied, "it is fucking medium rare!"  The manager said the guest wanted it cooked more.
Let me tell you there is nothing more frustrating and infuriating for a chef than when a guest complains about something and they are wrong or if they just don't know what they want, especially if the guest is an asshole about it.  Shit man, if it was not cooked properly I could understand but don't tell me the damn steak is not medium rare when in fact, it is medium rare.

Juan was cursing under his breath, recooking that steak for about a minute on each side.  We knew the guest was a moron because he obviously didn't know what he wanted and those guests can actually cause the most headaches.  If the guest doesn't know what they want then how the hell am I supposed to figure this out?  The reason I wear the big hat is because I am a chef, not a mind reader. Since we didn't know what he wanted we didn't want to cook the steak too much only to have the dude send it back saying it was overcooked.

We plated the steak and sent it out.
A few minutes later the manager returns with the same steak.  We both shook our heads and asked what the problem was now.  The manager said "the guest said it still isn't medium rare."
"I have never seen anything like this!" I shouted.
We put the steak back on the grill for a minute more and sent it out.
If you can't figure out the story by now, the manager came back with the same god damned steak and said the guest wanted it cooked more.

The only thing I could figure is that this guest was one of those people who actually likes his steak well done but felt embarrassed (as you should) to order it that way.  I can understand that because why on earth would you take one of the most premium, most expensive cuts of meat and order it well done?  Oh yeah, I forgot, someone who wants something with no taste that resembles shoe leather.
Juan was livid at this point and understandably so.  I was too and I didn't have to cook the thing.
The funniest thing was what he did next.  He threw the steak on the floor danced around it and stepped on it a few times with a kind of musically aggressive rhythm.  It reminded me a bit of "Stomp," the musical theater of choreographed percussion.
He then put the steak back on the grill, plated it and sent it out.
The manager came back and told us the guest said it was perfect.
Juan and I just smiled at each other and went back to work.  All that frustration was worth it to have that whole episode end like that.

I can honestly say I have never seen anyone cross the line like that because I have always worked in nice places with professionals but that was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

To vegan or not to vegan

It's like this......I had this guest that came in who was vegan so they wanted to speak with me about what they can eat.  I asked them if they eat cheese and they said "no." I told them I can remove the cheese but the bread we use for that sandwich has eggs in it and is that OK? They said "that is fine."  I told them we had other breads that didn't have eggs but they said the one with eggs was fine.

Now I am puzzled here-if you are allegedly a "vegan" then how the hell do you eat eggs?

I came across this when I lived in India.  We used to have Sunday brunch in my restaurant which had an open kitchen and people would come up directly to the chefs and order eggs prepared any fashion and we would cook it right there in front of them while they waited.  I remember one occasion when a guy had a plate full of desserts like cheesecake, brownies and other cakes.  I asked him if he would like any eggs and he said he was a vegan.  I said "yes but sir every dessert you have on your plate has eggs in it."  I wanted to inform him just in case he didn't know.  He said "it is OK because I can't see the eggs in the dessert."  To say I was puzzled by this would be an understatement.  Now this was when I was still new to India so I was learning the culture and eating habits so I asked one of my cooks if that was normal.  He said it wasn't uncommon to see that.  I told him that makes no sense.

I could care less about one's eating habits or choices; to each his own. Hell man, don't tell me your are vegan and you eat eggs only when you can't see them.  Isn't that a form of denial?  I do understand that living on a strict diet can be challenging depending where your are, and at times you may have to stray from that diet slightly (like having bread with eggs in it) because you have to eat, but I am not referring to those times.

I have even given thought to being vegetarian simply for the health benefits but I honestly don't think I have the discipline to give up a fat steak, foie gras or my favorite, duck confit.

Some vegetarians eat dairy products, some eat fish and there are also "Jain" vegetarians who also don't eat anything grown in the ground like potatoes and carrots and the strict vegans don't even use anything related to meat such as leather.

Crazy chefs

I am working on a couple blogs that require a bit more thought so for a week or so I will stick to some shorter blogs and recipes and so forth. With all these reality shows on TV you can see what it is like behind the scenes in many professions, including kitchens. 

I have had a number of people who watch Gordon Ramsay's TV shows ask me if working in a kitchen, getting ripped apart by the chef is how it really is and it is, although not like it used to be.  America and UK are very litigious societies so you can't treat people like that anymore although it does happen, just not as often.  In corporations you can't get away with that for sure.

When I watch some of those TV shows it reminds me of some crazy chefs I have worked for and I remember one of my culinary instructors from the culinary college I went to in Baltimore, Maryland.  

This instructor's name was chef Keeney.  He looked crazy, had crazy teaching techniques, acted crazy but everyone respected him because he was good at what he did.  

There are two things I remember most about him.

One was a game he had us play called "baseball."  He would blindfold you and then hold a small bowl of some random spice under your nose and you had to smell it and guess what it was.  The game was called "baseball" because you got three strikes and then you were out.

The other was how he punished one of the students who tried to deceive him.  I don't remember this particular student's name but he was one of those guys who was always screwing up and always thought he could get one over on the teacher.  We all know that normally doesn't work.

One day this student had to make quiche as part of his lesson but he burned it.  He thought the smart thing to do was to hide it in the trash. He then made another one but the problem was the class was about to end and his quiche wasn't quite done cooking.  When the instructor came to check on everyone before class ended he asked this student why it took so long for him to make one quiche.  The student started making excuses but you could see he was tripping over his own words.  It reminded me of watching "Cops" where you see some idiot getting pulled over for suspected drunk driving and the person can't get a sentence out properly.

The instructor, not only knowing this student's track record of being a screw up and not being forthcoming, knew something was "not Kosher in Denmark."  The instructor started searching the trash and found the burnt quiche. How did he teach this student his lesson about not only paying attention to what you are doing but to be honest?

He got some butcher twine, poked a hole through a piece of quiche and made a necklace out of it and told the student he had to wear that fucking quiche necklace for a week.  

Hilarious. We all nicknamed that student "Lorraine," after quiche Lorraine........  Classic

How to make a roast chicken a little bit better

Here is a neat and inexpensive way to not only add a twist to a whole roasted chicken but to add some crispiness.

Truss your chicken, rub it with oil and seasoning and then cover the entire chicken with cornmeal.  Make sure it is covered completely.
Then roast it as you normally would.

Oh, do you guys know how to truss a chicken?  This is one of those where I would need to show you.  Here is a trick though.  Put the chicken on a tray in front of you with the back of the bird facing you.  Do you see that flap of fat at the tip that hangs over the opening of the cavity?  Carefully cut a whole in it large enough to put your thumb through.  Now carefully put the end of one leg through it and then even more carefully put the end of the other leg through it.
The reason you truss a bird is to bring the legs tightly against the sides of the bird to aid in more even cooking.

If you don't want to truss a bird you can always cook it in pieces.  It is quicker too.  You can still use the cornmeal for this as well.

Happy cooking
C