Building a Professional Restaurant Kitchen

So you’ve got the concept for your new restaurant all figured out. Maybe its Mexican, maybe Spanish or Italian or even Sushi. You know the theme, the ambiance, the menu; you can picture it all in your head right now. Perhaps you’ve even gone so far as to have a drawing made up for the kitchen design. With this, you can now look for a spot to fill with all the pieces of equipment that make up a fully functional, bust-ass busy, bustling restaurant. Now you just need to purchase all the equipment, the stove, Friolator and Vitamix and put it all in there.

What you need to consider is the kitchen man. Yes he made you the schematics for free, which was quite thoughtful of him. But don’t take the bribe. You don’t have to buy everything from his kitchen-outfitting outfit. Guaranteed they will charge as much as they possibly can for that Imperial range. These places will often charge up to three times for items you could just as easily source yourself. Why are they doing this? Because they can. Sure its convenient to order all your equipment through the guy who will draw up the plans, install it all and make sure it all passes inspection. But that’s no reason not to bring in some of the equipment yourself.

If you shop online, you can find competitive pricing, with many restaurant equipment stores offering a lowest price guarantee. The site www.shortorder.com even offers free, guaranteed delivery shipping. Checking out a few sites is worth the time it takes to source your kitchen equipment through multiple vendors. Just because your kitchen guy wants you to buy his stuff, doesn’t mean you have to. You’re already giving him business asking for his design and installation services. Save yourself some money and find your new Robocoupe processor, Kitchenaid mixer, Wolf stove and Cambro containers online.

Get Carving, Ye Turkeys!

A very piratey thanksgiving, fellow swashbucklers. A couple years back I was working at a large hotel restaurant on Thanksgiving and had to carve up  25 fat birds for over 2,000 people. Carving to order, taking requests for light meat, dark meat, this bit, that bit, extra this and that, I instantly became an expert Turkey Carver. Here are some tips and recommendations for tearing apart your own bird-beast this turkey day:

After its roasted, let it sit!!!
Let it sit an hour for all I care (just serve it with piping hot gravy), but your turk needs at least 15 min. to settle after coming out of the oven (or grill, or fryer) before you start poking it with a knife.

Which knife to use? Having a couple available is nice. Tag-teaming with a Slicer and a Boner seems to be the most effective. Loosening up and separating bits with the Boner, and slicing them with the, well, slicer.

Boner

Slicer

I recommend trimming the whole carcass, separating all the meat from the carcass in the kitchen and serving it on a platter, pre-sliced. Carving table-side is dramatic and all, but it takes forever and people don't really want to watch you struggle through it, the mutilated bird getting uglier and uglier, bits of flesh and skin flying off into the potatoes and fruitcake. It looks a lot better all sliced and laid out on a giant platter. Throw a couple sprigs of rosemary or thyme on there and it looks freaking gore-met.

Check out this step-by-step photo sesh to see how the pros get it done:

Happy Carving ye Scurvied Scowlers!

Pho Show!

As an unemployed cook I can't just sit around eating frozen pizzas, I've got to fulfill my urge to create delicious food, to try new things and perfect recipes. Well I hit this one on the nose, Pho show.

I've got a new restaurant concept in mind and I've been trying out the recipes. The one I made yesterday was for Pho, the Vietnamese soup. After some research, and much past Pho slurping, I came up with an organic and hormone-free, aromatic melee of rich roasted flavor, fresh herbs and tantalizing spices.

Pho with cilantro and regular basil

Broth recipe (makes 4 gallons):

5lb free-range organic veal bones (yes, this is available now. just under $2/lb)
1 piece free-range organic oxtail, about 6 oz
18 qts of water
1 large piece ginger, large-diced and roasted
2 medium yellow onions, thin sliced, caramelized
2T Hoisin sauce
2T fish sauce

Bouquet Garni:
1 stick Saigon Cinnamon
3 pods black cardamom
3 pieces star anise
1T fresh fennel seed

Roast the veal bones for an hour at 500degrees. Put 18 qts water in a stock pot with the roasted bones and bring to a boil. Add the rest of the ingredients and keep stock at a steady simmer. Cook for 8-10 hours and let reduce to 16 qts. Strain the broth and let cool. Skim any fat or residue off the top.

To make the soup: 

4 servings:
3 quarts Pho broth
Thai Soy to taste
Fish sauce to taste
1.5T hoisin
1lb thin sliced top sirloin beef, pork loin, or boneless skinless chicken thighs
8oz Mung bean sprouts
1 bunchThai Basil
1/4 Cup sliced green onions
3 each sliced jalapenos
1 package bahn pho rice noodles

Cook the noodles al dente in boiling water, pour in a strainer and cool with cold running water. Split the noodles evenly between 4 bowls. Distribute the meat evenly between the four bowls, placing it on top of the noodles. If you are using chicken, you might want to cook it for a short while in your broth.

Bring 3 quarts of broth to a boil, adding the thai soy, hoisin and fish sauce to taste. Pour over the meat and noodles, distributing evenly between the 4 bowls. Top with green onions, bean sprouts, thai basil and serve with the jalapenos, thai soy and more hoisin on the side.

What's in your knife-bag?

Whether you've got a bag, a toolbox, a few knives wrapped in plastic, in towels or just a single Wusthof in a plastic sheath, every cook carries a few tools with him to work. Knife bags are often heavily guarded corners of personal real estate. You never go in another cook's knife bag without asking first, or face the wrath of a pirate who's booty has been filched. They're expensive, personal and closely guarded. As Anthony Bourdain put it: "I don't touch your Dick, you don't touch my knives!"
Some other replies I've heard when one cook caught another snooping in his knife bag:
"What the fuck are are you doing in my knifebag!?!?!"
"Um. Get the fuck out of there."
*Heavy sigh** "Do you NEED something?"

So I'm laying it on the line for you folks. I'm opening my knife bag up to all the sarcasm and ridicule you can muster. Feel free. But please, I show you mine, you show me yours.

Item List:

*Wusthof classic 8" Chef's
*Wusthof classic pairing knife
*Wusthof steel
*10" Yanigaba Sashimi slicer - hand forged perfection
*Microplane fine grater
*Easy 'n' fast Chinese Cleaver
*Pure Komachi 2 Vegetable knife
*OTF Double Action "Utility Knife"
*Oyster knife
*Wusthof 7" offset, scalloped serrated knife
*Offset pastry spat
*Channel knife/citrus peeler
*Temp Probe (haha, 'probe')
*Pencil from womenenjoyingbeer.com (pencils ARE useful now and then, like for tracing cake pan liners)
*Pen
*Blue Sharpie (my clickie-sharpie just died)
*I Heart Bacon button

…and a side towel knife cover, a PBR box knife cover, and a classic knife shield…

Ok, so the obvious items missing are:
*Peeler - I left it at my last job and never got a new one
*Boning or fillet knife - you can buy me one from Wusthoff and e-mail me for the mailing address - thx!
*Salmon slicer - you just use it so little, I can't justify it to myself

I also wish I had:
*A can opener - the table ones suck to use on small cans and any hand-held one you find in a restaurant is likely 10 years old and dull as hell.
*A new santoku. Mine broke.
*A new 8" chef's. I wanna shun. Yah I know everybody's got one, but I don't.

Sous Chef

They say every Chef has at least one mentor, maybe more. You learn from your mentor, not only about food and cooking but about the business of running a kitchen, managing people and being a leader.

Having a mentor means learning how to be a mentor.

Recently I helped open a restaurant with a bad-ass Chef who quickly became a mentor to me, and who encouraged me to, above all, mentor those beneath me in the ranks. As his Sous I busted my ass to make better cooks out of the lot I had to teach because they needed it. My Chef demanded that I didn't just put out food, take and make orders,  but that I teach all the line cooks how to do it as well as I did.

The Chef Gets Fired

After the kitchen was set up, everything running smooth, the kitchen pumping out 300 covers without a hitch, the owner fired the Chef. Kicked him to the curb and didn't say a word to the staff. On his first day off in a month, while I was running the line, Chef came in the kitchen and said "Well, it's been great boys. They canned me". After he left, I looked at the full board of tickets hanging, looked down at the plates I was finishing, looked over at my lead line and said "I really don't want to finish cooking this food. But I'm going to, and afterward I'm gonna walk in there and put my keys on their table cuz that's fucked up."

I walk

I finished service, walked into the owner's office and did just that.

They Negotiate

They bought me a beer. They told me not to make any rash decisions. They told me if I walked out I had no integrity; that I would be letting down all those guys I worked shoulder to shoulder with every day.

I told them:

I am a cook. I work for Chefs. Without a Chef who am I working for? I'm not the Chef of this place. I don't want to be. If you wanted me to be you should have asked me before you fired the Chef, but you didn't say anything. I was working for the Chef so if you wanted me to work for you, you should have made me an offer. With him I had clear expectations. With you, how should I know? He was doing a damn fine job running this kitchen and I can't do any better, so how should I think you won't fire me at any minute too? My contract was with him, so now that he's gone, I'm gone too.

I Question My Decision

I didn't sleep well for two nights, wondering if hadn't done the wrong thing. But looking back, seeing how they used my Chef, and how they just expected me to fall in line, work even harder without a raise, without a word even about their plans, I know I did right.
By my Chef, by my team, by my mentors and by those whom I was mentoring.

Sous Chef Is...

Sous is an intense place to hover. Loyalty means everything and its the time when you make or break yourself as a future Chef, mentor, leader. Even in a business as tumultuous as this, the very least I can do is thank my mentors by sticking by them.