My Long Road To Chefdom........(continuation)

The first day of work was exciting, I was a little bit skittish, I didn't know what I am going to be doing. It is a big change from restaurant to a 4 star hotel. I assumed that working in the hotel industry has less screw up immunity, and the chef is likely similar to my drill sergeant. Although, I was wrong with my perception about the chef, he wasn't the way I thought he was but making a lot of mistakes are not strongly tolerated, so you have to be attentive.

So it was my lucky day, our chef told me that I will be wearing my whites for that night and help them plate for 75 persons (my ears were flapping when I heard that). Plating food for seventy-five people is somewhat easy, not to mentions that all the cooking are done, all we have to do is get the food out of the kitchen and let the servers do their job. What I have learned from that night was, communication and timing are always a crucial part of plating food. You have to interact with the banquet staffs, they are the one that signals the kitchen that on this given time, guests are ready to be served. Timing is crucial, the food has to be served at their right temperature, from the hors d'ouvres to soups and more importantly the entrees. When we're down with the last course (guess what?), desserts was actually easy getting it done. So synchronization with everyone will help speed up the delivery.

I never thought it was 10 pm already, I was having fun doing it. There were extra meals prepared just in case for some mishaps, fortunately everything went well, so everyone got a treat for the night.

Back to: My Long Road To Chefdom

My Long Road To Chefdom

A blessing in disguise one Wednesday afternoon while I was having a coffee break under the sun, an executive chef from the delta hotel came up to me and asked if I am still interested to get into the hospitality industry. I thought he was joking or just wanted to have a conversation, so I said "I'll think about it", he flicked his cigarette butt then said, "think about it, if your interested give me your resume tomorrow". Well I guess he was serious about the job offer. Although, the job was not really my ideal position to get into, but I guess I have to start somewhere from the very bottom of the realm of the cuisine, just to put my foot in the door kind of way. The next morning, I handed in my resume for the stewardship position, again swallowing my pride to do all the dirty work of the cooks. I got interviewed, and got the job. I was relieved when he told me that I won't be spending most of my time doing stewardship and I could actually participate with them in terms of plating food because of my experiences from different restaurants and catering events from the past. Whew!, that's fine with me. If this is what's going to take to reach my goal to become a chef, I am more than willing to accept this position and to be an apprentice and work my way up to be in one of those ranks. From this point, I will be blogging my everyday shift, from my rants to raves in my journey to the culinary world. So keep me company and feel free to send me some insights of your own. Read more: My Long Road To Chefdom........(continuation)