Legumier

Guest likes the food.

2013-02-05T08:31:00.001-08:00

I love to see empty plate in the diswashing area, It just mean that the guest likes the food he ate.

Before when we are very busy I am not able to taste the food I am cooking specially when the chef is giving too much stress and asking to give it to him right away. But then I learned from it. Guests are more important than the stress of the chef.

Tasting the food that we cook for the guest is very important, Actually during the engedients preparation we are checking and choosing the best one. We cook it the best we can and serve it the best we can. Good food presentation will be tempting for the guest but the taste of the food will be love by the guest.

Dead Fish

2013-01-12T04:26:00.001-08:00

Oh no

Valentines day in the kitchen

2013-01-09T12:57:00.001-08:00

Whenever there is upcoming celebration, it is the kitchen that is getting busy. The chefs are preparing food for the guest who are going to eat to celebrate.

Today while I am arranging the vegetable fridges I saw this tomato shape perfect heart. It reminds me the world lovers celebration, Valentines day.

Advance Happy Valentines to all.

LongSiLog

2012-08-11T21:13:00.001-07:00

Tapsilog, bangsilog and of course my favorite " longsilog " These food are popular food menu that you will found in almost every Filipino restaurant in the Philippines. This is a complete set food with fried rice and fried egg and the main dish maybe tapa, or bangus, and my favorite longanisa which is longsilog.
The very popular Mc Donald is also serving this Filipino favorite longsilog. Because of this during this time of my vacation I always in Mc Donald enjoying my breakfast with this longsilog, coffee, water and a tabloid which is comes free with every food purchased.

Truffle... diamond of the kitchen.

2012-06-25T07:21:00.001-07:00

Truffle is a mushroom that grows rarely in european region particularly in Italy and France. Truffle is the most expensive type of mushroom.
Food that is garnished with truffle mushroom shaving is sure to be expensive.
Normally they garnished it to the risotto and past.

Pork meat in Dubai

2012-06-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

As we all know United Arab Emirates is a a Muslim country, Muslim do not eat pork, but because Dubai is a tourist destination and most of the tourists are Christians and a lot of expat are Christians too, pork is allowed in Dubai.

In order for a restaurant or a shop to sell pork products they need to secure a permit from the UAE government. The shop should also have a clear notes stating that the section is pork section not for Muslim. If in case there are pork products on display for example Carbonara with Pork bacon, it also has a note that it has pork.

Most Hotel in the United Arab Emirates specially ***** Hotel like Crown Plaza, Armani Hotel, Jumeira Rotana has restaurant serving pork products.

weird tomato

2012-05-31T11:30:00.003-07:00

Guys, Again I found this tomato in the vegetable fridge. A heart shape tomato.

Weird vegetable

2012-05-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

I was very sleepy when I arrived in the kitchen. As usual checking everything then preparing mise en place.

I went to the vegetable fridges to take some eggplant for Penne ala norma (penne pasta with tomato sauce and eggplant) and this is what I got, a male eggplant. Ha ha ha very funny.

Seeing unusual vegetables like this is fun.

Wasted buffet food.

2012-05-21T02:12:00.002-07:00

These food are really delicious. but what we can do we cannot eat these all and for sure we are not going to serve it the day after. These food are the balance from the buffet and usually we are throwing all of these to the garbage.

I feel sorry again as I remember those people specially the children that has nothing to eat in their daily life. Even me before when I was young that my parents has no money to buy food. We eat just rice with a drops of used oil and soy sauce, and more worst water and salt. Just to satisfy the hunger we eat those.

Sometimes after the buffet the staff are gatheing in the back area, diswashing area to eat these food which I think is not allowed for other hotel or restaurant like in the restaurant that i used to work before.

Worm on the salad

2012-05-21T01:34:00.003-07:00

Once again I found a worm on the mix green salad that I am cleaning. It's normal, this is why i keep on cleaning nicely whenever I prepare theses greens.

As we all know there are no fruits, plants and vegetables farm here in the middle east. Most of theses vegetables are came from europe and asia. Basically from the farm then transport to the middle east by plane or ship. These vegetables are coming fresh and never been washed that is why pest and soil are still present. Washed or wet vegetables are easy to spoil.

When it reach to the Hotel this is the first time it gets clean. and the second time is before plating and serving it to the guest.

What is this for?

2012-05-20T03:14:00.001-07:00

Eggplant parmegiana

Mediterranean Buffet

2012-04-23T22:20:00.001-07:00

These are some of the food that we have on the buffet, we have 5 cycle of food that we are serving so that hotel guest can try not the same food everyday.

The greatest Spices

2012-04-23T22:14:00.001-07:00

Salt and Pepper are the greatest spices.
the rest are just drama.

Another fruit platter.

2012-04-22T15:49:00.002-07:00

This fruit platter was made by my colleague for ala carte order. I was amazed with his instinct of doing this fruit platter because it was his first day in the kitchen. I mean he was working as a kitchen steward the day before. Its look simple but elegant.

Now this colleague of mine is now demi Chef de partie and he won in one of Dubai Mall recipe submission. And now he is going to Spain to attend a 3 days cooking seminar as a prize.

Weird potato

2012-04-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

I was peeling this potato when I notice this hard thing on its skin. I forced to remove it by the peeler but I did not able to remove it. I leave it on the table because I need to check the food I am cooking. When I came back my chef already peeled it and this is what I saw. There is a stem of a plants that go through the potato. And that is weird.

Is this Arabic rice?

2012-04-21T13:36:00.001-07:00

No. This is just another ordinary flavored rice, this is the same like fried rice of Asia, nasigoring of Indonesia, bit like paella of Spain.

Very easy to cook. We just need the following:

Oil, bay leaves, chop garlic, chop onion, diced carrots and potato, salt and pepper, and tomato paste for flavor and coloring, rice of course.

1. In a pot sauté the carrots and potato with garlic and onion.
2. Add the rice, roasted it a little bit.
3. Add some water, The same quantity like the rice.
4. Put salt, pepper and tomato paste according to your taste.
5. Let it cook for about 20 minutes.

There are different way of cooking of this rice. You can cook it in the rice cooker, in the oven, or even in the traditional wood fire.

With the rice cooker you just need to sauté the vegetables in the pan or wok and then transfer it to the rice cooker, add the rice, water, tomato paste and seasoning and cook it like normal rice cooker procedure.
We need to sauté it first to get the maximum flavor from the vegetables.

Worm on the salad

2012-04-20T11:36:00.001-07:00

I found this worm on the spinach while I am cleaning 10 kg of spinach. It's good that I found it otherwise it will be a big problem in case guest see it.

This is how we should be careful in preparing food for the guests.

Dill marinated salmon

2012-04-12T13:21:00.001-07:00

Salmon is already good with just salt and pepper, but this one in the picture must be really good because of the spices And herbs that we put like dill leaves, saute cabbage, sauté fennel, slice of orange and the amazing spices salt and pepper. Then we wrap it with baking paper.
Then we are going to steam it in the oven for around 8 minutes 100'.

I didn't try it yet because today was the first time that I made this.

Kitchens Hygiene

2012-04-10T00:16:00.000-07:00

As a chef we are following standards procedures in food preparation when it comes to food safety. There is where is HACCP comes. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control point is a systematic approach to food safety. This apply to all kinds of food service and pharmaceutical productions.

In the kitchen the chefs are required to follow the hygiene standards. Specially in the places where municipality is very strict when it comes to HACCP. This is why we are informed and all the information regarding to HACCP is readily and always available for us to read and understand the food safety.

Every Hotels kitchen has their Hygience officer who is en- charge in giving information and trainings to the chefs regarding HACCP. They are roaming around the kitchen making sure that standards are implemented and followed.

HACCP basically discuss the source of bacteria, cooking temperature, storing temperature, danger zone, etcetera.

I am full

2012-04-03T08:39:00.001-07:00

Most of the food that i found in cafeteria are not my taste, but I am very hungry and I need to eat something. Good thing they have clear vegetable soup I took some in one plate then I take also some indian egg curry, I just remove the sauce. Then the egg I put it on the soup and that is what I eat with the rice. It's good and now I am full.

Buffet preparation.

2012-03-27T14:47:00.002-07:00

Today is my first day in my new kitchen. This restaurant is serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, Buffet and ala carte mediterranean cuisines. My chef de partie ask me to observe how the systems work so that i can adapt as soon as possible. They also ask me to do the plating which I found very easy. These are some of the buffet food that I plated.

Promotion over happiness

2012-03-26T13:05:00.001-07:00

I really like the kitchen where I am working now, I like these Italian chef team. With them I feel so comfortable, these Italians are nice people, happy people. They maybe speak a lot of bad words but its fine for me those are just expressions. So bad that I need to leave.

Three days ago my Executive Chef called me on his office and ask me if I know why he called me. I said maybe you're going to transfer me to another kitchen. And I am right, he ask me if I am happy. I answer no because I like it in my kitchen now. Then he explained to me that I need to grow and I have no chance for a promotion in my kitchen now and he can only give me promotion as a Demi chef de Partie in another kitchen. He told me I need to choose wether I stay in my Italian kitchen but will not get promotion or he will move me and will give me promotion.
That's a promotion, how can I say no with this kind of offer, I didn't ask for it and it was the chefs decision.

Good salary, big responsibility, new kitchen, new people, new cuisines for my new position. The thing that bother me the most is the new people, the chefs that I am going to work with.
I remember the days when I was new in the kitchen that I almost give-up not because of the work but because of the peoples attitude.

These good salary, responsibility, new kitchen, new cuisines are the best part because with these things I am going to learn new things that for sure a big help in moulding my future.

Tomorrow I will start to work in my new kitchen, new new new everything. I just hope that life will be good here.

Celeriac

2012-03-22T00:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I helped main kitchen team in preparing their mise en place for today's function. I peeled 4 boxes of celeriac and then I slice it very thin using the slice machine. It was tiring but it's okay. They're going up make a celeriac gratin.

Special order

2012-03-13T09:39:00.001-07:00

Special order means a little bit problem with the chef, specially if the mise en place for that order is not readily available.
Today I just arrived in the kitchen and there is one special order. A normal ensalata(mix green salad: goat cheese, cherry tomato, grilled artichoke, orange segment with lemon dressing) but the guest wants it with cucumber and spring onion and wants to have a fresh lemon juice as a dressing. We do not have cucumber and spring onion in the kitchen because of that I need to run to other kitchen and ask for those stuff. The good thing when I run down they have it ready on their table. And they gave me.
Sometimes it's very difficult to borrow some stuff from other kitchen because we know they also need those.

Sometimes also you need to steal stuff from the fridges of other kitchen. These are sometimes the cause of arguments of every kitchen.( hotel has one main kitchen where most of the stuffs like vegetables, meats etc are there)

So these are the cucumber that I took from main kitchen cold section.

Chefs attitude

2012-03-13T00:25:00.000-07:00

"Position change the attitude of the person."

Workplace is a small place where we learn and understand the attitude of other people. People we are working with are like family member that we knows their attitude their likes and the things that can make them soft.

Let's talk about the kitchen where the chefs are working.
Attudes of persons evolve as they grow in their position, you're going to notice it once you are working with them for long time. Of course something bad and something good that is neccessary for their position. Lets talk about that.

Legumier, Commis, Cook 1,2 & 3
These kitchens staff are normally the YES CHEF of the kitchen, Ask them to do something and they will do it. Their attitudes, their bad attitude is rarely to see because they are new in the kitchen, because they need to show that they can work in the kitchen with the must needed attitude.
Soon they will become comfortable working with the chefs and these time you'll get to know them better and these time also they start to complain, they start to argue. The good thing they start to express their ideas. These way they will get a promotion and they become Demi chef de partie.

Demi Chef de Partie.
There are two kinds of demi chef de partie. The first one is the newly hired and the old one or the one that is promoted from commis.
These promoted from commis is more comfortable working with the team, He is trying to balance his attitude towards the other chefs because he is in the middle position. He was a commis before so he needs to consider his fellow commis. The good thing is he has now more power to express his ideas because he knows his chefs and he has experience in the same kitchen and in the same team.
This newly hired demi chef de partie is sometimes uncomfortable in the beggining. He is trying to figure out the working attitude of every chef in the kitchen. Most of the time he is asking information about the kichens specially the standard in the their kitchen. This demi chef de partie has his own knowledge but he knows that his new kitchen has their own standard that he needs to follow. Throug timw he will be comfortable and his ideas will be heard.

Chef de Partie.
The chef de partie is the in-charge of the section of the kitchen what he wants must be done. He has more experienced and what he is doing is based on what he learned and what the Sous chef told him.
They are sometimes coming to be arrogant because they do not listen to their commis and demis. They don't let them to explain.

Sous Chef.
Souse is the head of the kitchen. He is the manager of the kitchen he is the one who do the food costing, scheduling, ordering and so many things in the office. Aside from that he also needs to work in the kitchen during the service. Normally during service he went to the guest table and ask about the food if the guest like it and talk about anything else. Most of the time they do the plating it means that evey foods are passing from his hands to plate so he knows if the food is good or not. He taste the food before plating it. If he think the food is not good he will start to yell and give bamboo to the team, specially to the one who cook the food.
A good chef sometimes need to be strict and is required otherwise the kitchen will be relax. Sometimes if the kitchen is relax they forget to do the small thing that sometimes is the cause of big problem.
The good chef ask ideas from his staff or from the other chef. He deligates responsibility to everbody for a better working environment.