Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Special Order
What are going to do tonight, Ricochetti?
Same thing we do every night, ChefSly, go to a restaurant and order something not on the menu.
Well, if you’re going to do that, let me share with you some of my years of experience in restaurants.
In a restaurant kitchen, there is a great deal of prep work that is done throughout the day in order to have a successful lunch or dinner. Vegetables are chopped, shrimp is cleaned and portioned, pastas are cooked and portioned, along with a myriad of other tasks. That work is done to accomplish three major things. First is to create a reasonable service time, the second is to ensure the consistency of the final product, and the third is to use the space that is available most efficiently as possible. This also relates to cooking skill and movement.
To create a reasonable service time, some things have to be cooked ahead. As an example, most soups could not be made in the time between ordering and service. Roast meats are also on the list of items that take too long to cook. Pastas are on the edge — some restaurants cook to order, some don’t. Bottom line, if something would take more than 15 minutes to cook, it has to be precooked to some extent. The common exception is well done steak. “I need this 20 ounce bone-in rib-eye well done on the fly please” gets a laugh.
This also applies to components of dishes as well. The four cheese sauce for our Mac and Cheese, the topping for the Oyster Rockefeller, and the corn salsa for the Shrimp Kisses all are done ahead of time. If the dish is something like that, we likely can’t make changes to order. We might be able to leave a prepped component out of a dish, but I don’t have time to make a batch of mashed potatoes without dairy.
Ensuring a consistent product does two things: the guest gets the same meal every time, and the restaurant knows how much money it’s spending per dish. With regard to special orders, I may not have the separate ingredients on the line. For example, our fried calamari has vegetables fried with it: artichokes, banana peppers, jalapenos, and carrot slices. When I get an order for calamari without jalapenos, I have to dig in the bag of veggies and pull them out before I can make them, and I have to cook that one order separately.
Which leads us to efficiency. When I’m on the line during a rush, I need to have everything prepped and portioned and ready to go. As it gets busier, every second on the line matters. This is especially true for the fry station, where the difference between perfect and burnt is a couple seconds. Instead of cooking the food in the order that the tickets are printed, I’ll collect like tickets and cook those items together. In the best of cases, I’ll end up in the zone, where I’m not really thinking about what I’m doing; I’m just cooking. Leaving the line for any reason and working to understand the ticket kick me out of the zone. I have to leave the line to replenish the station as I run out of ingredients, since I don’t have the space on the line to hold everything that’s required during the rush.
I also have to leave the line for allergies. An allergy requires clean tools: cutting board, knife, spatula, etc. It also requires fresh ingredients to avoid cross contamination. It could also require fresh oil in the fryer (which is unlikely). This takes time to assemble, which lengthens service time, for you and for the rest of the orders. If you only don’t want an ingredient in the dish, just ask us. There’s no reason to call it an allergy.
So what’s the takeaway? Think about your allergy before you decide on a restaurant. Please read the menu, and if the menu isn’t clear, ask the server. They should be trained to know the menu, as well as what is possible to sub out or omit. If you’re generally pleasant, when the server goes to ask the chef about a special request, that pleasantness will translate through the chef to the cooks. A special order will likely cause your food to take longer to come out, and so be understanding with your server. Also realize that during the lunch or dinner rush, it’s possible that the delay will cost your server another table. We want to provide great service and food, and we will do our best to accommodate you.
Published in Humor
I was thinking about that, too. I work from home and do the cooking. I am often in and out of the kitchen for four hours or more dealing with the evening meal. If I make bean soup (or other dishes with beans), I start it by soaking the beans the night before. The nice thing about it is that with my issues, it’s best to know exactly what is going into my meals by cooking from scratch. But it certainly does take time.
I can appreciate it, I just wouldn’t be able to replicate it. Although in my family we generally mitigate the coordination aspect with everyone bringing in a dish and/or a table full of appetizers.
This is my test. If you keep my water glass full, you are paying attention and earn a good tip.
Actually I have no idea if soy oil contains soy protein and not interested in finding out. There are so many foods that contain soy (most of them) it would take a lifetime to differentiate between them. Soy triggers migraines in me that are so severe I get sent to a hospital, but then so does MSG, sulfates, bananas, avocados and any food that contains natural amines, tyramine. I’m not in any danger of dying, just severe pain for several days. I simply no longer take the chance.
I do know that 5 Guys eatery in Kalispell has warning signs on the door and on every wall, “we cook with peanut oil.” One of the few places I can go for hamburger and fries.
Yes. I’m a giver, like that.
(The formatting here got weird and I’m only making things worse.)
Fascinating.
You’ve probably figured this out by now, but pressure cookers are a god send when it comes to beans. If you plan carefully and use presoaked beans, you can have a delicious meal in (nearly) one pot. If I can plan far enough ahead to soak beans, red beans and skillet corn bread can be put together in a half hour flat (not counting oven preheat…).
I have only recently developed this knowledge from a couple months’ worth of cooking Blue Apron meals for my wife and myself. Everything is real and fresh. The vegetables have to be washed, diced or sliced, and a lot of things are going on at once.
So far every meal has worked out just fine. I like some better than others, of course, but there is a lot of satisfaction earned from presenting a colorful, fragrant, interesting meal instead of some take-out containers.
I am a heavy tipper, even if the service is lousy. (Unless it is spectacularly so.) I try to operate under the assumption that I may have caught that person on their worst day. If I get bad service twice in a row at a place it will be a long time, if ever, before I go back.
As for chefs, the first time I remember actually seeing the person who cooked my food was at a Chinese restaurant when I was a teenager. I worked at a stereo place and there was a place in the same shopping center where I would eat lunch regularly. Totally inexperienced with Chinese food, I would order something different every time. I really liked the Sweet & Sour Pork so when I saw Sweet & Sour Fish on the menu as the special of the day I went for it. When the waiter brought it to my table it was under one of those metal covers . The chef was tagging along, beaming with pride, and with a flourish and cry of “That is some fish!” uncovered the plate to reveal a whole fish covered in sauce. Head and tail turned up, with eyeball glaring at me accusingly…
I had some picture in my mind that this would be like Mrs. Paul’s Fish Nibblers, covered with S&S sauce, not Billy Bass in his entirety. It was delicious, though.
Thank you for writing this, Chef Sly!
In my almost two decades of not eating meat, I’ve encountered a variety of responses and levels of helpfulness at restaurants. There have been the chefs who said that they would “put something together” for me, and it’s been delicious. (This happens when there are no veggie options on the menu and I ask the server. If the chef wants to get creative, have at it.) On the opposite end of the spectrum are dishes that come out with bacon, fish, or chicken, because “it’s vegetarian.” (Nope, not kidding.)
Most of the time, I just want a dish prepared without meat – like a pasta and veggie dish, just omit chicken. At least from my perspective, that seems easy enough, but I have no idea what it does to a kitchen.
I try to avoid inventing a meal out of the ingredients in other dishes.
OK, going with your example, I’ve gotten to wondering if that’s the right thing to do. I used to round off the amounts, too, but then I got the idea that it wasn’t nice to the wait staff to make them deal with odd dollars and cents, and that it would be more respectful to give them even amounts. So if the bill is $21.17, I’ll tip an even $4. Same if it’s $19.17.
I’d be interested in hearing from people who’ve done waiter work: Does this matter? Does it matter more when I leave the cash on the table than when I add it to the credit card bill?
That’s a very funny way of describing how not to be a high-maintenance diner.
The IRS has no idea how much cash you leave on the table. Not having a paper trail of your income is one of the perks of waiting tables.
But they do assume a percentage, so people who stiff the server are likely making them pay taxes on what was never in their pocket.
When I tip I hand them the cash and tell them to make sure the lousy government doesn’t take any of it. It never hurts to subliminally put the idea into the head of people at the (usually) lower end of the income scale that taxes stink.
Very true. I don’t know what it is now, but it used to be 10%.
Trust me, they know. Of course, servers are often in that 47% who don’t pay any “income” tax, just the old people welfare taxes that they’ll never get themselves.
Trust me they don’t know, and they are obsessed with trying to find out. In the 90’s every year we would have an employee meeting where an agent would carefully explain the new hare-brained scheme to get us to declare our tip. We would all just smile and nod politely.
BTW, a server in the right location can make a lot more than you might think.
When you leave a tip on a credit card, it is typical for the Server to pay the processing fee for the tip amount.
I don’t think the IRS does this, as they have no real information to go on.
I heard from a couple servers at the last restaurant I worked, that the owner would add a tip based on the server’s sales numbers.
I wrote a post a while ago talking about how tipped employee taxes are calculated.
I feel I should mention that failing to accurately report tips in not only tax fraud on the server’s part, but also on the restaurant’s part. If, as a restaurant owner, I know that my servers are not declaring tips, I can held accountable for the employer share of FICA. Given the large company I work for, if a server is caught not reporting tips, I believe they get fired.
Servers are generally the highest paid hourly workers in a restaurant.
Let’s just say the whole tips thing can be more confusing than deciphering the meaning of a presidential tweet.
Case in point, my daughter wound up owing a substantial amount of taxes to the IRS over two tax years. She brought this to the attention of the manager and each time she was told things were correct. She finds out from a new manager that the tax thing was totally wrong and she was able to resubmit and get refunds for excess tax paid. Funny thing is this error only effected some, not all the servers.
Didn’t know that. Thx. I’m still interested in knowing what you think about getting rounded off amounts vs odd dollars and cents.
Have you ever been to a Chinese seafood restaurant where you pick out your own fish and they prepare it? It’s an experience. Chinese know how to make the best seafood dishes as far as I’m concerned.
Your story reminded me of was the scene in Christmas Story at the end when they bring the duck to the table with head attached and the chef takes a clever and severs it.
Coupla things:
“While I do not like the taste of cilantro (detergent in my food)” (Why didn’t the quote feature work?) (I guess I used cuttenpste instead of “reply;” sorry.)
Thought that I was the only person to think that cilantro tastes like soap…
About prep:
Yeah, that. In spades. Particularly observance of the shrinking pool of those ever exposed to actual cooking, even at the household level. A lot of art AND science AND (a lot!) of shear luck goes into everything arriving at the table at the same time, all edible…
About tipping:
If 15% was the correct number, why did it cease to be the correct number? Or am I the only person to recognize that the price of the meal might just be a built-in cost-of-living escalator? Regardless, unless convinced otherwise, I consider it a minimum for uninspired service. Interesting take-away from the discussion, though, are the possible advantages of tipping with cash, separately. (Except for expense account meals; the reimbursement fairy hates cash, sorry about that…)
However…
What’s with trolling for tips on carryout that I pick up myself? Or am I missing something?
Michael
No, it is a genetic thing. You should ask members of your family about it, those related by blood, if you can. You might be surprised. I know for me, it’s on both sides of the family. My father has long been abusive to the practice of liberal application in Mexican restaurants. Had one of my mother’s first cousins who used to declare it tasted like old sweat socks, but I think the detergent/soap description is generally more common.
If I have cash on me I’ll tip with cash. My standards for tipping: Poor or shoddy service, 10%. Norman standard service, 15%. Good service, 20%, Exceptional service, 25%, and if they can make me laugh about some of my food idiosyncrasies they will get 30%.
I used to do this too until I realized I was shorting the person serving me. So I stopped and started calculating the tip amount to equal 20% or more, depending on level of service. I’m not so OCD that I need to short someone who works much harder than I do at my desk job (for which I’m thankful).
I’ve never used cilantro as a spice in foods, so some years ago I decided to make salsa and my grandson asked me to leave the cilantro out as he doesn’t like it. And he was the chief chef for many years at an upscale restaurant. I had bought some as the recipe had called for it, but it has been sitting in my cupboard for years and I have never tasted it. Probably time to toss it. I make salsa now without a recipe, and I like mine better than any I’ve bought.
I really enjoy posts like this. How often do you get someone who orders something off the menu? I would never do this! Why are you eating at a steak house if you want Mexican food?? This just mystifies me.
Do the math on my examples. I’m not shorting anyone. Those tips are 26% and 48% respectively. The lunch with Arahant and Skip was about 30%.