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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
Got it. And I relate. I am adding to the list of migraine triggers as I age and it is robbing me of joy. I can eat most of the things you list, but not red wine, and there seems to be a limit on sugar/ simple carbs.
This is what my dad taught me, 15% for good service. And I sure would like to know when it changed.
One thing servers can do that always improves our experience and impacts the tip is to actually know about the food and share their opinions. “It’s all good.” means “it doesn’t matter.” If we asked, it’s because it matters to us and its polite to act like it matters to you.
Wine is loaded with sulfates/sulfites and I can no longer tolerate it. One of my worst headaches ever was after eating a salad at Wendy’s back in the 80s or 90s, can’t remember just now, but they used a sulfate solution to spray the lettuce to keep it fresh looking at their salad bar. I was at the Sacrament Jazz Festival at the time. That one hit fast, as about 15 minutes later I upchucked outside their door, nearly screaming. Somebody called my mom, she rushed me to Sutter hospital, where I spent the next 2 and half days. My brother had to come get my car out of the parking lot. CA has since made it illegal to use sulfates on things without notice. I had no clue about this stuff, but my daughter told me about most restaurants spraying or washing their lettuce. I had no idea about red wine but it is now stated on the bottle it contains sulfites, as does most other wines. Some beers do also, so check before drinking them.
Re: Tipping–Lots of restaurants use money off coupons to entice diners. If you use a coupon to help pay for your meal, tip the server based on what the dinner would have cost if you had not used the coupon not on the amount rung up. Don’t be cheap.
One of my greatest joys has been to go to my favorite, mom & pop Italian restaurant. I often don’t order from the menu though. I just tell the server, “Ask Peppe (owner / chef) if he’s got a really nice cut of meat and cook it the way he would like it done.” You would not believe some of the fantastic dishes he has produced. And they are always a wonderful surprise. You have to know and really trust your chef.
We have a Thai restaurant like that. “Hey, Penn, what you got today?” It’s always delicious, plus free entertainment since the owner is crazy funny.
Take a scan through some menus of nice restaurants. Notice that some of them (especially seafood places) completely lack any vegetarian entree or entree that can easily be made vegetarian.
Option 1: scan the menu and ask for a bunch of stuff that’s on the menu in four different dishes.
Option 2: ask the server if there is something that can be made vegetarian. First, the chef knows the kitchen best and can determine what is easy to make. Second, they usually have a go-go in those situations. Third, it’s often delicious.
Before your sarcasm gets the better of you, I’ve had problems at some very, very nice restaurants. Although I haven’t been footing the bill, when the food portion (not including alcohol) is charged out at about $150 per person and everyone else is eating caviar, it’s not exactly jerk-like to point out that maaaybe plain asparagus isn’t exactly the best that they can do.
(Yes, this happened.)
First, thank you for a great article, I own 2 restaurants and this all rings so very true. On this particular point, I don’t know that I would say it is typical. I don’t charge the servers for processing although I am allowed to. OK, it costs me a bit each week, but I think the goodwill of my employees is worth more than that. As my accountant tells me, it is not standard in my little corner of the world.
And yes, I absolutely bristle when someone tells me how I’m just cheap and should pay my servers a fair wage so they don’t have to tip. First, of course the cost of your meal would go up. Somehow they think this money would just appear out of thin air. Secondly, I would most likely pay something around $15 an hour, which would be a substantial pay cut to my servers, as they make on average better than $20 an hour at one restaurant and over $25 at the other. And third, yes, the quality of service would go down. Servers, bartenders in particular, are quite adept at figuring out where the money is and maxing out those tips. I have some who are experts at getting $60 dropped on a $35 tab. And the customer is happy to do it after a wonderful experience, and that makes me happy. They will be back.
Lastly, I can’t help but wonder what people are thinking when they customize their order to the point it is not the dish on the menu. This is a restaurant, not a cooking service. Chefs work quite hard to get a meal just right. I have watched mine tweak a dish for days I thought was fantastic the first time around to get the exact right blend of not just flavors, but colors and textures too. And yes, we start prepping at 10AM in the morning for dinner service that night. It can be highly disruptive to take out just one ingredient. And that person who says they are gluten intolerant, and then says, oh as long as it is not too much it will be ok, is expressing a preference, not a requirement. There is a difference for those who truly have celiac’s disease, and yes, we really will make every effort not to kill someone. But please don’t put us through that when you are simply following a fad. Just don’t order the pasta and ask us to hold the bread OK?
I’m going to hijack the comments, I can’t resist:
Serve chilled, at room temperature, or (gasp!) slightly warmed with good tortilla chips. Leave out the cilantro if your genes have failed you ;)
I too make this mostly without a recipe, so the ingredient measurements may have to be adjusted very slightly, but it’s pretty accurate. This makes roughly 40 ounces of salsa, which lasts about a week in my apartment… you may wish to scale the recipe down if you’re not a fanatic!
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I would like that, I think. One of the reasons I don’t like eating out is that I have to choose. Choice is good, but sometimes there are more interesting things to do with my time.
In my experience, some of the best eateries from street carts to white table cloth give you very little choice. If they only do one thing, but do it very well, I’m sold.
The Hot Soup carts in NYC. Amazing.
I make two batches, both about 16 oz. Mild for me and daughter, hotter for the grandsons. I’ve had both of them vanish within hours. I use jalapeno without the seeds for me, the other with the seeds for the grandsons. I don’t cook any of it. I chop green, red, and orange sweet peppers supper fine, as well as green onions, chives and garlic super fine. I don’t add powdered chili as the peppers are hot enough. BTW, I chop the chili peppers wearing vinyl gloves as working with peppers can give you a scald. I also peel the tomatoes, use the seeds and juice. I don’t use sugar but do salt.
I’m going to make my own tortillas one of these days, and then my own tortilla chips. Have a package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Masa Harina Golden Corn Flour sitting in front of me as I type. Just need to get the courage to open the package and get started.
Great post and conversation. At the time I got my first wok I was working at S.F. Hall of Justice and the Chinese cook in the basement diner always had a wonderful selection in the steam table for lunch. He was always present and joking with the cops, attorneys and court personnel in his pidgin English. I asked him, what do I need to know about cooking with a wok?
His reply: “Pan gotta be HOT!”
I’ve enjoyed Steve Dublanica’s blog since before he posted his own name, as at the time he was working as a waiter. Waitperson. Whatever.
http://www.waiterrant.net/
The early stuff was especially enjoyable.
@mramy,
I have a probably slightly unusual ordering problem and I wonder what you think about it. I have a phobia. An honest to god, weird ass, completely irrational phobia. It’s mushrooms. I’ve learned to control it some over the years, but I have a severe panic reaction at the sight of one, and I can’t bring myself to touch, much less eat, one. I don’t know what I’d do if I did. I don’t even want to think about it.
My question is that I’ve taken to calling it an “allergy” in restaurants simply because it’s easier and I want servers/chefs to take it seriously. I fear the “he won’t notice them” syndrome which honestly could result in a pretty unpleasant reaction on my part, even if it’s not a life threatening one. (The truth is I’m pretty sure I could eat a bag of them and be fine, so long as I wasn’t aware of it. This problem is entirely in my head, but no less real or involuntary for it.)
I’d never considered, though, that the kitchen might be changing out utensils/cutting boards, etc. to accommodate me. That is completely unnecessary in my case. On the other hand, I know that people are incredulous when I tell them about this phobia. It’s completely irrational (I know that), and so they tend to conclude that it’s not “real” — that the truth is I just don’t care for the things and would prefer to omit them from my dish — which is inaccurate. So I’m afraid to just tell the truth.
Thoughts?
“Please make sure there are no mushrooms in my dish. I have mycophobia, and have very bad reactions.”
It’s not a lie, but it probably sounds worse than what it is.
I would think “please make this dish with no mushrooms would be fine. Enough people don’t like them that it shouldn’t be an issue.
Until I was about 40 years old I had the same phobia. I detested the sight of the things. However, since they are in so many different recipes, I decided my daughters were not going to share my phobia, and started feeding the girls caned mushrooms when they were pretty young. The mushroom were gluten and allergen free. Heck, the kids would grab a spoon and eat them out of the can. Made me want to barf.
Then I read in a book where the author described eating a fresh mushroom, smelled clean and earthy, with a nutty taste. I thought about that for a time, then got up the courage to buy a fresh little white one, and tasted it. And indeed it was not anything at all the way I had thought about it. I started using them fresh in salads, then moved on to cooking with them. It took me awhile to fully learn to enjoy them, but just to let you know, you can overcome a mushroom phobia.
Yea, I’m not holding my breath. Might have worked for you but I’m not going to live long enough.
Well, have to admit that was about 40 years ago and I’m still here, not planning to leave for awhile yet.
Went off too soon… should have quoted a different post but this is the right thread, anyway…
Kids and mushrooms: My daughter, 10ish at the time, and a mushroom hater, was on a business trip to Montreal with me during which we had the 7-course prix-fixe at Napoleon Bonaparte’s. Course 3 was mushroom ravioli. To mu surprise, she ate hers. And asked, “Do mushrooms really taste like that?” Answer: “Yes.” They’ve (my daughter and mushrooms) have been acceptable ever since.
Coda: Q: Why did you eat the mushroom ravioli when you don’t like mushrooms? A:Because I wasn’t gonna have a meal like that and not try everything.
This is exactly what I fear – some server or chef thinking “he just doesn’t like them” or worse “he just thinks he doesn’t like them.” Respectfully, this is the view of someone who doesn’t understand or believe in phobias.
It’s not just that I don’t like the taste (I’ve never tasted them.)
It’s that I get panic reactions at the sight of them. Heart racing, blood pressure spiking, adrenaline pumping, uncontrolled, fight or flight reactions. As a child I was occasionally teased by friends and siblings who discovered my reaction to them until one day, when one of my brothers cornered me in the kitchen chasing me with one and I grabbed a knife. I would have killed him if he hadn’t retreated and I have no doubt I wouldn’t have been legally responsible. I could no more restrain the self defense instinct than if it had been a vicious lion going for my jugular.
THAT is what a phobia is. Yes. It’s irrational. 100%. But it’s wired, and it’s involuntary, and it’s very real and very unpleasant. If you’ve never experienced anything like that, just count yourself lucky and please take my word for it.
If you have a phobia, that means you are a baaad person. Phobia = evil. Homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, shroomphobia, etc.
Not bad person, but if things were that terrifying for him as a child, his parents should have though about psychiatric treatment.
If you’ve never experienced anything like that, just count yourself lucky and please take my word for it.
My peanut allergic daughter reacts this way to some things, like the smell of banana. It isn’t necessarily connected to an actual allergic reaction to that specific trigger. But somehow she generalized the fear she feels during a peanut reaction to certain other things that don’t provoke the allergy/ immune response. Apparently the onset of anaphylaxis feels like impending death because your body tries to shut down against the attacking protein. That makes an irrational fear seem a lot closer to rational.
Well, I’m 53 years old so I’ve had plenty of time to seek treatment on my own if I’d wanted to. Treatment for phobias, however, generally involves an effort to desensitize the phobic by exposure to the panic inducing stimulus. I think that might be a best course if the stimulus in question isn’t easily avoided and the phobia meaningfully impairs living.
Mushrooms, however, are relatively easily avoided and so I’ve chosen not to endure the discomfort of the treatment (which isn’t guaranteed to work anyway) and simply avoid them. But it’s a conscious (and I think reasonable) decision. In my case it is a lone, oddball, phobia, not part of some constellation of crippling fears, anxieties or panic problems. So simple avoidance works pretty well for me.
Honestly the main problem is that Mr. Rand likes those high end, Michelin starred, pre fixe menu kinds of restaurants, and they all have a truffle somewhere on every menu. I always tell them I’m happy to just skip that one of the 17 courses they’re serving and they’re always good about substituting something else.
I really mentioned it only because the OP induced me to think that I might be causing more disruption and difficulty in the kitchen than is necessary to accommodate me by “upgrading” my problem from “phobia” to “allergy” out of fear that restaurant staff would otherwise downgrade it from “phobia” to “preference,” and I wondered what Chef thought about that.
My ninety year old maternal grandfather doesn’t eat mushrooms, though he certainly isn’t phobic. “I don’t eat toadstools.” One year for his birthday my mom made meringue cookies in the shape of white button mushrooms, with an ingenious application of textured ganache on the underside of the cap to resemble gills, and a dusting of cocoa power on the top of the cap to complete the illusion. She cleaned out one of those blue styrofoam mushroom trays that you get from the grocery store and packed the meringue cookies inside and wrapped the whole thing up in plastic. I think she may have even peeled off the little sticker with the nutritional information and stuck it to the impostor trays. She couldn’t maintain the prank for more than a minute or two, such was the look of surprise and disappointment on my grandfather’s face. He refused to eat the cookies even after the ruse was explained (luckily she had a real gift to backup the gag!).