I am really, REALLY glad we had one night of restaurant cooking under our belts before Friday night dinner service, or else I would have covered my head with my apron, found a quiet corner and hugged my knees until 10pm. If Wednesday night was frantic, Friday night was Los Angeles after the 1992 Rodney King Uprising. It seemed like everyone and their moms were eating out in the restaurant, and they were all ordering the shrimp. We flew through a night's allotment of raw shrimp in the first 30 minutes, and had to ask our less-busy classmates in Entremetier to de-shell and de-vein another pan (because the production team in Level 4, who would normally handle all of our protein prep, was on dinner break…how nice ha ha ha). The night definitely didn't slow down, and we were cranking out shrimp plates like crazy.
We finally met the chef that will be in charge for the remainder of our time at school. He's Russian, I think, yet speaks French and talks too fast for me to catch every one of his heavily accented words. He also has very limited patience, and I learned quickly that he doesn't appreciate questions or having to explain things more than once. We spent the beginning of class finishing some prep, vegetable cutting and getting everything in place for service (which starts at 8pm). About twenty minutes before service, he told us that he was going to do a new demo for each of our dishes because he wants them done his way. He also yelled at us for doing things that our previous chef had told us to do, so we were a little weary of how different "his way" would be. Sure enough, after spending all Wednesday night becoming comfortable with our dishes and memorizing the steps, we were shown two completely different ways to cook the shrimp and cod, sending our brains into a tailspin a mere five minutes before service. The plating was the same, but the method by which we got to the plate was nothing alike. It didn't help that his demos were interrupted a million times by questions from across the kitchen, and the combination of his accent and our nervousness wasn't helping. My teammates, who were handling the cod again for the second night in a row, were left with terribly confused and anxious looks on their faces, which did not seem to improve throughout the night. For some reason, they were having a really hard time with their orders. I think they were stuck in a world of confusion between the two chef's methods, and the fish was being overcooked and improperly handled. This was NOT making our new chef, or The Expediter, very happy. "What are you doing, there, you with the cod?? (He doesn't yet know our names.) Zis es all wrong! Non, did you even see ze demo??" Meanwhile, The Expediter was yelling, "I said I needed three cod! Let's go let's go! Cod, you're holding everyone up! Why are you only plating one cod, I said THREE!!" I was just cringing and trying to stay out of the way, but inevitably the focus shifted to us, the shrimpers. Chef, who had been running around to each of the Level 5 stations to make sure we were doing things correctly, wasn't paying as close attention to the order board as we were. He kept getting angry that I was only cooking two orders, or plating one, when there appeared to be more on the board. "No chef, those have already gone up. I already passed those to The Expediter." "Non, you have tree orders to make!" "No chef, I'm sorry, those have already been made, I only have one left." "Oh…I see. Continue on then." Phew…he scared me there for a minute. He also showed us a new way to interpret the order board that our other chef didn't teach us. Apparently The Expediter will place a small star next to the table number once they've gotten their appetizers. In a traditional five course meal, fish is right after the appetizers, so chef taught us that once that star is (silently) placed on the board, we should start cooking the fish, predicting that we will be coming up shortly thereafter. That way, when The Expediter says, "Fire!" we can just start to plate the dish, and will always be on time! This seems simple enough, but it takes a lot of getting used to. Early in the night, I got a little excited and started to plate two orders of shrimp once the star went on the board, and got yelled at, rightly so, because I was way too early to be plating. The orders hadn't even been fired yet! I felt like an idiot, especially when the plates were unusable.
I think we'll finally get into the groove of the restaurant and how everything works, but the learning curve has been painful. I'll be assigned to the cod dish on Monday, and I'm not looking forward to it. Then again, Mondays are always slower than Fridays, so maybe it won't be too bad. I've definitely been reassured lately that I'm not cut out to work in a restaurant (unless, I guess, it's the Tuesday morning breakfast shift). Restaurant service isn't for everyone, but I'm grateful I've started in Poissonnier; I've been thrown into the deep end before, and I always seem to float.
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