When they first arrived, the five people in Tan Palace were most impressed by the kitchen managed by the three French chefs. One word - pervert!
First of all, the requirements for cleanliness and hygiene here are extremely abnormal.
There are two meals a day. Once the meal is paid, the kitchen will start to be cleaned.
After cleaning, the French head chef on duty will personally check the hygiene.
The stove, cabinets, knives and chopping boards just look clean, but they actually wipe them with white hand towels.
If it's even a little bit dirty or greasy, it's "completely cursed to death".
I guarantee that I will give you a real scolding and scolding.
After you give it up, you will be asked to clean it three times again, and you will have to fill out a fault report and your money will be deducted.
Not to mention the kitchen hygiene standards of ordinary Chinese restaurants these days, even the hygiene standards of Tan Palace are useless here.
There is no way to muddle through.
Therefore, white vinegar has become an indispensable treasure in Maxim's kitchen. It is a bottle of kitchen whitening fairy water that everyone has in hand!
French chefs also treat the kitchen's personal hygiene very abnormally.
Not to mention the trimming of hair, beard, and nails, and the fact that chef uniforms must be spotless.
They actually require that as long as anyone leaves the kitchen during working hours, no matter what the reason, the first thing they do when they step into the kitchen again is to sanitize their hands.
The chef's hat can only be taken off when the chef announces the bill!
But this is still good. A more perverted request than this would be the unshakable cleaning day every Friday.
When doing general cleaning, clean the workbench first.
The chefs in the back kitchen had to pour a bucket of water mixed with detergent onto the stainless steel worktop where everything had been moved to other tables.
When the water flows to the ground like a waterfall, take a rag and wipe it slowly.
Then use a glass scraper to scrape off the water in one direction.
Finally, wipe it dry with dry paper, and the workbench is now clean.
Next, everyone uses the same method to clean the refrigerated cabinet doors embedded under the cleaning workbench one by one.
After all countertops and cabinets in the cold snow area have been cleaned, connect a thick water pipe to the faucet and use a large flow of water to flush the floor.
Then use a huge scraper like a mop to push all the accumulated water and debris on the ground to the sewer opening.
Finally, wrap up the garbage collected at the sewer outlet and throw it away.
At this point, the simplest ground work is completed.
However, this work is far from over. How can it be enough to just clean up the personal workbench and floor?
You must ensure that there is no trace of dirt in any corner of the entire kitchen.
So next, the more difficult aerial cleaning and the more troublesome wall cleaning began.
From the work surface to the refrigerator door to the tiles in the corners, the chefs in the kitchen have to clean everything several times.
I even had to climb up to the stove, remove the windows of the oil fume duct one by one, wipe them all carefully with steel wool, rinse them again, and wipe them again.
All exposed pipes, stoves, and shelves should be cleaned according to this process until there is no trace of oil stains.
It’s not until the chef shines like he’s never cooked before that he’s qualified.
Executive Chef Dominic's most well-known saying in the kitchen is "There will never be a place for oil fumes in my kitchen."
There is no doubt that in the eyes of Chinese people, all of this is an unimaginable exaggeration.
In addition, the preparation work before starting the meal is also very abnormal.
At seven o'clock every morning, the kitchen and warehouse of Maxim Restaurant are already in full swing counting, reviewing, distributing, and managing the freshly arrived ingredients one after another.
In fact, this job is not complicated for kitchen veterans.
Because the purchasing procedures for Chinese and Western food are similar, it’s just a little more difficult.
Almost always after the goods are shipped to the warehouse, all receipts are reviewed to ensure quality and quantity, and then the invoice amount is checked with the chef.
But how to handle the ingredients later is very different between Chinese food and Western food.
Chinese cuisine focuses on the harmony of the five flavors.
Although the texture of ingredients is important, cooking techniques and seasoning are even more important.
Moreover, Chinese chefs can make both original and altered flavors.
No matter whether it is frozen meat, dry goods or pickled products, even if the ingredients are not very fresh, they can still be used.
So in addition to washing the common vegetables and cutting all the onions, ginger and garlic.
In other words, the red table is used to cut out the meat according to parts, and then the dry goods are distributed.
Once most of the goods are stored in the warehouse, it's done.
Taking the kitchen of Tan Palace as an example, the most arduous daily preparation work is actually the soup set and white table.
In addition to lifting countless cans of soup stock, the soup team is also responsible for making semi-finished products for later use.
Needless to say, if you don’t make steamed buns, dumplings, noodles, and old noodle steamed buns in advance, how can you sell them?
But the good thing is that the soup team and Bai An are working almost all day long, and the fire on the stove never stops.
The soup team is always simmering, boiling, simmering, and stewing. There are always steamers on and off the table, but there is no need to do surprise work and compete for time.
The opposite is true for Western food.
Western food is mainly pure and pays attention to the original flavor of the ingredients and the food is fresh. Most of the dishes are cooked and sold fresh.
Even the sauce must be freshly made.
Especially at Maxim's Restaurant, not only does it have a lot of fresh vegetables and imported fruits, but it also has a lot of seafood and dairy products, as well as a lot of purely imported steaks.
There are too many fresh ingredients that need to be processed in advance.
Take the vegetables that are the easiest to pack as an example. There are dozens of types.
Because most of them are extremely picky about humidity and temperature, such as: fresh spices, celery, asparagus, etc.
The processing process is actually not simple and requires a lot of work to complete.
To process vegetables according to the requirements of French chefs, you must first pick the most beautiful leaves by category, tear them into bite-sized pieces, put them in a large basin, and wash them carefully.
In order to clean away the sediment and dirt, each type of blade needs to be cleaned at least twice, and blades that are particularly prone to hiding sand need to be cleaned three or four times.
After washing, use a huge salad drain bucket to dry the water, then separate them into prepared crisper boxes, label them, and store them in the pantry until it is time to eat.
This is done to keep the vegetables as fresh as possible.
To do this well, first go to the dishwashing room to find a water filter bucket and several large basins for washing leaves, and then go to the storage room to find a few crisper boxes with lids.
Go to another room, soak some non-woven fabric, put it in an insulated box and fold it up, separate different types of vegetables, and get some more to cover the top vegetables.
After all the above preparations are done, vegetables can be washed.
After all work is completed, the work area must be cleaned quickly and all utensils cleaned and returned to their original places.
As you can imagine, it takes so much effort to even prepare a simple salad. How much work it is to prepare the entire menu according to the ingredients.
And since this ingredient preparation work requires shuttling back and forth between the freezer and fresh-keeping warehouse at minus five degrees to plus five degrees, it takes more than two hours once the work starts.
The chefs in the back kitchen also have to overcome the test of low temperature and frost, and they need to have certain polar survival skills.
Just like the TV show thirty years later, stay awake, slow down your breathing, reduce body heat consumption...
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Speaking of which, preparation is the most relaxing time of the day.
In fact, at eleven o'clock every day, when the morning preparations have come to an end, the siren will officially sound half an hour later, and the real uncomfortable suffering is yet to come.
Not to mention anything else, just so that all the kitchen staff can be in place when the meal starts at 11:30, the staff lunch time of just thirty minutes is particularly precious!
Don't think that the staff meals at Maxim's Restaurant are just that good.
Although there is no shortage of money here, and although they serve world-famous French cuisine, the job of the chefs is to deal with delicious food all day long.
But in order to ensure that employees are clear-headed, French chefs usually arrange lunch for employees with juice, coffee and cold food.
For Chinese people who are used to eating hot meals, this is simply the greatest physical abuse.
It's quite fresh at first, and one or two meals is okay, but after a long time, who can stand it?
To be honest, it was purely a foreign crime.
When it's time to serve the meal, the kitchen will become even more terrifying because the dishes must be served according to the customer's order within the specified time.
As soon as the restaurant's business hours arrive and the guests sit down, the order is placed in the kitchen.
Every aspect will be under the full control of the chef, and the time between hot and cold meals will be strictly controlled.
There is no room for any mistakes in plate temperature, texture, sauce, decoration, etc.!
The chefs in the Western kitchen must also obey orders and do not have any time to hesitate. Every job must be done quickly, accurately and well.
Therefore, the kitchen is no longer a kitchen, but a battlefield without smoke!
The chefs, like soldiers, activated the first-level combat mode, On Fire!
Not only must everyone strictly follow the chef's instructions, it can be called a mountain of military orders!
And the loud and powerful "Oui Chef" will also resound throughout the kitchen!
Needless to say, as generals commanding the three armies, the "violent tempers" of the three French chefs were extremely bad at this time and unparalleled.
Not only do they get angry, they get angry!
They were like three extremely vicious thugs, or lunatics.
They must not see anyone doing anything unimportant even for a second.
The ordering rhythm is chaotic, the dish delivery speed is slow, the color of the sauce is wrong, and the work surface is not tidy enough...
These are all reasons why they can verbally abuse you.
Any subordinate who talks to them may become a fool who causes a hundred stupid things!
And in this hurry-up process of serving meals, no one can explain themselves.
Even if he is really innocent, if he is scolded wrongly, he will be scolded wrongly!
You actually want to argue? That's a deliberate mistake and you'll be kicked out of the kitchen!
So when the chef raises his voice and reprimands, or even throws things, the "little soldiers" can do nothing but admit their mistakes and "Oui Chef".
Not to mention burns, cuts, and scratches!
This is something that shouldn't happen.
If it really happens, no matter who it is, they must pack it up immediately and return to their post in a minute to continue the work they just did.
This is the military discipline of Western chefs!
Seriously, those gentlemen and ladies who sit in the restaurant, listen to elegant and beautiful background music, and eat carefully and elegantly.
I would never imagine what the kitchen looks like.
The chef stood beside him and kept urging him. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"
The chefs have to keep track of the list in their minds, as well as the various special requirements of not eating meat, not eating seafood, not eating mushrooms, and not eating dairy products.
At the same time, you have to make, arrange, and clean up in a hurry without making any mistakes.
The pressure was like food in a pressure cooker. It can only be described as an adrenaline rush.
Only after the meal mission is over will the three French guys regain their senses and become somewhat human again.
"Voilà c'est fini merci à tous!" (That's it, call it a day, thank you!)
This is the French sentence that all the "little soldiers" in the kitchen look forward to hearing from several French chefs every day.
Unfortunately, the cleaning work is imminent again, and the physically demanding "scrubbing" task is about to begin again.
This makes everyone who is exhausted still unable to relax completely. They can only brace themselves and continue to work hard...
So it is conceivable that the five chefs from Tan Palace came to such a place.
The sudden mental stimulation I experienced and the feeling of being at a loss as to what to do was so great.
Not for anything else, but mainly because there are too many rules that they need to adapt to and learn!
When the chef walks up and down the stairs, he should be very fast, but he should not run.
If the number of tasks that need to be processed is less than 100, it should not take more than half an hour to complete the tasks, and you should do other tasks immediately after completion.
Don't spend more than thirty seconds looking for something, otherwise the chef next to you will ask you what you are looking for.
And help you find it quickly, and give up quickly if you can't find it.
The time it takes to wash things is even measured in seconds.
In order to be safe and save time, when moving in the kitchen, you must shout "hot" loudly and in a long tone to remind others to avoid it.
Use a ruler to measure when cutting things, use a measuring cup to accurately measure the soup and pour it into the dishes...etc.
It is not an exaggeration to say that they were completely confused. It was inevitable that they would be the ones scolded the most.
Those three French guys don't care that they all work as chefs in Tan Palace, and they don't care that each of them is the leader of their respective groups in Tan Palace.
Not only did he always scold them, he was even more harsh than he treated the people in his own kitchen, and he wished he could just rush them away.
When it comes to teaching them how to cook French food, they don't do it at all. They are just used as handymen.
The only chance they have to learn a little bit about French cooking is probably to catch up with three French chefs every week who are in a good mood and maybe cook a dish in the kitchen.
It is considered a public class and anyone can watch it.
And because of the language barrier, they didn't even have a chance to ask questions.
As for the reason for such cold reception, it is actually not difficult to understand.
Whether foreigners have taught their disciples to starve their masters to death, I can’t say yet.
But the three French chefs definitely don't want to waste their efforts on a few of them who are destined to leave, that's for sure.
Even others in the kitchen thought so.
Even among their own compatriots, no one believed that the five of them could adapt to the harsh environment here.
Think about it, even most of the long-term employees hired by Maxim Restaurant couldn't adapt.
Not to mention these outsiders, and two of them are women.
Of course, I'm afraid there may also be some reasons for being scornful of peers.
The chefs who can stay here are, after all, the first batch of people in the country to learn French cuisine. They are somewhat conscious that it is extremely difficult to persevere, and they have the mentality of being superior to others.
Especially after seeing the advantages of Western food, I feel the grandeur of Maxim Restaurant every day.
They were somewhat dissatisfied and had some doubts about Tan Gong Restaurant, which opened almost at the same time as Maxim Restaurant and quickly became popular.
For this reason, not only did some people help Zhou do his evil deeds, but some even made private bets on when they could no longer bear it and would leave voluntarily.