Intensity....Thy Name Is The Restaurant Business

Well.....that was intense. Every bit of work I've ever done in my life (except maybe fighting a raging forest fire) paled in comparison to what that shift was like.....but the sense of accomplishment after a dinner service like that is rewarding.

I went in at 2pm, and after some brief intros, was making fresh pasta. Then odds and ends prep work (depulping preserved lemons, prepping different dressings, etc.) until about 6pm....the restaurant is closed from 3pm to 5pm, but people don't really start rolling in until about 6pm. Then it is just a blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr until 11pm. We prepped mise en place for 50 amuse bouches and the end tally on the night was 92 customers.....including a critic from the Vancouver Sun!

I was working the garde manger station with the regular garde manger chef (a recent culinary graduate). Typical of a restaurant of this size, the garde manger station does the amuse bouche, cold apps, salads, & desserts.
I bounced around between jobs....helping plate desserts and apps, filling bread orders, making the extra amuse bouche dishes and eventually making & plating the salads.
The evening staff consisted of the executive chef (expediting and plating entrees), two hot-line chefs (that station looks absolutely insane), a dishwasher, garde manger chef and me.
  
The restaurant closes at 10pm, but given the busy evening, we were still plating until almost 11pm. After service the crew spent about an hour scrubbing down the kitchen and getting all the dishes done and put away. Apparently it was a good well done because Chef Alvarez treated us all to a Stella while we cleaned.

Chef Alvarez is an interesting fellow. Light-hearted at times, intense at others. He wants me to drop in this afternoon to chat. We'll see where it goes from there.