Looks that decieve

I have cut many a wedding cake in my time, the majority have been made with good craftsmanship. However you do get the odd home made job that lacks the finesse of a professional cake.


The past wedding cake was just one that has to be mentioned. A cake made by professionals, not home made I add.





The cake looked very impressive and was thick with chocolate. That was all fine until it came to the actual cutting and serving. Tonight the cake was to be bagged and given to the guests to take home with them.

The three tiers were all mud cakes of different flavours. One dry and over baked, the other raw and soggy inside. Top kept for better days...It took about a hour to get what was best from the cake and bag it up. All I can say is it was absolute carnage of a cake. I hope not to have another like that.


Please put some thought into choosing your wedding cake and especially how you want it served. Bag it, that's fine but not a creamy soft iced gooey sponge, stick to the traditional fruit cake.

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The Training of Apprentices

How can we ever expect to have a thriving industry of young chefs entering our work place with enthusiasm and basic knowledge. Today here in Australia it is a shambles. The whole country has got no idea what is going on with the state that the hospitality industry is in. Chefs are in such high demand it's not funny, yet you cant find a good one anywhere. I can give proof to that statement too. I had recently run an add on seek.com.au for an apprentice chef award rates and a Sous Chef at $45,000-50,000 negotiable. I know it's not the best money out there but it is far from the worst We had one applicant for the apprentice position and seven for the sous chef position. Of which three were from over seas, two were only just qualified and two were out of the industry for years and looking to get back in. So there you have it a load of crap. Out of the seven only one would make the grade and coming from overseas would require a visa, which is not much help to our immediate future.

Anyway according to Julia Goodwin and her not so intelligent media people we should be doing fine as so many young chefs are signing up to become apprentices, yeah right pull the other one it's got bells on!! Full read on want a slice of masterchef Julie Goodwin

I have been trialling out some apprentices these past weeks, courtesy of some agency. To say they are of any use would be a lie. I have had 1st 2nd and 3rd year trials and the difference is nothing they are all crap.
I can only put this down to lack of training from qualified chefs out there, the lack of quality control at the training institute, the total inconsistent teaching and learning curriculum Australia wide and worst of all the wrong working kitchen/restaurants that apprentices are allowed to be placed into.
How the hell can we expect young chefs these days to learn the right way to produce food if they only open packets of ready made heat and serve foods?

We need to have in place a industry standard and that needs to be high enough, not to allow the abuse of young chefs, cheap labour basically to be enrolled into business that do not have the sound infrastructure of a good kitchen brigade that produce good quality food from raw materials and not packet quick fix commodities. On that note also, the suppliers these days should keep those so called great new products to the schools and clubs that can put them to good use knowing that they are not teaching a new bread of chef the wrong way. But I guess the supplier doesn't know a good sauce from a packet sauce or for that fact a good restaurant from a slop shop either so I rest my case there.

It is plain to see that the industry is fucked and if we it isn't changed soon then it's not going to worth dining out any time in the future because it will be just packet this and that for dinner, and as MasterChef Australia has just demonstrated anybody can cook and become the next best thing since Jamie Oliver. Somebody needs to do something.

I am open to any suggestions on how to save our industry so that when I retire I can still go and dine out with sound knowledge that I am getting a good meal from good fresh produce, created by qualified chefs. A dying breed...

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Chefs Versus Customers Revisited

If you're easily offended, exit now, this is not going to be pretty.

Well, it happened again. Another waitress in tears due to a table of prize fucktards.

It's Saturday night, we have a well booked restaurant, a wedding for 90, an understaffed establishment and we're ready to fucking rock and roll! One of our tables is a 16 pax, no problem, I find big tables easier to deal with most of the time as usually they are all family, friends or celebrating a common theme. All of which makes the event about them and what they are there for, rather than out to have a dining experience or to critique the restaurant.

It takes the pressure off us in the kitchen, as usually they can wait a little longer, on the understanding that we are not a club, RSL or a fucking dining hall. We are a restaurant, we cater for little parties of people, 2, 4, 6 no problem. If you all want to dine at the same time you need to book a fucking function room, accept one of the function menus and then we call the shots as to when you will receive your courses. That is simply the way it is done, if you don't like it, go somewhere else that can accommodate your needs, that's business.

If you really want to come to our establishment to dine from the 'a la carte' menu, then you are going to have to accept that your large group experience is NOT going to be an intimate journey of fine wines, Michelin star food and exquisite service. We are not set up that way and we cannot change the entire restaurant to suit the needs of 16 people out of the 160 or so that we will cater for this evening, so...

SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND PLAY BY THE FUCKING RULES!

This particular table turned out to be a bunch of geriatric old fucks, poncing it up as if they were Lords and Ladies, with their cheap nasty perfumes, pink rinses and plastic fucking earrings! Criticising everything they could and generally making themselves difficult and awkward for all the staff. They sat there for an hour, pissing around before they ordered, then placed the order and starting moaning about the length of wait they had after 20 minutes.

What the fuck?


We are an 'a la carte' restaurant. What does Lord Fuckhead, in all his royal wisdom understand this to be? Just calm the fuck down. They are not paying $500 dollars a head, we're lucky to get $30 out of these fucks. We do not have food sitting in bain maries waiting for their order, so that we can 'chop and slop' their meal to the table. Even if we did, the reaction we got from the great food that we did serve, would have been insignificant to the reaction they would have with 'chop and slop' style.

Rude, arrogant, ignorant fucks!

The situation seems to be in control however, our specialist on the floor, who has the ability to pacify such groups has moved in to take control. Fine, job done, eat up, pay up and fuck off, thank you :)

The last meals go out and I'm soon heading out for a ciggy, only to find waitress pacifier in tears! She might not be the perfect waitress, but intelligent and certainly not one to be fucked with, and the arrogance of our 16 pax has created this!

I am so fucking pissed off. It makes my blood boil. Read my previous post for a more in depth look at why I'm so angry.

http://chefskitchenrant.blogspot.com/2009/05/chefs-versus-customers.html

So, now we are a staff member down. Is this group of fucking arseholes happy now? That they've upset someone to the point of tears, should we bring her out to show them what they've done? Will they go home tonight thinking that they had a great night because they fucked with someones emotions? FUUUUCK, I'm FUCKING RAGING! But yet, somehow, somewhere, there is still something in all hospitality professionals that keeps us from returning the arrogance. Why is this? Well, just maybe, it is because we have a passion for excellence and a drive to ensure every customer has an enjoyable experience, it's why we do the job, and it's what we were taught to do. And maybe, it's because we are simply better people.


One of these days though, I'll be caught off guard and I'm going to throw the fuckers out myself!

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