Is the Catering Industry in Crisis?

After many years now in the catering industry as a chef I have seen plenty of changes. Like all changes some are good and some bad. Different styles of cooking; Nouvelle Cuisine, Cuisine Natural, Molecular cooking, the change from meat and three veg to more picturesque plates, the a la carte dinning and so on. The availability of products throughout the world has never been better.

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Horseradish

Recently I ordered some Fresh horseradish. I wanted it so I could grate it over one one of my dishes on the new menu instead of using the bought processed product and getting an inferior outcome. Having never had the pleasure of this fresh product in my hands in Australia before now I was very pleased to receive it, only to be amazed at the price. $44- for this amount. One kilo. We all joked about setting up a horseradish farm and then got back to work.

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New Menu, Chef’s needed

First of all I must apologise for the lack of content over the last few weeks. Once again it is time for a new menu. Being winter I have added a few cold weather dishes. Often winter is not the easiest time to play with ideas on the menu as the cold weather keeps customers away. So I have decided to add a few dishes that I know will sell well with the locals. Also we are about to go through a rough period without staff. It is always great to have a fine tuned team but what tends to happen is that after time they need a change. As is the case with my brigade. From having 8 chefs on the books now down to 4, so things are tough but it will turn around again as it always does. Quality chefs are very hard to find probably due to the poor teaching within the industry and from the taffe or college.  It would be nice to find a young chef these days with a great attitude to work. Full of enthusiasm and passion for food. If that’s you, do not hesitate. Give me a call 07 4933 7878

Busy Week

Weekend Herb Blogging #88 is upon me.
I have had such a busy week that I almost forgot to get online to my blog. Today is Sunday the first of July which means stock take, and yes you guessed it I have been at work since 7am, first doing breakfast for the wedding guests from the reception that was also catered for by us last night. Then the counting, weighing etc of all the kitchen produce. (We do it each month by the way). Anyway all that aside I have now relaxed after a hot soothing shower so onto the blog I am, 10.19 pm, what do I see WHB from last week oops. Not a very good apprentice am I leaving it to the last minute. Not only did I manage only to read half of the entries from last week and I did leave a comment for you, I found them very interesting, I really have my work cut out. Hence the apprentice…as I don’t like to miss out I will try to do an entry real quick.

How Hard Is It To Get Some Bread

This little rant came about just yesterday. How hard is it to get some bread? Let’s find out……picture this, I’m at home at about 9am when I receive a call from Monika whom is at work doing the breakfast then morning tea scones & spinach parcels and then lunch assorted sandwiches for one of our conference groups. The call was to let me know that all of the fresh bread that was delivered had got used and that I should consider getting more today before I came to work that afternoon so as to have it for breakfast the following morning. Ok fine. Delivery usually gets to us about 7.30am a bit too late for those early risers. A great thought came to me.

Coffee Machine

Today we received our brand new “Boema” coffee machine, and I’m looking forward to sampling the goods later. But first, a few tips on your research before you go ahead and purchase a coffee machine. Ensure that you have enough space, sounds silly but it is true they do come in various sizes & power 10, 15, or 20 amperage, you won’t be able to just plug it in and go.

Mother’s Day

After another busy Saturday night with a wedding for 106 in the conference room & 82 in the a la carte restaurant it was back in the kitchen for the wedding breakfast followed by Mother’s Day brunch. Having had a week of last minute event’s what could be more fitting than rain on Mothers day. Jude deciding to

Staff Turnover

I have managed to upload some photos & the movie does actualy play.

This bloging does require some serious time investment, please don’t forget that I do have to run a very busy kitchen, which at present is going through some staff turnover.

New Menu

What a busy weekend. First Saturday night then Sunday lunch. The beautiful weather at the moment must be enticing more people out for lunch. It was a quick fire 90 people.

Big Tables

Well what a week. Busy with conferences and a la carte. One chef down but still pushing on. Tonight Saturday was a relatively easy one all things considered. The wedding was simple and ran smoothly, only 86 with pre dinner cocktail food followed by one main meal alternate drop. The restaurant was fully booked and all was going great until the two big tables hit. One suffered unfortunately, they had to wait, and were a little upset about that, understandable. Hope it was worth waiting for anyway. Big tables are just a pain, they are often “messy”. We are now coming into the festive party time and that means big groups, some with set menus, which are great but you do get the ones that chose to go a la carte. So it’s head down and into it.  The boys let off some steam with some serious cleaning with water every where, all good. Time for a cold beer now. Check out the clip from tonights Saturday service click the link video action…….

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