A Quiet Sunday???

Today I was working in the bar for a change, as it was a busy Sunday, none of the staff upstairs were off, and the other intern was off and wouldn’t be in the bar today. For a Sunday, it was relatively quiet with only about 230 covers all day (only, I know that’s still a lot), so we had the chance to get other things done as well. There was one cook on starters, one cook on mains, and one cook on the pass helping out when needed, plus me on pastry and as the runner - I had to step in a few times to help out, but nothing major. We didn’t have a lot of prep to do either, as we always ensure we are well-prepared for Sundays, so I was kind of looking around for odd jobs or getting ahead.

I began with setting up the pastry section, dicing up some shallots for the mains cook, making a big batch of mashed potatoes, making sweet chili mayonnaise, cooking garlic potatoes, slicing goat’s cheese, vacpacking, chopping lettuce, washing salad, making egg salad mix, cleaning, etc. My big, self-induced task of the day was cleaning out the big walk-in fridge, which needs to be done every few days and it was time again. I volunteered because I actually do not mind that job at all. That took a while, and I kept getting interrupted with dessert orders and what not. There was a lot of labelling to do, rearranging, and taking inventory so we would know what prep needed to be done.

Lamb Wellington trial with ratatouille and lamb sauce

Today we had a starter special of a chicken tortilla wrap, a main course special of pork belly, and a lemon tart dessert of the day. A few events of the day: the pass cook making up the dish of the day for tomorrow – lamb wellington with ratatouille, and making a special plate for me for dinner, then leaving the main components of his prep all over the place for me to have to clean up, asking me to make fried eggs for dinner when I was busy and told him the breakfast chef had said my fried eggs were, well shit.

At the end of the night the others had left again and I was waiting on a last dessert order, again. After which I headed upstairs to the restaurant, as I know what it is like to be left alone on pastry, to see if the pastry cook needed any help with final orders. He was on his last order, but I helped him wrap up and clean down so he could get home faster. We talk a lot since I am essentially going to be taking over that section for a bit as the head chef is off for two weeks. He said Tuesday will be really busy and didn’t understand why I had that day off, so I offered to come in if he needed me, even if just for service. The server that was there said I was just, “too good”. The pastry cook thanked me for helping him clean up and told me to ‘do something exciting’ on my day off tomorrow. I asked him if sleeping counted and he said no, so I told him I would try.