The infrared glow of your standard college alarm clock is something I never got used to. Though it has no incandescence to speak of, the red glow seems blinding in this windowless room.
9:45. I have some time before work. I've learned that a short commute is essential to my happiness, so I can fart around before driving in. Maybe a cup of bad instant coffee, maybe a steamed bun, there's always a lot of food offered by the Grandma. The battle against the burgeoning waistline begins early in the morning.
Drive, drive, drive. Long Island is a strange place to drive through. Though the hills and lack of strip malls make it seem nice, the bitterly stubborn "Historical Society" that preserves much of the colonial architecture, make it seem internally confused rather than cutely quaint. And traffic lights. Jesus, when are they going to figure out how to make those work properly on this damned island.
Park against the side of the building, it's getting close to 11:00 AM. The employee van lumbers up. It's our big passenger van, and it serves as a bus driving most of the employees to the restaurant from Flushing every morning. But thanks to the beauty of American car manufacturing (Shut it, Jiwon, I don't wanna hear it), it clunks and wheezes and limps through the parking lot. I try to get here after them, but sometimes I don't time it well. I don't like for them to see me in my car, and for it to suggest that I'm some spoiled brat. One, the car doesn't actually cost all that much, two, as far as I'm concerned I don't own this place. I am an employee, a grunt, another cog in the machine just like them.
Doors open. Well, technically, we're open. We don't really start doing business until noon. But we get the same two regulars at 11:30, every morning. One woman, sadly stricken with some kind of mental illness, sits at D1 and orders roast pork lo mein and diet coke. The other, an out-of-work hairdresser who has taken up temporary residence at the hotel next door, sits at the bar and likes to watch HGTV. The word "temporary" is beginning to lose its meaning. An egg roll, wonton soup with tea, $6.29, every weekday. These creatures of habit, they really are fascinating. They don't mind as the waiters and bus boys roll through with the vacuum cleaner, brooms and Windex.
Prop open the kitchen double doors, turn on the fans. The kitchen slowly dumps its exhaust heat throughout the night, and even during the winter it remains frightfully steamy. There are some dirty dishes, and the soup bain-maries are left out at night. Chinese soups are made fresh daily, so we wash and refresh in the morning. The cooks change in to their whites, not having the luxury of going home like I do, and they slowly set up their stations. I make sure to attack the floor with a broom.
I sweep and sweep. Partly because I want to show the employees that I am willing to do the dirtiest and most thankless jobs. And secondly, I in fact love sweeping. Ever since I became a cook, wiping down tabletops, cutting boards, sweeping floors gets me off. Okay, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic and disturbingly sexual, but my obsessive-compulsive tendencies have fully bloomed as I've continued to work in restaurants.
Floor seems clean, put on the whites. Trusty Yankees hat, dishwasher's snap-on, and a full-body apron. My favorite culinary uniform. Chef's jackets were always too thick for me, and waist-high aprons didn't offer enough coverage for my clumsy ass. Time to work.
I follow around Luo Shi-fu, the dim sum chef, like a rather annoyingly obedient dog. We have so many cooks that he is literally the only chef who has space for me. The prep table, the line, and the dishwasher seem to be constantly abuzz and occupied. But having worked as a solo specialist for years, Luo Shi-fu has just enough room for me to park alongside him and learn.
What kind of dim sum do we make today? Well, first we figure out the filling and then the dough to wrap it in. Sometimes we make wheat starch dough, sometimes we make flour dough, sometimes we make leavened bao zi dough. The wheat starch dough is the trickiest. You've probably had wheat starch dim sum before. When they're well-made, they're pellucid and gossamer little bundles, just barely hinting at their contents, and giving in to your mouth with ease and smoothness. Yes, that kinky. It's just wheat starch, refined corn starch, a little salt, and boiling hot water. You mix it all together, pour on the water, and knead immediately. The dough has to remain hot, and then warm for however long you are making dumplings. Once it gets cold, it is dead and useless. Luo Shi-fu can resuscitate a cold dough, but the results are less than optimal. So the key is to work fast. Only thing is, kneading boiling hot water in to dough is rather painful. My bitch hands never fail me. A lubrication of pork fat should serve as a protective condom against the heat, but it does little to stave off the burn. Luo Shi-fu's leathery craftsman hands are often required to finish the job in time.
Twelve o' clock, noon. Brunch time. It's always the same. Noodle soup, mian tiao. A mixture of leftover noodles from the night before with any vegetables or meat nearing their time thrown in. The various cooks take turns making it, and I've learned to identify their personal styles. I like Pei Shi-fu's mian tiao the best. It is often made with tomato, water spinach, garlic, pork, cabbage, and onion, with dashi and miso stock as the base. He adds just the lightest touch of cornstarch to give the broth some thickness. We line up, fill our bowls, and me and the Mexican guys immediately dump in heaping tablespoons of chili paste. The Chinese dudes think we're crazy. The broth turns violently red. I love it. You sip the broth near the end, it burns. It makes you sweat, it makes your nose run, but it lights your body on fire for a brisk autumn day. Makes you feel alive and most certainly awake. I try to hide it from my mom though, because she thinks a cankerous ulcer is in store for me. I add the crunchy, fried chow mein noodles at the end like croutons. I draw looks from the cooks that say, "::sigh:: ... American."
The morning drones on. Making dumplings, sweeping the floor, wiping the table. Luo Shi-fu's work space consists of your standard 3x6 steel table topped with a 4-inch thick slab of wood. The hardwood top has seen a lot of abuse and work, but the near-constant use of pork fat has left it smooth. Behind us is another steel prep table that is often shared by as many as five cooks at once. Sometimes one manning the meat slicer, while the other four julienne a mountainous pile of carrots with chipped cleavers. I should have been grateful for all the space I was afforded at Va P. When the chickens come in, they all team up on the effort to run through the cases upon cases of poultry we get. But that's not today, today is Rib Day.
"Dia de Costillas!" Miguel exclaims. The ribs come down the back stair case on a dangerously stacked dolly. The grill chef is a bad ass. His heart is failing him, he takes dozens of pills every morning. But he is ice cold on the line. He makes sure one of our top selling items is always at its best; our spare ribs. We sell close to a thousand pounds a week. They are marinated in a concoction of ketchup, garlic, powdered onion, soy bean paste, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, palm sugar, tomato paste, the list goes on and on. But first they are trimmed to size. The riblets are cut off, the bottom chain is cut off, and then you have one perfect rectangle of ribs. Going through a thousand pounds of that, you can imagine how much trim we have. We eat a lot of pork riblets through employee meals. I couldn't be happier.
His morning will consist of prepping the ribs. All the other cooks go through their motions as well. Due to sheer volume, there isn't much time to waste. We don't have to hurry, there is a lot of time in a twelve hour day. But we certainly can't stop and lounge around. I like the pace. It is more relaxed than Va P, despite ending up being more work.
Damn, 3 PM already? Time to go. Oh, Jenny the bag packing girl has an extra doughnut from the Chinese bakery. Won't I please have one? Oh, Luo Shi-fu figured he'd steam a few less-than-beautiful dumplings (i.e. mine), won't I please have some? Oh, employee lunch is up, you sure you're not hungry? Damn, the path to fat-assery is a slippery one. If I'm not careful, the day my heart clogs up with LDLs, I will have died to the sound of a burst artery, and the sugary rush of a Chinese raisin bread.
Back home, a little time to decompress, shower, change, suit up. Sometimes I play cello, oftentimes I waste time on the internet, occasionally I go running. Very occasionally.
What will it be today? Oh, the black Joseph A. Bank button-down and the Boss suit pants? You mean what I've been wearing as uniform for over a year? These poor guys have seen a lot of action from Blu, to Futami to Pearl. The pants ripped completely as I bent to take out some soy sauce one day. Some poor customer nearly caught the eclipse of my sack. A double wrap of black aprons saved her from further exposure to my goodies. I've bolstered the ranks of all-black uniforms since I've been home, but these go-to's will always have a soft spot in my heart. Green tie today. Damn, I make this look good. Single, divorced, or widowed Jewish women of Long Island; prepare thyself.
One more commute through Long Island. Goddamn it, the sun beams right in my eyes from the west at 5:00 PM. I would wear sunglasses, but if I get pulled over I don't want to be racially-profiled as "wannabe Asian mafia." My boy Greg, the valet sees me pull in and drags away the cone from the spot he saves me. I tell him it's not necessary, but he does it anyway. What a nice guy.
Apron on, walk in, relative calm at 5:10 PM. The shit will hit the fan at 6:15. The old folks eat early, 6:00 PM is optimal feeding time. Check the reservations, maybe that half-Asian model girl will come back. I've deluded myself in to thinking she was eye-fucking me, and I hold a faint hope that her name pops up in the list. Hmmm, the Aquino's are coming, rolling deep with nine today. Love that family. Their grandma, fifty years ago, I'm in there without a doubt. Step in to the back, lint roll myself to satiate more OCD ticks, wipe down the glass desk to eradicate any smudges, more OCD ticks, patrol the dining room, keep an ear out for phone calls...
Working the phones requires mise en place of its own. Pads, reliable pens, stapler, well-organized desk with accessories fixed at right angles, and waiting take-out orders laid out sequentially. We have four active lines, and on a busy night (i.e. Monday night football ... or worse, rainy Monday night football) they will not stop for two hours. We only have one computer, so you either hand-write some of the orders or you learn to push customers along fast. Do me a favor; whenever you order take-out, have your order ready beforehand, have any pressing questions ready, speak clearly, i.e. NOT while you're driving with the window down, ask for a quick repeat of the order, and hang up. It'll make everybody's life easier, I promise.
Ah, this fucking guy wants the Ginger-Scallion Barbecued Jumbo Shrimp, but he wants the tails cut off. Why? Why, god, why are the tails such a big problem? There is no built-in modifier for "remove tails" in the software, so I have to tap out a note in English which the expediter can not read. What it really means is I have to leave my station to run to the kitchen and explain what they want in my broken Chinese. The din is deafening and I yell out "Ticket 43! Shrimp to chop tail away!" The expediter squints at me, looks back at the ticket, nods, and I pray for the best.
8:00 PM, the rush is over. On the weekends it will continue to rock, but on the weekdays the old folks are tucking in early. The Yankees are done with, my mother has no interest as to what's on the TV. I put on ESPN as I run through the tickets. Adjusting the tips in the computer, lining them up by invoice number, and keeping the cash drawer in check, making sure the numbers line up. Top Ten Highlights, as always, require my undivided attention. Even you, half-Asian model girl, do not hold precedence over Top Ten.
9:00 PM, the dining room is emptying out. Caught up on paperwork, patrol the dining room. We have a couple regulars who know better than to try and eat during the rush. They prefer the calm effort of a later dinner. Plus they get the pleasure of having more of my mom's attention, and to see the return of the prodigal son. Last time most of them saw me, I was plus 60 pounds and in full bloom of teenage awkwardness. They seem genuinely shocked to see me now.
"My, how handsome you are!"
"Aw shucks, stop it, you flatter me, Mrs. So-and-so..."
"You look like a movie star!"
"Well, I mean... I did take Basic Acting..."
"So tall! And no girlfriend? We should find you one! I know this nice girl..."
"Oh! (nervous laugh) Please, you're embarrassing me, that's very nice of you but you don't have to do that... I mean ... well, I guess, you know, maybe bring her by some time..."
I love these people so much. Get me through my exorbitantly expensive Northwestern education, and then constantly try to hook it up. The Jewish people, you are good to me.
Dining room is done. Waiters and cooks start to pack it in. Tonight, they pool tips, it's a team effort. We collect and divvy out, they all leave together after changing in to their streets. The cooks clean up, pack up the last meal, which is usually some random food my mom takes home, and they clean the floors. Buckets of neon green, soapy water sloughed through out, and mopped up by Cristobal, the five-foot tall Guatemalan kid.
Tonight I will stay and close with my mom. Check all the lights, and fridges, and close the credit card system. Print the final readout, make sure the totals add up right, a tedious task of reading micro-print and double checking numbers, and closing up shop. All employees leave through the front door, no matter who you are. I wipe the glass table and bar one more time because at this point, fingerprints and smudges make me physically ill. And then I check the kitchen to see if everything is closed and off; gas, low-boy doors, pilot lights on, exhaust fans and ceiling lights off, everything out is meant to be and lidded. No matter what my mom triple-checks everything right after me. One kitchen fire twenty years ago will scar you for life.
Turn off all the lights, hit the alarm system, finally time to go. Front door is locked, last two cars out of the lot are the Huang's; the surprisingly affordable Acura, and the giant Mercedes that runs technology more advanced than its Asian operator can manage (she just figured out how to change the time). I let her go first while I fumble around my car, "cleaning." She has accepted that I am a creature stricken with OCD nervosa. I wait three minutes, often spent wiping the cigarette ash out of the black interior. Enough time has passed, I'll hit the road and not catch up to her at this rate. Get on Northern Boulevard and sneak one last cigarette on the way home.
Such is the life.
EP6
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Difference
Hey, does anybody else hear frogs?
Once in a long while, we at Pearl East will get a special party of Chinese guests. This is actually a noteworthy occasion because 99.9% of our guests are older, white people from Long Island. After all, though we are a Chinese restaurant, we all know that restaurants outside of Chinatown are actually Chinese-American restaurants.
So while you have been sucking down egg rolls and sweet & sour chicken your whole lives and calling it Chinese, I'm sorry to inform you that it is a very far deviation from authentic Chinese food.
Most of you know this already, but for those who do not, the difference is quite substantial and it would do you some good to learn about both. Especially since you white dudes seem to love Asian girls so much. You can't hurt your chances of winning over an overly strict Asian father by knowing a bit about our food culture.
When we do get parties for Chinese people, you can imagine they are not ordering from our dinner menu. They are calling ahead and arranging a banquet with my mother, who then sends her chef in to Flushing, the most epic concentration of Asian immigrants on the East Coast, to get the real ingredients.
Now Pearl East markets itself as a (hopefully) paradigmatic Chinese-American restaurant. We give you the more familiar style of Chinese food, and we try to do it as well as we can, while trying to throw in some authenticity here and there. It's a gentle gradient between the domesticated stuff and the foreign stuff. And while chicken chow mein and sesame chicken are huge sellers, we are very capable of doing the mainland Chinese cuisine. I mean, after all our chefs are not PF Chang automatons, they are cooks from Fuzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc.
In fact, all of them have no appetite whatsoever for the American stuff. At Va P, when mistakes were made or dishes sent back 99% intact, we'd often taste them to see why the customer didn't like it, or if nothing tangible was wrong with it we'd give it to the dishwashers (they have the hardest and shittiest job in the kitchen, it's important to treat them well). Often I'd kind of welcome the error as long as it wasn't from my station. What? They thought this lamb tastes "funny?" Shit, I don't get to eat baby lamb chops every day, hook it up, son!
The same deal at Pearl. Dishes get sent back here and there, and I'm like, "What? Free rice paper shrimp rolls? Score!" And of course, I offer to share, but no one wants any. And they're not just being polite, they honestly don't like Chinese-American food. They always say "Na shi lao wai xi huan chi de.." meaning "that's what foreigners like to eat."
Well fine, this foreigner is going to get his grub on.
So as you can see, Chinese-American food is apparently so repulsive to Mainlanders that they won't eat it. There exists a book on this phenomenon, Chop Suey by Andrew Coe, that examines the cultural history of Chinese food in America. This shit has been going on since day one, when we were building y'all's railroads (and now flooding your higher education with incalculable numbers ... taste it, bitches). Though we started off cooking this kind of food so as to appeal to Westerners, apparently we never really ate it.
So what does real Chinese food look like? Well, I've never been to China. I've had the authentic food in the states though. Basically, Chinese-American food sits on the flavor spectrum towards the sweet side. Sweet & sour is a very prevalent flavor profile. Real Chinese food is much more heavily spiced and on the savory, salty side. Of course, China is a ginormous country, and millennia old, and its regional cuisines are almost unrecognizable to each other. But if I had to put a blanket over it, that's what I would say.
And of course there's the whole thing about exotic ingredients.
Americans walk through a Chinatown market and if they aren't a little horrified, they're definitely confused. Most of the animals are still very much alive (and being killed indiscriminately), they are of an origin that is completely unfamiliar, and things ... smell funny. It's that funky herbal smell that pervades through all Chinese supermarkets. I get the feeling it's the tea and rhino penis.
A bit jarring for an obese little American kid who thinks chickens naturally come in nugget form.
I poke fun, but in reality, it's very foreign to me as well. That's why I need to watch this banquet go down.
Chinese banquets often involve very intricate fruit and vegetable carvings. Presentation is just as important in Asian food, but we take it a bit more literally. Whereas European cuisine has the edible garnish, and beautifully sauced plate philosophy, Asian food has towering structures of carrot and turnip that form craggy mountaintops with swans made out of dough and potatoes. And while these presentations are technically "edible," no one is going to start munching on an uncooked yam turned in to a basket or something. It's pretty amazing to watch a skilled carver at work though, using little knives and scalpels to turn an ordinary root vegetable in to an extraordinary sculpture.
And then the tasty bits are put alongside. Maybe a stir fry under a large "tree", or maybe dumplings beautifully arranged on a gelatin "lake" with "lily pads" made from lotus roots. But ah, the tasty bits? What are they?
Well frankly, as I'm watching Ah Gau and our dim sum chef, Luo Shi-fu do prep, I am at a loss. I've never seen ANY of these things before. What are those yellow, chive looking things?
My mom explains, "Jiu-huang, yellow chives. They're garlic chives grown in darkness, so they never turn green." Oh, like white asparagus and Jason Schenkel. They smell funky delicious!
Then a plate of conch shells. I figure just for decoration. Nope. "Stewed conch meat with Eight Treasure Sticky Rice." Gotta love the way Chinese people name things.
Then giant ass shrimp, the likes of which I've only seen on the West coast, bigger than a gerbil. They sit in ice water with a strange red herb. What are those?
"Gou-ji. Uh, there's not an English word." Oh... they smell ... strange. They might be flower buds, but they look and smell like red raisins. Some kind of aromatic herb.
So how's this all going together? Oh, they're making tian ji. I'm not sure what tian ji is, but my rudimentary Chinese thinks "Oh, sweet chicken. So maybe like a shorthand for sweet-and-sour chicken, which would be tian suan ji." Though it seems awfully strange that a Chinese banquet would be having sweet-and-sour chicken. Is this like an ironic thing?
Short aside: Here's the problem with the Chinese language, and why the State department says it's one of the four hardest languages for non-natives to learn.
It's very tonal and dependent on context and inflection to determine meaning. The word tian can actually be pronounced four different ways, with various tones. But there aren't only four definitions for the word, there are probably more than fifteen. You have to use context to figure out which word you're using. Off the top of my head it could mean heaven, or sweet, or field, or to fill out (an application), etc.
So tian ji does not necessarily mean "sweet chicken." It's just the first thing that comes to my mind because my vocabulary is on par with most Chinese 6-year olds.
Seriously, does anyone hear frogs?!?!
Oh...
...
...
Oh no...
...
Oh sweet mother of God...
As if on cue, a jiggling plastic bag is produced.
Oh no.
FROGS!?!? How the hell does "sweet chicken" become frogs!??!
Apparently tian in this case refers to a small divot in a rice paddy, where water collects and forms a very habitable environment for amphibians. So tian ji means "field water hole chicken," a very cute colloquial name for frogs. Why can't we use the word I know!?
Listen, I got nothing against frogs. I think they're delicious French bistro style, i.e. marinated in garlic, parsley, salt and fried. It's fucking delicious. But why LIVE frogs?!
I mean a live fish I get. It's not meant to survive on land, if you lose grip on that thing it's going to harmlessly flop on the ground until you chop its face off. But that flimsy knot on that shopping grade plastic bag is containing creatures that could easily run away from you, and hide somewhere in your kitchen so that even eleven Chinese dudes with cleavers can't round them up. Plus, they are tiny, slippery little bastards. Why live frogs??!
As if to silence my dreading questions, Ah Gau pulls out a frog, somehow without letting the rest of the fuckers out, and neatly bops it on the head with the back of his cleaver. GG frog.
Oh.
That's why, live frogs.
And then the gruesome ordeal is nearly over. A rhythmic motion of bop, chop head off, rip guts out, cut feet/hands/toes/appendages off, chop frog in half (at the balls I might add) and then quarter. It makes me wonder if Ah Gau spent time in some kind of slaughterhouse just killing various animals for four years. He is dangerously efficient at taking apart critters.
I get little tastes of everything here and there, and real Chinese food is definitely ... exotic.
I grew up eating Chinese-American food and I loved it. Sesame chicken and pan-fried noodles almost every night (hence the fat kid thing). It's like McDonald's for me. Chicken McNuggets is not a far departure from sesame chicken, double-fried nuggets of white meat (let's remember that that is a recent thing for McDonald's) slathered in sweet-and-sour sauce. Hand me a diabetes-inducing Coca-Cola, my good man.
But as my palate has refined and grown more adventurous (in a "expanding my cultural borders" way, not a "drunk college freshman girl making out with her hot friend, because ya know .. it's college" kind of way), I've really come to appreciate this kind of food.
This is ancient history. This is food connecting me to my primordial roots. I most definitely had an ancestor who waded in a rice paddy and ate frogs like it was his business. It's delicious and even spiritual. At least as spiritual as food can be.
It only strengthens my desire to learn more about my culture. Not only has Chinese-American food been bastardized, but the supposedly more refined "fusion" cuisine is not much better. There is no more overused, trite and poorly executed concept than fusion. I've heard of Thai restaurants serving pasta carbonara, I've heard of a restaurant in Chicago called Italiasia.
FUCK YOU.
Stop raping two beautiful culinary histories and philosophies by hatefucking them together in a glitzy, kitschy, tacky restaurant concept. It's irresponsible. It's like in Underworld when Bill Nighy realizes that they're trying to make a Lycan/vampire hybrid. Abomination, he says! (Okay the first one wasn't that bad, and Kate Beckinsale in leather is always worth it)
And if you are going to do it? You better do it right. Subtly, with deep understanding and respect for all culinary technique, history and tradition you are pulling from. Beautifully, mixing two things so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And tactfully, which means no throwing soy sauce in your salsa pomodoro and calling it fusion. Italiasia, you've got to be kidding me.
I don't wanna call it fusion, what I wanna do. David Chang of Momofuku glory, or Gray Kunz at the Lespinasse of yesteryear are probably more like it. Chang likes to call it "pseudo fucked up bad fusion." Some of the combinations are "fuck you" offensive in their concept, others are more refined. It's all about personal style, and since I don't have one yet, I won't name it.
All I know is I have such a deep curiosity and passion for Asian food, and am considering bearing the mantle of redeeming Chinese-American food in the states. And all I know is I have such a hard-on for French classical technique, and the European school of cooking that I can't possibly ignore its importance in the whole spectrum of culinary history.
How those are going to mingle together to create some evil demon spawn brain child of mine is yet to be seen. I just hope you're as excited as I am.
EP6
Once in a long while, we at Pearl East will get a special party of Chinese guests. This is actually a noteworthy occasion because 99.9% of our guests are older, white people from Long Island. After all, though we are a Chinese restaurant, we all know that restaurants outside of Chinatown are actually Chinese-American restaurants.
So while you have been sucking down egg rolls and sweet & sour chicken your whole lives and calling it Chinese, I'm sorry to inform you that it is a very far deviation from authentic Chinese food.
Most of you know this already, but for those who do not, the difference is quite substantial and it would do you some good to learn about both. Especially since you white dudes seem to love Asian girls so much. You can't hurt your chances of winning over an overly strict Asian father by knowing a bit about our food culture.
When we do get parties for Chinese people, you can imagine they are not ordering from our dinner menu. They are calling ahead and arranging a banquet with my mother, who then sends her chef in to Flushing, the most epic concentration of Asian immigrants on the East Coast, to get the real ingredients.
Now Pearl East markets itself as a (hopefully) paradigmatic Chinese-American restaurant. We give you the more familiar style of Chinese food, and we try to do it as well as we can, while trying to throw in some authenticity here and there. It's a gentle gradient between the domesticated stuff and the foreign stuff. And while chicken chow mein and sesame chicken are huge sellers, we are very capable of doing the mainland Chinese cuisine. I mean, after all our chefs are not PF Chang automatons, they are cooks from Fuzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc.
In fact, all of them have no appetite whatsoever for the American stuff. At Va P, when mistakes were made or dishes sent back 99% intact, we'd often taste them to see why the customer didn't like it, or if nothing tangible was wrong with it we'd give it to the dishwashers (they have the hardest and shittiest job in the kitchen, it's important to treat them well). Often I'd kind of welcome the error as long as it wasn't from my station. What? They thought this lamb tastes "funny?" Shit, I don't get to eat baby lamb chops every day, hook it up, son!
The same deal at Pearl. Dishes get sent back here and there, and I'm like, "What? Free rice paper shrimp rolls? Score!" And of course, I offer to share, but no one wants any. And they're not just being polite, they honestly don't like Chinese-American food. They always say "Na shi lao wai xi huan chi de.." meaning "that's what foreigners like to eat."
Well fine, this foreigner is going to get his grub on.
So as you can see, Chinese-American food is apparently so repulsive to Mainlanders that they won't eat it. There exists a book on this phenomenon, Chop Suey by Andrew Coe, that examines the cultural history of Chinese food in America. This shit has been going on since day one, when we were building y'all's railroads (and now flooding your higher education with incalculable numbers ... taste it, bitches). Though we started off cooking this kind of food so as to appeal to Westerners, apparently we never really ate it.
So what does real Chinese food look like? Well, I've never been to China. I've had the authentic food in the states though. Basically, Chinese-American food sits on the flavor spectrum towards the sweet side. Sweet & sour is a very prevalent flavor profile. Real Chinese food is much more heavily spiced and on the savory, salty side. Of course, China is a ginormous country, and millennia old, and its regional cuisines are almost unrecognizable to each other. But if I had to put a blanket over it, that's what I would say.
And of course there's the whole thing about exotic ingredients.
Americans walk through a Chinatown market and if they aren't a little horrified, they're definitely confused. Most of the animals are still very much alive (and being killed indiscriminately), they are of an origin that is completely unfamiliar, and things ... smell funny. It's that funky herbal smell that pervades through all Chinese supermarkets. I get the feeling it's the tea and rhino penis.
A bit jarring for an obese little American kid who thinks chickens naturally come in nugget form.
I poke fun, but in reality, it's very foreign to me as well. That's why I need to watch this banquet go down.
Chinese banquets often involve very intricate fruit and vegetable carvings. Presentation is just as important in Asian food, but we take it a bit more literally. Whereas European cuisine has the edible garnish, and beautifully sauced plate philosophy, Asian food has towering structures of carrot and turnip that form craggy mountaintops with swans made out of dough and potatoes. And while these presentations are technically "edible," no one is going to start munching on an uncooked yam turned in to a basket or something. It's pretty amazing to watch a skilled carver at work though, using little knives and scalpels to turn an ordinary root vegetable in to an extraordinary sculpture.
And then the tasty bits are put alongside. Maybe a stir fry under a large "tree", or maybe dumplings beautifully arranged on a gelatin "lake" with "lily pads" made from lotus roots. But ah, the tasty bits? What are they?
Well frankly, as I'm watching Ah Gau and our dim sum chef, Luo Shi-fu do prep, I am at a loss. I've never seen ANY of these things before. What are those yellow, chive looking things?
My mom explains, "Jiu-huang, yellow chives. They're garlic chives grown in darkness, so they never turn green." Oh, like white asparagus and Jason Schenkel. They smell funky delicious!
Then a plate of conch shells. I figure just for decoration. Nope. "Stewed conch meat with Eight Treasure Sticky Rice." Gotta love the way Chinese people name things.
Then giant ass shrimp, the likes of which I've only seen on the West coast, bigger than a gerbil. They sit in ice water with a strange red herb. What are those?
"Gou-ji. Uh, there's not an English word." Oh... they smell ... strange. They might be flower buds, but they look and smell like red raisins. Some kind of aromatic herb.
So how's this all going together? Oh, they're making tian ji. I'm not sure what tian ji is, but my rudimentary Chinese thinks "Oh, sweet chicken. So maybe like a shorthand for sweet-and-sour chicken, which would be tian suan ji." Though it seems awfully strange that a Chinese banquet would be having sweet-and-sour chicken. Is this like an ironic thing?
Short aside: Here's the problem with the Chinese language, and why the State department says it's one of the four hardest languages for non-natives to learn.
It's very tonal and dependent on context and inflection to determine meaning. The word tian can actually be pronounced four different ways, with various tones. But there aren't only four definitions for the word, there are probably more than fifteen. You have to use context to figure out which word you're using. Off the top of my head it could mean heaven, or sweet, or field, or to fill out (an application), etc.
So tian ji does not necessarily mean "sweet chicken." It's just the first thing that comes to my mind because my vocabulary is on par with most Chinese 6-year olds.
Seriously, does anyone hear frogs?!?!
Oh...
...
...
Oh no...
...
Oh sweet mother of God...
As if on cue, a jiggling plastic bag is produced.
Oh no.
FROGS!?!? How the hell does "sweet chicken" become frogs!??!
Apparently tian in this case refers to a small divot in a rice paddy, where water collects and forms a very habitable environment for amphibians. So tian ji means "field water hole chicken," a very cute colloquial name for frogs. Why can't we use the word I know!?
Listen, I got nothing against frogs. I think they're delicious French bistro style, i.e. marinated in garlic, parsley, salt and fried. It's fucking delicious. But why LIVE frogs?!
I mean a live fish I get. It's not meant to survive on land, if you lose grip on that thing it's going to harmlessly flop on the ground until you chop its face off. But that flimsy knot on that shopping grade plastic bag is containing creatures that could easily run away from you, and hide somewhere in your kitchen so that even eleven Chinese dudes with cleavers can't round them up. Plus, they are tiny, slippery little bastards. Why live frogs??!
As if to silence my dreading questions, Ah Gau pulls out a frog, somehow without letting the rest of the fuckers out, and neatly bops it on the head with the back of his cleaver. GG frog.
Oh.
That's why, live frogs.
And then the gruesome ordeal is nearly over. A rhythmic motion of bop, chop head off, rip guts out, cut feet/hands/toes/appendages off, chop frog in half (at the balls I might add) and then quarter. It makes me wonder if Ah Gau spent time in some kind of slaughterhouse just killing various animals for four years. He is dangerously efficient at taking apart critters.
I get little tastes of everything here and there, and real Chinese food is definitely ... exotic.
I grew up eating Chinese-American food and I loved it. Sesame chicken and pan-fried noodles almost every night (hence the fat kid thing). It's like McDonald's for me. Chicken McNuggets is not a far departure from sesame chicken, double-fried nuggets of white meat (let's remember that that is a recent thing for McDonald's) slathered in sweet-and-sour sauce. Hand me a diabetes-inducing Coca-Cola, my good man.
But as my palate has refined and grown more adventurous (in a "expanding my cultural borders" way, not a "drunk college freshman girl making out with her hot friend, because ya know .. it's college" kind of way), I've really come to appreciate this kind of food.
This is ancient history. This is food connecting me to my primordial roots. I most definitely had an ancestor who waded in a rice paddy and ate frogs like it was his business. It's delicious and even spiritual. At least as spiritual as food can be.
It only strengthens my desire to learn more about my culture. Not only has Chinese-American food been bastardized, but the supposedly more refined "fusion" cuisine is not much better. There is no more overused, trite and poorly executed concept than fusion. I've heard of Thai restaurants serving pasta carbonara, I've heard of a restaurant in Chicago called Italiasia.
FUCK YOU.
Stop raping two beautiful culinary histories and philosophies by hatefucking them together in a glitzy, kitschy, tacky restaurant concept. It's irresponsible. It's like in Underworld when Bill Nighy realizes that they're trying to make a Lycan/vampire hybrid. Abomination, he says! (Okay the first one wasn't that bad, and Kate Beckinsale in leather is always worth it)
And if you are going to do it? You better do it right. Subtly, with deep understanding and respect for all culinary technique, history and tradition you are pulling from. Beautifully, mixing two things so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And tactfully, which means no throwing soy sauce in your salsa pomodoro and calling it fusion. Italiasia, you've got to be kidding me.
I don't wanna call it fusion, what I wanna do. David Chang of Momofuku glory, or Gray Kunz at the Lespinasse of yesteryear are probably more like it. Chang likes to call it "pseudo fucked up bad fusion." Some of the combinations are "fuck you" offensive in their concept, others are more refined. It's all about personal style, and since I don't have one yet, I won't name it.
All I know is I have such a deep curiosity and passion for Asian food, and am considering bearing the mantle of redeeming Chinese-American food in the states. And all I know is I have such a hard-on for French classical technique, and the European school of cooking that I can't possibly ignore its importance in the whole spectrum of culinary history.
How those are going to mingle together to create some evil demon spawn brain child of mine is yet to be seen. I just hope you're as excited as I am.
EP6
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Front Lines
They say that restaurants are a tripod. Balance and success depend on three things; back of the house, front of the house, and accounting. Some people may think one is more important than the other, and you may be successful because of one more than the other, but no restaurant can stand if one of these legs falls.
Back of the house seems obvious enough. The ability to deliver a product in a certain package, within a reasonable time frame for a volume large enough to make a living. I've discussed this in-depth across the entirety of this blog, and it's not something I want to focus on right now. Cook with love, cook it fast, cook it right, and people will want to eat what you have to offer.
Accounting also seems pretty straightforward. Keeping a well-organized eye on your expenses, managing your purveyor relationships, paying your bills on time, and fighting the eternal enemy of the restaurant; waste. Seeing as how my math proficiency stops at 10th grade algebra (seriously...), this may be a bit tricky for me, but I have faith my genetic disposition towards math will come through for me at some point.
Now, front of the house. That's a whole 'nother beast.
As almost everyone has eaten in restaurants, everybody knows the difference between good and bad service. But it's harder to tell good from exceptional service. It's almost intangible and it's very hard to quantify. Too lax and you risk losing technical proficiency and austerity. Too on point and you risk seeming robotic and soulless. Everybody will want something different, and it will be impossible to please everyone. But being on the receiving end of exceptional service, well .. it's actually so enlightening that I was amazed it even existed at such a level.
I note the front of house staff at Le Bernardin. A polished crew of more than thirty that performs like a unit. Friendly, but with authenticity. They weren't sucking your dick for money and telling you they loved every minute of it. They honestly gave off an aura of well-being and happiness, something that can only be produced, I think, by a genuine feeling of well-being and happiness. They were busy, constantly roaming the floor like a bustling hive of oenophilic bees, but you never felt like you were in the middle of a rush. They floated noiselessly by, and if you happened to need something, they ever so gracefully stopped their work to attend to you.
Plates were cleared without notice, the back waiter with the bread basket seemed to magically appear whenever we wanted bread, and wine was recommended sensibly (for us being general wine novices), and poured delicately. But yet it was casual, and friendly. It didn't feel like a temple of haute cuisine (even though it is), or a religious experience (which it might have been). It was fun and chill, and the customers ran the gamut from high rollers to recent college grads looking to get laid (I mean if he's picking up the bill at $135 prix-fixe menu, you gotta do better than an HJ).
It was an experience that I can't tie to any specific actions, but left me with a feeling of nourishment. I had an incredible meal, the staff honestly seemed pleased to have me, and I watched the highly choreographed dance between kitchen and dining room played out at a level I was woefully envious of.
(To top it all off, the manager had heard wind of my culinary aspirations, gave me a card [I'm not sure why actually ...], and gave me a tour of the kitchen. The little Asian girl on saute station was maybe two years my senior, was definitely a hundred pounds lighter and a foot shorter, but she was working it like an ice-cold boss. I would SO get in there.)
So how do you win front of the house every day?
I recently got a sage bit of advice from my dentist, of all places. He said, "The best restaurant in the world ... is the one that knows you."
And that's exactly it. Every diner is different. They might fall within a broad category, but they are made happy and satisfied by different things. Myself? I'm a very simple diner. I order off the menu, I don't ask for substitutions, I don't really like holding up the staff in conversation, and I don't send back food (even though sometimes I should). When I go to dinner it is to enjoy the company of my company, and I only ask the staff allow that experience with perfunctory and friendly service, rather than enhance it with anything else they might want to add.
But that's just me. A lifetime of being an awkward child has probably made me non-confrontational and surprisingly introverted at times. And I probably help the restaurant the least, because I never let them really know how they're doing. I walk out the door, I say "thank you" and either I come back, or I never do so again.
Clearly, I am but one type of myriad kinds of diners. You have those who are apologetic for their noisy children. You have those who are aggressive about their food allergies. You have those who are just blissfully unaware of how a restaurant works, and seem to do everything to make your life harder. You have those who are just downright pleasant, and you have those who are downright mean.
Treating every customer as an individual, as a special case requiring specific kinds of attention, is the first step towards winning the front. Knowing your customer, by building a rapport, or realizing that they want to be left alone, is the only way, and honoring their requests and making them feel cared for will always go appreciated.
Easy enough, right? Be a nice guy, care, show up, be friendly, remember faces and preferences.
Now do it with two hundred people in your dining room at once.
Not so easy.
I can cook you a perfect order of Sauteed Sea Scallops with Brandied Lobster Sauce, Israeli Couscous, Navel Orange Supremes and Red Bell Pepper-Mache Salad on command. Can I do it over thirty times in a night, in a few minutes, while balancing the rest of my orders? History has proven that I needed my sous chef to bail me out.
I can be an excellent waiter, I can get 20% every time on a night at Blu/Futami where having 30 covers a night is considered a lot. Can I make sure everyone is happy on a Saturday night at Pearl, where we just did 250 covers in 4 hours? I'm not so sure.
Quantity is a vicious counterpoint to quality. To achieve both requires mastery, plain and simple. On your best days, everything will seem to have gone right. But the fact remains that you can't please everyone, you just have to try your best.
It's very easy to be nice to a nice customer. I used to have nothing to say to these older, Korean War-era New Yorkers. But I've found over the past month, a surprising number of engaging conversations and pleasant exchanges, as opposed to forced smiles and polite laughter. I guess I've changed a lot since high school. I mean I still get touted around the dining room by my mother, that hasn't changed. But whereas I used to run and hide from an encounter with one of her customers, now I welcome the opportunity to make a meaningful connection with a loyal patron. Anyhow, it's the only way I'll ever remember the different Schwartz's, and Rosenberg's, and Rosenfeld's, and Klein's, and Grossberg's, and Grossman's, and Markowitz's and Feldman's.
But it is an epic test of my patience to be nice to an angry or nasty customer.
Let me preface; for every nasty customer we have, we have ten customers who are pleasant diners, and five customers who are dear regulars. But the nasty ones really stick out in your memory. They are curmudgeonly stubborn thorns that embed themselves in your state of mind. Every single one makes you feel as if you're doing a terrible job. Every single one makes you angry and tired, irritable and disbelieving.
I recount these anecdotes for the sake of entertainment, but in all reality my sometimes utter lack of faith in humanity feels justified.
Story #1
(Phone rings)
Me: "Pearl East, how may I help you?"
Woman: "Yeah I just picked up my take out, and you remember how I specifically asked for the low-sodium, Japanese soy sauce? Well you forgot it. You fucking forgot it and that is fucking rude. What are you going to do for me? I'm sick of you people doing this, and messing up such a simple request. How am I supposed to eat my sushi now, huh? Are you a manager? Are you going to fix this?"
Me: "Uh, ma'am ... I ..."
Woman: "You know what, let me speak to Cathy, okay?" (Customers try to pull this bullshit on me, not knowing I will pull the "mommy" card so fast in their faces)
Me: "Uh, ma'am, are you sure? I definitely put them in the bag, maybe you ..."
Woman: "Do you think I'm blind? Do you think I'm stupid? What is this you're trying to ... (rummage, rummage) ... oh."
Me: "Yes?"
Woman: "I found them."
Me: "What did you find, ma'am?"
Woman: "I found the soy sauce."
Me: "Oh ... okay."
Woman: "Alright ... I was wrong, good bye."
(Click)
Story #2
(A larger woman walks in, without a reservation, wanting a table for two. It's Tuesday, and even on a "dead" weekday we recommend reservations. The wait will be about 15 minutes. She sees a deuce get up, and the table is being bussed, she assumes that it is hers. As I'm coming back from the kitchen, the woman looks at me and signals to the table, and I nod telling her to please come and sit. Joanne, our hostess/manager doesn't realize and sits someone else down just as I'm getting to her. Hell breaks loose.)
Woman: "What the hell was that?!"
Me: "I'm sorry, it was an accident, we have another table coming up shortly, let me buy you a round of drinks."
Woman: "I don't want any drinks! What the hell was that all about!? That table was mine, was it not? Did you not just skip me? Who the hell is he, that he's so special!?"
(I give Joanne a pained look that screams 'You are killing me, woman')
Joanne: "I'm very sorry, Eric and I had a miscommunication, and I didn't see you there."
Woman: "What!? You didn't see me!? What, because I'm so skinny!? What are you trying to say!?"
(What?!?!)
Woman: "I've been coming here for twenty years! I can't believe this kind of treatment! Akd;jf;akjsdpJ#Ijlkadjaodij;ajg)(*$)(*#$!!!!"
Story #3
(A man walks in with his young daughter on a Sunday night, our second busiest night of the week. Nobody recognizes him, so we can only assume he is a newish customer. He does not have a reservation. His wife is in the car, they're asking how long the wait is, then deciding if they want to stay or not. Admittedly, our valet situation is kind of a mess. Too many old people driving slowly, and nonsensically coupled with a narrow parking lot, and the frequent traffic on Northern Blvd causes a lot of jams. There are about fifteen people crowded in to the bar area waiting for tables, and he goes unnoticed by Joanne a few times. Eventually she gets to him, and she goes to scan the dining room one more time to see how long the wait will be.)
Man: "What is wrong with the service here?"
Me: "Uh, is there something I can help you with?"
Man: "She keeps bypassing me, I just want to know how long the damn wait is!"
Me: "Oh I know, I'm very sorry about that, sir. It's just very busy, and she's trying, but unfortunately I don't know what the table situation is like."
Man: (to Joanne) "Can you just tell me how long the goddamned wait is!?"
Joanne: "Okay, it'll be a few minutes, they're getting up, is everybody here?"
Man: "Yes."
(Few minutes later...)
Joanne: "Okay, your table is ready, is everybody here?"
Man: "Hold on." (Dials on his cell phone) "Okay honey, you can come in now."
Joanne: "I thought you told me everyone was here."
Man: (rage level one appears in his eyes, looks at me) "You know she is really nasty."
Me: "I'm sorry... ?"
Joanne: "I can only seat full parties" (She moves on to another customer for a second...)
Man: "Are you fucking kidding me?! Alright, that's it, we're leaving."
Me: "Sir, sir, I'm really sorry, there's no need to yell, we're getting a table ready for you..."
Man: (yelling for everyone to hear) "NO! I'm not staying, and I'm telling ALL of my friends that this place has TERRIBLE service!"
Joanne: "Okay, I'm sorry you feel that way, sir, have a great night."
Man: "You have been incredibly rude to me tonight! You bumped in to my knee, I just got knee surgery, you know?? And then all I wanted to know was how long the fucking wait was!"
Me: (At this point he is trying to physically intimidate Joanne, a very tiny white woman, and I get from behind the desk to put myself between them) "Sir, please..."
Man: "This place is awful, and I'm telling everyone! What kind of business this?"
Me: "Apparently one that requires you to make a reservation on a Sunday night. I'm sorry, I can't give you a table on a whim."
(The man's eyes go bloodshot, rage level two has been reached, and he is considering attacking me. But Mr. Knee Surgery knows better, and that I would drop his ass like a bad habit if he tried it. Plus, I look sweet in black and my candy pink tie screams "WAR!")
Man: "Who the fuck do you think you are?"
Me: "Someone who thinks you are setting a poor example for your daughter. Have a good night, dear!"
(I turn around and take a phone call, the man leaves, turns back in for a second as he is leaving, gets inches from Joanne's face and smolders, and curses "Fuck you." and leaves.)
Innocent Bystander to Me and Joanne: "It's okay, I'd still like to stay for dinner..."
All in one month! Quite an interesting petri dish of the human condition we have here, don't we?
Now, we are at fault for many of the incidents above. The mistake with seating the woman was avoidable, I just missed Joanne by a second before I could tell her I was saving that table. But her reaction seems unjustified. Really, why get so upset about this? I'm trying to make it right for you, I apologized, is it worth getting hot and bothered?
And the gentleman who got really mad, well ... I definitely should not have taunted him. But my "smile and take your bullshit" persona has limits. I can be saccharine sweet if need be, and I think I'm a pretty nice guy by nature, and I, like most nerds, try to avoid violent confrontations. But if I see an opportunity to be a snarky asshole with a good comeback, and I have a few inches on a guy... I'll go for it. (I know, really manly, eh?)
Some people are just miserable. These are just three snippets from a month of dealing with nasty customers every day. Like I said before, the pleasant ones far outnumber these uncouth diners, but they just don't affect your outlook the same way.
We are at fault often, as no one is infallible. But we try to fix it. In the words of Danny Meyer, words I will never, ever forget "The road to success is paved with mistakes well-handled."
The restaurant business is a fickle creature. You try to cut it in New York, the biggest and baddest city there is, you're going to get some rude customers, and lousy people who just want you to be as miserable and unhappy as they are. You can't let it get to you. It's out of your control. All you can do is end the story the way you want to. My mom gave me this pearl of wisdom years before I read it from Danny Meyer, "You never let a customer walk out angry. You have to end the dinner on your terms. If you lose one customer, you lose ten customers."
They may be unhappy, but only after you have tried your best to make it up to them. If they leave angry, all they will remember is that bitter taste of resentment, and it will keep them from ever returning, or ever speaking well about your restaurant. You have your staff put up the red flag, and you go personally, as the owner, as someone with the absolute power in the place, to make it right. At the very least, the customer will leave knowing you have tried your damnedest to earn their patronage back. You have to put aside your pride, no matter how much you want to tell these oft-difficult bastards to fuck off and don't come back.
Focus on what makes a dinner experience great. People will never look at Pearl East the same way they look at Le Bernardin, but they are perceptive and able to sense passion, generosity, and sincerity when it is there.
I don't know how to perfectly decant a bottle of red wine (well, I kind of do, but I don't do it very gracefully). I am not proficient at carrying a full tray over my shoulder through a crowded dining room. I can't wrap Peking Duck pancakes with spoons. I can't line up plates by the tens up and down my arms and still make it to the dishwasher in one piece.
But I know how to be genuine. I know how to be real. I know how to try hard. And I know how to work for the love, not for the money.
EP6
Back of the house seems obvious enough. The ability to deliver a product in a certain package, within a reasonable time frame for a volume large enough to make a living. I've discussed this in-depth across the entirety of this blog, and it's not something I want to focus on right now. Cook with love, cook it fast, cook it right, and people will want to eat what you have to offer.
Accounting also seems pretty straightforward. Keeping a well-organized eye on your expenses, managing your purveyor relationships, paying your bills on time, and fighting the eternal enemy of the restaurant; waste. Seeing as how my math proficiency stops at 10th grade algebra (seriously...), this may be a bit tricky for me, but I have faith my genetic disposition towards math will come through for me at some point.
Now, front of the house. That's a whole 'nother beast.
As almost everyone has eaten in restaurants, everybody knows the difference between good and bad service. But it's harder to tell good from exceptional service. It's almost intangible and it's very hard to quantify. Too lax and you risk losing technical proficiency and austerity. Too on point and you risk seeming robotic and soulless. Everybody will want something different, and it will be impossible to please everyone. But being on the receiving end of exceptional service, well .. it's actually so enlightening that I was amazed it even existed at such a level.
I note the front of house staff at Le Bernardin. A polished crew of more than thirty that performs like a unit. Friendly, but with authenticity. They weren't sucking your dick for money and telling you they loved every minute of it. They honestly gave off an aura of well-being and happiness, something that can only be produced, I think, by a genuine feeling of well-being and happiness. They were busy, constantly roaming the floor like a bustling hive of oenophilic bees, but you never felt like you were in the middle of a rush. They floated noiselessly by, and if you happened to need something, they ever so gracefully stopped their work to attend to you.
Plates were cleared without notice, the back waiter with the bread basket seemed to magically appear whenever we wanted bread, and wine was recommended sensibly (for us being general wine novices), and poured delicately. But yet it was casual, and friendly. It didn't feel like a temple of haute cuisine (even though it is), or a religious experience (which it might have been). It was fun and chill, and the customers ran the gamut from high rollers to recent college grads looking to get laid (I mean if he's picking up the bill at $135 prix-fixe menu, you gotta do better than an HJ).
It was an experience that I can't tie to any specific actions, but left me with a feeling of nourishment. I had an incredible meal, the staff honestly seemed pleased to have me, and I watched the highly choreographed dance between kitchen and dining room played out at a level I was woefully envious of.
(To top it all off, the manager had heard wind of my culinary aspirations, gave me a card [I'm not sure why actually ...], and gave me a tour of the kitchen. The little Asian girl on saute station was maybe two years my senior, was definitely a hundred pounds lighter and a foot shorter, but she was working it like an ice-cold boss. I would SO get in there.)
So how do you win front of the house every day?
I recently got a sage bit of advice from my dentist, of all places. He said, "The best restaurant in the world ... is the one that knows you."
And that's exactly it. Every diner is different. They might fall within a broad category, but they are made happy and satisfied by different things. Myself? I'm a very simple diner. I order off the menu, I don't ask for substitutions, I don't really like holding up the staff in conversation, and I don't send back food (even though sometimes I should). When I go to dinner it is to enjoy the company of my company, and I only ask the staff allow that experience with perfunctory and friendly service, rather than enhance it with anything else they might want to add.
But that's just me. A lifetime of being an awkward child has probably made me non-confrontational and surprisingly introverted at times. And I probably help the restaurant the least, because I never let them really know how they're doing. I walk out the door, I say "thank you" and either I come back, or I never do so again.
Clearly, I am but one type of myriad kinds of diners. You have those who are apologetic for their noisy children. You have those who are aggressive about their food allergies. You have those who are just blissfully unaware of how a restaurant works, and seem to do everything to make your life harder. You have those who are just downright pleasant, and you have those who are downright mean.
Treating every customer as an individual, as a special case requiring specific kinds of attention, is the first step towards winning the front. Knowing your customer, by building a rapport, or realizing that they want to be left alone, is the only way, and honoring their requests and making them feel cared for will always go appreciated.
Easy enough, right? Be a nice guy, care, show up, be friendly, remember faces and preferences.
Now do it with two hundred people in your dining room at once.
Not so easy.
I can cook you a perfect order of Sauteed Sea Scallops with Brandied Lobster Sauce, Israeli Couscous, Navel Orange Supremes and Red Bell Pepper-Mache Salad on command. Can I do it over thirty times in a night, in a few minutes, while balancing the rest of my orders? History has proven that I needed my sous chef to bail me out.
I can be an excellent waiter, I can get 20% every time on a night at Blu/Futami where having 30 covers a night is considered a lot. Can I make sure everyone is happy on a Saturday night at Pearl, where we just did 250 covers in 4 hours? I'm not so sure.
Quantity is a vicious counterpoint to quality. To achieve both requires mastery, plain and simple. On your best days, everything will seem to have gone right. But the fact remains that you can't please everyone, you just have to try your best.
It's very easy to be nice to a nice customer. I used to have nothing to say to these older, Korean War-era New Yorkers. But I've found over the past month, a surprising number of engaging conversations and pleasant exchanges, as opposed to forced smiles and polite laughter. I guess I've changed a lot since high school. I mean I still get touted around the dining room by my mother, that hasn't changed. But whereas I used to run and hide from an encounter with one of her customers, now I welcome the opportunity to make a meaningful connection with a loyal patron. Anyhow, it's the only way I'll ever remember the different Schwartz's, and Rosenberg's, and Rosenfeld's, and Klein's, and Grossberg's, and Grossman's, and Markowitz's and Feldman's.
But it is an epic test of my patience to be nice to an angry or nasty customer.
Let me preface; for every nasty customer we have, we have ten customers who are pleasant diners, and five customers who are dear regulars. But the nasty ones really stick out in your memory. They are curmudgeonly stubborn thorns that embed themselves in your state of mind. Every single one makes you feel as if you're doing a terrible job. Every single one makes you angry and tired, irritable and disbelieving.
I recount these anecdotes for the sake of entertainment, but in all reality my sometimes utter lack of faith in humanity feels justified.
Story #1
(Phone rings)
Me: "Pearl East, how may I help you?"
Woman: "Yeah I just picked up my take out, and you remember how I specifically asked for the low-sodium, Japanese soy sauce? Well you forgot it. You fucking forgot it and that is fucking rude. What are you going to do for me? I'm sick of you people doing this, and messing up such a simple request. How am I supposed to eat my sushi now, huh? Are you a manager? Are you going to fix this?"
Me: "Uh, ma'am ... I ..."
Woman: "You know what, let me speak to Cathy, okay?" (Customers try to pull this bullshit on me, not knowing I will pull the "mommy" card so fast in their faces)
Me: "Uh, ma'am, are you sure? I definitely put them in the bag, maybe you ..."
Woman: "Do you think I'm blind? Do you think I'm stupid? What is this you're trying to ... (rummage, rummage) ... oh."
Me: "Yes?"
Woman: "I found them."
Me: "What did you find, ma'am?"
Woman: "I found the soy sauce."
Me: "Oh ... okay."
Woman: "Alright ... I was wrong, good bye."
(Click)
Story #2
(A larger woman walks in, without a reservation, wanting a table for two. It's Tuesday, and even on a "dead" weekday we recommend reservations. The wait will be about 15 minutes. She sees a deuce get up, and the table is being bussed, she assumes that it is hers. As I'm coming back from the kitchen, the woman looks at me and signals to the table, and I nod telling her to please come and sit. Joanne, our hostess/manager doesn't realize and sits someone else down just as I'm getting to her. Hell breaks loose.)
Woman: "What the hell was that?!"
Me: "I'm sorry, it was an accident, we have another table coming up shortly, let me buy you a round of drinks."
Woman: "I don't want any drinks! What the hell was that all about!? That table was mine, was it not? Did you not just skip me? Who the hell is he, that he's so special!?"
(I give Joanne a pained look that screams 'You are killing me, woman')
Joanne: "I'm very sorry, Eric and I had a miscommunication, and I didn't see you there."
Woman: "What!? You didn't see me!? What, because I'm so skinny!? What are you trying to say!?"
(What?!?!)
Woman: "I've been coming here for twenty years! I can't believe this kind of treatment! Akd;jf;akjsdpJ#Ijlkadjaodij;ajg)(*$)(*#$!!!!"
Story #3
(A man walks in with his young daughter on a Sunday night, our second busiest night of the week. Nobody recognizes him, so we can only assume he is a newish customer. He does not have a reservation. His wife is in the car, they're asking how long the wait is, then deciding if they want to stay or not. Admittedly, our valet situation is kind of a mess. Too many old people driving slowly, and nonsensically coupled with a narrow parking lot, and the frequent traffic on Northern Blvd causes a lot of jams. There are about fifteen people crowded in to the bar area waiting for tables, and he goes unnoticed by Joanne a few times. Eventually she gets to him, and she goes to scan the dining room one more time to see how long the wait will be.)
Man: "What is wrong with the service here?"
Me: "Uh, is there something I can help you with?"
Man: "She keeps bypassing me, I just want to know how long the damn wait is!"
Me: "Oh I know, I'm very sorry about that, sir. It's just very busy, and she's trying, but unfortunately I don't know what the table situation is like."
Man: (to Joanne) "Can you just tell me how long the goddamned wait is!?"
Joanne: "Okay, it'll be a few minutes, they're getting up, is everybody here?"
Man: "Yes."
(Few minutes later...)
Joanne: "Okay, your table is ready, is everybody here?"
Man: "Hold on." (Dials on his cell phone) "Okay honey, you can come in now."
Joanne: "I thought you told me everyone was here."
Man: (rage level one appears in his eyes, looks at me) "You know she is really nasty."
Me: "I'm sorry... ?"
Joanne: "I can only seat full parties" (She moves on to another customer for a second...)
Man: "Are you fucking kidding me?! Alright, that's it, we're leaving."
Me: "Sir, sir, I'm really sorry, there's no need to yell, we're getting a table ready for you..."
Man: (yelling for everyone to hear) "NO! I'm not staying, and I'm telling ALL of my friends that this place has TERRIBLE service!"
Joanne: "Okay, I'm sorry you feel that way, sir, have a great night."
Man: "You have been incredibly rude to me tonight! You bumped in to my knee, I just got knee surgery, you know?? And then all I wanted to know was how long the fucking wait was!"
Me: (At this point he is trying to physically intimidate Joanne, a very tiny white woman, and I get from behind the desk to put myself between them) "Sir, please..."
Man: "This place is awful, and I'm telling everyone! What kind of business this?"
Me: "Apparently one that requires you to make a reservation on a Sunday night. I'm sorry, I can't give you a table on a whim."
(The man's eyes go bloodshot, rage level two has been reached, and he is considering attacking me. But Mr. Knee Surgery knows better, and that I would drop his ass like a bad habit if he tried it. Plus, I look sweet in black and my candy pink tie screams "WAR!")
Man: "Who the fuck do you think you are?"
Me: "Someone who thinks you are setting a poor example for your daughter. Have a good night, dear!"
(I turn around and take a phone call, the man leaves, turns back in for a second as he is leaving, gets inches from Joanne's face and smolders, and curses "Fuck you." and leaves.)
Innocent Bystander to Me and Joanne: "It's okay, I'd still like to stay for dinner..."
All in one month! Quite an interesting petri dish of the human condition we have here, don't we?
Now, we are at fault for many of the incidents above. The mistake with seating the woman was avoidable, I just missed Joanne by a second before I could tell her I was saving that table. But her reaction seems unjustified. Really, why get so upset about this? I'm trying to make it right for you, I apologized, is it worth getting hot and bothered?
And the gentleman who got really mad, well ... I definitely should not have taunted him. But my "smile and take your bullshit" persona has limits. I can be saccharine sweet if need be, and I think I'm a pretty nice guy by nature, and I, like most nerds, try to avoid violent confrontations. But if I see an opportunity to be a snarky asshole with a good comeback, and I have a few inches on a guy... I'll go for it. (I know, really manly, eh?)
Some people are just miserable. These are just three snippets from a month of dealing with nasty customers every day. Like I said before, the pleasant ones far outnumber these uncouth diners, but they just don't affect your outlook the same way.
We are at fault often, as no one is infallible. But we try to fix it. In the words of Danny Meyer, words I will never, ever forget "The road to success is paved with mistakes well-handled."
The restaurant business is a fickle creature. You try to cut it in New York, the biggest and baddest city there is, you're going to get some rude customers, and lousy people who just want you to be as miserable and unhappy as they are. You can't let it get to you. It's out of your control. All you can do is end the story the way you want to. My mom gave me this pearl of wisdom years before I read it from Danny Meyer, "You never let a customer walk out angry. You have to end the dinner on your terms. If you lose one customer, you lose ten customers."
They may be unhappy, but only after you have tried your best to make it up to them. If they leave angry, all they will remember is that bitter taste of resentment, and it will keep them from ever returning, or ever speaking well about your restaurant. You have your staff put up the red flag, and you go personally, as the owner, as someone with the absolute power in the place, to make it right. At the very least, the customer will leave knowing you have tried your damnedest to earn their patronage back. You have to put aside your pride, no matter how much you want to tell these oft-difficult bastards to fuck off and don't come back.
Focus on what makes a dinner experience great. People will never look at Pearl East the same way they look at Le Bernardin, but they are perceptive and able to sense passion, generosity, and sincerity when it is there.
I don't know how to perfectly decant a bottle of red wine (well, I kind of do, but I don't do it very gracefully). I am not proficient at carrying a full tray over my shoulder through a crowded dining room. I can't wrap Peking Duck pancakes with spoons. I can't line up plates by the tens up and down my arms and still make it to the dishwasher in one piece.
But I know how to be genuine. I know how to be real. I know how to try hard. And I know how to work for the love, not for the money.
EP6
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