Part 106 Concrete Jungle

Lemon and lime, meringue and Mike

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, tomorrow morning a swimming pool will appear in your garden.

Here we are, back again.

Right, it’s time you had an update on where we are with the team, we used to forget so you probably have.

Working with Donna, we had Big Sophia and the new girl from Canada, Fern.

And in the kitchen with myself, was Skater Jane and Emma.

Oh yea, and don’t forget about the reinforced concrete foundations holding it all together, Tina Terminator.

But you know what, we were a solid concrete team, giving each other a helping hand was the norm, constant communication between kitchen and front of house was frequent and we all strongly believed that we were doing something a bit special. We were operating a vegetarian restaurant like no other. Nobody was doing what we were doing.

Now, although Fern was new to us, she had lots of experience, so within a few days she had picked up our order of service, tried all of the dishes and knew a fair bit about the wines on the wine list, thanks to Tina of course. And her ‘size 8’ shirt fitted perfectly.

But Emma needed more time. Sure, she was acting like a chef, and she could knock up nearly every dish on the menu, but we wanted her to know more.

Let’s have an example. We had this dessert on the menu, a riff on a lemon meringue pie, but it wasn’t quite a lemon meringue pie. This dish was as follows, a buttery shortbread rectangle, topped with two different curds, a lemon curd, as expected, and a lime curd. And the meringue itself was made in two batches, one using white sugar and one using brown sugar. Then the meringue was piped into separate rosettes and baked in a low oven until crisp.

And when this dish was ordered, the two different curds were piped onto the shortbread, lemon curd first, then a blob of lime curd, and then the two different meringue rosettes were sat on top of the lemon and lime curds, white meringue first, then brown sugar meringue. The garnish was micro coriander.

And that’s that.

But here’s the thing yea, we could have easily just told to Emma to follow the recipe and the procedure, but we didn’t. We wanted Emma to understand what was happening to the ingredients, the science behind the procedures. We found that having the extra knowledge made a stronger chef.

Some jam.

And humans like information, we feed on it, our faces are glued to our phones, we absorb the barrage of crap that the telly gives us, we even watch the adverts.

And fortunately, Emma was very goodly* at seeking out information.

“Emma, make sure that bowl and whisk are clean before you beat the egg whites. If you don’t you’ll knacker the meringue.”

“Ah yea cool, of course. But why, what happens?”

“If there’s any grease or oil kicking around it’s likely that the meringue will flop, or it’ll be a bit flat. Basically, as you whisk, the protein strands unfold and form a structure which holds air. But fat coats some of the protein strands and stops them unfolding, so less air can be trapped. Something like that anyway.”

“Oh my god, that’s so cool. I was going to ask actually, when I pipe the lemon and lime curds onto the shortbread, why do I have to do alternate blobs? Couldn’t I just do a line of each alongside each other? It would be faster.”

“Tell her why Jane.”

If you think we deserve a coffee for writing this, that’s the button.

“You’re such a dirty dog mate, it’s not about doing it faster. We do it that way so that as punters eat it, each spoonful is different. You know what I mean? The first spoonful is lemon curd with white meringue and the second spoonful is lime curd with the brown sugar meringue. Makes it more interesting to eat, instead of every spoonful being the same.”

“Oh my god I hadn’t thought of that. So is that why you tell me to space out the baby coriander?”

“Yea, that’s it mate, it just gives variety, changes what’s on the punter’s spoon each time. You’re getting it see. Don’t call it baby coriander though, it’s micro, you sound like me mum.”

So yes, Emma was doing well, but come Friday night, we were struggling.

If only we could find a someone to join us on a Friday night, a chef who wanted a little extra cash, that would have been perfect.

Ta daaaa!

You want that.

Tina Terminator came to the kitchen to give us a quick update, “Guys listen, we’ve got twenty eight booked in so far tonight, and two of them are the gluten people.”

That was Tina’s way of saying that two people were gluten intolerant.

“Oh yes, and there’s an email from a chef, he’s looking for some part time work. He worked at SAF.”

“You what Tina, SAF? Oi Tina, come back.”

But she was off.

“Jane, did you hear that, someone from SAF wants a job. The bastard.”

OK, if you haven’t been reading these Posts in sequence, give your head a shake. But just to remind you, SAF was a vegan raw restaurant which opened around the same time as us. But while we are hitting the grand total of seven customers all week, they were doing over a hundred a night.

And this annoyed me, well, it made me jealous, we were dead men walking while they were lively men doing an Irish jiggy*.

But, if this chef could work a Friday evening for us, that would be a great help.

However, part of me didn’t want to contact him, SAF were the enemy, so that made him the enemy. Even though I hadn’t met him, I disliked him. Who did he think he was, laughing at our misfortune, walking past our restaurant every night and sniggering. OK, he didn’t do those things in reality, but I’d decided that he had.

“Should I see him Jane?”

“Yea mate, he could be helpful.”

“But what about the SAF thing Jane?”

“Be cool yea, he’s probably alright.”

Emma was intrigued, “What is this SAF?”

We ignored Emma’s question, I couldn’t be bothered to rant and Jane probably didn’t want me to.

An interview was arranged and when the day came, I was ready for this fella. Donna came to the kitchen to tell me Mike had arrived, “He’s really nice, you’ll like him.”

“No I won’t.”

Mike was huge, easily 4 metres tall, and big set as well, if I had to take him down, it was gonna be a tough one.

“So Mike, I see that you’ve left SAF, what happened there then?”

“Well to be honest, it was great at first, but after a while, I couldn’t stand the place.”

I liked Mike, top bloke.

“So I left a few weeks ago and I’m thinking of setting up my own business. But until then, I just need a bit of work, which is why I’m here today.”

I really liked Mike, spot on he was.

We chatted for a while, then I steered the conversation around to that whole ‘one hundred diners a day when we only had seven all week’ topic.

“But Mike, how come you guys were so busy when you first opened? One of our guys walked past one night and your place was rammed, we’ve struggled for two years, we were lucky to get a couple of people in on a Friday night.”

Mike looked confused, “You know who owns SAF don’t you?”

“No I don’t, no idea. I’ve Googled it but can’t find anything.”

“No you won’t. It’s owned by a few investors, multi millionaires, but they don’t have much to do with it.”

I was puzzled though, “So how come you were busy straight away?”

“They spent a fortune on the place mate. Probably over a million setting it up, and about twenty five grand on PR and marketing.”

“Twenty five thousand quid, just on PR and marketing. Wow. We did most of the refurb on this place ourselves. And our PR was some flyers printed out from our printer.”

Mike thought this was funny.

But that whole conversation rolled around my head. If a restaurant has had over a million spent on setting it up (probably more these days), and tens of thousands on PR, does that make it successful? Would it have been doing over a hundred customers from day one if they only spent fifty thousand quid on setting it up, and a pound on printer ink for home made flyers?

Actually, we could apply that question to other situations. If a famous actor has a son, let’s say he’s called Detroit, and this geezer gets Detroit a role in a big movie. Does that mean Detroit is successful? Would young Detroit have got that part in a big blockbuster movie if his daddy was a plumber?

Mike started working with us on Friday nights. He was a good chef. We liked him lots.

Right then, catch us next week, and oh yea, thanks for reading this.

Donna and Andrew

*They’re supposed to be spelled this way, I’m in the middle of inventing a new language.