Formal Restaurant Service week one

the view across the road

Some conclusions about the front of the house experience.

We started another block - Formal Restaurant Service. The difference between contemporary and formal service in our case is not significant. The expectations are much higher, however the way we serve and the menu itself are the same. The expectations are that we are able to provide service to our guests at the higher level. It is more important that we follow three R rule (refill, replace, remove), we greet each table in two minutes, keep an eye on assigned tables. The ultimate goal is guests happiness with all aspects of the service.

The first week was quite hectic. I have no idea why it was quite difficult. On the day one my back server started the day by giving me instructions what to do and how to do it. You may imagine my 'happiness'. Unfortunately, the guy did not remember his duties and since that had an impact on my guests, I told him about that. Later on,

Contemporary Restaurant Service week two and three

Restaurant's terrace in the evening

How possible to meet people from Toronto at the school?

One more week where I missed the post.

It was our second week of the contemporary restaurant service. There was a change how we work. We are not doing the whole cycle for a table. Instead we were divided for front servers and back servers. The front server is responsible for sales to the table, for taking order, communicating with the chef if there are any questions. The back server is a helper and supposes to serve water, bread, remove dirty plates, mark the table for the next course, and so on. Also there were different workload starting that week. The front server served four tables and the back server provided support for two front servers. These positions are not permanent,

Contemporary Restaurant Service week one

Our restaurant inside

What is more important - good food or good service?

Somehow I missed posting here for a couple of weeks (again), so need to fix this. We started our restaurant classes, our last big block before graduation. The schedule changed dramatically - we have classes from Tuesday to Saturday, also the hours for the classes seem quite long from 2 p.m. till 11 p.m. The end time is approximate, the first week we finished around 11:30 p.m. every day.

The first week of service each of us had two tables and we were doing the whole cycle for our tables, starting with water, taking orders, bringing food, cleaning and resetting our tables. Honestly, I was scared about this class. The idea to speak with strangers, explaining the menu, trying to sell something was terrifying. Also there was expectation for us to know

Wine study weeks three

What is a good wine pairing?

Somehow found myself behind with the blog. The last week of wine study was less intense, than previous two. We had a quiz on Monday about European countries we had learned during week two and the final exam on Friday. The final was easy, as it was an open book exam. There were a couple of crazy questions, but it was not so bad.

On Monday we had a food pairing exercise in class when we were given six wines, bean soup puree (quite basic), and a tray with 25 different food items (cheese, bacon, pork, herbs, sour cream, and so on). The idea was to find best adds on to the soup, to improve it taste when you try it with wine.

On Tuesday, as a part of the class we had a lunch at the school restaurant with wine tasting. For each course (appetiser, main, and dessert) we had three different wines. The idea was to taste food with wine and find out which one is the best choice for the food item. Then we had to write a paper

Wine study week two / Introduction to the customer service

It's me in the service uniform

Can Riesling be sweet?

The week was quite busy. In addition to wine class I had another class for four days in the mornings - Introduction to Customer service. That class was a basic training for the waiting tables. In one short week, right after wine class we start our restaurant classes - half of the group will be cooking, the other half serving, after six week we will switch.

Wine class was about Europe. The biggest difference between New World and the Old one is labels. In New World the wine labels are straightforward - country, region, producer, grape type, vintage year. In the Old World labels are not so obvious. There will be the name of the region (sometimes just a village name), quality level (vin de table, Appellation d'Origine Protege, etc), maybe the name of vine - Chablis for example. Based on the region and village name you suppose to conclude the grape type or blend type.  Chablis is made with 100% Chardonnay in the region of Chablis. In case of

Wine study week one

Our first fly

Where wine produced in the USA?

The first week of wine study class and the first week of the last (fifth) semester at the school. Time flies. Did not expected that it will be so fast. Wine class is harder than I expected.  There are A LOT of information, indeed too much. Every time we try to limit it amount a bit, we have an answer from the instructor 'haha, class with major in wine have to know much more'. It's true.

During our first week of study we learned about different types of wine (I thought there are two - red and white. LOL) how grape are grown, the general steps in wine production and some other technical details. We also studied wines of USA. It was a surprise to learn that in the USA wine is made not only in California, but also in

Baking week three

Cheesecake made on Wednesday

How to make a great sorbet?

This was our last week in Baking and pastry skills development. The chef was probably happy to get rid of our class. For me it was sad to go. I did enjoy this class and all these great products we made. I feel that I learned quite a lot. On our last day I told the chef