Saturday Night Live!

First and foremost, we tweaked the dish a tiny bit tonight. We gave it another element, and we changed the aioli from an egg based aioli to a traditional potato based aioli. I didn’t know this either, but a garlic aioli was once just garlic, potato and olive oil, and salt and pepper, of course. Nothing more. Ours had a touch of saffron in it, which I think enhanced the color and presentation but barely affected the flavor.

Anyhow, we also added a base of braised fennel under the bass, to give it height, texture, and just another element to the dish. Quite frankly, I think it was great with the fennel, and a great idea on the part of the chef.

We took fennel, sliced it to about ½” and gave it a light salt and peppering. We then browned both sides in a sauté pan and placed it over a bed of sweated onions. We barely covered it with chicken stock, placed a piece of parchment paper over it, and baked it in the oven until it was tender.

When that was ready, that became the base of our fish dish. We then proceeded as we normally did, with the fish on top, the onions and red peppers on top, some of the poaching liquid, and topped it with the crouton with aioli. This time, we made a little herb mound on top, using the fennel tops, which is a beautiful almost dill looking herby green, and chervil and chives. The dish this time looked a lot more impressive than either of the times before. In fact I was bringing up two plates and Chef Xavier calls over to me “Edwin!” I look, thinking I just mucked something up. “Looks great,” while he threw up the international ok symbol (index and thumb together in a circle with remaining 3 fingers up in the air… yeah that one). That was nice.

SO, Saturday night is when it gets busy. In fact the level 6 fish team wasn’t quite a team. It was one guy doing it all by himself, and he was rocking it! We needed to wait a minute or two for him on sending out some dishes, but considering he was by himself, it was pretty impressive. We helped him out in any way we could, but he was pretty set.

Scott and I have been a little shaky on our teamwork until this class. He would tell me to relax a few times because the truth of the matter is I was pretty nervous and things were intense, considering this was my first time in the restaurant kitchen. He has been working in restaurants for a year or so by now, and has a lot more experience. He was right. Our dish doesn’t take long to make, so we had some time before we had to bring out our dish. And the fact of the matter is the bass is really simple. Once the accompaniments are prepared, which is before service time, the rest is simple. Put everything in a sautoir, and then cook the bass for a few minutes.

So the orders start coming in, and I just relaxed. Took it one by one, or 4 by 4, whatever the orders were, and we were smooth sailing. We would plate as a team, prepare the fish as a team (as in lay out the next amount of bass that we might need for the next order). I would place a slice of fennel on the plate, he would lay the fish, veggies and sauce, I would prepare the herbs and so forth.

At first he was the big shot because he’s been in this position, but as we got into our groove and realized this was a piece of cake, we were on the same level playing field. It was a team effort no matter how you look at it. If I went to get dinner, he manned the fish, and vice versa.

About 25-30 dishes later, we got our last order, and we started cleaning up. Out of no where, the order board is clean and down for the night, the executive chef screams out ONE BASS!! I’m thinking, are you serious? And he’s like, “really, one bass, I forgot to call it out.” And sure enough, I prepared one final bass. Thankfully we didn’t throw anything away. Scott gathered some of the things we put away and I took care of the dish. We worked well together.

Now, Chef Xavier. First off, he’s a brilliant chef. On top of his shit, and has a keen eye for details. He took note that there were peppercorns mixed in with our capers. I noticed something looked odd, but he was like, what is this? Why are there green peppercorns in the capers (FYI, they were mixed together in the jar, but labeled as just capers). He’s all over that shit like a Vietnamese whore at a rodeo. (I just used that analogy to respond to one of my bosses. I hope he enjoyed it).

However, last night, the executive chef was yelling some orders to the meat station where Chef Xavier was helping out, and Chef Xavier was screaming back “NO WAY, you ordered only two, we have no more and we can’t make anymore.” Another French Chef was there, working the appetizers, and was like, whoa chez, relax, and said some stuff in French, probably about being in front of the students.

Chef Xavier works 7 days a week, and is one of the few Chefs that still works at a restaurant. He is pretty much the shit. He’s also very nice to us, and respects us, and treats us as cooks not kids. He keeps an eye out for us, and doesn’t let us fall under the bus. We’ll see how this station progresses. After just another class or two, we move right along to the next station. It’s really brief, and kind of scary. But its fun! And it’s not too bad. The 5 hours go by really quickly. Amazingly fast.