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the holy poopacy posted:Is that really that much of a surprise? People who open restaurants because they think they cook real good crash and burn immediately most of the time, so cooking ability evidently isn't the important factor here. i mean, they literally never cooked a dish in their lives beyond fried rice until my mother-in-law got pregnant and my father-in-law got mustered out of the air force, which given how food-focused taiwanese culture can be, is crazy to me, the outsider. but you're probably right, according to them, they spent like 4-5 months going to all the restaurants they could find in taipei that were good and then took the best dishes, priced them to see if they would make sense, and then learned to cook their versions at home until they felt they were good enough for people to buy them. they also managed to buy their space in the 90s so they weren't renting, which was smart too, i guess.
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Mar 7, 2023 09:40
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That last sentence is why they are still in business
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Mar 7, 2023 10:39
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Barudak posted:That last sentence is why they are still in business oh, they pulled the ultimate restaurant success story, they retired last year because they wanted to and are financially secure enough to do so.  now they just travel around taiwan/asia eating good food and blowing up my wife's LINE with things we can't get here in central europe. baba and mama have great troll games.as far as the bento shop goes, they basically still have the space and the equipment now, but my mother in law doesn't want to sell the space or the equipment yet because she's bored with retirement and wants to maybe open a few days a week just to get out of the apartment have some time and extra cash to herself. but again, it's basically a takeaway place, so they don't have to deal with any of the worries about table turnover or customer service.
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Mar 7, 2023 10:51
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:Them serving it ground into mush (including shell) to the prisoners had something to do with it as well. The whole "ground up shells" thing is BS. The problems were the lovely cooking and even shittier state of canning technology. WescottF1 posted:Back in the early nineties, all the bars I hung out in had ten cent wing specials and dollar draft domestic pints. I sure miss those days. Folks on my local state's discord are huge into good dives with cheap beer and wings. I've been compiling a google map of them because there are tons of good deals out there if you've got people that spend a lot of time checking out every little restaurant, drinking at dives and staying tuned in to the facebook home cooked "popup" restaraunts. Like this little hidden gem of a restaurant hidden behind a laundromat that has no press, fanfare, top 10 list burgers or anything like that. Yeah, it's a a basic "food service" Sysco sort of burger, but it costs less than a Whopper, or you can get half a chicken fried with a side of fries and soda for $13. 
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Mar 7, 2023 11:16
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Midwest college towns are good for those kinds of deals.
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Mar 7, 2023 11:49
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wait... you're saying that landlords are a parasitic drain on all economic activity, and that without having to worry about making rent, lots more restaurants could be viable businesses
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Mar 7, 2023 17:22
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Greg12 posted:wait... you're saying that landlords are a parasitic drain on all economic activity, and that without having to worry about making rent, lots more restaurants could be viable businesses hosed up if true
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Mar 7, 2023 18:16
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I got a chicken burger and as I went to eat it the waitperson said "Enjoy yiour sandwich" Needless to say I was not wrong in my actions and I am in jail for a long time.
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Mar 7, 2023 18:18
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eat poo poo greg
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Mar 7, 2023 18:32
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Earwicker posted:that book completely changed how i approach work and creativity and i'm a musician who's never had any inclination of becoming a chef (though i do cook as a hobby). so many of the same things apply, the poo poo hours, the exploitation, the constant presence of drug and alcohol abuse, etc but really it's his mentality that really sunk into me and made me commit to my work. I think I took some lessons from it in my own work too. My job has a certain glamour to a certain kind of person (field biologist, lots of time in boats, camping, hiking, etc in beautiful places), but the pay is generally low, hours during field season are long in some often lovely weather, and there can be a lot of travel away from home to live in general discomfort. A lot of it is great and fulfilling, but the longer you're in it, the more a great portion of it becomes A Job that takes a toll on your body, home life, and mental health in a way that seems at odds with the "live in the wilderness and hold animals" part of things. The way Bourdain talks about figuring out how to succeed and progress as you age out of the drink hard, never sleep, and party hard stage resonates with me on more recent readings of the book. And reading it after his death rings different, too; surely some of the greatest struggles he wrote about were inextricably tied to his mental health throughout his life. Oh also I like your work.
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Mar 7, 2023 18:47
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I guess I'm in the minority but I was in food service for 30 years and found Kitchen Confidential surprisingly boring. I enjoyed MFK Fisher's work much more, it's ancient but if you're a foodie I just can't recommend her books enough. How to Cook a Wolf, The Art of Eating etc
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Mar 7, 2023 19:00
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yeah MFK Fisher is great, very different kind of writer from Bourdain though. i love her writing about Marseille and Aix-en-Provence i just bought The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin but haven't started it yet HenryJLittlefinger posted:Oh also I like your work. thank you! Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 19:05
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Bargearse posted:I can’t get over that guy who assumed that because he was a decent home cook, opening his own restaurant would be easy. He burned through every line of credit available to him and got family and friends to put their own money into it. He just started turning a profit and was on the verge of turning it around when he decided to celebrate by closing the restaurant for a week-long break. They lost all the momentum they’d spent months building up and closed their doors not long after. https://torontolife.com/food/restaurant-ruined-life/ One of the many incredible aspects of that article is how it has aged with time, like how selling his house to try to buy an extra few months before the inevitable was a terrible idea but with the last few years of the Toronto housing market being utterly ridiculous, it becomes one of the worst decisions a middle class family could have made. If all he did was make his mortgage payments probably would have boosted his net worth by half a mil in property value. Also can see that the restaurant without his leadership was able to survive covid and seems to be doing fine. I’ve thought too much about it but it’s also interesting how at every stage of critical decision making he mentions consuming alcohol, sometimes mixed with pills, and wondered if his ambition was to have somewhere he could drink nonstop for “free” where he couldn’t be cut off away from his family.
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Mar 7, 2023 20:00
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Are we sure this guy wasn't just committing a very long, sadomasochistic suicide? Because that seems hellbent on not only dying, but doing it in a way that ensures maximum suffering for those around.
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Mar 7, 2023 21:18
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Hyrax Attack! posted:I’ve thought too much about it but it’s also interesting how at every stage of critical decision making he mentions consuming alcohol, sometimes mixed with pills, and wondered if his ambition was to have somewhere he could drink nonstop for “free” where he couldn’t be cut off away from his family. My friend got deep into Bar Rescue reruns, and every time we would watch it, I could only think that this was the exact inspiration for most of the places featured on that show.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:53
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istewart posted:My friend got deep into Bar Rescue reruns, and every time we would watch it, I could only think that this was the exact inspiration for most of the places featured on that show. I need to watch more of that show, I’m no chef but with an air fryer & a Costco card I could turn out better tasting and safer food than 99% of the places they visit. I like when the host is doing commentary then has to cut it short when a cook is trying to send out raw chicken so they have to intervene fast.
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Mar 8, 2023 00:23
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Bar Rescue rules (kind of - the host is a horrible conservative Fox News shithead and it’s probably faker than your usual reality show.) That said there’s still a lot of funny poo poo you can learn from how they approach any given bar. You’ll see some where they give them real cocktails and teach them pretty impressive skills (at least from a layman’s view.) They’ll do a decent pub food menu, sometimes even do some food that looks pretty good outright, even if it’s pretty usual “decent, generic bar food” style. If you pay attention though they really know that some bars are just hosed. I’ve seen bars where the signature cocktail they show is basically a whiskey ginger with a garnish. The real tell is whenever they renovate the kitchen but the only item they give them is the subway toasting oven (Turbochef.) They always play it up like it’s so easy and quality but it’s truly embarrassing when they have a dedicated “cook” working it. It does sometimes make sense for a bar that maybe had bartenders trying to cook food between drinks - and now they can throw a hot dog in the turbochef - but beyond that it’s such a tell that their rescue target is a horrible shithole.
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Mar 8, 2023 08:38
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Anime Store Adventure posted:Bar Rescue rules (kind of - the host is a horrible conservative Fox News shithead and it’s probably faker than your usual reality show.) That said there’s still a lot of funny poo poo you can learn from how they approach any given bar. You’ll see some where they give them real cocktails and teach them pretty impressive skills (at least from a layman’s view.) They’ll do a decent pub food menu, sometimes even do some food that looks pretty good outright, even if it’s pretty usual “decent, generic bar food” style. The fact of the matter is that if your bar or restaurant is in dire enough straits to be on a show like Bar Rescue, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc., you're most likely already past the point of no return. Like, a show will end with a title card saying, "Six weeks after the rescue, sales are up 15 percent." Whoop-de-doo, these places are under so much debt that they need like an immediate 400 percent rebound in sales, which doesn't happen overnight. Kitchen Nightmares has been over for several years, but when it was still airing, I remember reading that just under 90 percent of the restaurants on the show wound up closing. Something like 75 percent of the places on Bar Rescue have wound up closing. I've also read that the reconstruction of bars on Bar Rescue is pretty shoddy, both in terms of the materials used and the quality of work. Taffer also likes to do things that aren't even legal, like put in self-serve beer taps at tables, and the bar winds up having to eat the cost to remove them and be in compliance with liquor laws. And, yeah, Taffer is a loud-mouthed fool. He has this ridiculous philosophy with regards to customer acquisition and loyalty that is completely absurd. (He spells it out on an episode of Gary Vaynerchuk's podcast. Vaynerchuk is also a loud-mouthed chud rear end in a top hat.) Timby fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 09:47
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Anime Store Adventure posted:Bar Rescue rules (kind of - the host is a horrible conservative Fox News shithead and it’s probably faker than your usual reality show.) That said there’s still a lot of funny poo poo you can learn from how they approach any given bar. You’ll see some where they give them real cocktails and teach them pretty impressive skills (at least from a layman’s view.) They’ll do a decent pub food menu, sometimes even do some food that looks pretty good outright, even if it’s pretty usual “decent, generic bar food” style. Pirates will always be the best episode. Those people were just loving nuts and Jon turning the name into Corporate had to be a punch at them. Then they tore all the poo poo out and went back to Pirates and shut down shortly after. Recently I started going to a bar across the street from where I live. Been here 15 years, never went. Been under different owners multiple times, burned down once. They got good food though. Met the owner yesterday, friendly guy, they were out of turkey for the club I ordered so they doubled up the ham and bacon and offered me a free beer.
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Mar 8, 2023 10:14
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SocketWrench posted:Pirates will always be the best episode. Those people were just loving nuts and Jon turning the name into Corporate had to be a punch at them. Then they tore all the poo poo out and went back to Pirates and shut down shortly after. The hilarious thing about Piratz is that Taffer kept on talking about all the office buildings that were in that area of Silver Spring and how they were missing out on a ton of lunch traffic from office workers. Well, I used to live in Baltimore from 2012 - 13, and I took a drive through Silver Spring one day. All those supposed office buildings that he highlighted are parking garages, a hospital, and bus and train stations. Great example of Taffer being full of poo poo.
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Mar 8, 2023 10:38
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Timby posted:I've also read that the reconstruction of bars on Bar Rescue is pretty shoddy, both in terms of the materials used and the quality of work. Taffer also likes to do things that aren't even legal, like put in self-serve beer taps at tables, and the bar winds up having to eat the cost to remove them and be in compliance with liquor laws. Yeah, those shows that do remodels are famous for doing really, really lovely work. I don't know if the bar/restaurant shows work like the home renovation shows, but it really wouldn't surprise me. Normally states and cities love giving tax breaks to attract filming, but my area has been desperately trying to force one of those rear end in a top hat home remodel shows out of our metro. The host bitches about permit delays and lawsuits and poo poo and is out there being all "it's like they don't want us filming here!" and we're all like "no poo poo, rear end in a top hat. That's the point. gently caress off." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WZnkyiBG_U
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Mar 8, 2023 11:13
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Timby posted:The fact of the matter is that if your bar or restaurant is in dire enough straits to be on a show like Bar Rescue, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc., you're most likely already past the point of no return. That’s just it, the problems with these places are way bigger and run way deeper than can be solved in one weekend even by someone like Gordon Ramsay. Not to mention how they always go back to their old habits the moment Ramsay’s back is turned.
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Mar 8, 2023 11:22
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Meh, makes for good enough TV if you understand it's all solidly semi rehearsed "reality" TV. Also, as someone who's lived in both the US and commonwealth nations, they edit Ramsay entirely different for the US audience. He's entirely more explosive and inflammatory in a way that would likely turn english or Aussie audiences off. Restaurant Horror: Worked as a short order cook with a friend of mine who was also serious about cooking for a biker bar that was super fuckin loose. We would cook on Saturday night and start getting drunk around 7pm. Close kitchen at 12 and slam beer until 3am. There was a Snap On truck that had been converted into a camper out back that we'd crash in, wake up and cook breakfast for all the hungover bikers. It was a great local joint and we actually improved the level of food and cleanliness significantly while we were there. I nearly killed myself tripping over someone's Spanish mastiff while working the flat top. Dog in the kitchen, no big deal. Everyone was great except one crazy old codger who knew I was making things nicer and always told me he didn't like all that "foofy doofy f** poo poo", and made it a point to order one of my burgers for his dog and let me know his dog would be eating it. Mega passive aggressive. He was a fuckwit but otherwise the clientele were cool. My girlfriend was a black woman with a shaved head, tattoos, and piercings and she swore she heard a record scratch sound effect when she walked in.
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Mar 8, 2023 11:36
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Poohs Packin posted:Meh, makes for good enough TV if you understand it's all solidly semi rehearsed "reality" TV. Yeah, the UK version is much more chill and more of an exploration of what goes into making a successful restaurant, by using a failing one as an object lesson. The few things that instantly reduce him to a screaming rage are things that nobody should really have to put up with, like poor kitchen hygiene or straight-up lying about the food.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:32
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Bargearse posted:Yeah, the UK version is much more chill and more of an exploration of what goes into making a successful restaurant, by using a failing one as an object lesson. Ramsay's UK shows are much more reflective of his actual personality. The US shows on Fox, with him yelling and screaming at everything in sight (both Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen) are a construct, because Fox wants him to amp everything up to 11. Fox also loves being in the Gordon Ramsay business because his shows are cheap to make and quick to tape; it takes something like five weeks to do an entire season of Hell's Kitchen. The most recent season was taped in 2021, and they have two more already in the can.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:49
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My real horror story was working a 14 hour shift alongside the owner when I was 17. And it was Father's Day and he had 3 young children. I've thought about that a lot over the years.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:50
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Here's the bullshit Taffer spews about customer acquisition and retention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJQyg6h7wwo It boils down to "give poo poo away for free and you'll gain a customer for life." Timby fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 13:57
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AvesPKS posted:My real horror story was working a 14 hour shift alongside the owner when I was 17. And it was Father's Day and he had 3 young children. I've thought about that a lot over the years. The amount of fried chicken and chips I've dropped in various deep fryers for owner's miserable children is enough to make me never want a restaurant. So many kids just spending all their time in offices and back rooms of restaurants.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:12
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Extra Large Marge posted:I wouldn't ever order swordfish. We would get these big loins of swordfish in from our supplier which we would cut up into steaks. We would then go through the steaks and pull out any visible worms imbedded in the meat. The parasites are "harmless" but obviously not very appetizing. To be fair this is true for all fish it's just some have larger worms than others. Cod is especially noticeable because it's so white. Picking them out is just part of the prep. When I was working in kitchens we noticed the worm would be still alive (or moving , at least) even after arriving frozen. One time since then dining out I found a worm like 2 inches long in my cod after eating pretty much the whole thing. It's not a big deal but they should have found one that big. I quietly told/showed the waitress and she outright said she didnt believe me and thought I was pranking them or after a free meal. When she came back out from the kitchen she was so white in the face lol.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:21
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I love Bar Rescue. Especially when John Taffer brings in a "famous" mixologist who recommends serving a complex cocktail as a signature drink to a bar that regularly has racoons running around. Sure, the show's producer might be the one releasing all of the racoons into the bar, but it's entertaining.
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Mar 8, 2023 15:32
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"I heard this bartender is a sex pest, so I'm sending in my daughter to do recon"
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Mar 8, 2023 15:41
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Timby posted:Here's the bullshit Taffer spews about customer acquisition and retention: Lol, while at the same time getting mad at everyone for giving poo poo away for free Extra Large Marge posted:I love Bar Rescue. Especially when John Taffer brings in a "famous" mixologist who recommends serving a complex cocktail as a signature drink to a bar that regularly has racoons running around. BUTT FUNNEL!
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Mar 8, 2023 15:42
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Around the pandemic he also got a moment on Fox News where he complained about staff getting paid 15 an hour because if they weren’t close to poverty they wouldn’t have the drive to live or some poo poo
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Mar 8, 2023 15:52
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bobjr posted:Around the pandemic he also got a moment on Fox News where he complained about staff getting paid 15 an hour because if they weren’t close to poverty they wouldn’t have the drive to live or some poo poo The quote was something like "If you want a trained military dog to be obedient, you let them go hungry" and while I knew he was a blowhard anyway, it removed all doubt. Such a hosed thing to say.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:02
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God forbid you pay people a living wage and give them things like paid time off. That attitude is one of the reasons I transitioned to grocery.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:47
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Poohs Packin posted:and made it a point to order one of my burgers for his dog and let me know his dog would be eating it. Mega passive aggressive. He was a fuckwit but otherwise the clientele were cool Never understood why this was considered a pithy bon mot amongst the bitter old fools I've encountered. You paid for the slop, do what you like with it.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:06
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Hell, when I worked at a burger place we had a special order for dog burgers because the seasoning we put on the regular burger was bad for dogs. Only charged a couple bucks for it too, because it was literally an unseasoned patty in a clamshell.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:34
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Poohs Packin posted:So many kids just spending all their time in offices and back rooms of restaurants. Half my job in the Greek pizzeria was playing Conker’s Bad Fur Day with the owner’s son when I wasn’t running deliveries. The N64 was right next to the DOS-based POS system.
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Mar 8, 2023 21:32
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Sic Semper Goon posted:Never understood why this was considered a pithy bon mot amongst the bitter old fools I've encountered. It's because he knew I cared about food and its presentation, that I was a professional. Old fucks like this just fear change in any form and rally against it in the most petulant ways, even if it means calling you an f-slur for putting Brie on a chicken burger. The guy was a literal cattle auctioneer who wore overalls so I never actually gave a gently caress what he thought. Just thought it was lovely how dedicated he was to expressing his distaste for my influence on the place.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:05
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Timby posted:The fact of the matter is that if your bar or restaurant is in dire enough straits to be on a show like Bar Rescue, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc., you're most likely already past the point of no return. Like, a show will end with a title card saying, "Six weeks after the rescue, sales are up 15 percent." Whoop-de-doo, these places are under so much debt that they need like an immediate 400 percent rebound in sales, which doesn't happen overnight. Kitchen Nightmares has been over for several years, but when it was still airing, I remember reading that just under 90 percent of the restaurants on the show wound up closing. Something like 75 percent of the places on Bar Rescue have wound up closing. We had a local place here in a heavily foot-traffic touristy spot named "Sandbar" that was literally doing perfectly fine, had a huge local following, had tons of support from the city. Then bar rescue came, re-named it, re-decorated it, and it was a shitshow. That entire show is a loving joke and 99.9% of it is reality tv bullshit. They removed everything the show did and went back to their original name like two weeks after the show wrapped.
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Mar 11, 2023 16:11
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