MageMage posted:

As someone whose "done le cordon bleu thing", when you launch out into the industry, forget you ever made that.

And ditch the edible flower and did you use a broccoli stem for garde manger? That's just embarassing. If I ate that at a restaurant that served that as a special, I would ask the chef who thought of that to come out and taste it himself and tell me what he would think. And that is exactly what I am asking you?

If I ordered "special ramen" off a menu, and that was put in my face, where would I begin to eat it? Do I need a special utensil? Are those raw radishes? And the one on the left was cut, terribly, as well as the piece of pork it sits upon. Seriously, those radishes are raw, aren't they? And what is that on the right, a Belgian endive for a garnishy-eaty thingy? What is that white thing on top of the noodles? An egg? Seriously? And your consommé is very cloudy.

What kind of theme are you going for here? What exactly are those flavor profiles going to give to the tongue when your guest puts a spoonful of that into their mouth? Think ahead before you act. All garnish should be edible. Is that duck consommé? I bet it is. Why are you serving duck consommé with a beef dish? How is someone supposed to get that dish on a teaspoon? Or a tablespoon for that matter? It's too complicated.

I would make the noodles thick, soft, and slurpy. Cut the beef against the grain and in bite sizes uniformed in size and use an assortment of vegetables that look good. One piece of broccolli stem isnt going to cut it. And belgian endive dosen't count. Put other stuff in it; like your mirepoix? Carrots, celery, onion, and maybe some cilantro. Line the ingrediants up and rest the pork on top to give it height. Like I said, garnish has to be cooked, and it actually has to be in the dish, so if you have carrot in your ramen, garnish with a carrot rose or something.

The best advice I can give is what happened to me in Culinary School:

I was in garde manger 2, which I had found pretty difficult. It dealt with terrains and things like beef wellington and making that puree coloured stuff. Advanced poo poo. The Chef was this grouchy old man. Almost all of the Chefs that taught us we're grouchy old men or grouchy old women. But this one was mean. I was so afraid of messing up, because he worked us like a drill seargent.

You see, this was at the California Culinary in San Francisco, and if you'd ever been inside there, there are two classes that are in front of windows so that guests can view the students as they ate or toured, so the pressure was always on in that class.

One day we had to make like 120 of one item. This was with no help, you had to do it on your own, then, the best items went out for guests to sample and people who paid to eat etc. and you were critiqued on the results if you were picked. I had to make appetizers or whatever they were called in garde manger in a certain amount of time.

I panicked and could not think of anything. We didn't have the variety of assorted ingredients that other classes had. I took 120 shitake mushrooms, took the stems off, then in a bowl I mixed goat cheese, pine nuts, thyme, salt and white pepper, possibly undeglazed wine, and possibly other items I cant remember, probably the mushroom stems. I put this mixture on the inside of the cap and used the cap as a base for the appetizer. I made 2 sheet pans of 60.

The first sheet pan, I tried to grill the shitakes. I threw 30 on the grill. The guts weren't cooking and the mushrooms were burning and they were slipping through the grill from tongs and spatulas, trying to pick them up and keep them from burning, and causing a terrible, gooey mess all over the place. I spent way too much time on it, and in my panic to finish I thought I could cook the second sheet pan in the smoker. What the hell was I thinking?!

While I'm waiting for my appetizers to 'cook' in the smoker the Head Chef took note of me just waiting there and saw my 30 uncooked mushroom cap appetizers. He walks up to me and shouts, causing the whole kitchen to go silent:

"WHAT IS THIS?!"

"It's... uh...." I almost sheepishly said "I don't know" but before I could he grabs one of the monstrosities, he takes a bite of one, chews twice and then leans over to this right, and spits the piece back out onto the sheet pan it came from.

"IT'S YUCKY!!"

*...yucky?* I thought, like someone telling Spongebob his crabby patty was garbage.

He throws the other piece of mushroom down on the sheet pan like he just made a touchdown! He picked up the sheet pan, elongated with one hand on each side, then hurls the sheet pan and all down into the large garbage receptacle like he made a big slam dunk.

He storms off through the back entrance with his Sous chef to smoke a cigarette. I guess I really ticked him off. After that incident, I felt afraid to go back, and with a week left put in to switch to the morning chef and make it up. It took me a long time to realize what I had done wrong.

You have to keep things simple.

The first thing you have to do when you get out of culinary school is, forget everything you ever learned in culinary school. Have fun with it now, have fun with the unique ingredients, I know I sure did, but realize the end result of culinary school is to broaden your mind and focus it. Broadening it is fun, but you will have to focus inevitably.