In most professional kitchens, interns and new hires are initially assigned to Garde Manger or Salad/Cold Appetizers. My first three months at Nobu were spent on the Salad Station.
the salad station sits between the dishwashers and pastry at nda lobster salad waits next to dessert bentos
Salad Station Dishes
Field Green Salad
Lobster Salad
Shiitake SaladSalmon Skin Salad
Lobster Endive Salad
Kelp Salad
Moroheiya Salad
Nobu style Ceviche
Lobster Ceviche
Oshitashi
Tuna Chips
Scallop Chips
Black Cod Butter Lettuce
Before station setup, Salad must prepare the 4-6 liters of Japanese white rice required for nightly service. Next is lobster prep and fabrication, which includes the steaming, cooling, cleaning and wrapping of 20-25 lobsters per day. When I first started, this task took me over an hour. Later, I was able to cut it down to 20 minutes. Now, I'm a frickin' expert at lobster murder and mutilation.
Salad station also has the lovely task of raw bar. Raw bar is the display of fish and lobsters located at the far end of the sushi bar. This task used to be performed by the sushi chefs, but the job was so tedious that it was pushed down the totem pole and onto Salad's lap. Raw bar requires 3-4 very large buckets of both crushed and cubed ice, which needs to be carried up a very narrow, steep staircase. Then one must scavenge for display items - 2 whole cooked lobsters, 1 whole fresh fish, king crab legs, some fresh soft shell crabs - and arrange them in a pleasing fashion with seaweed, kelp, and abalone and clam shells. But that's not all! Salad must also be sure to maintain the ice level on raw bar as it melts throughout service as well as collect the display items at the end of the night. This might sound like a fun, artistic task, but day after day of hauling ice buckets that weigh more than I do made raw bar easily my least favorite job in my entire Nobu career. I pity the poor soul assigned to it today.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment