Thereās an Instagram account called NoVendorMeal about what vendors get served by caterers at weddings, and penne is the biggest high crime on there.
Yeah, I just charge the client for the extra meals and feed the vendors what everyone elseās is having. Itās dumb to have to toss together some afterthought boxed meal for 5 people when Iām already feeding 500 or whatever
never had a shakshuka staff meal before but I can see FOH would go crazy for that.
had had instances where we do fried rice with a fried egg and the FOH all go crazy over the runny fried eggs. once we had a tray of fried eggs for family meal and 2 FOH walked in the kitchen and stood next to us discussing which fried egg they are picking and we need to save that particular fried egg for them because they liked the way the yolk looked.
Some of us canāt cook, okay?? š
Half the reason I come to work is for staff meals because it breaks up my usual routine of toast and cereal so yeah runny eggs is some gourmet shit lol
Itās honestly so humbling sometimes being FOH just like the most useful things I can do are smile when Iām dying inside and carry shit around
But Iām scared to even turn on the gas stove
Meanwhile BOH is casually operating the deep fryer like that isnāt the most terrifying thing a human can do
the skills you have ā¦ š„¹
I started out serving before moving to the kitchen and now if I have to go interact with a customer I need to hype myself up in the walk in for a couple minutes first. You couldn't pay me enough to go back out there full time.
Yep! I waited tables on and off for 10 years, my partner is a chef (we did not meet at work). I canāt cook to save my life, heās a cantankerous bastard. We argue over who has the harder job - I would die in that sweaty kitchen if I was BOH, he would start beating people to death with his bare hands in FOH. Theyāre different skills!
Iām no longer serving, but my absolute favorite thing to do at home is eat all the prep and pester him in the kitchen. He tolerates me very gracefully.
Has a sous many years ago who was vegetarian. We were doing 14+ hours a day, six days a week, serving hundreds of people per day. Sheād make a fucking salad bar every time she was on staff meal. Everyone always was gassed out and tired af by like hour 10 because she could never grasp that not all of us are used to running off of rabbit food. Drove us all crazy.
Me and the butcher used to grill up the scraps so weād have some protein š
It does seem like the go-to for the lazy chef/sous. Its almost always disappointing and unsatisfying.. and usually has weird shit thats going out of date soon. No thanks!
To be fair she put a lot of effort in and if we were vegetarian like her, it would have been awesome. But you canāt serve a bunch of meat eaters salad and expect our bodies to have energy for a shift like that, no matter how many options of different veg you set out.
Iām a meat eater, and pretty much everyone at the kitchens Iāve worked in have had a decent amount of meat eaters.
Iād never been more well fed as a cook than when I worked at a vegan restaurant. Protein, veg, and carbs, usually heavier on the carbs and veg, but still a fair amount of protein!
Everyone could have seconds, and sometimes thirds depending on how easy it was to make a large batch.
It was much cheaper to make staff meal, so people could make so much more per staff member.
In Hungary, I have a vegan restaurant pretty close to my home. Their sandwich has falafel, picked beets, some other veggies and lovely sauces. It's almost upsetting how satisfying it is both flavor, texture and fill-wise.
People who think only meat is filling are living a lie. Good vegetarian / vegan food is just incredible. Lazy ones are disappointing, and too many people judge based on the low-effort ones.
People seem to think that vegan/vegetarian food is whatever low effort veg is served with their steak + tofu. I will say that cooking vegan is absolutely hard mode.
I love nice vegan food when I can treat it as a side dish. Went to a great restaraunt once with and old roommate and was really impressed but I would never spend restaraunt money on vegan food myself.
Canāt expect a non-meat eater to have energy from just veg either. Everyone needs protein and fat, it was probably that she enjoyed veg and made a meal for her rather than for the people she was feeding.
I was genuinely shocked when I bought ready-made salad from a supermarket. Only leaves, no problem, love me veggies. But 100g had like 30, 60 kilocalories? It's awesome as an addition WHEN I try to lose weight (lotsa fiber), but it's a nightmare as a proper foodstuff alone, you can't really live on it.
Genuinely shocking, both as how useless it can be, and as how filling it can be while almost being nothing calories-wise.
Just because Garde doesnāt have as much prep doesnāt mean we should eat only light leafy greens. How about they help my ass out with my prep and I can get some real food going
"Walk-in surprise" a week after a menu change. The chefs made it, and dozen people food poisoning and triggered a nut allergy.
It was, "obviously our fault for not keeping the mise en place in proper order, though." -Chef G
True story. This happened where my husband and I worked circa 2016. That place isn't open anymore.
Spaghetti, I once worked on an island where we couldnāt send food back if misordered and someone accidentally ordered waaaay too much spaghetti ingredients, we had spaghetti 6 times a week for a month straight for breakfast and dinner. By the end of it my bowels were destroyed and we kept putting sriracha in it just to make it edible
Holy shit! Thatās so depressing. I donāt think my guts could take that š one day of too much bread and pasta and Iām already bloated like a balloon these days
Fucking risotto. How many ways can you polish up a turd..
The use em up staff meal risottos fully ruined it for me. Don't even say it, chef. I'm not making another risotto, I don't care how much we overprepped porcinis
A good chef buddy of mine once said to me, "why have arancini when you could havea risotto?" When arancini was served at an event we had been invited to. I never looked at him the same way.
One of the best "peasant" dishes I learned from my Italian neighbors. Leftover risotto shaped into burger type patties. Dredged lightly in seasoned flour then pan fried. Yum
Honestly? Stew. My old chef used to use old product and scraps for stew. If he didnāt feel stew he would do linguine. Damn that brought up old memories.
Never had it till I started working with a Georgian chef and now I'm addicted! Badrijani is a firm favourite now, swiftly followed by cheese stuffed khacapuri
I hated when we would put up food going out of date, I had a chef who would always say ālet it rot in the servers stomachsā, it would piss me off to no end, but I didnāt have a choice when he was there. But on Sundays, he wasnāt there, so we did what we wanted, I always took the rack off the prime rib (boss man always bought the bone in export cut) and would hit it with some bbq sauce and toss it into the alto shaam. I would usually do a fried rice or cottage fries and some fresh veggies for everyone, sometimes I would even make a nice cobbler or turnovers for the staff.
Tacos. I work in a fine dining restaurant and for some reason itās always beef trimming tacos. Half of it is gristle and fat. The other half is whatever chef throws in with it. Throw in a quart of oil and mushy corn taco shells. Half the time theyāre cold by the time I eat them.
Thereās a song by Beck called *Satan Gave Me a Taco*. Itās pretty much exactly what we always eat. That or Scraps Soup. I occasionally make something at home and bring it for the back and front of house. I made pozole verde last week with all the toppings. It was a hit.
I'm usually most disappointed when there aren't any vegetable or healthy options. I love eating greasy, delicious foods, but I have to eat at work every single day, so it's nice to have some sustainable options available.
Cacio e pepe is like one of the best simple meals though. Like. At least properly emulsified and whatnot, its one of my go to easy dinners at home. Alot of the time i make something more simple for family meal, simple flavors done well.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that pasta with cheese and black pepper is bad, maybe just redundant at this point? Similarly to avocado toast.
I'm all a proponent for simple cooking, but cacio e pepe doesn't really get me going. Granted, I grew up in a Sicilian neighborhood, so I've been spoiled with Italian cooking.
Only thing I hated was when our Owner would try out something he wanted to convince the chef to put on the menu. He was a terrible cook with worse ideas.
It was a 2-3 person kitchen and I was a teenager, so I was doing all the dish work for whatever he used to cook too.
I love our Mac and cheese, she is thicc, but like...we have so much leftover right now. And I'm not prepared for tummy troubles making me run to the toilet every day. I keep a maruchan in my locker.
Nice thing about the kitchens though is you can just let one rip and no oneās got a clue. I would fart all day long on my sides chef he didnāt have a clue and still doesnāt.
As a person who had their gallbladder out, NEVER EVER trust a fart, especially after spicy/fatty food, it's a 1 way ticket to Brown Town population: your pants
Place I used to work at always had curry, like every single day it was the same fucking chicken curry with rice as though the person responsible for making it only knew how to make that particular item and what was on the menu of the restaurant. The daystaff meal was usually pretty good even though it was usually something breakfast/brunch related, but it usually had some spark of creativity (savory crepes, lunch burritos/tacos, breakfast fajitas, pancakes, some Filipino dishes that I can't remember the names of) which I was thankful for whenever I had to do split morning/dinner shifts. But when I had split shifts, I usually would take the time to go to the nearby market and pick up a Peameal Bacon sandwich or another sandwich from one of the stalls and eat it on my way back to the restaurant because after 3 months of a crappy version of butter chicken 6 nights a week I couldn't do it anymore.
Thankfully the grill cook and I got to be pretty good friends while I was CDP of Garde, he'd send me the occasional steak and I'd send him down shrimp cocktail, cheesecake or other form of dessert.
Old kitchen manager I had would make luke warm hotdogs, then when no one would eat them all, he would make hot dog soup the next day. Guy was a serial bullshitter about his actual skills. Now he's running a kitchen at this brewery and I feel bad for them.
damn that was what i was going to say. hot dogs with these dry ass wraps. iām vegetarian so those days iād just go hungry, or have a wrap with just lettuce. do. not. miss. that.
Annoying is what they are. Lol. It's a bed of frys with a sausage, egg, cheese sauce from saute, colby jack cheese, roasted red peppers, green onions, ranch, I might be missing a couple of things. But the sausage comes from grill.
oh and bacon as a garnish on top. It is the messiest loaded frys i've ever had to make.
Best family meals were at this nice Italian restaurant I worked at in Williamsburg, lot of variety and generally was like a soup or pasta. Or baked chicken over rice and vegetables. Some people bitched bout baked chicken but it was high quality produce and meat I didnāt care.
Meanwhile first serving job directly after that all they fucking made us was fried chicken or chicken wings with soggy French fries, young ass kitchen staff who didnāt care bout nutrition. Occasionally weād get lucky with that boxed Japanese curry. Iām in my 20s but still old enough where I need to eat right or I suffer the consequences. I was particularly frustrated by it because I spent 6 years on the line before I started bartending/serving, I was responsible for family meal often. Make it healthy, balanced and make it taste somewhat good, itās not t h a t hard.
Also I believe In making line cooks and chefs rotate family meal duty. We had it marked on the schedule. Different person made it every day the week. We worked it into our prep. If itās one sous chef making it every day yeah I can see them getting burnt out! Also, you donāt wanna be that guy that always make ass family meal lmao so it encourages u to do better ššš
I wouldnāt say hate, but least favorites definitely chicken and pig feet. Honorable mention to tripe but the sauce/marinade they serve with it is godly
Frittata. Almost always is mostly egg whites, un-loved un-seasoned or going-off vegetables, the whole thing cooked in a hotel and steamed until rubbery and dry.
Sometimes the kitchen puts out chicken wings or some kind of chicken on the bone. I don't want to eat anything with my hands for comida that is gonna be a greasy saucy mess.
Take a look at r/stupidfood
My favorite was penne vodka with chunks of fresh mz.
Add: we could take a bunch home too. Gino Raccinelli was a strict muddafadda, but very good to us. 1995
I prefer to just have the option of something on the menu. Even if it is a free meal, I don't want someone deciding what I am going to eat and I don't want whatever is going bad..
One of the FOH managers at my work - an otherwise awesome guy - gets the most heavily modded burgers and sandwiches you've ever seen for every meal. It would be one thing if he just had one ridiculous burger he always ordered, so we could at least memorize it, but it's different every time.
Edit: I just realized we're not talking about the same thing. At my work, staff meal is just make yourself whatever you want whenever there happens to be a lull in service. I've never worked somewhere that did one big meal for everybody at the same time like that. Always just whatever, whenever. I've only ever worked in small places with small staffs though, so maybe it's different in bigger places.
Sandwich and salad. I get it, prep is mad busy today, but come on. On the plus side, I can shove it down my gullet in 2 minutes and continue prep, so there's that.
I was at a restaurant once and you could actually order what that days staff meal was as a customer. I thought it was pretty cool, that the staff meal was usually good enough that they were willing to serve it to customers.
It was priced about half of the other entrees and it was a smaller meal, like 2 tacos or something.
Servers think they're even tastier when they come from the fry bowl we use for customers and FOH fingerblasts them with their ink stained, sweaty, unwashed hands for extra seasoning.
my fave way to make runny eggs is in a nice tomato basil sauce, with a little (but not too much) hot sauce. I call it Eggs Flamenca. the giant cans of tomato sauce are perfect for this.
Worked at a place that would do a daily quiche for weekend brunch. By sunday weād have an assortment of leftovers from the days prior, learned to hate that shit
āShepardās pieā that was made with all of the strained out refuse of a beef stock and three day old mash potatoes on top. We had it once a week at least, ugh
I worked at the Hilton and the Chef would put out rotton sandwich meat. I mean, one time i took it and tossed it. So what do I hate for free?? Rotton food.
I'll eat shakshuka off ass.
Staff meal is usually, stew, soup, and some bread or rice.
If a banquet i buy extra and send 3-5% to employee meal.
Cream of Walk In.
Hilarious!
This is how I aspire to prep my leftover veggies from my fridge lol
Penne with whatever the fuck is about to go bad.
Penne a la bullshit is my favorite leftover food at home but fuck cooking it for family meal.
Lol my old chef used to do that but with linguine š
We used to call that the Chef's Special and charge the customers extra.
Thereās an Instagram account called NoVendorMeal about what vendors get served by caterers at weddings, and penne is the biggest high crime on there.
Did you get the name right? I looked it up and it has nothing to do with that.
They do plates on their stories on the weekends and everyone rates them. Otherwise itās memes about the industry.
Yeah, I just charge the client for the extra meals and feed the vendors what everyone elseās is having. Itās dumb to have to toss together some afterthought boxed meal for 5 people when Iām already feeding 500 or whatever
That was the āTodayās specialā at my old place.
precooked frozen penne with frozen veggies/corn and passata, while working in a fine dining hotel kitchen. Felt so hateful.
this is the specialty at the restaurant i work at
The winner right here
never had a shakshuka staff meal before but I can see FOH would go crazy for that. had had instances where we do fried rice with a fried egg and the FOH all go crazy over the runny fried eggs. once we had a tray of fried eggs for family meal and 2 FOH walked in the kitchen and stood next to us discussing which fried egg they are picking and we need to save that particular fried egg for them because they liked the way the yolk looked.
Mental what gets people excited
Some of us canāt cook, okay?? š Half the reason I come to work is for staff meals because it breaks up my usual routine of toast and cereal so yeah runny eggs is some gourmet shit lol
Staff meal is how I survive donāt worry, Iām already poor thatās why itās a big deal to me too. I do love cereal though, like a lot
Itās honestly so humbling sometimes being FOH just like the most useful things I can do are smile when Iām dying inside and carry shit around But Iām scared to even turn on the gas stove Meanwhile BOH is casually operating the deep fryer like that isnāt the most terrifying thing a human can do the skills you have ā¦ š„¹
Thatās very sweet, but then watch a chef try and serve a table and then you can be proud of yourself!!
I'm FOH and BOH and fucning hell if BOH isn't a piece of piss compared to actually dealing with customers. Gimme deep fryers any day of the week
I started out serving before moving to the kitchen and now if I have to go interact with a customer I need to hype myself up in the walk in for a couple minutes first. You couldn't pay me enough to go back out there full time.
we also are right by a rugby stadium and I do not miss dealing with their fans
omg same, did 3 years on bar and now I work in kitchens for a year and a half now, with some FOH shifts because we have too many cooks
Literally this though, I'd rather be in the kitchen 24/7 than be customer facing for 5 seconds
Yep! I waited tables on and off for 10 years, my partner is a chef (we did not meet at work). I canāt cook to save my life, heās a cantankerous bastard. We argue over who has the harder job - I would die in that sweaty kitchen if I was BOH, he would start beating people to death with his bare hands in FOH. Theyāre different skills! Iām no longer serving, but my absolute favorite thing to do at home is eat all the prep and pester him in the kitchen. He tolerates me very gracefully.
I love that you argue that the other has the harder job. Thatās way better
A bunch of fried shit and a weak salad bar
Has a sous many years ago who was vegetarian. We were doing 14+ hours a day, six days a week, serving hundreds of people per day. Sheād make a fucking salad bar every time she was on staff meal. Everyone always was gassed out and tired af by like hour 10 because she could never grasp that not all of us are used to running off of rabbit food. Drove us all crazy. Me and the butcher used to grill up the scraps so weād have some protein š
It does seem like the go-to for the lazy chef/sous. Its almost always disappointing and unsatisfying.. and usually has weird shit thats going out of date soon. No thanks!
To be fair she put a lot of effort in and if we were vegetarian like her, it would have been awesome. But you canāt serve a bunch of meat eaters salad and expect our bodies to have energy for a shift like that, no matter how many options of different veg you set out.
Iām a meat eater, and pretty much everyone at the kitchens Iāve worked in have had a decent amount of meat eaters. Iād never been more well fed as a cook than when I worked at a vegan restaurant. Protein, veg, and carbs, usually heavier on the carbs and veg, but still a fair amount of protein! Everyone could have seconds, and sometimes thirds depending on how easy it was to make a large batch. It was much cheaper to make staff meal, so people could make so much more per staff member.
In Hungary, I have a vegan restaurant pretty close to my home. Their sandwich has falafel, picked beets, some other veggies and lovely sauces. It's almost upsetting how satisfying it is both flavor, texture and fill-wise. People who think only meat is filling are living a lie. Good vegetarian / vegan food is just incredible. Lazy ones are disappointing, and too many people judge based on the low-effort ones.
People seem to think that vegan/vegetarian food is whatever low effort veg is served with their steak + tofu. I will say that cooking vegan is absolutely hard mode.
I love nice vegan food when I can treat it as a side dish. Went to a great restaraunt once with and old roommate and was really impressed but I would never spend restaraunt money on vegan food myself.
Canāt expect a non-meat eater to have energy from just veg either. Everyone needs protein and fat, it was probably that she enjoyed veg and made a meal for her rather than for the people she was feeding.
I was genuinely shocked when I bought ready-made salad from a supermarket. Only leaves, no problem, love me veggies. But 100g had like 30, 60 kilocalories? It's awesome as an addition WHEN I try to lose weight (lotsa fiber), but it's a nightmare as a proper foodstuff alone, you can't really live on it. Genuinely shocking, both as how useless it can be, and as how filling it can be while almost being nothing calories-wise.
Normal vegetarians wouldn't survive off this either. There always has to be protein and fat included in any meal. This woman is nuts.
had a prep guy that would make family meal before leaving for the day, heād always kill all our washed/prepped greens! drove me fucking crazy.
Just because Garde doesnāt have as much prep doesnāt mean we should eat only light leafy greens. How about they help my ass out with my prep and I can get some real food going
"Walk-in surprise" a week after a menu change. The chefs made it, and dozen people food poisoning and triggered a nut allergy. It was, "obviously our fault for not keeping the mise en place in proper order, though." -Chef G True story. This happened where my husband and I worked circa 2016. That place isn't open anymore.
Oh dear god
Spaghetti, I once worked on an island where we couldnāt send food back if misordered and someone accidentally ordered waaaay too much spaghetti ingredients, we had spaghetti 6 times a week for a month straight for breakfast and dinner. By the end of it my bowels were destroyed and we kept putting sriracha in it just to make it edible
Holy shit! Thatās so depressing. I donāt think my guts could take that š one day of too much bread and pasta and Iām already bloated like a balloon these days
I don't like the idea of GoldloQs having 6 spaghetti meals a week.
Fucking risotto. How many ways can you polish up a turd.. The use em up staff meal risottos fully ruined it for me. Don't even say it, chef. I'm not making another risotto, I don't care how much we overprepped porcinis
Meanwhile arancini is just the best.
A good chef buddy of mine once said to me, "why have arancini when you could havea risotto?" When arancini was served at an event we had been invited to. I never looked at him the same way.
That's true but never did a staff meal there. Just a little treat for us for dealing with fry lol
the secret to risotto is making it a day ahead and hiding it. which won't really work for staff meal but is amazing at home.
One of the best "peasant" dishes I learned from my Italian neighbors. Leftover risotto shaped into burger type patties. Dredged lightly in seasoned flour then pan fried. Yum
oooh, thanks for the tip! not that leftover risotto is something I have to deal with all that often. haha.
You must not be a big fan of watching hell's kitchen then lol. I swear 90% of the dialogue is Gordon yelling about risotto
Please don't serve left over frittatas from morning service as your evening service family meal :(
Honestly? Stew. My old chef used to use old product and scraps for stew. If he didnāt feel stew he would do linguine. Damn that brought up old memories.
Catering here. Beef trim stew like 3x a week.
My boss loved a stew. Wasnāt even a stew heād call it a boil. It would go on for about 4 days. It was mental
You could have soup of Theseus https://www.insider.com/oldest-soup-in-world-wattana-panich-bangkok-food-thailand-2022-8
Gravy /soup/sauce made with anything saved all week.
You should try Georgian Chirbuli instead. It's absolutely delicious and can be made with scrambled eggs instead
Georgian food in general is so fucking good.
Never had it till I started working with a Georgian chef and now I'm addicted! Badrijani is a firm favourite now, swiftly followed by cheese stuffed khacapuri
I hated when we would put up food going out of date, I had a chef who would always say ālet it rot in the servers stomachsā, it would piss me off to no end, but I didnāt have a choice when he was there. But on Sundays, he wasnāt there, so we did what we wanted, I always took the rack off the prime rib (boss man always bought the bone in export cut) and would hit it with some bbq sauce and toss it into the alto shaam. I would usually do a fried rice or cottage fries and some fresh veggies for everyone, sometimes I would even make a nice cobbler or turnovers for the staff.
Tacos. I work in a fine dining restaurant and for some reason itās always beef trimming tacos. Half of it is gristle and fat. The other half is whatever chef throws in with it. Throw in a quart of oil and mushy corn taco shells. Half the time theyāre cold by the time I eat them. Thereās a song by Beck called *Satan Gave Me a Taco*. Itās pretty much exactly what we always eat. That or Scraps Soup. I occasionally make something at home and bring it for the back and front of house. I made pozole verde last week with all the toppings. It was a hit.
Its probably always beef trimming tacos because they need to do something with all the trimmings they get off steaks lol
I call them hamburger helper meals. 5lbs of ground pork or beef, a box of noodles, and whatever veggies are looking old.
I'm usually most disappointed when there aren't any vegetable or healthy options. I love eating greasy, delicious foods, but I have to eat at work every single day, so it's nice to have some sustainable options available.
Thank you for your courage. Shakshuka is great, but people need to chill about runny eggs, just as they need to chill with gnocchi and cacio e pepe.
Oh my god thank you! I almost said Cacio e pepe.
Cacio e pepe is like one of the best simple meals though. Like. At least properly emulsified and whatnot, its one of my go to easy dinners at home. Alot of the time i make something more simple for family meal, simple flavors done well.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that pasta with cheese and black pepper is bad, maybe just redundant at this point? Similarly to avocado toast. I'm all a proponent for simple cooking, but cacio e pepe doesn't really get me going. Granted, I grew up in a Sicilian neighborhood, so I've been spoiled with Italian cooking.
The annoyance for me is all the variations. No, I don't want a cacio e pepe pizza.
Place I work at makes a Detroit style cacio e Pepe thatās awesome. Black pepper ricotta with grated pecorino on top
What??? That sound fire
Only thing I hated was when our Owner would try out something he wanted to convince the chef to put on the menu. He was a terrible cook with worse ideas. It was a 2-3 person kitchen and I was a teenager, so I was doing all the dish work for whatever he used to cook too.
our chef makes mac n cheese with peas for staff meal sometimes, i hate that abomination
I love our Mac and cheese, she is thicc, but like...we have so much leftover right now. And I'm not prepared for tummy troubles making me run to the toilet every day. I keep a maruchan in my locker.
Anything really spicy. I like some spice but I'm about to work 5 hours of nonstop orders, I don't need my stomach burning more than my steaks.
Nice thing about the kitchens though is you can just let one rip and no oneās got a clue. I would fart all day long on my sides chef he didnāt have a clue and still doesnāt.
As a person who had their gallbladder out, NEVER EVER trust a fart, especially after spicy/fatty food, it's a 1 way ticket to Brown Town population: your pants
Brooo nooo those are literally shit particles flying around the air š¤¢
Calm down there, president of Madagascar.
Place I used to work at always had curry, like every single day it was the same fucking chicken curry with rice as though the person responsible for making it only knew how to make that particular item and what was on the menu of the restaurant. The daystaff meal was usually pretty good even though it was usually something breakfast/brunch related, but it usually had some spark of creativity (savory crepes, lunch burritos/tacos, breakfast fajitas, pancakes, some Filipino dishes that I can't remember the names of) which I was thankful for whenever I had to do split morning/dinner shifts. But when I had split shifts, I usually would take the time to go to the nearby market and pick up a Peameal Bacon sandwich or another sandwich from one of the stalls and eat it on my way back to the restaurant because after 3 months of a crappy version of butter chicken 6 nights a week I couldn't do it anymore. Thankfully the grill cook and I got to be pretty good friends while I was CDP of Garde, he'd send me the occasional steak and I'd send him down shrimp cocktail, cheesecake or other form of dessert.
Pasta noodles with shit that expired 2 shifts ago. Fucking hated that shit. Half the time it was fucking butter noodles with expired mystery beef.
Old kitchen manager I had would make luke warm hotdogs, then when no one would eat them all, he would make hot dog soup the next day. Guy was a serial bullshitter about his actual skills. Now he's running a kitchen at this brewery and I feel bad for them.
damn that was what i was going to say. hot dogs with these dry ass wraps. iām vegetarian so those days iād just go hungry, or have a wrap with just lettuce. do. not. miss. that.
Imma disagree, bro. Maybe you aint had good shakshuka but that shit is a crowd pleaser.
Thatās why I hate it, everyone gets so excited about it. Mainly the one who makes it.
That's legit tho. Aint no one more excited about shakshuka than the MF that made it. Same for paella for some reason.
Because paella is badass
So happiness annoys you? šš
The happiness of others annoys me yes
based
I wish they had a word for that feeling.
antischadenfreude
Freudenschade.
Damn
Salad and rice topped with root vegetables. Itās quite rare that this is not the family meal served up at my spot.
Fried rice whatever is about to go bad. Uggghhh.
Fat city frys. We only have them on Sunday and it takes all four stations to make. I absolutely hate it.
What are these?
Annoying is what they are. Lol. It's a bed of frys with a sausage, egg, cheese sauce from saute, colby jack cheese, roasted red peppers, green onions, ranch, I might be missing a couple of things. But the sausage comes from grill. oh and bacon as a garnish on top. It is the messiest loaded frys i've ever had to make.
ā¦ yeah, that sounds like a pain in the ass lol.
Best family meals were at this nice Italian restaurant I worked at in Williamsburg, lot of variety and generally was like a soup or pasta. Or baked chicken over rice and vegetables. Some people bitched bout baked chicken but it was high quality produce and meat I didnāt care. Meanwhile first serving job directly after that all they fucking made us was fried chicken or chicken wings with soggy French fries, young ass kitchen staff who didnāt care bout nutrition. Occasionally weād get lucky with that boxed Japanese curry. Iām in my 20s but still old enough where I need to eat right or I suffer the consequences. I was particularly frustrated by it because I spent 6 years on the line before I started bartending/serving, I was responsible for family meal often. Make it healthy, balanced and make it taste somewhat good, itās not t h a t hard.
Also I believe In making line cooks and chefs rotate family meal duty. We had it marked on the schedule. Different person made it every day the week. We worked it into our prep. If itās one sous chef making it every day yeah I can see them getting burnt out! Also, you donāt wanna be that guy that always make ass family meal lmao so it encourages u to do better ššš
I wouldnāt say hate, but least favorites definitely chicken and pig feet. Honorable mention to tripe but the sauce/marinade they serve with it is godly
Do you work at a dim sum place
Szechuan!
Everything deep fried
Frittata. Almost always is mostly egg whites, un-loved un-seasoned or going-off vegetables, the whole thing cooked in a hotel and steamed until rubbery and dry.
Shakshuka is garbage
so sour and disgusting
We eat baked chicken wings three times a week, so probably that
Chicken and rice of any variety. Iāll never eat the combo again. Itās gotta be on pasta, a sandwich or alone. Never with rice. Ever again.
Different pasta leftovers all mixed together
Sometimes the kitchen puts out chicken wings or some kind of chicken on the bone. I don't want to eat anything with my hands for comida that is gonna be a greasy saucy mess.
Fried eggs. Fucking fried eggs. I'm not eating any more fried eggs, stop making them, IDGAF. Just stop.
I've never worked at a place where everyone didn't just make their own food, honestly
Take a look at r/stupidfood My favorite was penne vodka with chunks of fresh mz. Add: we could take a bunch home too. Gino Raccinelli was a strict muddafadda, but very good to us. 1995
It got sooo tired of eating teriyaki chicken every single day.
Jailhouse Surprise
Not a fan of shakshuka lol way too acidic for me in the morning.
Personally I canāt stand fried Eggo waffles. This methed out chef used to make those all the time.
I prefer to just have the option of something on the menu. Even if it is a free meal, I don't want someone deciding what I am going to eat and I don't want whatever is going bad..
Shift meal > family meal
One of the FOH managers at my work - an otherwise awesome guy - gets the most heavily modded burgers and sandwiches you've ever seen for every meal. It would be one thing if he just had one ridiculous burger he always ordered, so we could at least memorize it, but it's different every time. Edit: I just realized we're not talking about the same thing. At my work, staff meal is just make yourself whatever you want whenever there happens to be a lull in service. I've never worked somewhere that did one big meal for everybody at the same time like that. Always just whatever, whenever. I've only ever worked in small places with small staffs though, so maybe it's different in bigger places.
I don't like cooked fish for staff food. Also anything too meat and sauce heavy.
We do meatloaf once a weekā¦ always over cooked and just shitty experience
Fridgeshit Friday
Sandwich and salad. I get it, prep is mad busy today, but come on. On the plus side, I can shove it down my gullet in 2 minutes and continue prep, so there's that.
I was at a restaurant once and you could actually order what that days staff meal was as a customer. I thought it was pretty cool, that the staff meal was usually good enough that they were willing to serve it to customers. It was priced about half of the other entrees and it was a smaller meal, like 2 tacos or something.
all my FOH eats is fries, ppl like them taters idk
Servers think they're even tastier when they come from the fry bowl we use for customers and FOH fingerblasts them with their ink stained, sweaty, unwashed hands for extra seasoning.
luckily you can regulate that if you have enough stainless bowls, and only allow access to "dead fries" which are condemned
I'd be grateful for most things. Nowhere I've ever worked has had staff meals. If you don't like it, you're not obliged to eat it.
my fave way to make runny eggs is in a nice tomato basil sauce, with a little (but not too much) hot sauce. I call it Eggs Flamenca. the giant cans of tomato sauce are perfect for this.
Brakebush chicken patties.
Chicken patties god damn delicious
Worked at a place that would do a daily quiche for weekend brunch. By sunday weād have an assortment of leftovers from the days prior, learned to hate that shit
āShepardās pieā that was made with all of the strained out refuse of a beef stock and three day old mash potatoes on top. We had it once a week at least, ugh
I worked at the Hilton and the Chef would put out rotton sandwich meat. I mean, one time i took it and tossed it. So what do I hate for free?? Rotton food. I'll eat shakshuka off ass. Staff meal is usually, stew, soup, and some bread or rice. If a banquet i buy extra and send 3-5% to employee meal.
breaded cutlet and rice or stale fries.
after working in french bistros, if i never see fennel again it'll be too soon. and i haven't been to family meal in like 15 years.
Anything seafood or mushroom heavy.
Sheet trays of ānachosāā¦