Filed under: Weblogs
Started training at a local fine dine restaurant called Third Floor, located in the JW Marriott KL working splits for weekdays and 3pm for Saturdays, and the restaurant is closed on Sundays.
What a way to start the first day, got up late and floored the Spectra through Kesas like there was no tomorrow, arriving at Marriott in a record breaking 14 minutes from Shah Alam, mind you, at 9.45am in the bloody morning! Well obviously we didn’t miss out much, since we (Wai Kheng and I) arrived at the restaurant at about 10.10am but nobody was there or nobody there was doing anything yet.
Apparently it was going to be a quiet afternoon with what would be just one food tasting table and a 3 pax walk in, a bunch of ladies in their 40s up for some Wagyu cheek, not served well done thank goodness. The staff there are quite ‘fascinating’ and unique, but this is considering the fact that there’s only 3 staff for the whole service department serving 11 tables and a bar. Oh and one of them is the manager, lol!
First that I would meet would be James from the kitchen, he looked a lot like the next of kin to Chef Ken, the director of Third Floor. We were then brought along to meet other staffs of the kitchen, Seong, Awie, Poon, Yao and not to forget the steward, Korea. Wait, Korea? I know, you may have queries as to isn’t that a country and all in your mind, but apparently the story is this guy’s mom is Korean and his dad’s ancestors are Chinese. In short, perhaps he just wants to represent, y’all.
Then came KD, my mentor for the next month, the young and active service staff whom share the same interest in cars with me. Thank goodness, at least silent shifts won’t be so boring with this guy around. I hope. He is a bit lazy and likes to ’steal bones’ though. But oh well, at least he taught me how to do it myself, he’s a pretty cool dude xD
So on with mis-en place. Set a couple of tables, had to re-set the settings on table 2 as KD placed the wrong table cloth by accident, it covered only 2/3 of the table and he didn’t realize, d’oh! After setting the tables, swept the carpets for a while and gazed at my Bowerman, it’s now 12 afternoon. Business hour.
The first and supposed only guests arrived at 12.30 for the tasting for next month’s function, as predicted by Mr Ariff the Port Wine Creme Brulee and salmon main course was rejected. Replacing the Brulee with a Lime and Ginger variation, and beef replaces the salmon. Throughout service, KD did most of the work and I was jotting down notes since they don’t believe in having training classes to show how to do things at Third Floor.
Half way through, 3 ladies approach the door and thankfully Mr Ariff was nearby, as he greeted the guests for me. Went through my quick notes for service sequence and proceeded to help Ariff with the water pouring, serving and clearing. Trust me, for a first day, this was scary enough! The guests ordered Roasted Pumpkin Soup and Wagyu cheeks to share, so the plate arrangement on the table was seriously screwed up with two huge platters attempting to fit itself into the middle of the table crammed alongside empty dinner plates for individual use. Darn.
After the guests all left, KD decided to leave the table setting of the used tables to Din, an afternoon staff. Thankfully Third Floor is another restaurant that appreciates it’s staff, where they allow actual meals to be cooked for their staff. I managed to chomp down into Poon’s Golden Fried Rice of which he claims is being sold for over RM100 a portion up in Genting. I have to agree it was delicious but that’s overkill! So we left for our split break at 2.30pm, and headed out to Pavilion where I spotted Joanne the short leng lui from DH and Hadi at Michaelangelo’s. Totally forgot about asking why she didn’t tag along with her friends like June to Flam’s, so do I remind me the next time we meet yeah? 
Hadi looked super out of place with his black Michaelangelo’s jacket but with a mismatching white Taylor’s chef hat. LOL! Imagine that, and from far he actually looks a bit like a girl, but that could just be me…
Watched Wanted, the weirdest movie ever this year, with the weirdest storyline and weirdest weapons which have bullets that will redefine suicide in style. Angelina also had bloody skinny arms and didn’t look as attractive as when she did during her Tomb Raider and Original Sin times. *cue sex scene* Overall I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie if you’re a saint, you’ll just end up saying the f word too many times because of the cheesy concept behind the story.
So after that, we returned to the office, skipping along to the tunes of automobiles revving when the junction light just turned green, but at the same time a peaceful tone of the wind was curling up in our ears. It was very much appealing and comforting. Maybe it’s the jadedness like what Maynard says, after all having one table on the first day is a bit of an alert dropper if you ask me, since I’ve yet to see times when the walk-ins would triple or quadruple and we’d all be struggling to get back to the kitchen thanks to the many tables calling us to request for anything.
Nothing to do for place to dinner, so I folded some napkins with Din and KD, until Seong came out to join us after 7pm (opening) and no guests showed up. 7.45 and still no guests, so I did the Mui Huai wine chiller inventory while waiting, until I finished it at 8.30 and there were still no guests. Thought of doing the Fine Cut chiller inventory too but Mr Ariff came into the bar telling me business was no good tonight, and that I can now get ready to go home.
Haha! In a way it is good news, but inventory has never been my favorite past time hobby, and to already be in the zone to do it, I’d rather finish it all off at one go rather than delay, but oh well. So we all left by 9pm instead of the scheduled 11pm, and I went for dinner with Wai Kheng at a cozy little steamboat restaurant in Cheras.
Totally bloated myself and now here I am, after a cool and fresh shower and new shirt on, ready to tuck into bed and wake up to a new and hopefully more exciting day at the restaurant. Getting used to things slowly, hopefully it won’t catch up and overtake my pace anytime soon.
That’s it for today’s post, more updates to come as time passes, thanks for stopping by to read this one!
Regards
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
