Kitchen Confidential is funny, really funny. But really, I expected no less from Tony. What I didn’t expect was for it to be educative. Not only does he give a very good insight in the restaurant business and how they function – the chapter a day in the life shows how chaotic, extremely busy and high on adrenaline, espressos and booze these chefs have to be in order to get through the day but also teaches the reader a thing or two about cooking. Most of his teachings don’t apply to me since I’m a vegetarian (he hates them – “vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction vegans, are a persistent irritation to any chef worth a damn”), but they are informative anyway.
For the first time now, if I look at a restaurant I think of more than the menu. I think of the kitchen, the countless cooks, the chaos, the dishwashing, the sous-chefs and all the effort that goes into preparing a meal for me. I would oh so guilty to return a dish or change an order thinking of the stress I’d put those guys through.
So what are some of things I learnt?
- Don’t eat sea food at ANY restaurant on Monday. Why? It will not be fresh; 9 out of 10 times they are serving you leftovers from the weekend. Eeks! The best days for seafood are Tuesdays through Thursdays
- Don’t eat mussels in restaurants. More often than not, mussels are left wallowing in their own piss. Yuck!
- Cooks HATE brunch LOL!
- Eating bread is fine in restaurants, although chances are during busy times you are eating untouched bread from someone else’s table
- Don’t eat in restaurants with filthy bathrooms. Tony says you can’t see their kitchen but you can see the bathrooms and those usually are a pretty good indicator of how clean the kitchen is
- Discount Sushi is usually made from fish sitting out in the open for hours, un-iced, leaking in crates. Oh no!
- A decent chef knife is a must have! Global makes some good and cheap knives so one knife that cuts everything from shallots to watermelon is a must in any kitchen
- Another must have object – plastic squeeze bottle, you know to squirt things like mayo, sauces, etc
- Pots and pans, of course! Best place to buy them? In the classifieds section look for restaurants going out of business and then swoop down and collect your loot from them for dirt cheap. Ikea and other places are no good because the best pots and pans should be heavyweight
- Never use anything other than a wooden/ceramic/nonmetallic spatula for your nonstick sauté pan. If you want to preserve your non-stick never let it make contact with any washing liquids. Simply wipe it clean after each use
- Other food essentials – shallots, butter, garlic, parsley, stock, basil, mint, chives, you get the point
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