My Three-Day Profession

What would I watch on ASTRO if there are nothing good to watch? Of course I would watch the Olympics had I been at home during those days, but the Olympics channels will not be there forever. My default channel used to be MTV or Channel [V], just watching video clips of mainstream music when there are nothing good to watch, or AXN where I can watch House or CSI or some stupid video compilations. But lately, for the past year or so (probably because of Frances the Mute), my default channel has been switched to 703 where I can watch people roast some chicken or bake some apple pie or anything. I would just drool with my hunger, and right after my lunch outside, I would go to some supermarket to see if I can find the ingredients.

I am probably destined to become a chemical engineer, but if I could still choose (I still can, actually), I would like become a chef. I love delicious food (even though I don't eat that much) and what a heavenly gift it would be if you could cook your own good food. If I crave for anything, I don't need to go out and find the restaurant because I know I can cook even better than that. How wonderful would that be. And not only you get to eat your own good food, you get to make a living out of it.

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I have a bunch of friends who are very active in doing things, and I got involved in a few, although I never blog about it, but I think this one is quite special. As the new semester starts, it will be only a matter of few weeks before the biggest event in UTP - the Convofair. And these guys decided to rent a booth to sell some food. The idea was taken seriously and we had our first formal meeting regarding the booth. The food we are going to sell will have a western theme, mainly spaghetti and BBQ. I just had a carbonara during my cousin's aqad nikah and it was mindblowing, and I suggested, instead of selling the traditional bolognese, how about we include carbonara, too. They agreed, but I have to find the recipe, and it better be good.

So I googled the recipe for carbonara, and the first few entries are similar, using mainly eggs. I tried, and gave them a taste, but it sucks big time. I said if it sucks then we can scrape it off the menu, but no, they insist that the dish must stay, and I was given time to 'improvise'. Then only my lightbulb went on - why would I google for the recipe when I can ask from a more reliable source: my mom. And so she replied my message with her recipe, but with no measurements at all! I guess it was too simple, it did not require any measurements at all.

And the second trial turned out great. Thank God, and thank mom.

This story is a bit too much about me, when it is supposed to be about my bunch of friends who had successfully ran a western food stall, cooking mainly on our own recipes and still generating profit despite the hefty price for the booth rent.

What I want to write here is about the experience I had during the past weekend. About my experience of being in the food business. The food business is a wonderful business that always fascinates me. I always want to have a restaurant where customers come for good food and leave with satisfaction. It is not really about profit, it is more of a personal accomplishment. But the fact is, it is not easy.

I cook probably the easiest meal that we sell, carbonara. My spaghetti partner cooks bolognese, also a relatively easy dish. Interestingly, the hard part is not the topping, but the spaghetti itself. It takes a long time to fully cook spaghetti to perfection. And with the immense demand throughout the day, you can't prepare the spaghettis after somebody orders it. You have to cook in advance. But how much? Too little and the customers will be waiting. Too much and the spaghetti gets hard and stiff. Then only I wondered, how does Pizza Hut or any other restaurants for that matter prepares their pasta? For Pizza Hut, it is even more difficult, because they offer the choice of pasta and the toppings, even to the extent of choice of chicken or beef.

I remember one slide in my Operations Management class where it shows the number of customers in McDonald's by hour where it peaked during lunch and dinner time. That's exactly what we experienced, but I would never imagine it would be so obvious.

And I pay great emphasis in satisfying the customers, sometimes a bit too much. I put too much spaghetti because I am concerned if they will complain about having too little. And I don't like preparing too much spaghetti in advance because it will get stiff after time, or soggy for the bottom parts. And when I 'miscook' my topping, I can't throw it away because it is money, but I hate to give it to the customers, too, because they will leave our stall unsatisfied.

And all the problems I have mentioned is only from the spaghetti corner. We have the drinks corner, the mushroom soup and garlic bread corner, the fruit salad corner, and the grill corner. All of them have their own issues, too. The grill corner cannot prepare in advance like my spaghetti corner does. They have to prepare their lamb chops and salmon steaks only after receiving order. These type of dishes require even more effort, and you have to be at your station all the time. They have their own 'tiny little problems' too. Their lamb chops might break into pieces during marinating or grilling, or customers don't know whether they want it well-done or medium-rare, and still they complain because they did not get how they want it. And the side dishes. And the plates and forks and knives to be washed. And the occasional electricity problem where the salmon cannot be grilled on the electric cooker. And the ultimate problem of preparing lamb chops during rainstorm.

Fruit salad is our only dessert, a classy dish that tastes good and healthy, too. But to make it taste good, the fruits must be cold. And the fruits cannot be pre-cut, otherwise it will be oxidized and would look bad. The fruits cannot be kept in ice, otherwise it will make it too watery. And our limited number of chopping boards also contributes to the problem, because the customers will not want their apples and oranges to taste like garlic and onions.

The mushroom soup also had its share of complaints, usually it being too creamy (or milky, whatever). Hell, I don't understand the problem of being too creamy. I love it creamy. But not everyone does. That is the problem with food services. You can have tonnes of praises, but you can't satisfy every single one, and for every praise you get, you would probably get a complain also on the exact same food. Little do our customers know that almost all of our western food we serve are home made - that is, we use little (and mostly none at all) instant soups or toppings or gravy or marinate or whatsoever. But when you serve your customer, you don't go blasting your unsatisfied customer, saying, "You don't know how much effort I put into this dish! I made it myself!" The garlic bread was also home made, although we did not have the resources to bake our own french bread.

And the drinks corner, the so-called schirap corner. Basically, this is the station with most demands, with people buying drinks while they're walking. And being the frontmost station of all, they were also assigned to lure customers into our stall. And their specialty shake (more like ice-blend actually) is quite a pain to make, considering the occasional (or rather frequent) electricity problem preventing them from using the blender. And yet our shake is relatively cheaper than other ice-blends at the square.

In running a food business, it is absolutely crucial to forecast. How much customers will there be tomorrow? How much are we going to prepare? How much are we going to buy? Because we cannot 'overbuy', otherwise it will not be fresh for the next day, especially items like lamb or salmon or fruits. We cannot 'underbuy', too, otherwise we lose profits and more importantly we lose customers that will be kempunan to taste our home made delicacies. And how much to cook at any given hour of the day? You know you will be super busy around 1pm and also around 8pm. How are the stuffs need to be arranged to maximize efficiency and how are the humanpower will be utilized at those peak hours? It sounds very theoretical, but to be honest we really experience all these stuff during those days.

And I haven't even mention the waiters and waitresses. I did not even try to be in their shoes, but I know it wasn't easy at all. When you eat in any restaurant and you are really pissed off because some other customers already got their orders and you are still waiting, who will you be venting your anger at? Of course the waiters and waitresses, definitely not the chefs. At those peak hours, these are the people who had to face the customers' wrath with patience and calmness. And if the food sucks, they will get the complaints. After the customers have finished eating, they will do the cleaning up. And when they don't have orders to be taken, the work behind the kitchen, helping out to chop some garlics or onions.

And the unsung hero, the one that never manages to be with us all the time because busy going back and forth buying things for us - the runner. Probably the most demanding jobs among us. Every night we will have a meeting of what to buy the next day, but no matter how carefully did we plan, there must be some things that we will miss, and the runner had to go to the markets and buy it for us. And after he arrived, he will only get more things to be bought, and off he goes again. And for some of the items that demand freshness like lambs and salmons, it had to kept cold in the refrigerator in our house. And who is going to retrieve it when the stocks are running low at the stall? Who else.

But one thing that I really like about cooking - when the waiters and waitresses come to me and say, "They said the dish was delicious." It would really give the satisfaction of working. And not just me, it is to everyone that cooks.

I would like to have my own restaurant, serving either fine dining with no wine, or a luxurious seafood outlet with aquariums at the entrance, but I would never know the problems to expect in running such business. I should say this three-day profession I had during the past weekend had been a priceless experience and a hindsight of what to expect in operating a food business. Our profit is incredibly measly, probably just enough for all of the working staff to have a celebration some time, but I won't care about the profit. It is about the priceless things that is more important than the things you can buy. I don't want to give a droplist of the people involved because I'm afraid if I would miss anyone, but you can read their own versions here and here, and some other places, too. Thank you for everything. Oh ya, I even missed a Liverpool match for the stall, and how I hate missing a Liverpool match for the sake of work, and I still regret missing it, but otherwise the remaining hours of the three days working is an incredible experience, something that I will hope to relive it one day.