When they first arrived, the five people in Tan Palace were most impressed by the kitchen managed by the three French chefs. One word - pervert!

First of all, the requirements for cleanliness and hygiene here are extremely abnormal.

There are two meals a day. Once the meal is paid, the kitchen will start to be cleaned.

After cleaning, the French head chef on duty will personally check the hygiene.

The stove, cabinets, knives and chopping boards just look clean, but they actually wipe them with white hand towels.

If it's even a little bit dirty or greasy, it's "completely cursed to death".

I guarantee that I will give you a real scolding and scolding.

After you give it up, you will be asked to clean it three times again, and you will have to fill out a fault report and your money will be deducted.

Not to mention the kitchen hygiene standards of ordinary Chinese restaurants these days, even the hygiene standards of Tan Palace are useless here.

There is no way to muddle through.

Therefore, white vinegar has become an indispensable treasure in Maxim's kitchen. It is a bottle of kitchen whitening fairy water that everyone has in hand!

French chefs also treat the kitchen's personal hygiene very abnormally.

Not to mention the trimming of hair, beard, and nails, and the fact that chef uniforms must be spotless.

They actually require that as long as anyone leaves the kitchen during working hours, no matter what the reason, the first thing they do when they step into the kitchen again is to sanitize their hands.

The chef's hat can only be taken off when the chef announces the bill!

But this is still good. A more perverted request than this would be the unshakable cleaning day every Friday.

When doing general cleaning, clean the workbench first.

The chefs in the back kitchen had to pour a bucket of water mixed with detergent onto the stainless steel worktop where everything had been moved to other tables.

When the water flows to the ground like a waterfall, take a rag and wipe it slowly.

Then use a glass scraper to scrape off the water in one direction.

Finally, wipe it dry with dry paper, and the workbench is now clean.

Next, everyone uses the same method to clean the refrigerated cabinet doors embedded under the cleaning workbench one by one.

After all countertops and cabinets in the cold snow area have been cleaned, connect a thick water pipe to the faucet and use a large flow of water to flush the floor.

Then use a huge scraper like a mop to push all the accumulated water and debris on the ground to the sewer opening.

Finally, wrap up the garbage collected at the sewer outlet and throw it away.

At this point, the simplest ground work is completed.

However, this work is far from over. How can it be enough to just clean up the personal workbench and floor?

You must ensure that there is no trace of dirt in any corner of the entire kitchen.

So next, the more difficult aerial cleaning and the more troublesome wall cleaning began.

From the work surface to the refrigerator door to the tiles in the corners, the chefs in the kitchen have to clean everything several times.

I even had to climb up to the stove, remove the windows of the oil fume duct one by one, wipe them all carefully with steel wool, rinse them again, and wipe them again.

All exposed pipes, stoves, and shelves should be cleaned according to this process until there is no trace of oil stains.

It’s not until the chef shines like he’s never cooked before that he’s qualified.

Executive Chef Dominic's most well-known saying in the kitchen is "There will never be a place for oil fumes in my kitchen."

There is no doubt that in the eyes of Chinese people, all of this is an unimaginable exaggeration.

In addition, the preparation work before starting the meal is also very abnormal.

At seven o'clock every morning, the kitchen and warehouse of Maxim Restaurant are already in full swing counting, reviewing, distributing, and managing the freshly arrived ingredients one after another.

In fact, this job is not complicated for kitchen veterans.

Because the purchasing procedures for Chinese and Western food are similar, it’s just a little more difficult.

Almost always after the goods are shipped to the warehouse, all receipts are reviewed to ensure quality and quantity, and then the invoice amount is checked with the chef.

But how to handle the ingredients later is very different between Chinese food and Western food.

Chinese cuisine focuses on the harmony of the five flavors.

Although the texture of ingredients is important, cooking techniques and seasoning are even more important.

Moreover, Chinese chefs can make both original and altered flavors.

No matter whether it is frozen meat, dry goods or pickled products, even if the ingredients are not very fresh, they can still be used.

So in addition to washing the common vegetables and cutting all the onions, ginger and garlic.

In other words, the red table is used to cut out the meat according to parts, and then the dry goods are distributed.

Once most of the goods are stored in the warehouse, it's done.

Taking the kitchen of Tan Palace as an example, the most arduous daily preparation work is actually the soup set and white table.

In addition to lifting countless cans of soup stock, the soup team is also responsible for making semi-finished products for later use.

Needless to say, if you don’t make steamed buns, dumplings, noodles, and old noodle steamed buns in advance, how can you sell them?

But the good thing is that the soup team and Bai An are working almost all day long, and the fire on the stove never stops.

The soup team is always simmering, boiling, simmering, and stewing. There are always steamers on and off the table, but there is no need to do surprise work and compete for time.

The opposite is true for Western food.

Western food is mainly pure and pays attention to the original flavor of the ingredients and the food is fresh. Most of the dishes are cooked and sold fresh.

Even the sauce must be freshly made.

Especially at Maxim's Restaurant, not only does it have a lot of fresh vegetables and imported fruits, but it also has a lot of seafood and dairy products, as well as a lot of purely imported steaks.

There are too many fresh ingredients that need to be processed in advance.

Take the vegetables that are the easiest to pack as an example. There are dozens of types.

Because most of them are extremely picky about humidity and temperature, such as: fresh spices, celery, asparagus, etc.

The processing process is actually not simple and requires a lot of work to complete.

To process vegetables according to the requirements of French chefs, you must first pick the most beautiful leaves by category, tear them into bite-sized pieces, put them in a large basin, and wash them carefully.

In order to clean away the sediment and dirt, each type of blade needs to be cleaned at least twice, and blades that are particularly prone to hiding sand need to be cleaned three or four times.

After washing, use a huge salad drain bucket to dry the water, then separate them into prepared crisper boxes, label them, and store them in the pantry until it is time to eat.

This is done to keep the vegetables as fresh as possible.

To do this well, first go to the dishwashing room to find a water filter bucket and several large basins for washing leaves, and then go to the storage room to find a few crisper boxes with lids.

Go to another room, soak some non-woven fabric, put it in an insulated box and fold it up, separate different types of vegetables, and get some more to cover the top vegetables.

After all the above preparations are done, vegetables can be washed.

After all work is completed, the work area must be cleaned quickly and all utensils cleaned and returned to their original places.

As you can imagine, it takes so much effort to even prepare a simple salad. How much work it is to prepare the entire menu according to the ingredients.

And since this ingredient preparation work requires shuttling back and forth between the freezer and fresh-keeping warehouse at minus five degrees to plus five degrees, it takes more than two hours once the work starts.

The chefs in the back kitchen also have to overcome the test of low temperature and frost, and they need to have certain polar survival skills.

Just like the TV show thirty years later, stay awake, slow down your breathing, reduce body heat consumption...

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Speaking of which, preparation is the most relaxing time of the day.

In fact, at eleven o'clock every day, when the morning preparations have come to an end, the siren will officially sound half an hour later, and the real uncomfortable suffering is yet to come.

Not to mention anything else, just so that all the kitchen staff can be in place when the meal starts at 11:30, the staff lunch time of just thirty minutes is particularly precious!

Don't think that the staff meals at Maxim's Restaurant are just that good.

Although there is no shortage of money here, and although they serve world-famous French cuisine, the job of the chefs is to deal with delicious food all day long.

But in order to ensure that employees are clear-headed, French chefs usually arrange lunch for employees with juice, coffee and cold food.

For Chinese people who are used to eating hot meals, this is simply the greatest physical abuse.

It's quite fresh at first, and one or two meals is okay, but after a long time, who can stand it?

To be honest, it was purely a foreign crime.

When it's time to serve the meal, the kitchen will become even more terrifying because the dishes must be served according to the customer's order within the specified time.

As soon as the restaurant's business hours arrive and the guests sit down, the order is placed in the kitchen.

Every aspect will be under the full control of the chef, and the time between hot and cold meals will be strictly controlled.

There is no room for any mistakes in plate temperature, texture, sauce, decoration, etc.!

The chefs in the Western kitchen must also obey orders and do not have any time to hesitate. Every job must be done quickly, accurately and well.

Therefore, the kitchen is no longer a kitchen, but a battlefield without smoke!
To be continued...