head shake moments

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Messages
8,775
Reaction score
3,809
Location
south florida
lets share some funny moments you've experienced from your crew.

today i found out they were using a bain marie filled with duck fat thinking it was clarified butter (despite the clearly marked label)

pancakes must have tasted a bit weird this morning...
 
if by weird, you mean good, then i agree... better living through duck fat ;)

Its like a twist on chicken and waffles
 
This is funny as I was just regaling this tell earlier today-

Busy Saturday night Many years ago. I'm on saute getting my **** pushed in when I looked over and noticed the Pot & Pan Dishwasher was no longer at his station. Not good as I was just about out of clean pans. A couple minutes later and still no Dishwasher, and now I need pans. So lucky me, I got to scrub pans as I needed them pretty much the rest of the evening. Needless to say we were all pissed of cursing his name.
Well, right before service wrapped up, our little dishwasher reappeared. Of course I led the yelling, but his reaction wasn't matching the scenario so I asked one of my guys to translate what I was screaming. Then a big conversation in Spanish took place, most of it going over my head. Come to find out, He was very apologetic. And this is why:

The big metal Bain we skim the fat off veal stock was full of this warm, delicious golden....fat. It was calling our dishwasher's name, so he gave in and just took a big ol' glass of this tasty goodness to the face. Just slammed it! And just as service started to pick up, my man shat his pants. Just completely crapped his trousers. So he had to waddle downstairs, through the restaurant and bar, and all the way home to clean up/change.

Here's the thing, you just can't stay mad at a grown man who just told you he's very sorry for drinking veal fat and crapping his pants.

Cheers guys
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To be fair it does smell REALLY good. If its just the fat...
 
:rofl2:
We did a soft opening on a cafe not long ago and with the opening of a new venue I started writing right next staff's hours where they were working like : cafe , rest. , func etc..
I had a real serious phone call from my apprentice 2 days later who was due in next day:
"chef , you put me as a rest day tomorrow , can I rest at home or do I Really have to come in? "
me " no mate , I have to make sure you are resting ,you have to be here , make sure you are wearing your chef outfit"
my apprentice " how long will I rest , all day ?"
at that moment I couldnt hold my laugh .... my entire kitchen crew who were listening the conversation were :lol2: :rofl2:
 
Id be confused aswell ive never seen a roster with rest day on it haha.
 
I had some unfortunate time in a hotel...the servers there are union and make 100+k a year. One time one of them walked into the cooler to find strawberry/banana smoothie and instead grabbed a 8qt labeled "Cognac!!". Turns out it was Cognac vinaigrette. the guest took a few big gulps then of course coughed it up, got all over her face and the front of her shirt. No repercussions for the server....damn unions
 
A chef I worked for a long time ago was a self absorbed born again christian. This dude had actually xeroxed a bunch of photos of himself wearing nothing but underwear, and he would proceed to draw different religious tattoos that he contemplated getting all over his body in the xeroxed copies. He would then judge the photos of himself again wearing nothing but underwear, covered in christian tattoos and ask the rest of the line what our opinion was. None of this was tongue in cheek or meant as self deprecating humor, but rather he was dead serious if the tats he doodled all over his photos looked nice or not. This occurred over and over again, ON THE LINE in front of the staff. I jumped ship shortly after.
 
A chef I worked for a long time ago was a self absorbed born again christian. This dude had actually xeroxed a bunch of photos of himself wearing nothing but underwear, and he would proceed to draw different religious tattoos that he contemplated getting all over his body in the xeroxed copies. He would then judge the photos of himself again wearing nothing but underwear, covered in christian tattoos and ask the rest of the line what our opinion was. None of this was tongue in cheek or meant as self deprecating humor, but rather he was dead serious if the tats he doodled all over his photos looked nice or not. This occurred over and over again, ON THE LINE in front of the staff. I jumped ship shortly after.

Rick tramonto?
 
Bartender asked me if she could have buffalo sauce without the butter....I manage the Foh and just kind of looked at her funny and said "you mean straight crystal?" I've cooked in a few restaurant kitchens and cook at home all the time so I guess it gives me a slight one up but it still surprises me how often someone in FoH does not understand some of the basic fundamentals of cooking. Even something as simple as buffalo sauce.
 
...Here's the thing, you just can't stay mad at a grown man who just told you he's very sorry for drinking veal fat and crapping his pants.

Cheers guys

Truly made me laugh, thanks.
 
Our front line cold kitchen guy was not one to be pushed around and he had a mouth. The head storeroom man got a late order so when he delivered it came with attitude. He dropped the case of lettuce right on the floor of front line. Not there you dummy in the walk in cooler. Storeroom %#* you. Never saw a fat storeroom guy run so fast being chased by a hot head with a knife.

Later chapter daytime Gardemanger in the weeds trying to get out banquets asked the same hothead to help by cutting up a couple large platters of sliced fruits. *%@$ you not going to help, if you work faster no get stuck.

Gardemanger I'm not afraid of you no knives just me & you we go outside no weapons strip down to our BBD's beef it out. That guy never outlived teasing about his underware beef threat.
 
Working in a hotel with 2 seperate kitchens, one on the main floor and one on the 12th floor with a ***** of a kitchen tucked away in the back corner of the 12th floor.
All the dishwashers hated working up there because alot of the larger pots,pans etc, neede to be carted downstairs after service. All except one guy, he loved it. For the life of me, I could never figure out why,but one night I had left my knife roll in my office and the next day had an off site party, so after being away for like 3 hours returned to the kitchen to find only the rear of the kitchen lit, the radio on low and singing coming from the back.
Lo and behold here is the dishwasher, steam kettle 3/4 full, soapy water everywhere, butt ass naked taking a bath in the kettle.

Now I know why he loved it so much!!:bigeek:

True story.

Jimbo
 
I was working IRD; the walk-in was about half way across the hotel so I ran over there to grab some product and as I come around the corner I see another IRD cook just standing in front of a tilt skillet, **** in his hand, pissing in the floor drain... Come to find out I wasn't the first one to catch him in the act. Union house though, so whatcha going to do?
 
Watching a prep cook take off a pot of stock only to pour it through the chinois and right down the drain. DOH!
 
One stagier sprayed the floor for the first time only to realize the hose was facing right at him...
 
I watched one exec chef shoot quat 400 into a live electrical socket and then jam a rag into it. Always ripe for a laugh, that fellow.
 
Managed a Denny's.Walked in at 3am to catch up on paperwork. Resturant was empty. Walked into the back and found the line cook and waitress having sex on a prep table.Also had a dishwasher that ate off the plates that came in tubs to be scraped and washed. He wouldn't stop doing it even though I fed him a meal every shift.
 
Our excecutive chef was making a mudcake and in his haste accidentally mixed in the dough white pepper powder instead of vanilla sugar. He didn't even realize his mistake before the first piece went out.
 
Back
Top