tecolote

I guess I kinda started this up near the top when I complained about a customer slathering ketchup on a Halibut Piccata. I wasn't attacking ketchup. I personally have little use for condiments on my food, but I use ketchup in many recipes as an ingredient. I must admit I am using things like Srirachi and Lingham's more lately, but I'm not a 'hater'. I was really just defending the integrity of Piccata. It is simply a perfect dish. It looks good, smells wonderful, and naturally balances it own flavors. Catching the aroma of a perfect Piccata when you put it up on the slide is very satisfying. Seeing ketchup all over that dish truly was one of my worst restaurant experiences.

Yeah, and I'll bet that he wanted to wash it down with a Diet Coke, eh? Actually, in fairness to the guy, if his wife was the one on his back about eating those crappy Egg Beaters, he may have just been making it worth his while to actually consume them. It's sort of a delicate dance some people have to walk to not lie to their spouses, you know? ← Duke was actually a really good guy. 92 and still working. We would kid him about his omelette and he would laugh and tell us he was too old to give up meat and cheese, it was the only thing that held the skin to his bones. He died shortly after. Sunday's sucked after that.

OK, How about the woman that ordered "egg-beaters. over easy"? Or the guy who brought a carton of egg-beaters in every Sunday morning. We then made him a bacon, ham and cheddar omelette.

The thing is, sometimes it doesn't have to be that good. The Peruana restaurant in Amsterdam was not very good, but the food generally blows in A'dam. But, a Peruvian cooked the potatoes. I think a Peruvian could take that old spud lying under the metro shelves in the walk-in and turn it into buttter. Potatoes and ceviche are my comfort foods. They make me as happy as a fat American tourist stumbling into a McDonald's in Sienna.

I just wanted them out of my hair. The line is too hectic to mess around with revenge meals. Besides, the inconvenience would be shared with the jerks innocent tablemates. My overriding fear as a cook was that if I screwed up a meal I ruined someone's day. If someone wants to ruin their own meal, who am I to judge. But not picatta.

Andina is the first place I stop when I go to Portland. I have been lucky enough to travel extensively since retirement, and have found that almost any big city in the world will have a Peruana restaurant. When I am fed up with local cuisine, (fairly easy in places like Amsterdam and Chile), a Peruana restaurant is just the ticket. Nothing like potatoes and ceviche to make me feel normal again. My first visit to Andina was right after returning from South America. We went in for lunch and, because we had just returned form the south, Mama Doris sat with us almost the entire meal and treated us like long-lost friends. Its been a long time since I had a quiet time in Andina like that one, but the food is excellent. Consider sitting at the bar and enjoying some tapas and a Pisco Sour.

Didn't mean to give the impression I was a hothead. In 25 years back-of-house, that was the only time I lost it. AND I lived long enough with all that inside me to retire. I won't say I never gave a toungue-lashing to a "camping" waitperson or two, but I endured almost 25 years of orders like "eggbeaters, over easy, side of hollandaise" with great humor. But nobody has a right to mess with something as perfect as picatta.

This is my 1st post, and I'm going to tell you about the one time I lost it in the kitchen. Some first impression, huh. Lunchtime, busy summer day at a beachfront retaurant. Kitchen is hammered. I'm on saute. Order comes in for the fish special, halibut piccata, served with sauteed veg over linguine. Piccata is a line-cooks best friend because its the one dish that you can SMELL on the way to the food-slide and know its just right. It's a taste you don't improvise with. So the order comes in, but the lady wants it on rice. I have the waitress explain that I think it would ruin the dish, but if she would like to change her order, I would make anything else for her. Fine, she'll take it on pasta. I send the food and the waitress comes back. The lady would like tartar sauce. I refuse, same reason. Next trip, waitress tells me there is now about a half bottle of catsup atop my piccata. I wince, swear under my breath, and accept the condolences of the rest of the line, and try to let it go. Shortly after, the waitress comes back to the kitchen to tell me the just-departed piccata lady sent 'compliments to the chef'. Only the presence of 3 cooks larger than myself kept me from chasing her down the Boardwalk was a cleaver.