AnnaK2tu

I´m still here, but have been busy with fighting with co-workers and with changing restaurants. Thank you all for responding, you have been a huge moral support. I have only two work days to go and then I´m finished with this. But the moral dilemma remains.. I have talked with the owners and the kitchen staff connected with it, and nothing.. no change. The end product is so bad that large amount of servers try to have a moment with customers to try to convince them to choose something else from the menu. Because let´s be honest.. this restaurant has been really popular for almost three years, I dare to say that we serve about 300-400 customers a day. At least. And we´re in the Nordic White Guide. Soon I´m gone, but what if someone actually gets sick because of it? Or dies? And I have had some cooking related conversations with the guys. Yes, they have been to the culinary school here in Estonia, but lets be honest.. the quality of this education is really questionable. And I´m pretty sure, they don´t read cookbooks or try to educate themselves. For example when I tried to convince them, that they´re cooking methods might me off and mentioned the word "collagen", I got the response: "Nono! There´s no collagen left! We kill it with grilling and high heat!" Cool, good for you.. but it´s not a bacteria. And when I recommended using banana leaves for a street food fair and mentioned a fact that you actually don´t eat the leaf itself? They automatically assumed that banana leaves are made of plastic.. I do love the place and I like how the owners have given kitchen staff the liberty to do whatever they like menu wise. It´s awesome! Until the system fails and does it so badly. I have only two days to go, three more cooks have about two weeks left. And the solution? BBQ guys remain and are composing a new kitchen team.. with young people fresh out of the culinary school, younger the better. And the meat that has been in the sous vide water bath and at the end of the day is still there? It´s ok to take it out and put it back with the rest of the meat packages.. maybe tomorrow. .. moral dilemma remains. And it´s eating me alive.

I work in a kitchen, where some of my colleagues don´t take me seriously.. mainly because I´m a self-thought woman who doesn´t have a lot of experience and who has spent most of the time making desserts. Let´s be honest.. when it comes to BBQ, even I am really sceptical about myself. But I have a problem with one of the dishes they´re serving to customers. Please.. tell me, they´re doing things correctly. It´s all about boneless pork chops. It comes in frozen, they thaw it, cut into portions and put it in a marinade for about a day (I´m not really sure whats in it, because it all happens kilometers away, but it contains papain and white onions and it´s salt free, because with brine they "can´t control the saltiness of the finished product"). And then they grill/smoke them on Kamado Joe´s .. 120C for about an hour and afterwards seal them in a vacuum bag when meat is still really hot, "because it gives the juiciest results!". Two pieces of grill striped meat together with marinated onion in the middle. And what about cooling the meat down? They don´t need to do so, because "the meat has to cool down to +16C within 6 hours, so it´s perfectly safe!" .. but after a day or two they admitted, that they have improved the cooling down process.. by using dry ice. This meat (about 25 kg at a time) arrives in our restaurant still warm and tightly packed in a thermo box, and it´s then placed in a fridge with a temperature about 9C or above (an old machine and a hot summer, what are you going to do). And stays there until water bath.. for some pieces it can take up to a week or more. And it´s okay, because they are totally sure that its shelf life is at least 16 days. It´s served as BBQ pork chop.. before service they set up water bath to temperature 90C and put some of the bags in, leaving it often too crowded. Meat has to be there at least 45 minutes.. up to 4 hours or even longer... and when the long awaited customer order arrives? They cut the bag open, place it upon roasted potatoes and pour it over with a large amount of sauce. Do you think this process might be flawed? Or it´s just me? I´ve tasted the end result and felt deeply sorry for the creature who had to die for it. But.. but.. is it actually safe to eat? For example.. I know botulism is really rare, but in this case is it possible? I´ve voiced my concerns, but mostly to deaf ears. Am I really so mistaken?