Tuesday, June 9, 2026

(Objectives 1, 4 & 5)

Tuesdays are prep days, so I get one-on-one time with the Chef himself. Prep involves getting ready for the week ahead, and today I helped several tasks:

• De-stemming kale and broccolo fiolarlo (an Italian leaf), shocking it, draining it, and placing in a hotel pan with a kitchen towel on the bottom to store in the cooler

• Cleaning onions for pickling

• Cutting green onions

• Slicing garlic using the mandoline for later frying the slivers

• Slicing discs of sweet potatoes

• Portioning Casareccia and Orecchiett pastas (160 grams per serving)

• Observing the Chef with multiple tasks such as finishing off his chicken stock (“If a restaurant doesn’t make its own chicken stock, I don’t know what to tell you”), simmering risotto, making mascarpone from scratch, prepping his Halibut and making other sauces such as Cheong, a Korean syrup made with sugar and in this case watermelon rinds, and Kombu, a seaweed that he soaks and then thickens. (For the Halibut, Chef soaks with sake instead of wine for a higher alcohol content that burns off cleaner than wine. He says that the sugar in the wine tends to burn so he likes using sake instead.)

As I get settled in, we have talked a lot about sanitation and safety as well as other topics that he asks if we have covered in school (i.e. using parchment to help with funneling flour or other things). We talked about wiping the stations down, especially when switching tasks. I had cut myself with his super sharp scissors when trimming the kale stems and went into action by telling him “cut” and heading to the handwashing station. He brought out the first aid kit while I cleaned my cut with the alcohol wipe and put a band aid on, followed by a glove. (CHEF-1205)

Prep is also about keeping things clean, tidy, and everything in its place such as the sanitation buckets, cutting boards, chinois, China cap, hotel pans, sheet pans, walk-in cooler, dry storage, backup cooler and other things. (CHEF-1301)

This week I learned that even pickling veggies involves a HAACP plan that must submitted to the City for approval. At the end of the night, Chef finished off the chicken stock after simmering for seven hours. He placed it in an ice bath to bring the temperature down out of the danger zone. (CHEF-1205/FDNS-1301)

Tools used this week:

• Paring knife

• Chef’s knife

• Peeler

• Scale

• Kitchen shears

• Cutting board

 Friday, June 12, 2026

(Objective 1)

Chef wants me to experience the entire operation, and that is perfect for tying into my objectives. It’s been great working with the FOH staff, as they have been instrumental in helping me understand what is required for excellent service and to keep the restaurant running smoothly. This includes setting the tables properly, placing the menus on the tables, cleaning the dining room, noting the attire for FOH. (HAMG-1170).

Right when the restaurant opened, customers began arriving. Soon enough, Chef and his sous began cranking out appetizers, most notably the signature milk bread with 3-year aged Korean sea salt. I greeted guests as they arrived and took some of the appetizers to the tables. (CHEF-1300).

Once the evening began winding down, Chef brought me in BOH to help his dishwasher with the start of cleanup, having all the dishes brought to the back to the dish pit so we could begin the process of shutting down. I worked side by side with the dishwasher to accomplish the task, running the dishwasher, cleaning off the dishes, getting the silverware through and back to the front along with the plates. (CHEF-1300).

Saturday, June 13, 2026

(Objective 1)

I am settling in nicely to the swing and rhythm of the restaurant. I’m continuing to work on my FOH skills, while also helping in the BOH in the dish pit so that everything runs smoothly. (CHEF-1205)

One of the most important things that I would like to work on in the near term is memorizing the menu items with respect to the specifics about the dishes. For example, the “watermelon salad” (not really a true salad, according to Chef Sue, the owner of the restaurant, but something that Chef Brian thinks is a fun twist on a salad) consists of a whipped goat cheese and the watermelon Cheong that I learned about on prep day. It is important to me to be able to communicate with customers about the dishes they’re receiving so that they can note that (if they wish) as they experience the dish. I also think it helps me so that once I can move to the line on service days, I can create with ease and be efficient with timing so that customers receive their dishes promptly.

I am also learning which pieces of silverware goes with which plates. While the tables are already equipped with a fork and knife, plates like the pork belly come with a set of tongs. The pasta dishes come with a spoon. For the milk bread, a knife is tucked underneath the loaf before being brought to the table. The steak, duck, and dak galbi (fried chicken) are brought to the table with a knife and a spoon.

Lessons from the Chef:

• Risotto hack: Add milk powder while browning butter in the pan to supercharge the nutty, caramel-like flavor, creating more of the toasted notes.

• Cleaning onions: Chef taught me a cool trick. Throw the dirty onions in a bowl, fill with water, salt, baking soda and ice to create an abrasive that knocks all the dirt off which allows you to peel the skin and discoloration off. Since he would be pickling these later, he wanted them to look very white and clean.

• Slicing green onions: Use knuckles as the guide to slice uniformly, cutting the whites to an almost transparent state as well as the greens. Complete the cut. Keep knife sharp.

• Mascarpone is apparently easy to make! It only requires heavy cream and lemon juice. It’s versatile enough to use in stuffed ravioli, a dip, or as Chef likes, on toast with berries.

• Observation: I noticed that a restaurant shelf has two Wiley textbooks that belong to Chef Sue: Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making and Mastering the Art and Craft of Baking and Pastry. These books in the restaurant add a certain kind of gravity to what the chefs do here. (Chef Sue won the CultureMap Tastemaker Award for Best Chef 2026 this year.)