My first experience in the restaurant business, a month in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. One of the most beautiful beaches in the world. What a sacrifice. (and it was!)
As many of you already know, as part of my education in the Culinary Arts, i had to cover certain number of hours as a practitioner in a hotel.
I chose the Grand Palladium because?..
Well because its in the Mayan Riviera, Mexico, and its one of the top places for a summer holiday in the world!
One said that, I must say I was quite nervous since it was my first incursion into a restaurant as a trainee, regardless my duties were much more than that.
We got a small -shared- room at the employees complex on the other side of the road, nothing spectacular, 4 beds and a bathroom, seriously i have nothing against mexicans, im one myself, but heck!, the whole room stunk to death.
And apparently I wasnt the only one who couldnt stand it, my other 6 schoolmates noticed the same in their respective rooms, and then we decided to perform an exhaustive cleaning to the 3 rooms that we all shared with the local employees.
After our cleaning session we headed to the HR office, and after a calid welcome, a training session and uniform tickets, we headed back to our rooms to rest for a bit.
Now, this is showtime. As trainees, we are the lowest link in the chain, and we were treated like that...for few hours.
After noticing our abilities and skills, we were sent to the buffet restaurant "Laguna" and the main restaurant to work in LIVE COOKING.
It was really pleasant to be able to interact with all the guests, mainly from the U.S., France, Germany, Spain etc, so we all got to practice the different languages learnt at school. The Executive Chef was quite happy with us, so he gave us more freedom and empowered us to have the B cooks following our directions.
By the end of the first week, I was everyday at the Breakfast Live Cooking, at the Pasta station, where I got a queue of more than 30 people!
After that, I cleaned up and rushed to make the mise en place for the lunch service at the Laguna restaurant, just next to the main pool.
Damn, that was a hard work, countless children wanting pizza, burgers or hot dogs, old couples wanting steaks well done, etc.
It was also a language challenge, because many of the guests spoke english, and even though me and my school collegues are fluent, the cooks from the hotel couldnt speak it at all.
After that, the french guests, with no other language than french (as usual) struggled with the staff, as we translated everything for them.
Same happened with the german guests. Luckily one of my friends spoke fluent german, other fluent french, and the rest of us fluent english.
At the end, everyone was happy, except the staff, who always remained strict about the closing times, even when guests rushed into the restaurant to grab a snack because they've been out in a tour all day and they just got back!
But at that time we said "we will give them food, it takes us less than 5 minutes" and the doors remained open until the last hungry guest left with a smile.
Thats whats all about after all, isn't it?
