20/09/2008 by admin.

• 1/2 bourbon whiskey
• 1/3 orange curacao

Stir. Add a twist of lemon.

Posted in Whisky, Alcohol, Drink of the Day | Print | 1 Comment »

20/09/2008 by Pete.

Another exciting episode of this compelling series. This time it was the Challenge day in which couples are given a task and pick of their team from other competitors. This time there were three couples battling it out: Richard and Scott, Michele and Russell and father and daughter couple Harriet and Mike.

Their challenge was to create a menu for a motorway service station and market their restaurant. One of them would lose and their restaurant would be closed.

As usual, the money brought in is not the only factor in Raymond’s decision who will stay and who shall go. Especially at this stage of the competition, it is more important for him to keep people who have right attitude and drive than just those who just makes most money but don’t really show the will to win.

So the couples were off to do their market-research, plan their menus and marketing campaign. One of their responsibilities was to take the photos of their meals and submit them to printers who would then provide advertising boards showing off the dishes on offer and hopefully make the customers to buy them. Harriet and Mike accepted ill-advice from their team member with previous experience of marketing who told them that when the photos of dishes are taken, no meal is actually ever cooked but they are constructed from ready-meals and any available props, e.g. a small cardboard box under pile of mash and steaks made of paper and coloured to look real. Unfortunately, for Harriet and Mike, this practise is illegal in the UK.

While Harriet and Mike were unknowingly breaking the law, Michele and Russell didn’t get started preparing the meals for pictures until forty minutes before the submission deadline.  Not so surprisingly they didn’t manage to prepare and photograph all dishes on time and had to settle for three meals only leaving two without picture. The drama didn’t stop to the sample meals and photographs. Richard and Scott got their done on time but on the evening before the opening, Scott got stomach pain and started vomiting. That left Richard alone to take care of everything on the challenge day. Was it nerves that brought Scott down or was it something else? Who knows.

On the competition day the couples did all they could to drive in customers and make sales. So much so that Richard forgot their dessert cake in the oven and when he finally remembered it, it was burnt. Not that it really mattered since no one ordered it. Healthy fish cakes for children that Harriet had on the menu ended up deep-fried fish cakes tasting terrible because she didn’t get the mixture right and ran out of time to prepare them.  Russell prepared excellent dishes presented impeccably, shame that no one knew about them since they didn’t get their advertising photos taken on time. To compensate the lack of proper promotional material, they hand wrote placards.

Finally the day drew to end and restaurants were closed. The all important take-ins were counted and each restaurant’s performance was calculated as a market share from the total takings. The teams’ performances are evaluated as whole so the money is not the only factor in deciding who stays and who goes. After an agonising night for the participants, the decision day was upon them.

During the performance review, the couples have chance to explain and defend their decisions they made and bring forward their reasons why Raymond should keep their restaurants open. The grilling from Raymond may seem harsh on occasion but all he really asks are facts and all he really wants to see is the passion and honesty. Very often the couples seem to forget that everything they do is filmed and everything inspectors see is written down so you would expect to realise that there is no point in trying to change the facts in the review. This time it was Michelle and Russell who thought they could talk their way out of it, claiming that they did do their best to get the photographs taken for the menu but simply didn’t have enough time. Good reason though it could have been, there was just one small problem: other couples had just as much time to get theirs done and they managed to do them.

So, whose restaurant saw its last day in life? Watch the episode yourself!

Posted in Entertainment | Print | No Comments »

14/09/2008 by Pete.

Reinhold Husar, Austria.

• 1/4 gin
• 1/4 Galliano
• 1/4 sweet vermouth
• 1/4 Campari

Stir. Garnish with a cherry and an orange twist.

Posted in Gin, Alcohol, Drink of the Day | Print | No Comments »

13/09/2008 by Pete.

BBC Two, Wednesdays at 8pm. Website

The second series of this entertaining show is now on its way. It follows the Apprentice in its concepts but instead of our lovable Sir Allan Sugar, feature restaurateur Monsieur Raymond Blanc, the owner of a two Michelin Star restaurant as well as a chain of restaurants around the UK. Participants are couples who are trying to fulfil their dream of running a restaurant and, as is the case in this, in partnership with Raymond. Every week two worst performing couples face a challenge where they compete against each other having the rest of the couples helping them out.

After the first episode, in which Raymond selected the couples to compete for the grand prise, the series now got really started. In the second episode the couples were given their restaurants and they had a week to prepare the premises, train their staff and get everything else  ready for the opening night. The participants are from all walks of life, recruitment consultants to pizzeria supervisors and from married couples to father and daughter.

When you follow the couples, you can’t but wonder sometimes whether they really want to run a restaurant or just play restaurateur in a playground. Many, or most, of them clearly haven’t done their homework at all. From the couple opening a restaurant promoting provenance and not being able to tell the origin of their food to father and daughter couple who were clever enough to get their opening night customers’ orders in advance and not knowing who had ordered what, or where they were sitting, on the night.

The only couple who appeared to be competent enough to actually run a restaurant weren’t able to open at all after a gas leak was detected only few hours before the grand opening. It will be interesting to see whether they will be able to perform as well when the customers are in as they are in their preparations.

It’s not too late to get into the series and it is definitely worth watching. Plenty of drama,  tears, joy and laughs ahead waiting for you!

Posted in Entertainment | Print | No Comments »

09/09/2008 by Pete.

BBC has revealed Banqueting Managers at Dorchester have been deducting money from their staff’s service charges and adding it to their own. Read full story

This comes as no surprise to me if some people I used to work with in another famous place are still in there. One is Operations Director and the other one a head waiter. The Director used to do the same job in a place I worked and when he moved to Dorchester, he poached the head waiter to come to work with him. As if that wasn’t enough, he later asked if my (by then ex) boss who ws an Operations Manager, would come over and sort out the banqueting in Dorchester. Terms he was offered were very  good, even the six month trial wasn’t anything unusual.

I never liked nor trust the director and warned my ex boss (we baceme very good friends) from moving over but the offer he got was too good to resist. So there he went and worked 16 hour days  improving standards, cutting waste and reducing cost without cutting staff. Four months later most of the problems they had had in there were sorted and their costs were reduced almost 15%. Two weeks before the trial period was over, the director and my friend had a meeting in which he was told that the contract would not be confirmed for him. They had decided to hire someone else. In short, he was used by a man he thought was his friend and thrown away the moment he had achieved what they wanted to get done.

The head waiter was hated by all the staff we had and they did pretty much everything to get away from functions he was running. He was also cheating and abusive to his wife whom he pretty much married for the passport in the first place. At the end of the events, we normally asked the organiser to sign the final invoice and without the fault we got rather nice gratituites (usually around 10% of total bill) in cash. Of that, we shared half with the staff, and one third of the other half, with the back of house people, we kept 20% of total. None of us ever made difference between the permanent and casual staff. except this particuler head waiter who only gave something for few wine waiters and nothing to waiting staff.

Put these two to work together and it’s no wonder the staff in Dorchester suddenly started to lose their tips.

Posted in Business | Print | No Comments »

09/09/2008 by Pete.

This drink was created by Roberto Legorreta Lopez, Mexico and was featured in the After-Dinner Section, International Cocktail Competition in Vienna 1993.

• 2/3 Bacardi
• 1/3 Cointreau
• 1 dash cream of tangerine
• 1 dash orange twist Marie Brizard

Stir. Garnish with slice of orange, a red cherry and mint leaves.

Posted in Rum, Alcohol, Drink of the Day | Print | No Comments »

08/09/2008 by Pete.

I wonder if the licensees here ever learn a simple fact that stuffing your bar with staff when your establishment is full doesn’t increase sales nor make service faster. If you go to any bar, or “modern” pubs, and place is full, you’ll see 5 or more bar staff bouncing on each other behind the bar that can accommodate max 3 people. It really isn’t that difficult to figure out that when your staff can’t pass each other to get the orders and if they somehow manage to fill the order, then queue to the till, your sales don’t increase, quite contrary. Great entertainment as it is to watch the hapless staff trying to get something done, it soon becomes an irritation when you can’t get the drinks you ordered.

Instead of stuffing your bar with cheap, unskilled, labour, how about hiring few trained professionals for twice the price? The way owners see it is that they save money by paying minimum wage to six students to bounce around selling as much as two professionals do. Of course, an average punter isn’t that much smarter. They think they’re getting better service when their order is taken in two minutes, and receive their drinks ten minutes later, that’s good service for you. Waiting three minutes to give your order and have it in front of you in five minutes is bad service in their opinion, after all, you had to wait full three minutes to have your order taken, how terrible is that?

So, now we have both management and customers thinking that bar stuffed with staff who can’t move around without bouncing on each other is better service and brings in more money than bar with few professionals who can actually deliver the orders they’ve taken. For the management it’s the £5.52 per hour times six and sales half against three times, let’s say, £10.00 per hour and twice the sales. Which one you think is cheaper? For average licensee only sees £5.52 v. £10, not the real cost of the staff and loss of sales.

For the customer it isn’t much better, two minutes wait to give your order and ten minutes wait to receive it versus three minutes wait to give the order and less than five minutes to receive it. That’s twelve minutes versus eight minutes. No need to tell you which one I prefer.

I worked a season in a private members bar on the West Country. We had two bars, the “main” bar and “small” bar. We only opened the small bar for the weekends when both sides of the club were full. In the main bar were usually working three staff and the club steward, I volunteered to work in the small bar. Without a fault, my takings in that small bar were approximately half of the takings in the main bar - with one third/ one quarter of staff. How was that possible? Not only I take any job I do seriously, but I also had the space to work. I didn’t have to queue to the beer pumps, I didn’t have to wait for liquor dispenser to be vacated nor had I to wait to get to use the till.  The funniest thing with all it was that people came from the main bar to order from me because they got faster service from one staff than four. It really is simple, but not short-sighted, math.

The thing is, everyone here is so used to get bad and slow service in pubs and bars that they don’t know better. But given a chance, and owners understanding the total cost of your staffing, things could easily turn better. Remember it’s not just raw sales versus cost of sales. Spillage, for one, is money off the owner’s pocket as well. As is general tidiness of the bar and maintenance of the equipment. If you consider your job as a profession, you generally want to become better at it, but if you just do it to get some pocket money to carry you through university, you don’t really care. And with the wages they pay for bar staff, you can’t expect to get professionals. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Posted in Business | Print | No Comments »

08/09/2008 by Pete.

Next time you visit a bar, club or any other place serving drinks and that place uses free-pour, watch carefully what is happening. Most probably you will see the bartender putting ice in the glass and shake it a bit before he pours liquor in it. When you look at the glass, it appears he filled the glass half-way up. In many places, the ice is often also slightly melted, allowing use of more ice and less space for the drink.

Before he puts in the mixer (if you asked some), ask an empty glass and pour the liquid into it. See the difference? Suddenly your half-full glass is three quarters empty. If you don’t believe this, order, lets say, a whisky on ice and ask your friend to order other one neat with a glass of water. Drink the water and pour your whisky into that empty water glass and compare which one of you have more to drink.

Of course, it is simple really, more ice in the glass leaves less room for liquids but gives an impression of filled up one to poor punter. Smart punter asks his/ her drink(s) without ice, because most of times, they don’t dare pour as little liquor as they would in a glass filled with ice first. Once the liquor is in the glass, ask few cubes ice. After all, you can always change your mind.

Of course, with low margins, bars have to maximise their profits any way they can, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have the drink you want - as much of it as you possibly can. After all, you pay for it.

Posted in Business | Print | No Comments »

08/09/2008 by Pete.

Named after Canon Felix Kir, the original Kir was invented in France and made with still, dry white wine. Replacing the wine with dry (brut) Champagne gives the drink “Royale” status.

•  10ml crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur)
• Dry Champagne

Pour the crème de cassis into a Champagne flute, fill slowly with chilled dry Champagne.

From Hollywood Cocktails

Posted in Champagne, Alcohol, Drink of the Day | Print | No Comments »

07/09/2008 by Pete.

Unlike the most of cocktail books nowadays, the Hollywood Cocktails does not try to list every cocktail recipe known to a man and his grandma. It actually has only hundred or so recipes, so if you’re in a lookout for something equivalent of Encyclopedia Britannica of cocktail recipe books, give this a miss.

So to whom this book is best suited for then? To those who want to learn more than a recipe of a drink. Not only you get the recipe, you also learn bit about the history of the drink and as the title suggests: it’s association with a Hollywood film, that is, you will find out in which film the drink was featured and a brief synopsis of it. So next time you create and serve that perfect after dinner drink, you can show off your knowledge by telling your guests about the history of the drink and film it was featured in. It doesn’t necessarily make you bettercocktail maker, but it does make you a better bartender.

Well worth buying to those to whom making drinks is not just mixing stuff together and serving it!

Rating 9/10

Posted in Cocktails, Books | Print | No Comments »