I was thinking about new title for this new series of post. Something like "Tribute to the past" (the title is took form the name of the song by Gamma Ray, German power metal band) and suddenly I came up this title "GastRomancing Saga". Just like "develovision" I made up this word, it stands for gastronomic romansing saga. "romancing saga" came from the title of my most favorite RPG game from super Nintendo!
As I posted previously, I decided to work as a cook until turning 30 yrs old, then work as a chef/management around the globe until moving Australia on 2016 or 2017. I'm planning to work as a sous chef 2 more years before becoming chef de cuisine. RM seafood was my first sous chef job and now this year will be my 2nd season/chapter as a sous chef.
Since the post "tribute to the past prologue pt.II", I went to stage the following restaurant:
2010
107. Mathilas Dalhgren / Nordic Innovative / Stockholm, Sweden
2011
108. Bentley / Australian Innovative / Sydney, NSW, Australia
109. Baume / French Moderne / Palo Alto, CA, U.S.A.
And..
as my 110th restaurant I went to stage at Coi restaurant in San Francisco about 2 weeks ago. And I got an job offer as a sous chef and decided to take this great job opportunity as a new stage to take myself next level as a culinary professional.
As of 02/22/11, I start working at Coi restaurant with one year commitment.
So why I deicided to work at Coi?
I would say Coi is highly established acclaimed restaurant in the U.S. I admit working famous restaurant definitely help the career, BUT the job is all about what we can learn not where we work. We can get fancy label on our resume, but those label can be easy to peel off. Unfortunately I must say some young people just don't know these and just became Sous chef at young age with a couple big names on the resume.
To me, people can go stage super famous restaurant such as El bulli or Fat duck and put the names on their resume(even just stage 1 wk or less). But say if it's mostly just picking herbs or something, is that making any senses? In my opinion, one year is the perfect time to learn in one kitchen, and say first 3 months is the most funnest time. Anyway I deicided to work at Coi becasuse I felt this is the place where I can learn what I need to learn, not because of Michelin stars status or any bull shit.
Seeing my further plan, my priority for this year is learning restaurant business and managing people to open P.S.I. on 2018. I had time to think I should go to work big hotel to learn those labor cost, food cost and managing 20 cooks kinda things. BUT that sounds no fun for me and I also thought since I have no intention to have 200 covers restaurant, I don't really need to work with all those big numbers. I just keep sending my resume around the U.S. and waiting to find my own answer. When I got a job offer from Coi, I realized this is my answer. Working this kitchen is my fate.
Coi has small lounge, 9 tables and small PDR. Main dining only serves 11 course degustation menu and the lounge have more casual menus. Considering those menu formats, style of cuisine, the size of the kitchen, the number of cooks, the average covers, Coi is really close to my image of restaurant P.S.I. So I felt this is the perfect scale for me to learn how the restaurant is operated from business aspects. I'm SO excited to start working at Coi restaurant.
http://coirestaurant.com/
At next post, I'll talk about more detials about Coi restaurant...Labels: GRS
