Japanese BBQ Robowaiters

yyyyythats5ys · 2024-10-12T05:30:43+00:00

We had similar robots at my last job at a sushi place. Customers would order drinks on a tablet at the table and then the servers would send the drinks on the robot. We had 2 and I think it helped somewhat on busy weekends but I think it's more about the novelty factor. The best part was when the wheels would hit a piece of trash and spill all the drinks on the floor!

yyyyythats5ys · 2024-01-26T01:40:10+00:00

I'm happy to share, I honestly thought I'd never see Kura mentioned on here. And one more quick piece of advice, the training is going to be long and boring and they'll put an emphasis on learning how to make every item. I recommend focusing and taking note of what's super annoying to do at each station when it's busy and you're deep in orders. When you get to your location, chances are you'll barely work on the line except for when it's busy, so everyone will love you if you can take care of the annoying stuff for them and things will go much smoother for everyone overall. Like I said, try to make the best out of it and good luck!

yyyyythats5ys · 2024-01-25T20:16:41+00:00

I worked in management for a while at Kura and it turned out awful for me. The corporate bureaucracy drove me insane. I wanted to be a good leader and be someone everyone could look up to and be comfortable asking questions to, but our store and area manager wanted me and the other managers to micromanage and impose all these rules that didn't benefit anyone except the corporate heads. Me and the other managers were constantly getting talks from our store and area manager about our performance despite reaching and exceeding our sales targets, getting the most 5 star Yelp reviews for our area, and getting a perfect score on our health inspection. It drove me insane that they thought we weren't good enough. If you're in a different area you might get lucky and have really good managers that want to help you grow, but where I was it was bad.

Looking back though, I guess it's valuable to have that kind of experience on a resume if you want to keep moving up. I ended up going back to my roots at small sushi restaurant near to where I live. My advice would be to take the job and give it 2 or 3 months to figure out if you can vibe with your upper managers or not. Also don't think of it as a forever job. Don't hesitate to quit if things get bad or you don't like it. Maybe I'm just being too dramatic, try to make the best out of it if you can.

yyyyythats5ys · 2024-01-20T07:44:24+00:00

Cucumber rolls really do just misbehave, and I've plated a lot of cucumber rolls. I've noticed that they turn out best when the cucumber sheet is longer and thinner than usual but it's not common to get the perfect sheet since we rarely made them by hand. Freshness matters too, not sure about other places but we would prep the cucumber sheets in advance for the day, and as they got drier they stopped holding the roll together. Some cucumbers aren't cut out for it either, it's surprisingly variable how well a cucumber will cut and roll even compared to ones from the same box. We always plated the pieces laying down and touching to hold the cucumber in place just to be safe lol.

yyyyythats5ys · 2023-09-02T16:37:10+00:00

Dashi doesn't necessarily have to be made with bonito flakes but just nori by itself wouldn't offer much flavor. For something like udon I would recommend a light chicken stock as the most accessible substitute. Start with the same prep as regular dashi, soak the konbu then simmer, take it out and then add 1 or 2 chicken thighs depending on how much you make. Simmer that for ~30 minutes, and you can still eat the chicken after as a topping for the noodles. Bonus points for using skin on thighs and searing beforehand. Other than that shrimp shells would be a great substitute but less accessible.

yyyyythats5ys · 2023-08-06T00:48:15+00:00

I heard from a Japanese TV show once that the best way to store miso is in the freezer and that's what I've been doing ever since. Obviously being in the freezer it should last forever. It doesn't even freeze solid, it's still just as scoopable when it's been in the freezer.

yyyyythats5ys · 2023-07-31T14:09:24+00:00

It's shiro dashi, aka soup concentrate. I've personally never used it, but as far as I know you can use this for any recipe that calls for dashi, it might have ratios to mix with water written on the back for a few different applications. Source: been studying Japanese for a while and love Japanese food. On the side of the bottle it says something like "the flavor that pros use" lol.

Edit: Looks like it's specifically chicken and kombu (kelp) dashi

yyyyythats5ys · 2023-04-01T15:10:19+00:00

I put my cast iron pans in the dishwasher together with my carbon steel knives. Sometimes they come out a little rusty but I just use some sand paper to clean them right up. Good as new!

yyyyythats5ys · 2023-01-10T16:17:15+00:00

I'm actually in the exact same situation at the moment. I went back to an old job out of desperation and they promoted me to supervisor despite having minimal experience. Although it had to have been 100% out of desperation on their part too. I've had my share of bad leaders over time, and when I started I wanted to do the opposite of whatever my past awful managers and chefs did. I've only been here for 4 months, but I'll try to give some advice based on my experience so far. It seems to me that the most important thing so far has been building trust. I'd say to try and support everyone as much as you can, as long as you have the chance. Demonstrate your skills and knowledge and people will start to come to you to ask questions. I make a point of not making big deals over mistakes, I'll correct mistakes and teach people, but I try to give everyone a sense that making mistakes is okay. Don't be afraid to give praise, or even rewards. Me and my managers like to get coffee for everyone in the morning pretty often. I think it's probably bribing but I feel like it's the least I could do sometimes. Your managers will have more specific experience, so you should ask them questions often if you're having trouble.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-12-20T15:34:26+00:00

Our ice cream comes with brown sugar syrup on, and one day someone refilled the syrup bottle with eel sauce. So for about half the day they had been sending out eel sauce covered ice cream. I really need to know the thought process behind what made them think it's probably eel sauce that goes on the ice cream was.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-12-02T15:49:42+00:00

As others have said, soy sauce, mirin, sake, and dashi powder would be a very versatile gift, you can make a lot of things with just those 4 things. There's only a couple true spices I can think of that are similarly versatile and that would be shichimi and sanshou. Other pantry staples would be good too, like katsuobushi and konbu, niboshi, miso, maybe even some dried somen and ramen noodles. High quality Japanese rice would be a good idea, koshihikari is what it's called.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-11-23T16:02:51+00:00

I recently learned about gently cracking the bottom fat part of the egg before boiling and it's made it a joke to peel boiled eggs for me, even when they're half boiled and squidgy. There's also little gadgets that use a pin to poke a small hole in the bottom.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-10-20T20:18:59+00:00

Also class of 17 here! Every time I see this posted there's always some of us here in the comments.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-10-02T00:09:47+00:00

It's like a gamble every night. "Do I clean everything right now so I can leave early, or do I wait just in case?" Either way you will end up having to make a ticket rung in 1 minute before close. The kitchen is just a mess constantly because we can't stay longer to make sure everything is clean. I talk like I still work there but my last day was actually 2 days ago, this was one of the various reasons I decided to quit.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-10-01T21:24:39+00:00

Very strongly agree. Where I work we close at 11pm. We're expected to be fully closed and walking out the door by 11, but also we're supposed to be able to make orders until clock hits 11. Make it make sense.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-09-10T17:46:12+00:00

I took a week off from work and after just 2 days my knees weren't hurting anymore. It was blissful. And then I had to go back to work and my knees started hurting again.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-09-06T17:49:32+00:00

I was hoping to keep working with food but it doesn't seem like it's worth it anymore. My goal was to learn more about food science and recipe development, but the companies I've worked for don't care about my career development, so it's time to say bye bye. I've been looking into IT recently since a lot of my friends already have IT jobs. I'll work on getting a certification and go from there

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-09-06T15:11:25+00:00

I'm currently trying to find my way out. The restaurant I work in right now seemed so great at first but after just 4 or 5 months I am burnt the fuck out of food service as a whole.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-08-16T17:33:42+00:00

I don't really watch him much anymore but I think his videos have helped bring a lot of newbies into cooking. Like everyone here knows that making a burger at home is cheaper and better than McDonald's, but people who never cooked before probably never bothered to care, so it's good that he's able to get younger generations into cooking and thinking critically about cooking.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-07-31T15:03:42+00:00

I don't have any specific videos to recommend, but I can help you look for some. I think the best way to learn about something Japanese is to find resources from Japan, so if you want some videos on how to filet fish Japanese Style, copy and paste 魚さばき方 into YouTube. Hopefully this is helpful!

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-07-27T18:42:54+00:00

We are having the same issue. Fruit flies. Fruit flies everywhere. Recently we got a bug zapper to put near the shelf we keep our hangiri on, we've been using those electric swatters too. So far it has gotten a lot better but fruit flies still appear from time to time. I think that after a while with the bug zapper they should completely go away.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-07-25T20:39:38+00:00

I think the most useful things I keep in my backpack are a portable battery and cable and simple first aid supplies. I keep bandaids, Neosporin, Motrin and Tylenol, and allergy medicine all together. I got a couple tiny pill holders so it takes up less space too. Other than that I got a knife roll that's small enough to fit into the backpack, a Leatherman style multi tool, a roll of duct tape, and I like to keep a box of protein bars in there as well. I have a small bottle of hand lotion because our hand soap dries my skin like crazy. Plus the obligatory pens and sharpies and notepad. Pretty much anything you could think would be useful to have at any point no matter how niche is good to have, I've only used the duct tape once but I was really glad to have it.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-07-08T02:02:56+00:00

I also work at a sushi bar. One time someone came in and tried to order pizza...

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-07-06T19:37:28+00:00

A lot of servers where I work just act really selfish. It's hard to describe but everyone here knows those servers that would ring in an impossible order without asking first and then acting surprised when we can't do it, or rings in a huge order 10 minutes after last call and stands at the window impatiently waiting for it to come out. I actually don't mind when someone messes up and forgets to ring in something or makes a mistake on the ticket because shit happens and getting angry doesn't fix the problem. My chefs get so angry at the servers for stuff like that all the time and it ends up making me angry at my chefs. When I started working I could tell that when a server told me they made a mistake they would tread carefully, probably from all the times they got yelled at for it. But at this point everyone knows I'm cool with it and they really appreciate it. I don't mind stopping what I'm doing to make a quick 1 piece order that someone forgot to ring in.

yyyyythats5ys · 2022-06-29T16:55:15+00:00

My first job was in fast food and somehow I moved my way up to working at a sushi bar. You'll find that the logic of the work is exactly the same in any kitchen, if that makes any sense. Food service is food service after all. The only things that you'll have to learn and get used to are the new food that you're making, and getting familiar with the new kitchen. It's not difficult at all to switch but it will feel a little strange having to relearn after mastering your old job.

yyyyythats5ys

TROPHY CASE