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Of course, you came to the restaurant to eat good food.  However, it will sometimes happen that you will not get your money’s worth, simply because the chef was not that good a cook.  Not only have you wasted money, but you have also wasted time.  For this reason, you have to know how to spot a bad chef, and this can easily be seen through their menu.

The first thing that you have to look at is the menu list.  If the menu is about five pages long, there is a big chance that the chef is just creating mediocre dishes, not original and creative ones.  Now, paying for mediocre and very common dishes will just be a waste of money if you are looking for luxuriously scrumptious and creative dishes.  Furthermore, this might also mean that the chef is using more canned and preserved food produce, simply because the kitchen has to store more food to create and serve more dishes.

Still talking about the menu list, you also have to take a look at the dish descriptions, if the menu has them.  If not, you can simply ask the waiter about the ingredients found in the dishes.  Now, a good chef knows how to incorporate local ingredients into his dishes, and what better way to showcase his culinary skill than to let his guests know and experience the full flavors of fresh and local ingredients.  If a chef cannot cook with the local ingredients found in the area, what could it say then about his cooking style?  A good chef should know how to utilize local ingredients, and he knows how to showcase their full flavors and freshness.  A bad chef, on the other hand, who does not know how to incorporate local ingredients in his cuisine, does not know how to respect the land and its local produce.  Furthermore, he is wasteful and is not cost effective, and he will never be able to reach the same level of productivity of other chefs, particularly since he does not know how to optimize his cooking through the use the local ingredients.

Let us say for example that you still went ahead and ordered your food anyway.  What then are the other signs of a bad chef?

One way on how you can spot a bad chef is to look at their knife work.  After all, a chef’s best friend is his chef knife, and if he does not know how to use his chef knife properly and fluently, then what could it also say about his culinary style?  The way a chef handles the chef knife and uses it tells a lot about his culinary skills especially since this is a huge part of the process.

You can also spot a bad chef through the use of his ingredients.  A bad chef does not use fresh produce and ingredients, and it can easily be seen in their dishes.  The taste of the dish will also be a good proof of this.  A good chef will always be committed to creating and serving only the freshest produce and ingredients.  He will never sacrifice the health and safety of his guests for quantity and money.

If you want to provide a customer feedback, you could easily do so as it is your right, and it is also through customer feedbacks that a restaurant and its chef can improve their quality of service.  Now, the way the chef handles criticism will be an excellent sign of how good or bad a chef he is.  A good chef takes criticism positively, and a bad chef takes criticism negatively.  This will mean that the good chef has room for improvement, while the bad chef has none.  He should be able to accept and handle criticisms well so he could provide his guests better service and better good, and he should never take the criticism personally and close his eyes and ears to his fault.  How then can his restaurant grow?

Lastly, you can spot a bad chef by how the dining area looks.  A good chef knows the importance of a clean and orderly dining area, and he will go to great lengths to make this happen.  A bad chef, on the other hand, does not care.  He will not care if the dining area smells bad, looks dirty, and is disorganized.  He will not care if the salt and pepper shakers are clogged nor will he care if there is dried ketchup caking on top of the lid.

For a bad chef, cooking is simply a job, not something he is passionate about.  So he could not care less for how he prepared his dishes, how they taste, how they are presented, and how his restaurant looks.  He will also not care about the services rendered by his staff.

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Lucky for those who had culinary education and training at prestigious culinary schools because they will be given preference over those who did not; but for those who did not have the opportunity to enroll at culinary schools, then they have to start from the bottom.  It will take some time, long hours, passion, and dedication for their efforts to be noticed, but in time, they could reach the top.

Let us say for example that you have started your culinary career as a commis, showed your dedication to your profession, and then promoted to being the chef de partie or line cook.  Now, as a chef de partie or line cook, you are responsible for a specific area of production or station.  You may be the sauté chef or even the grill chef, and you may also even be the fry chef or the fish chef.  There are many station-chef titles, so becoming the sous chef of the kitchen is going to be a tough job.  After all, the sous chef is the second in command to the head chef, and many are going to covet the position.

If you want to advance from a line cook to a sous chef, then here are some tips that you can consider.

Getting formal culinary education is still a very good idea if you want to advance quicker. For this reason, if you have some extra time, you can enroll yourself in a culinary school or at local colleges offering culinary courses.  You can also join and participate actively at local cooking clubs.  Not only will this help you further your culinary knowledge, but this will also help you build relevant contacts in the culinary industry.  Through these contacts, you can learn tips and advices that you can use to impress your superiors.

Now, if you do not have the time to travel from work or from home to school, then you can simply enroll at an online culinary school.  Of course, you will also be taught about the principles, techniques, styles, among others, at an online culinary school.  However, you have to know though that an online culinary school is still very different from a land-based one.

If getting a culinary education is out of the question, then you really have to work very hard for the chance to advance to the sous chef position.  This will mean that you have to be a better line cook than you are right now. You have to work harder, be more diligent, show more initiative, be more competitive, and show that you have organizational skills.

The kitchen atmosphere is very busy, and it will take organizational skills to make sure that everything in your work area is organized as well as simplified.  You can also be more innovative and think of ways on how you can speed up certain processes in the work area.  One of these is by making food preparations easier.  It will be a very huge help to the chefs if you found a way to speed things up, and in time, your superiors will become aware of your organization skills.

You know the old saying “practice makes perfect”, right?  Now, this will also come in handy if you want to advance to the sous chef position.  Learn from your superiors, take to heart their advices and tips, master the recipes they taught you, and practice, practice, practice.  You have to familiarize yourself with the recipes and menus of the restaurant, and you should know not only how to prepare and cook them but also the principles and techniques behind the recipes.  If a recipe is proving to be very difficult for you, then practice at home until you get it right.

Lastly, do not be a follower but show them that you can be a leader.  This will mean thinking of creative and innovative ways on how you can serve the dishes or present the food on a plate, for example.  Of course, you have to suggest the ideas to your superiors and the management first.  Do not do anything without their consent though.

These are just some of the tips though on how you can advance from a line cook to a sous chef.  However, you should know that everything will be in vain if you do not show your interest in advancing to a higher position.  So if the position for sous chef opens, be sure to schedule a meeting with your superiors and express your interest in it.

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Chefs should always exercise extreme caution when they are handling and storing food produce.  After all, they hold in their hands the safety and wellbeing of the guests who enter the restaurant and eat their dishes.  This caution to protect the health of the guests even includes choosing the safest food storage containers.  For this reason, here are the tips on how to choose food storage containers.

Choose BPA-Free Plastic Containers

Chefs should only choose and make use of plastic storage containers that does not contain BPA or Bisphenol A.  BPA is known to cause some damage to the human body as it upsets the normal level of the hormones, thus, disrupting how these hormones function inside our body.

When choosing the containers, they should check the bottom of the container and make sure that the numbers located inside the recycling triangle sign are numbers from one through five.  This means that they are safe and are free of BPA.  Plastic containers with numbers six or seven have BPA, so these containers should be avoided.

Shopping for BPA-Free Plastic Containers

If the chef really wants the assurance that he is paying for the most excellent type of plastic container, then he can certainly make use of the Internet before making his purchase.

In the World Wide Web, he will find many reviews about branded plastic containers, and through these reviews and testimonials, he can make a good decision.

If he, however, does not have the time to read reviews, then he can simply visit a kitchenware store and ask for their assistance.  The staff there knows the products, and they can help him choose the best one for his restaurant.  Of course, he still has to check and see if the number located at the bottom of the container is from one to five.

Things to Consider

It would also not hurt his cause to take a good look at the label.  For this reason, he should choose those that can be used in a microwave and washed in a dishwashing machine safely.  It has to have a high tolerance to heat.  Another factor that he should consider is if it is freezer safe.  Again, the plastic container should also be able to tolerate cold temperature.

Of course, because the chef would naturally want to preserve the freshness of the food, he should also take into consideration the freshness seals.  He should see to it that it is airtight and watertight, and one way of making sure that it can, indeed, preserve the freshness is by looking for silicone lining the lid.

Aside from all those mentioned above, the chef should also choose the plastic containers based on their size and shape.  The best shape for plastic containers are square or rectangle ones.  This way, they can easily fit into the refrigerators and freezers without wasting too much space, unlike round ones that waste space.

Lastly, choose plastic storage containers that can nest or be stored inside each other with their lids on.  This way, they will not take up too much space when storing the containers.  Plus, loss of lids is reduced.

What is Nano Silver Technology?

There are chefs who utilize plastic containers made with nano silver technology.  In a nutshell, this technology makes use of silver nanoparticles in coatings.  Plastic containers with nano silver have antibacterial properties, so this helps slow down food spoilage, thus, keeping the food fresher for a longer period of time.  Now, as a chef, he can purchase this type of plastic food storage container if he wants to better protect the health and wellbeing of the guests.

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Little did chefs know that the Internet is going to work miracles for their careers and restaurants.  Through the Internet, they were given a platform not only to introduce themselves but to also a venue to showcase their culinary skills.  Nowadays, it has become a fad for chefs to put up their own websites and blogs in the Internet, and this fad has quickly become an integral part for some as they reap the rewards of having their names known online.

Chefs Going Online

It is not that hard for chefs to go online as they would only need a computer and access to the Internet.  For chefs who have the time to study creating their own website, they can easily do so as there are so many tutorials and sites that will teach them about putting up their own websites and blogs – from web designing to web hosting.  Now, for those who do not have the time and the inclination to going through the process, they can simply hire the services of someone who can do the hard work for them.  They can look for professional web designers in the Internet as there are a lot of freelance web designers in many job search sites, or they can simply ask around.  Chances are, he knows someone who can do the Internet job for him.

Quality Contents and Use of Right Keywords and Key Phrases

Aside from the website or blog, the chef also has to think of the articles that he will be posting in his site.  Now, the first article is usually about himself. It can be a short biography of his life – where he is from, where he studied, where he apprenticed, and where he worked.  It could also contain a short account of his culinary career – where his passion came from and how he pursued it.  Of course, it should also contain his “vision and mission” for putting up the blog or website.  This will be a very good way of introducing himself to his readers and visitors.

With introductions out of the way, he then has to focus on the content of his blog or website.  He should focus on his vision and mission, what he wants to his readers to read and what he wants them to know.  These articles could include relevant information about the happenings in the culinary world, who is who, what is new, and recent culinary fads and trends.  These could also include articles about famous restaurants and chefs as well as health topics.  This is particularly important since more and more people are becoming very health conscious and are in need of informative articles regarding healthier food choices.  Of course, posting recipes as well as simple tips and how-to’s are also a good way of attracting traffic and keeping readers.

Really, there are so many things that the online chef can write about, with only his imagination limiting him.  However, to make his website or blog a success, there are a few more things that he should know about.  For this reason, keyword research is very important, especially if he wants to draw the right type of traffic.  There are keyword research tools, some of them free, that he can use for this purpose.  The important thing is that he should know the right keywords or key phrases to use and use them in his articles accordingly so that, when visitors type in the keyword or key phrase, his website or blog will be at the top of the search engine page, thus, giving him relevant traffic.

Importance of Social Networking Sites, Forums, and Blog Commenting

Let us say for example that he already has his website or blog ready and quality articles ready to be posted, the next thing that he should do is to capitalize on the various social networking platforms.

Social networking sites are a great way to draw more relevant traffic into his website or blog.  Aside from this, this is also a great way to interact more with his visitors as these social networking sites give a more personal feel to the relationship of the online chef and his viewers.  Some of the top social networking sites include Facebook and Twitter, two platforms that are proving to be a great help to online chefs.

It would also be to the benefit of the online chef if he joins relevant forums.  Again, this is a great way to share ideas and gain some in return.  Plus, if he creates a good name in these forums, there are very good chances then that other members will drop by his website or blog.

Lastly, blog commenting is another way of gaining traffic.  Not only does he get the chance of link building, but he also gets the chance of becoming a “guest writer” at some of the more popular and higher ranking culinary blogs and websites.  This is a good way of increasing his online presence and attracting more relevant traffic.

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