July 19th

So I started at a new restaurant today called Arola. Very cool kitchen, finally a space big enough for me to walk around in. But I have to wear a chefs toque, which is that really tall white paper hat u see all the chefs wearing. Takes me from about 6'4" to about 7'6", annoying but I'll deal. It kinda reminds me of Fearings. It's somewhat of an open kitchen, and it super
clean. Everything is pristine and everyone is extremely professional. Not quite as fine dinning as the last place, I guess, buy still over top good...Oh yeah, no one speaks English here!!!! And I don't really speak Spanish, I speak Mexican. And they speak Catalonian, which is a slight variation on Spanish, but it made it kinda difficult today.

Started the day by slicing Macadamia nuts, that were previously peeled(i think?)and soaking in water. On the meat slicer, with my fingers, no guard of course because it so small. Im getting like 5-6 slices usable slices if I'm lucky and it doesn't break, lol! I sliced about million of those. Put those into simple syrup, to hold for later. Its def the hardest thing I've ever had to do on a slicer before... Then you take the paper thin slices, and arrange them on the sheets of the food dehydrator. Three, three, three... For about an hour. There were some already done, so I took those and put them in containers, so fragile. But you end up with the pretty cool macadamia chip. Kinda insane how far they go...


Then I made gazpacho, again! They sure do love that stuff here. This time everything was precisely measured, and he adds beets...

We actually get a break at this place from 4-7 which was great today because I was running low on clean clothes! Three trains home, taxi to laundromat , then three trains bck to work!

Service was crazy again. The chef de cuisine, Miguel, is intense. You think Gordon Ramsey is bad on Hells Kitchen, you have been to this place. His glare is insane. I thought Chef Chuong was over the top, but this guy is the most demanding chef I've ever been around. He got me twice, in the first 15 min. for havin my towel over my shoulder, rather than on my apron. Even the head chef, who I thought was some random guy in jeans earlier, basically joked about how crazy he gets.

It got better though, stood around til about 930, then it was 1245!!! It's so much like us back home, where we get that big rush of people. But theirs is much later, and so much different when your doing that many courses. And it's all verbal. No tickets. They bring everything up the pass, everyone helps, and the chef de cuisine puts it on a tray. Would have been a little better if I could understand more, but it was fun.

Only two pics tonight... If I would've pulled out my phone today, I would've prob been kicked out, ha!


Candied Macadamia chips

Shot of the Hotel