Today we had our Christmas party in Graham’s Bar Restaurant. The idea of the party is to say thank you to the regular clients who have patronized our business over the past year.
If you want enough people to turn up this near to Christmas when they have so many other things to do, you have to offer them things to eat and drink that are a little bit special.
We offered one main beverage which was free (Vino Caldo), and soft drinks for children. All other drinks had to be paid for. Vino Caldo is a good choice, as people don’t get a chance to sample it very often, as they tend not to make it at home and few bars or restaurants offer it.
In the winter vino caldo is made from a base of hot red wine and the aroma of cinnamon simply never fails to get people warmed up and chatting away. Of course you must have something to nibble at as well but do avoid anything shop bought and clichéd like crisps or mixed nuts with dried fruit.
You must use your party to show off both your creativity and your expertise by coming up with something that your clients will regard as both unusual and prepared especially for them.
Carla, who is working in our restaurant prepared some wonderful canapés to a Chilean recipe, the basis of which was French bread coated with beaten egg, chopped chives and crabmeat and then grilled.
We put on several other exiting dishes to pick at and the party turned out to be a real success. We have shown that we care about our regular customers and we are sure that they will be loyal to us in the New Year.
This morning I had to do the job that both Ines and I hate most and no, it’s not firing people, it’s changing the oil in the deep-fryer.
In a restaurant the deep fryer is different from the type you may use at home. Instead of being filled with cooking oil, it contains 50% saline water, which cleans the oil.
I decided to take a bit of the horror out of Monday morning for Olivia by emptying the deep fryer myself and then leaving it to our cleaner to clean it out and refill it, whilst we were in San Pedro getting shopping for the bar.
The container that holds the oil is a little deeper than the element and part of the volume below the element level is filled with saline solution (water and salt). The saline solution acts as a filter to keep the oil clean. There is one very important fact that you need to know when refilling an industrial deep-fryer; the water level must never be high enough so that it can come into contact with the element.
The machine holds 2 large jugs of saline water (3L). If the water were ever to be overfilled to the extent that the water and element were touching, there would be a dangerous eruption of boiling hot oil and water, like a mini volcano all over the kitchen. The reason for this is, as long as the water is say 1cm below the oil element level, the water stays cool, but if the machine is overfilled then the water can rise above the element and become heated to boiling point.
If that happened, all the contents of the fryer would blow upwards due to a build up of steam pressure and should this happen, you wouldn’t want to be in the same room. Even if you were nowhere near the machine, you’d be cleaning oil from every part of your restaurant, kitchen for hours.
It’s very important to know what you are doing when operating a commercial fryer.
