OT: Restaurant thread

Jets 31

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My brother who has more money than brains has been on the 4 meals a week for 4 people plan for over a year now, they love it. He gave me a coupon for 3 free meals so we gave it a go, all 3 meals were fantastic, just can’t see myself spending $75+ every week for 3 dinners.
I guess i'm not quite as stupid, i'm only doing 3 meals a week for 2 people.:laugh:
 
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Jets 31

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The only advantage I can see for these services is a reduction in food waste. Beyond that, I would rather look up a recipe online, and shop for what I need. I'm very picky about the meat, fish and perishables I buy. I don't want someone else making those selections for me.

Also, kind of annoying you can't see their meal offerings until you actually sign up.
I'm very picky with meat also and so far everything has been very good.
 
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Yukon Joe

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My brother who has more money than brains has been on the 4 meals a week for 4 people plan for over a year now, they love it. He gave me a coupon for 3 free meals so we gave it a go, all 3 meals were fantastic, just can’t see myself spending $75+ every week for 3 dinners.

We're on it, but we typically skip about every other week.

It's nice because it's probably a meal we wouldn't have made before. In fact we've kept the recipe cards and have re-made several of their meals.. And as for the cost - you'd be hard pressed to make a meal for 4 people for under $25. Plus of course no food waste - it has just as much as you need.

My only complaint - avocados! There's been a few times when the recipe calls for (and includes) avocados, but each time they've been unripe and hard as a rock.
 
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Positive

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On the subject of pizza, during the pandemic I've really gotten the hang of making my own at home. I use a dough recipe for a 'New York' style thin crust; a batch of which will make 4 pizzas. Cold-proof in the fridge for a few days to build gluten and flavour (though you can use it the same day if you really need to). Freeze any dough that you don't use within about 4 days.

Hand-stretched til it's super-thin...no rolling pins here. It takes some practice but once you get the tossing/stretching technique down, you will get great results. This is the technique I use:



I use a preheated pizza stone and crank my oven to 550 degrees, bakes a pie in 7-8 minutes.
 

Ducky10

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Bump

hope you all continue to support your favourite establishment during these uncertain times

thanks
Once or twice a week. Can’t do anything else, might as well spend it on take out food and support local restaurants.:thumbu:
 
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voyageur

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I'm North End, we still have our burger joints open. And a nice little Ukrainian ice cream and pastry store, Baba's. It's a hard time for small business owners. Support your local businesses.
 
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ps241

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If anyone is in the Lindenwoods/Lindenridge/Whyte Ridge area, Holy Spice in the Lindenridge Shopping Centre might be one of the top 3 Indian restaurants in town. Definitely worth a try if you like Indian food.

love Indian food, thanks for the heads up I will give it a try!
 
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10Ducky10

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If anyone is in the Lindenwoods/Lindenridge/Whyte Ridge area, Holy Spice in the Lindenridge Shopping Centre might be one of the top 3 Indian restaurants in town. Definitely worth a try if you like Indian food.
Which are the other two if you don't mind me asking?
 

Ducky10

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Which are the other two if you don't mind me asking?
Well that’s a tough one, partly why I said one of the top 3, LOL. My faves along with Holy Spice are, Sizzling Dhaba and Punjab Corner.

East India Company is very reliable and consistent. Copper Chimney surprised me, I didn’t expect too much of it based on it being a chain restaurant but it was very, very good. I’d make a return visit.

The first three I mentioned are just a cut above the rest imo though.
 
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10Ducky10

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Well that’s a tough one, partly why I said one of the top 3, LOL. My faves along with Holy Spice are, Sizzling Dhaba and Punjab Corner.

East India Company is very reliable and consistent. Copper Chimney surprised me, I didn’t expect too much of it based on it being a chain restaurant but it was very, very good. I’d make a return visit.

The first three I mentioned are just a cut above the rest imo though.
I'll have to try them out when things get going again.
The Punjab Sweethouse and Restaurant is excellent as well.
 
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buggs

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Well that’s a tough one, partly why I said one of the top 3, LOL. My faves along with Holy Spice are, Sizzling Dhaba and Punjab Corner.

East India Company is very reliable and consistent. Copper Chimney surprised me, I didn’t expect too much of it based on it being a chain restaurant but it was very, very good. I’d make a return visit.

The first three I mentioned are just a cut above the rest imo though.

Still like East India Company, good stuff on the buffet and it's fun to try stuff in that style. You can always just leave it on your plate if you don't like it.

We've had good luck with Clay Oven near us but I've heard several less than flattering reviews from the one in the baseball stadium.

Holy Spice is very close to us, I hope they survive as the turnover in that strip is pretty darn high.
 

ps241

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Still like East India Company, good stuff on the buffet and it's fun to try stuff in that style. You can always just leave it on your plate if you don't like it.

We've had good luck with Clay Oven near us but I've heard several less than flattering reviews from the one in the baseball stadium.

Holy Spice is very close to us, I hope they survive as the turnover in that strip is pretty darn high.

Clay Oven (Kenaston Common) is very close to my office so a buddy and I meet there for lunch once a month. I have always enjoyed it.
 

HannuJ

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On the subject of pizza, during the pandemic I've really gotten the hang of making my own at home. I use a dough recipe for a 'New York' style thin crust; a batch of which will make 4 pizzas. Cold-proof in the fridge for a few days to build gluten and flavour (though you can use it the same day if you really need to). Freeze any dough that you don't use within about 4 days.

Hand-stretched til it's super-thin...no rolling pins here. It takes some practice but once you get the tossing/stretching technique down, you will get great results. This is the technique I use:



I use a preheated pizza stone and crank my oven to 550 degrees, bakes a pie in 7-8 minutes.

yep. been doing the same now for 9 months. 3 to 4 day fridge ferment. homemade new york-style sauce. we use cast iron pans and rock the oven to 550 F, pan on the bottom. let it heat up. then, when it's dough time, we switch to broil. 6 to 7 minutes on top rack, perfect char.
this assumes one likes thicker crusts.

The best part of that video? the guy in the background with the fly swatter
 
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Channelcat

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Clay Oven (Kenaston Common) is very close to my office so a buddy and I meet there for lunch once a month. I have always enjoyed it.
Agreed. I know a few people who don't like it, but my experience there has been very good.
 

HannuJ

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amen, best burger in the city and I’ve tried everyone else! Even remember back when VJ’s used to be the place for the best burger!
i'm very removed from Wpg's burger scene. but a few years ago, Daly Burger on Corydon was pretty good as well. unfortunately, their meat quality was better than Superboys. lol.
think it's the edible beef fat that makes Superboys so delicious
 
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cheswick

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Has there ever been a thorough explanation of what the Stella's employees are after?

The reason I ask is that I know a ton of people in the restaurant industry as I worked in it for nearly ten years. The general philosophy is that most of your staff are transient in nature, meaning they'll be on board for less than two years. The reason behind that is that hosting/bussing/waiting/bartending just generally aren't good, long term careers. Most servers are young and move on to bigger and better things.

There are always a few people that are career employees - management, prep staff and a smattering of other positions. Those are generally compensated differently from what I know in that they have far better (well I suppose the point is "any") benefits.

So is it servers looking for pensions and dental and the like?

I know Surly in Minneapolis is currently going through the same thing but theirs is a much more recent development.

Guaranteed minimum number of weekly hours. Weekends off after a year employ. The employees wanted their guaranteed breaks but didn't want their tables transferred from them whilst on their break (union claim it was being done as retaliation to unionization). Also some of the signs the striking employees held up were "I have to eat my meal by the toilet", "I shouldn't have to choose between work and school" which I'm not sure what that means. Want a break room? Want to choose your own hours? Lots of typical union stuff about seniority having to be awarded.
 
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Guaranteed minimum number of weekly hours. Weekends off after a year employ. The employees wanted their guaranteed breaks but didn't want their tables transferred from them whilst on their break (union claim it was being done as retaliation to unionization). Also some of the signs the striking employees held up were "I have to eat my meal by the toilet", "I shouldn't have to choose between work and school" which I'm not sure what that means. Want a break room? Want to choose your own hours? Lots of typical union stuff about seniority having to be awarded.

Interesting, thanks for this. My restaurant experience is a long time in the past so some of this is kind of entertaining to me. But I am still well connected with a large number of people in the industry. Read that as: old guy gonna tell you how it used to be.

Guaranteed minimum number of hours? Most restaurants then ( and a great many now) relied on predominantly college aged kids to wait on tables meaning nobody outside of management, prep and finance staff were full time employees. More importantly nobody was guaranteed any amount of hours as we were all hired as part time employees. So I guess this would come down to the conditions of being hired. I highly doubt many of these employees are looking at full time employment as a server. If they are, it's largely because of the substantial untaxable earnings they get from tips. Cake and eat it too.

Guaranteed breaks? LOL at this one. My usual shift bartending was 4:00 P.M. (half hour before opening) until 1:30 A.M. (half hour after closing) with exactly zero guaranteed breaks. I fully recognize that is pretty much against the law now but one also has to understand the actual restaurant industry. In a sit down place like Stella's or the Keg you are waiting on tables; you have the responsibility for those tables and the restaurant is relying on you to provide quality service to said tables. An average wait shift at the Keg was at the time perhaps five or so hours. There were no breaks for that either. Now under the law you're entitled to a break but most restaurants work around this with short shifts or tacking on the 15 minutes of pay to the end of your shift.

Taking a break in the middle of a customers dinner? C'mon, that's entirely unrealistic. Restaurants are very fluid in their dynamics and as a server you don't get robots seated in five table intervals that all leave at the same time. I'm supportive of the notion of you're legally entitled to a break but you also have to understand how the industry works. It's not about you the employee getting everything exactly at a precise time, it's about the customer getting everything at exactly a precise time, in a consistent manner. The request to not transfer tables is an absolute flat 'no' from management perspective - put it this way: if I'm in a Stella's and my server comes out and gives me drinks and takes my food order then disappears and my service suffers, I'm not likely coming back. In reality, another staff member takes up the slack and given that's the individual that does all the work, well that's the individual deserving of the tip. Again, cake and eat it too.

Weekends off? Um, seriously, choose another area to work. Restaurants, without fail, are busiest on weekend evenings. So all the senior staff want to be off on weekends? There will never be any senior staff. That's a flat out stupid request. When I worked in the industry we were allowed to request either Friday or Saturday off, not both. If we wanted both, we had to swap or give up shifts to another willing team member. Weekends were also by far the best for tips since as mentioned this was the busiest time. I can only imagine there's a "living wage" request associated with this. And I'm supportive of a living wage in the restaurant industry so long as the expectation of a tip disappears with it. I laugh at the machines that come out now with 20% as being the default tip. I'm not sure I've ever received service that deserves 1/5 of the amount as a gimme. That's an incredibly rare occasion.

On the work and school thing given Stella's does a big daytime business I'm guessing people were being staffed while they were supposed to be in class. Again, good management works around this. The old Keg Prime Rib/Caesar's in the IG building (now a Pony Corral) had lunch staff and evening staff. Either could ask to work outside their normal hours of choice (you were hired for one group or the other) and management would accommodate as they could. I expect the issue at Stella's, though I have no way of confirming, is that they were running a pool of employees and scheduling them across the range of hours (does Stella's do breakfast?) from morning to night, meaning classes were being missed. And I'd be pissed too. But that's just flat out poor management.

I understand that there are additional factors with management being less than considerate in a number of areas that shouldn't be discussed in an open forum, so I won't broach those. But these issues on the surface are kind of laughable in the face of how the restaurant industry has always worked. They remain largely non-issues to this day because most management groups take decent enough care of their employees but that seems to perhaps not be the case at this establishment.

It sounds to me like this organization (or location) does a horrible job at the start from hiring an employee. There is an easy way to set up expectations of the restaurant to the employee and the converse, employee to the restaurant, that would address lots of this. Where I worked did this very, very clearly from the outset in the orientation when we were hired. If we didn't agree with the conditions then we were free to leave the employ of the establishment. The first thing that should be explained is "this is not a career unless you choose to make it so by moving out of the serving/cooking/bussing/hosting areas". It's part time employment unless you prove competent and want to move into those other areas.
 

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