At Handsome Fred’s Bar and Grill
The couple’s argument is of the fiercely private sort that cannot help but attract attention. Its very privacy magnetises their words so that despite their inaudibility the ear strains. Even stood in front of the burners with the roar of the extractor fans whipping away the waitresses calls and pulsing them out into the night, even with Steve on garde manger playing his fucking music I can hear them. Or, rather, feel them. I don’t look up though. No time.
Firing on three, that’s two chickens, a risotto and a sirloin, medium rare. I pull the pan out of the oven where the chickens have been bubbling gently away ever since that fucking arsehole Armand put the check on. Amazing what wine and cream can do to each other, and to chicken for that matter. I prod them, stir a little butter into the sauce (“Monter au fucking beurre you useless fucker!” as dear old Franck used to say back in the old days where I didn’t know my arse from my elbow, or demiglace from deglace for that matter. Then he’d put a hot pan on my elbow, just to make sure I was paying attention) and forget about them for a minute or two. The risotto can take care of itself for a few moments. I love risotto. Oil the steak and onto the char bars it goes, a quick spit of fat to the face and that’s another tiny little scar. Chalk them up.
Forty eight away please. That’s the new girl isn’t it? I don’t normally bother to learn their names unless they’ve been around for a while. It doesn’t do to go playing with waitresses. You always find out the hard and unpleasant way in the end. It doesn’t matter how good they look with their black skirts and white shirts. This one has a stillness about the eyes that I like though, a calm manner. Forty eight, is, uh..
One bass fillet one portugaise chef. Simon reads the check from the list in his hand and gets back to dressing the plates, staying calm, keeping order and keeping Armand out of my fucking face. Ha! A portugaise, large mussels, chorizo, onion, white wine. Lovely dish, and not my station. Just the one bass to worry about. I turn and politely enquire as to where the fucking mussels are and Phil tells me to fuck off and he’ll do them when he’s good and ready which will be two minutes chef, which is exactly what I want to hear. Good lad. The bass is fire and forget, it’s cooked in seconds, I can just crisp off the skin and send it. One less thing.
When the couple had first walked in I hadn’t in truth noticed anything exceptional about them, but I wasn't really looking. I was thinking about whether I'd ordered enough entrecotes, whether I'd be able to turn the over-ordered pig's cheeks into a sunday special, unless by some miracle I sold out tonight; it was early doors, and the board had yet to fill with a mass of fluttering checks, each one representing a few people’s evening, each one with a lot riding on it. It’s like Franck would always say, rubbing the side of his jaw – one of those tables of two could be a man proposing to his girlfriend. Do you want to send them a shit meal on this night of nights?
No Franck, I don’t.
Deglaze the pan with a dash of Madeira and then the steak’s done, resting, and then it’s on the plate and out of my way. Simon’s problem now, it’s him that’ll gently stack the sautés underneath, him that’ll smear the sauce over one side of the plate, sprinkle the chiffonade, rest the steak artfully against an aubergine tian, turn it from a hunk of meat to a restaurant meal. Shazam. I can hear him quietly explaining to the waitress what he wants and where he wants it. Never raises his voice, which is rare.
So because it was early when they walked in I was looking out, over the tables, waiting for it all and thinking about how the weekend would pan out. She was well dressed, they both were, but obviously I noticed her first. Then nothing, back into it, on come the checks on goes the evening, a few new scars and a pain in the small of your back that just won’t go away.
Check on, he says. Fucker.
The board is full now. I ask Simon how many and he says forty six. Forty six. I am cooking forty six meals at once, and each one has to be perfect because you don’t know if someone’s proposing to his girlfriend on this night of nights. Fuck you, Franck, I mean that sincerely.
I say something along the lines of anyone taking an order is dead dead dead in the cold cold ground and then the waitress with the stillness in the eyes tells me we’re firing on forty, which’ll be fun because there’s ten of them. I pull the two well done from the top of the grill where they’ve been sat for a while because these won’t know the difference. They’re out and they’re gone. The waitress is still there which is odd because last I checked she wasn’t a runner. Last I checked it was her job to glide round the floor and make businessmen regret their marriages.
Lauren would like to talk, chef, she says, and I nearly slice a finger off, I look out across the pass and realise that I can’t feel the argument any more, and the reason I can’t feel the argument is that the guy is gone, and as such there is a fatal imbalance on table five, a void, a vacuum. Lauren’s still sat there though, she’s changed her hair.
Firing on three, that’s two chickens, a risotto and a sirloin, medium rare. I pull the pan out of the oven where the chickens have been bubbling gently away ever since that fucking arsehole Armand put the check on. Amazing what wine and cream can do to each other, and to chicken for that matter. I prod them, stir a little butter into the sauce (“Monter au fucking beurre you useless fucker!” as dear old Franck used to say back in the old days where I didn’t know my arse from my elbow, or demiglace from deglace for that matter. Then he’d put a hot pan on my elbow, just to make sure I was paying attention) and forget about them for a minute or two. The risotto can take care of itself for a few moments. I love risotto. Oil the steak and onto the char bars it goes, a quick spit of fat to the face and that’s another tiny little scar. Chalk them up.
Forty eight away please. That’s the new girl isn’t it? I don’t normally bother to learn their names unless they’ve been around for a while. It doesn’t do to go playing with waitresses. You always find out the hard and unpleasant way in the end. It doesn’t matter how good they look with their black skirts and white shirts. This one has a stillness about the eyes that I like though, a calm manner. Forty eight, is, uh..
One bass fillet one portugaise chef. Simon reads the check from the list in his hand and gets back to dressing the plates, staying calm, keeping order and keeping Armand out of my fucking face. Ha! A portugaise, large mussels, chorizo, onion, white wine. Lovely dish, and not my station. Just the one bass to worry about. I turn and politely enquire as to where the fucking mussels are and Phil tells me to fuck off and he’ll do them when he’s good and ready which will be two minutes chef, which is exactly what I want to hear. Good lad. The bass is fire and forget, it’s cooked in seconds, I can just crisp off the skin and send it. One less thing.
When the couple had first walked in I hadn’t in truth noticed anything exceptional about them, but I wasn't really looking. I was thinking about whether I'd ordered enough entrecotes, whether I'd be able to turn the over-ordered pig's cheeks into a sunday special, unless by some miracle I sold out tonight; it was early doors, and the board had yet to fill with a mass of fluttering checks, each one representing a few people’s evening, each one with a lot riding on it. It’s like Franck would always say, rubbing the side of his jaw – one of those tables of two could be a man proposing to his girlfriend. Do you want to send them a shit meal on this night of nights?
No Franck, I don’t.
Deglaze the pan with a dash of Madeira and then the steak’s done, resting, and then it’s on the plate and out of my way. Simon’s problem now, it’s him that’ll gently stack the sautés underneath, him that’ll smear the sauce over one side of the plate, sprinkle the chiffonade, rest the steak artfully against an aubergine tian, turn it from a hunk of meat to a restaurant meal. Shazam. I can hear him quietly explaining to the waitress what he wants and where he wants it. Never raises his voice, which is rare.
So because it was early when they walked in I was looking out, over the tables, waiting for it all and thinking about how the weekend would pan out. She was well dressed, they both were, but obviously I noticed her first. Then nothing, back into it, on come the checks on goes the evening, a few new scars and a pain in the small of your back that just won’t go away.
Check on, he says. Fucker.
The board is full now. I ask Simon how many and he says forty six. Forty six. I am cooking forty six meals at once, and each one has to be perfect because you don’t know if someone’s proposing to his girlfriend on this night of nights. Fuck you, Franck, I mean that sincerely.
I say something along the lines of anyone taking an order is dead dead dead in the cold cold ground and then the waitress with the stillness in the eyes tells me we’re firing on forty, which’ll be fun because there’s ten of them. I pull the two well done from the top of the grill where they’ve been sat for a while because these won’t know the difference. They’re out and they’re gone. The waitress is still there which is odd because last I checked she wasn’t a runner. Last I checked it was her job to glide round the floor and make businessmen regret their marriages.
Lauren would like to talk, chef, she says, and I nearly slice a finger off, I look out across the pass and realise that I can’t feel the argument any more, and the reason I can’t feel the argument is that the guy is gone, and as such there is a fatal imbalance on table five, a void, a vacuum. Lauren’s still sat there though, she’s changed her hair.
posted by Matt at 12:50 AM
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