Shrimpzilla and Swordfish Switcheroo

Well the good news about today was that our shipment of 1/4lb shrimp came in, along with some blue spotted bass and orange roughy from West Africa (Senegal to be exact). Now the other fish are cool and all, but yes you read exactly right people. 1/4 pound shrimp. These aren't even the biggest we could have gotten, but for cost reasons this is the largest size the chef and I want to use. 2 of these on a plate go for around 46 bucks. Don't freak out at the price people because if you can find this any where else in this city let me know!

OK, I can tell you how many places in the city get this stuff. 2 others!! That's it. This stuff is overnighted to Dulles airport and here for us the next day. I will make a special with the shrimp tomorrow because none of it got here until 4pm, which was too late to try and put it on the menu tonight, but I thought it was cool to share. I'll have pics up tomorrow, they were something to see.

Now onto my evening...without going into a rant because I always try to stay cool when things don't go my way, but sometimes people make mistakes, sometimes me, sometimes others. I generally am one to always admit when I have screwed up, because when I screw up people, I screw up GOOOOD. I mean, if my kitchen goes down one night, it will go down in flames. To the point of there is no climbing out until the last check leaves the kitchen. That only happens once in a blue moon though, fortunately.

Just under 200 covers for the evening, with 3 large parties of 27, 25, and an a la carte 19 at 8 pm. It was soooo much fun that one of my checks left for the dining room and must have entered the Bermuda triangle because it simply disappeared. But at least it wasn't my fault! My food runners admit the food went out into the dining room, my server took 45 minutes to tell a manager it wasn't at the table, it took another 15 minutes after that for the manager to tell me it wasn't at the table. Only to have the food runners find the check at the bar but no food. Man I love my job.

The food took only 5 minutes to prepare and send out again, it was only a couple of tunas served rare (the only way to eat tuna, as opposed to sword...back to that in a minute) and I felt very bad for the customers at the table, they did not pay for their meal of course, but the damage has already been done. Once in a blue moon bad things happen and nothing can stop that...but once the food leaves my kitchen, that's on the front of the house. Eh, it is what it is, and I'm sure I'll screw them up at some point soon enough.

P.S. I seem stuck in the middle of a tuna/swordfish battle royale this week, and there was another interesting incident today. Someone came in and ordered a tuna well done. Problem was (other than the horror of cooking tuna well done), we were out of tuna. Luckily it was a friend of the server's and I had an idea. We didn't have tuna, but we sure did have some sword, so I figured I'd do them a favor and do a sword well done instead. So I sent it out and asked the server to ask afterwards what they thought. The man said it was the best tuna he'd ever had.

I bet.