I was wrong...

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I take back everything i said about the restaurant!!! I spoke to the owner and the chef 2 days ago and realised i had been way too hard on them in my Drunk comment... pun intended.
as it turns out the chef has only been there for 3 months and has already made a lot of changes. the reason we clean so much is that when he got here and gave the kitchen a thorough cleanin he found thousands of cockroaches... literally.... and as it turns out we dont work 14 hour days all week, i just got there at a really bad time where a cook had literally just quit and my first day of work was mother's day with an indian menu and the guest chef who did the menu had to leave the day before to go back to his retsurant in mexico city... and they were improvising because understandably they had never cooked indian food.

The chef is actually a really cool guy and he knows what he's doing. He has worked in serious places and knows his shit. Nonetheless he's really open to suggestions and is eager to learn what i have to offer. Since the talk 2 days ago this has actually become the most rewarding job i've ever had. Yesterday i showed them a better way to make the lasagna they serve, and today I taught them how to cook pasta properly!!!! I made 2 basic tomato sauces, one w onion and the other w garlic, to show them the difference, and an arrabbiata (a garlic, chili, and parsley tomato sauce) and they were blown away (if i may say so myself... :-) ) especially the chef. Just as we finished, the owner comes by and asks if i can make pasta al limone for them, but we had no lemons, just limes. so i tell him that i just made these three sauces and had him and his friend taste them, and ended up making them two orders of spaghetti al sugo, one w the garlic based sauce and one w the onion based one. and they too were very impressed... AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIGHT!!! at the end of service the chef even told me he had never eaten such good pasta and was blown away by the simplicity yet perfection of the dish!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!
he even immediately started considering doing pasta made to order, as opposed to the preecooked, throw in a pan and heat version!!! I will definitely try to convince him its much better for the restaurant. Tomorrow i'll help them revisit the other pasta dishes they have, and help them with the planning of how to set up a pasta station.

which brings me back to the meeting with Jaime(the owner) and Chef Noé the other day:

we sit down and the owner asks me hwat i think about the kitchen. so for once in my life i was honest, diplomatic, but honest, and told him that i thought there was a lot of wasted space (for example the dishwasher's area takes up nearly a third of the kitchen while 3 to 6 cooks share a small work station in the liddle of the kitchen with pots and pans hanging above our heads) and made some suggestions as to how the kitchen could be improved and suggested the purchase of a good convection oven, which by even the chef's admission would enable him to get rid of the microwave (which he isnt happy about using in the first place). And to my joy and amazement i was greeted with nods of approval from both men and Jaime actually picks up an oven catalogue from his desk (which thank god means he was already considering getting one), looks at the chef, and tells him he wants Noé to go through it, with me, and pick one out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he then goes on to say that anything i can contribute to the restaurant they would greatly appreciate!!!!! he then asked me how long i planned on staying, and i told him i had decided it to be the end of the week. -side note- on my second day the chef told me he wanted me to make the menu for their weekly ethnic friday night dinner, and we had settled on next week.... so Jaime suggests that if i am still around oaxaca i could come back anyway just for friday and i would be featured as their GUEST CHEF !!!!! WHICH I'M GONNA DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And they are serious about slow food in many aspects and are trying to push it more, which i will gladly take part in. Jaime even suggested I should go with the chef to the local market (yes... there's a bigger one!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIGHT!!!!!!) which i will undoubtedly do too, and see if we can come up with some ideas to use autoctonous products instead of imnporting stuff that has to end up being frozen.

So thats it!!!!!!!!! I am SERIOUSLY thinking of staying on for a month or two to help them out to get this restaurant where it should really be, therefore extending this leg of the trip, especially since i havent bought my ticket for the next part yet and could probably extend my ticket for a fee... i'll look into it. it would also make more sense because i would hit summer when i get down to argentina but especially brasil..

We shall see... hahahahahhaha... one week into the trip and im already thinking of extending it!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!
n

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