|
Having spent many student summers waiting tables on
Cape Cod, I know what shenanigans can go on behind restaurant
kitchen doors. Even in white-tablecloth establishments,
I have worked for vicious, volatile chefs who should
not be brandishing steel cutlery under any circumstances.
I have watched hippie sous-chefs and salad guys tip
their cigarette ashes into the onion soup, drop forgotten
orders — even filet mignon — into the deep-fat
fryer, and, on one memorable occasion, walk around all
evening with lobster antennae tucked behind their ears.
Naturally, today's high-profile culinary scene is so
sophisticated and competitive (and our health standards
so stringent) that many of these nasty habits have gone
the way of bleu-cheese-dressing-for-50-cents. But for
restaurants — good and bad — a professional
kitchen is a wonder of hard work under hellish circumstances.
The heat, the stress and the pressure are tremendous.
Patience is rubbed raw and tempers flare. On a busy
night, wait staff can play tug of war over an order
of clams to appease a hungry party.
I have always thought that a kitchen in a Chinese restaurant
would be the most stressful of all. I am in absolute
awe of the volume of food that is produced there. Surely
such a kitchen would be a wonder to watch. I wanted
to convince someone to let me come in and help so I
could see for myself how everything is done.
There are several good Chinese restaurants in the Bethesda
area these days. I wanted to find a big place, one sure
to be busy. One of the biggest and busiest in town is
Foong Lin, which sits on Norfolk Avenue. Foong Lin has
been owned and managed by Fu Cheung since he opened
the doors in 1987. Fu began his restaurant career in
Hong Kong at age 13 and never stopped. Today, he supervises
the Foong Lin kitchen, where he makes all of the sauces
(he says that everything — the spring rolls, pancakes,
everything — is made on the premises) and chefs
regularly when the restaurant is busy. He chefs a lot.
A solid and rather serious man, I approach him with
an extended hand, a copy of this magazine and my fairly
insane request to have a one-night gig in his kitchen.
Does a painter want someone peering over her shoulder?
Would a dentist need an extra pair of hands for a root
canal? An observer in any chef's kitchen is about as
welcome as a mother-in-law on a honeymoon. Fu is clearly
not persuaded. I underscore my interest and enthusiasm,
however, and by the time I walk out the door, I have
his permission to come. I will stop in again tomorrow
between lunch and dinner to acquaint myself with the
kitchen and come ready to rumble on Friday night when
the joint will be jumping.
I see the next day that the kitchen is big. In the
midafternoon break, it is busy with the quiet industry
of preparation for evening. Every restaurant kitchen
depends on preparation; in Chinese cooking, the prep
is extensive. I study the layout. On the outskirts of
the action is storage: cupboards, pantries, freezers
and walk-in cooling units. There is a chopping station
to the side where cleavers will keep a steady flow of
vegetables to the chefs. Two squat aluminum drums each
steam 100 pounds of rice at a time. The center of the
action takes place along the forward wall, which is
fitted with a stainless-steel work station that is part
counter, part stove and part shallow sink. There, woks
wait on jets of flame. Spigots sprout from a stainless
backsplash and reach out over the woks. Everything sits
empty now, save an enormous caldron that agitates boiling
water in which chicken parts slosh like laundry. A man
stands by and skims off the foam. Broth, I will see,
is an integral part in almost every dish. There are
nine woks of varying sizes on the line, a deep-fat frying
basket or two, a small broiler rack and, at the far-right
end, a stainless closet appliance in which ducks have
been smoking since morning. A stainless-steel room divider
stands in front of the wok-line. Here plastic buckets
and stainless cans hold many needed ingredients. There
are raw pork and roast pork, julienned; raw chunks of
chicken, strips of beef and beautifully clean shrimp
(in and out of the shell); snow peas, celery, baby corn
and cabbages (Napa and head); bean sprouts, scallions,
mushrooms, peanuts, walnuts and cashews, and ginger,
onions and garlic. Foong Lin chefs go through 30 pounds
of garlic in a week, 1,000 pounds of rice, and 35 gallons
of soy sauce. Every delivery of produce is received,
uncrated and, before it is consumed, chopped, sliced
or minced by human hands. The room divider also holds
three sunken vats of soup, stacks of plates, utensils
and a miscellany of culinary tools. Orders come into
the kitchen via computer printout and are pinned up
before the chefs. At 4 p.m., as I leave, the restaurant
is empty, but the kitchen simmers in anticipation. Someone
is scrubbing a wok at the station, and flames shoot
in a corona around the rim. The next time I come, I'll
be wearing an apron.
I wake up Friday morning in apprehension; it is nibbling
at the edges of my confidence. The kitchen is big; even
empty it is formidable. What will it be like when it's
fully staffed and the heat is on? I waste the day in
distraction and count down the hours until 5:30, the
time I am expected. I plan to help the choppers and,
from that vantage point, observe.
When I arrive, the kitchen is staffed and active. Although
there is only one single patron in the house, takeout
orders have begun and the woks are fired and in use.
It is immediately clear to me that mine is a best-laid
plan. There is absolutely no chance that I will be able
to find a safe and happy place to work — I must
situate myself on the outermost margins. There is no
room for an amateur; I will only be able to watch. I'm
not disappointed; I'm relieved. But boy — everyone
seems happy to see me! The hostess, the waiters, the
chefs smile at me and give me the hi-sign. Clearly,
they will be observing me! I find a place to
sit in a corner, on a stack of 100-pound bales of raw
rice, and wedge myself in. I feel shy and imposing,
but no one seems to mind. Three Latino teenage boys
do chopping duty. Every time I look their way, they
are staring at me. I am suddenly anxious that
I am a distraction, the last thing I want to be. This
place is a controlled inferno, where there is peril
in every direction.
I don't know how to express in measurement the pressure
of flame on a gas stove, but the fire that blasts from
below the woks is positively solar. It is highly energetic
and, when a wok is removed from its element, the fire
itself has breath. It makes noise. The line is arranged
like this: At the left is a burly man who works two
woks at once. One is enormous, probably 2 feet across,
which is for deep-frying. The smaller of the two is
for stir-frying. To his left sit shelves of batter-covered
pork, beef, shrimp and chicken for the sweet and sour,
General Tso and other deep-fried dishes. As orders come
up, he measures each portion of meat in bowls, constantly
refilling. To the right of him, another man stands at
a wok and stir-fries. Between the men sit the caldron
of broth and a cart with containers of seasonings: chili
paste, garlic, ginger, cornstarch, soy sauce and soy
oil.
As the gatherer puts the ingredients before him, each
man cooks. It seems that almost everything is put in
a strainer, dunked for several seconds in broth, and
sat for a second to drain. The pace is amazing. It takes
no more than several minutes for each dish to go from
raw to ready. Each man wields a skimmer and ladle and
never uses his hand. Even so, the forearms of Deep-fry
Man are crisscrossed with burn marks. He has a skimmer
the size of a squash paddle. Both men are so deft, so
perfectly adept with the tools they use that every move
— the quick-dip for oil, the seasoning, the stirring
and tossing of food, the taps on the spigots —
is done with a tool. Conk! And the dancing carrots fall
further down in the oil. Conk! And the food sits on
a plate. Conk! And the spigot spits on and the wok is
washed. Each man washes his stir-fry wok between every
dish. A blast of water, a skim of broth, a dump-out
and a wipe-down and then it begins again. I am thunderstruck,
not only because all of this activity is as seamless
as clockwork, but because I have not seen anyone drinking
anything, except for one chef down the line occasionally
gulping water.
Somewhere there are monstrous fans, which clear the
kitchen of smoke and heat, but the chefs, of course,
are drenched. The woks are always in motion, slivers
of vegetables fly in the air like confetti, flames shoot
in spikes skyward, sometimes literally 5 feet over the
chefs' heads. But, for all the chaos, all is strangely
in order. The dexterity is awesome. The lack of temper
is inconceivable.
As the evening wears on, the action increases but no
one raises a voice. One chef's Hail Mary pass down the
line of a bunch of Chinese broccoli goes awry and flutters
to the floor, but no one cops a fit. Every so often
the Deep-fry Man will gesture for me to look. He does
the double-cooked dishes and, under his skimmer, flaccid
raw slivers of meat become sizzling and crisp.
The floor gets oily. Waiters come in and out; the choppers
replenish the stores; the take-out conga continues,
and yet no one slips. Fu ducks in several times to observe.
Once he comes over to me and gestures toward his workers,
"See?" he says, "Nothing happening."
Is this man for real?
Occasionally, there is a pause. Late in the evening,
during a lull, Fu comes in and invites me to watch him
cook. I stand at his elbow in front of a wok and, I
have to confess — I'm afraid! The proximity to
the heat, to the hiss of water into the woks, the clanks
and conks and torrid oil is, well, terrifying. Fu expertly
demonstrates Szechuan pork chops, but there is only
one thought ribboning through my mind: "The Night
of Mimi's Disfigurement." I shy away from the flame,
but Fu isn't worried about us at all. With brisk and
economical motions, he drops slices of meat into blistering
oil, swims them around, takes them out, waits and repeats
that three times. It keeps the juices in. He sauces
them swiftly and turns them out onto a plate. I'm still
quaking to put some distance between me and this reality,
but I'd sure like to swipe that plate of pork!
In fact, I'm getting hungry.
The fans are so strong they suck the aromas as well
as the heat from the air. Still, I'm limp from the sight
of so much beautiful food passing me by. Peking ducks
are strutted through the door, their lacquered legs
akimbo. Ravishing strands of noodles, heaps of moo shi,
platters of mango with chicken. Those pork chops went
out garnished with a dazzling chrysanthemum made from
an entire beet.
Can the evening be over? The crowd thins out and the
action winds down. I sit for a while in the dining room,
nursing a soda. There are a couple of stragglers, a
guy at the bar, and inside the kitchen the staff is
scrubbing down for tomorrow's lunch when it will all
begin again. I take a peek through the kitchen door
and see it has emptied. Clean white cloths cover the
ingredients area. Someone will come to swab the oil
from the kitchen floor, so it can be glazed again tomorrow.
The evening blew up and over like a typhoon. The work
must be absolutely exhausting — I'm worn out just
from watching! My soda's unfinished, but I'm all in.
I long for my car and home. I'll sleep in tomorrow,
but one thing is sure. For Fu's kitchen staff, there
will be broccoli to trim and spinach to wash; crates
will be waiting.
|
