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After thinking about this blogpost for a minute I realized the blogpost actually literally argues for doing things the hard and stupid way. Not as a metaphor fo

by gizmo 2y ago

After thinking about this blogpost for a minute I realized the blogpost actually literally argues for doing things the hard and stupid way. Not as a metaphor for integrity or quality. Integrity isn't the point: > It had nothing to do with integrity. I didn’t care about fooling the diners. What concerned me was the precedent we were setting. The quality of the food isn't the point either: > The dish was meant to be a difficult pickup that required constant coordination between the front and back of house. The inefficiency is the point. Doing it the long, hard and stupid way is the point. This is a sermon against process improvements. Without seeming to realize that restaurants are a modern miracle of process improvements! How does this David think the kitchen gets fresh ingredients every morning? Where does David think fruit in the winter comes from? How did herbs and spices get so cheap? Because we decided for the past 200 years to relentlessly pursue efficiency. Because we decided not to do things the slow and stupid way any more. That's how!

bluGill 2y ago
Some things are better, but some are bad shortcuts that cost quality. A burger from a place that cooks it after you order will always be better than a burger where they start cooking before you walk in the door. Back when I worked fast food I sometimes made my own burgers, when it was fresh off the grill it was one of the best burgers I ever had, but that is a lot more individual labor and so not sustainable in a fast food model. Back then burgers were assembled before you walked in the door, but these days they have all backed off to assemble the burger after you order of ingredients cooked before - it is higher quality and they have managed to optimize assembly enough that it is now sustainable. Where the fast food industry wants to be is a robot that sees you push the button and starts cooking your burger then before you get to paying for it. Robots could do all that, but they are too expensive for the price they need to hit at least so far. (there are also some fraud issues they have to work out) They have to start cooking before you finish the order to meet their fast goals which is one of the reasons people go to fast food.
dooglius 2y ago
He explains the point in the lines you omitted: > I worried about the mindset of the server whose job it would be to parade a stunt chicken around the dining room. I was terrified of our culture stagnating. It doesn't read to me like he would have any problem with a process improvement as long as the real chicken were still used.
jjmarr 2y ago
> For example, one of my favorite Majordomo dishes is a whole boiled chicken. We present the bird to the table in a big pot, bring it back to the kitchen to carve it, and then return with a beautiful platter of rice topped with the sliced breasts and two different sauces spooned over the top. Once guests are finished with that, we bring out a soup made from the carcass. It’s so good. The point is that the diner gets to see the chicken they will eat and understand the process. The efficient way described in the blog is to instead use a stunt chicken which'll be paraded around the dining room instead of being cooked. That's not a process improvement when the entire point of the dish is to show the diners what they will eat before they eat it and flex the restaurant's ability to coordinate. Purposeful inefficiency is beautiful when it's about retro video game console programming or mechanical watches, because that's about spotlighting the process. Both of these are inefficient---modern computers are more powerful and quartz watch keep time better---but are fascinating because the difficulty of programming in assembly or an intricate series of tiny gears have inherent value to some people, far beyond the result of a video game or getting the current time. It's a complicated finely tuned process to get a chicken from your table to the kitchen and back again. The chef wants employees that value the process itself, which is a fair ask when the process is the product.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- turtledragonfly 2y ago
  And yet, he says "... I didn’t care about fooling the diners." I agree with you, that the diner seeing what they are about to eat is an important part of the experience. But Chang seems to be saying that even that is not the point! The results (including diner experience, and the honesty of that experience) don't matter. It is purely about instilling and maintaining a culture. I don't really buy it, myself. Should they also forge all their knives from iron ore, the long slow way, before being allowed to use them in the kitchen? As other people commented, I think this is more about weaving a story and casting a glamour than anything else.
  - munificent 2y ago
brigadier132 2y ago
He says he doesn't care about the integrity but I think he's wrong and he's misidentified the lesson from this. Because you are absolutely right, doing things that are inefficient and stupid for the sake of it is absolutely dumb. > I worried about the mindset of the server whose job it would be to parade a stunt chicken around the dining room. I was terrified of our culture stagnating. This is where it makes sense. He does care about integrity. If you foster a culture of faking little things like this it can eventually grow into a culture of faking the big things that actually do matter.
yifanl 2y ago
> "That was what made it great. If they wanted to sandbag it, they needed to figure out how they would make up for the lost energy elsewhere." This seems to be the key quote. As a restaurant owner, as with any other type of team leader, his job is managing how the team's attention and energy is spent. Reading charitably, he doesn't want to formalize slack time into the system, because he thinks that slack will be eaten up by something else with the next process change, making the whole operation more brittle (also specifically in a restaurant setting, maximizing kitchen throughput is _not_ the same as maximizing efficient operation) I could of course be reading too much into this, but from my own experience, it's the same difference between a sensible ad hoc meeting culture and being forced to use "efficiency" tools that inevitably make meetings less productive.
plg 2y ago
It’s very simple actually. “The dish” is defined as a chicken you see before it is then taken away and carved. You see your chicken. That’s the promise. If they parade around with a display chicken then it is simply dishonest. Does it matter? That is a different question entirely. The point is there is a promise involved in “the dish”. If they want to use a parade chicken then they need a different promise.
fsckboy 2y ago
>The quality of the food isn't the point either quality is entirely the point, nowhere does he suggest quality is compromised; his staff's alternate idea was not reducing quality. he's making a different point.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Animats 2y ago
> The inefficiency is the point. Doing it the long, hard and stupid way is the point. Yes. This is what passes for "fine dining" today. Starbucks used to make a thing of this. The process of making drinks was deliberately made manual and complicated to give customers the impression they were getting their money's worth for overpriced coffee. That was part of the Starbucks mystique, when they had one.

by gizmo 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

Some things are better, but some are bad shortcuts that cost quality. A burger from a place that cooks it after you order will always be better than a burger where they start cooking before you walk in the door. Back when I worked fast food I sometimes made my own burgers, when it was fresh off the grill it was one of the best burgers I ever had, but that is a lot more individual labor and so not sustainable in a fast food model. Back then burgers were assembled before you walked in the door, but these days they have all backed off to assemble the burger after you order of ingredients cooked before - it is higher quality and they have managed to optimize assembly enough that it is now sustainable. Where the fast food industry wants to be is a robot that sees you push the button and starts cooking your burger then before you get to paying for it. Robots could do all that, but they are too expensive for the price they need to hit at least so far. (there are also some fraud issues they have to work out) They have to start cooking before you finish the order to meet their fast goals which is one of the reasons people go to fast food.

dooglius 2y ago

He explains the point in the lines you omitted: > I worried about the mindset of the server whose job it would be to parade a stunt chicken around the dining room. I was terrified of our culture stagnating. It doesn't read to me like he would have any problem with a process improvement as long as the real chicken were still used.

jjmarr 2y ago

> For example, one of my favorite Majordomo dishes is a whole boiled chicken. We present the bird to the table in a big pot, bring it back to the kitchen to carve it, and then return with a beautiful platter of rice topped with the sliced breasts and two different sauces spooned over the top. Once guests are finished with that, we bring out a soup made from the carcass. It’s so good. The point is that the diner gets to see the chicken they will eat and understand the process. The efficient way described in the blog is to instead use a stunt chicken which'll be paraded around the dining room instead of being cooked. That's not a process improvement when the entire point of the dish is to show the diners what they will eat before they eat it and flex the restaurant's ability to coordinate. Purposeful inefficiency is beautiful when it's about retro video game console programming or mechanical watches, because that's about spotlighting the process. Both of these are inefficient---modern computers are more powerful and quartz watch keep time better---but are fascinating because the difficulty of programming in assembly or an intricate series of tiny gears have inherent value to some people, far beyond the result of a video game or getting the current time. It's a complicated finely tuned process to get a chicken from your table to the kitchen and back again. The chef wants employees that value the process itself, which is a fair ask when the process is the product.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
turtledragonfly 2y ago
And yet, he says "... I didn’t care about fooling the diners." I agree with you, that the diner seeing what they are about to eat is an important part of the experience. But Chang seems to be saying that even that is not the point! The results (including diner experience, and the honesty of that experience) don't matter. It is purely about instilling and maintaining a culture. I don't really buy it, myself. Should they also forge all their knives from iron ore, the long slow way, before being allowed to use them in the kitchen? As other people commented, I think this is more about weaving a story and casting a glamour than anything else.
- munificent 2y ago

brigadier132 2y ago

He says he doesn't care about the integrity but I think he's wrong and he's misidentified the lesson from this. Because you are absolutely right, doing things that are inefficient and stupid for the sake of it is absolutely dumb. > I worried about the mindset of the server whose job it would be to parade a stunt chicken around the dining room. I was terrified of our culture stagnating. This is where it makes sense. He does care about integrity. If you foster a culture of faking little things like this it can eventually grow into a culture of faking the big things that actually do matter.

yifanl 2y ago

> "That was what made it great. If they wanted to sandbag it, they needed to figure out how they would make up for the lost energy elsewhere." This seems to be the key quote. As a restaurant owner, as with any other type of team leader, his job is managing how the team's attention and energy is spent. Reading charitably, he doesn't want to formalize slack time into the system, because he thinks that slack will be eaten up by something else with the next process change, making the whole operation more brittle (also specifically in a restaurant setting, maximizing kitchen throughput is _not_ the same as maximizing efficient operation) I could of course be reading too much into this, but from my own experience, it's the same difference between a sensible ad hoc meeting culture and being forced to use "efficiency" tools that inevitably make meetings less productive.

plg 2y ago

It’s very simple actually. “The dish” is defined as a chicken you see before it is then taken away and carved. You see your chicken. That’s the promise. If they parade around with a display chicken then it is simply dishonest. Does it matter? That is a different question entirely. The point is there is a promise involved in “the dish”. If they want to use a parade chicken then they need a different promise.

fsckboy 2y ago

>The quality of the food isn't the point either quality is entirely the point, nowhere does he suggest quality is compromised; his staff's alternate idea was not reducing quality. he's making a different point.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Animats 2y ago

> The inefficiency is the point. Doing it the long, hard and stupid way is the point. Yes. This is what passes for "fine dining" today. Starbucks used to make a thing of this. The process of making drinks was deliberately made manual and complicated to give customers the impression they were getting their money's worth for overpriced coffee. That was part of the Starbucks mystique, when they had one.