A restaurant odyssey (in the style of Ulysses by James Joyce)

Stately, plump, the giant steak came out from the back kitchen. The platter bore a bowl of Chimichurri sauce and was crossed lengthwise by a large steak knife.

— God, that looks good, said a man sitting at the bar.

The steak sat for a moment in front of the gentleman, steaming, gorgeous. There is no steak like an all-natural California sun-raised bone-in Ribeye.

— Introibo ad altare Dei, I thought to myself. *

And they said I’d never use Latin for anything after college.

The seated man prodded it gently and then ever so carefully, sliced into it, allowing the meat to release its juices.

— This isn’t cooked right, he said.

8:10 on a Friday night, the absolute busiest time of the busiest day of the week. I glanced briefly at the steak and then nodded sympathetically, wrinkling my brow as if deeply saddened.

“Refiring” is the process of re-cooking something returned from the dining room. And everyone knows that often the return journey is just as epic as the original. In a busy kitchen there is usually a hierarchy at work – it’s a crew – and everyone has their task. The person who cooks your steak might not be the person who puts it on the plate, or garnishes it, or wipes the plate clean or puts the side dishes on the plate. The more elaborate the presentation, the more hands in the pot – so to speak – and the more people you will have to deal with when getting something redone. Cooking is an art, and artists are notoriously temperamental when confronted about their art.

After assembling the food on the plate, the plate is transferred to the service window, where another crew takes over. An expeditor assembles the different food items and then gives it to a “runner” who then “runs” it to the table. Often the chef himself works as the expeditor, because (theoretically) he is there to make sure everything is exactly right. Kitchens often have at least two main stations, a hot side, and a cold side. If you order a steak (hot side) and substitute a mixed salad (cold side) for the fries (hot side) it is the expeditor’s responsibility to make sure the steak is hot and the salad is cold and that they come out together. Which may sound easy, but on Friday night at 8:15 you could easily have over a hundred different plates to deal with, all at the same time.

I picked up the plate and headed off through the outer service station. Through the back kitchen door, I went. Right before I got there, the new server asked if I could change the bar music.

— Now is not a good time, I said. We’re just going to have to listen to whatever this is, I added, lashed to my task, as it were.

I kicked open the door and surveyed the service station, to one side I saw a puddle by the broken drain and on the other side six servers buzzing around their station. I made a choice to avoid the drain and skirt the service station. I bowed my head, protected the plate with my arm, and made my way through.

— Hey! Excuse you! Watch it! Behind you! Careful! Jerk! said six different mouths.

I was now in the back kitchen. In most professional kitchens you may not directly speak with the cooks. In order to get something corrected you must speak to the expeditor. If said expeditor is the sleepy, red-eyed college kid who plays video games all night, it can be trouble. In his case “expeditor’ is merely a sarcastically ironic title.

Conversely, if it’s the cranky, strangely squinting chef, monocularly myopic in his task, you must proceed carefully with your request. In many a kitchen I’ve returned an incorrectly cooked steak only to be confronted by an angry someone wielding a spatula.

— You go out there and tell that jerk that they don’t know what medium rare is, someone always says.

— I sure will, I always reply. But in the meantime, can you just cook this a bit more?

As the flames on the meat-covered grill spit and flare, I approach the expeditor and explain the problem, taking care not to imply any fault on the part of any of the cooks. I don’t make eye contact with any of them, yet I am keenly aware of all their eyes on the steak and on me. A mistake has been made.

The expeditor looks at me, at the steak, and then at the cook working the flaming and overloaded grill. Slowly all the cook’s eyes moved to their companion. With great flourish he picks up the steak and tosses it on the only empty spot on the glowing red grill.

— They don’t know what they’re talking about, he says.

It’s now 8:20pm, 10 minutes might as well be 10 years, and I really needed to get back to the busy bar. I pass through that service station a second time, noticing that the servers this time are crowded around a plate.

— Do you want a bite of this extra pie? says that new server, bothering me again.

— I can’t. I really have to get back to the bar, I reply.

— Are you sure? she says holding up a forkful. It’s sweet as honey.

Tempting. But going back onto the service floor with a big mouthful of pie was unprofessional at best and grounds for termination at worst. Soon enough, I arrived back behind the bar and advised the steak-less man.

— It’ll just be a minute, I said.

8:30pm, and the man’s perfectly re-cooked steak arrives. I sigh with relief, and even the bachelor party coming in the front door can’t dim my optimism. My own little odyssey had been successful, and I was right back where I started off, sort of like a Homeric hero.

— Hey! This sole is overdone, said the woman with the half blind service dog, three barstools down.

Reminding me that, sometimes in the restaurant business you are the hero Odysseus, and sometimes, you are his men.

* “Before the altar of God,” in Latin, and a direct quote from Ulysses)