Wandering down a supermarket aisle and contemplating an enormous selection of air fresheners the other day, I was struck by the sheer volume of selection available to me, the consumer. How is it possible to make the best choice…

Weighing up the intricate details regarding quality, making mathematical calculations on quantity, not to mention such ethical considerations as buying local, or buying Australian?

Feeling like I needed to arm myself with a stack of Choice magazines and spend hours online reading millions of reviews in order to make a truly informed decision, I started to think about how inundated our retail market is with all manner of products – and how these products differ markedly in terms of quality and of course, price. And then, of course, how confusing and exhausting the process of sifting through such a huge selection of choice is for the consumer. If I have to spend 5 whole minutes contemplating the world of air fresheners, there’s got to be something amiss …

Well, firstly, that big and strong Aussie dollar has some explaining to do when it comes to answering my questions. Of course, our large Pacific island is nice, fair game for those cheap as chips Asian imports. Now, more than ever before – our local products are no match for that cheap and cheerful stuff. There’s massive factories out there somewhere, churning out billions of goods, using dirt cheap labour, hammering out not just worthless rubbish, but indeed passable imitations of local product – at a fraction of the price of the Aussie equivalent. It’s a worrying trend – and one that we simply seem not able to compete with. Regardless of our ‘Buy Australian’ conscience, the bottom line is that we cannot resist a bargain, and the ‘Made in China’ sticker is something we only notice after purchase, so dazzled are we by the saving of dollars and the clever packaging which so mimics the local prototype.

And it doesn’t stop at the supermarket either. This trend travels all the way up the market to white goods and to luxury purchases. When the imitation looks as good as the real thing at first sight, why stay onshore when you can go offshore at a fraction of the price? Indeed, even in the restaurant game, Chinese Truffles are the new deal and much cheaper than their French, Italian or Australian counterparts.

But, at the end of the day, can the quality of something made in a massive factory, by unskilled labour in a far flung province in a different country rival what is made with tender loving care by a proud local business?  Well, apparently those Chinese truffles play their part, not one that I like to take part in, however they certainly do …

Australia is an expensive place these days. Our strong dollar certainly isn’t helping matters, but our geographical isolation, sparse population and our relatively high standard of living leads to pretty much everything costing more than it does elsewhere. The cost of labour is sky-high here, as are all the overheads involved in running a business – rent, utilities, insurance – you name it, and all of this is undoubtedly factored in to every good and every service. Ironically, even if you buy that cheap TV, which will of course need repairing just after the warranty expires – you will most likely keel over in shock at the local repairman’s quote. And of course you will perpetuate the vicious cycle of choosing the cheap by leaving the bargain TV out for Council pick up and then simply buying another. It’s scarily more cost effective to buy another ‘bargain’, than to employ local resources and fix the one you have …

We may still be the ‘lucky country’ but we are most certainly not the ‘cheap country’…But the silver lining is, we often get what we pay for when we buy Australian. Most of what’s local lasts longer, tastes better and best of all, makes us feel better when we choose it over that sneaky import.

As the days get longer and warmer, we folk in the hospitality game get ourselves ready for the party season.

The onset of daylight savings triggers a shift in the collective consciousness, an insatiable urge to break free of the winter time hibernation pattern, to seek our neglected friends and colleagues who were previously blown off in favour of cosy nights at home with the heater and MasterChef on.

This is a time of the year that those in our industry approach with equal measures of excitement, relief and trepidation.

Of course we feel immensely grateful that we have once again survived through the leanest months of winter and come blazing out into the far more optimistic rays of springtime, where once again our illustrious patrons are inclined to untie their purse-strings and spend, spend, spend!

The dark days are over, and especially so in our exceedingly seasonal, regional area – we look forward to hopefully months of healthy trade.

Indeed, it’s a few months of not being so nervous about the figures. And also, it’s a few months of being so incredibly flat out that if we wanted to, we virtually have no time for such contemplation.

Hence, the trepidation mentioned earlier. Much as we love the hordes that grace us with their custom, we do ever-so-slightly dread the pressure, fatigue and stress associated with the approach of the silly season.

Situations involving over-indulgence of alcohol, food and high spirits are often fraught with emotion and margin for error. Things can and do go wrong … there’s always some broken glass, an embarrassing incident or two involving a colleague, a family disagreement here or there … or just downright organisational disasters, unbelievable dietary requirements and even more unbelievable tantrums. You name it, we’ve seen it all.

Every year, the heat, the booze, the excitement of good times ahead leads to the same sort of human drama and mishap.

And just in case you think we’re blaming all the hazards of the hectic times on the punters, think again. Naturally, good old Murphy’s law would have it that everything can and does go horribly wrong on our end too. Broken ice machines and / or fridges on a 35°C day? You got it. Multiple staff calling in sick on New Year’s Eve – you betcha! Not a prawn to be purchased the entire month of December? It’s entirely possible.

In the restaurant game, in our neck of the woods it’s a feast or famine. For most of the year we kind of cruise along, although admittedly during the slow, winter months it’s much more difficult to predict when and if we’ll be busy. At least during the summer time rush we are always running at full tilt, and it can be easier to keep the momentum going at the same pace, rather than stopping and starting during the patchy times.

But for the most part, we have learnt to approach the busy season with stoic determination and of course, a slightly perverse sense of humour helps us pull through the heat, stress and fatigue with a smile on our faces. A cold beer at the end of the working day always helps, as do happy customers and hopefully, a happier bank balance at the end of it all.

There is no such thing as a formula for success. All we can do is to strive to get things right by putting in as much effort as we can, choosing the right people to help us – and not spend way too much money in the process.

Beyond this, what works and what doesn’t is usually trial and error. Human beings are fickle creatures, and what you think may please them, may very well not – and vice versa.

Sometimes we are shocked by what hits the right note and other times, just when we think we’ve nailed it, we find that our seemingly bright idea turned out to be a dismal flop …

The above words are exceedingly accurate when it comes to restaurant menus. A chef is always striving to create dishes that dazzle. And even more importantly – dishes that fly out the door, and don’t cost an arm and a leg to make.

A menu is a constantly evolving entity – a work in progress. A great menu is one that is happy to embrace change, but also honours tradition.

It would certainly seem that it might be almost blasphemous to do away with certain dishes. The phenomenon of the ‘signature dish’ has come to mean that a restaurant is often known by its winning menu items, more than anything else. To be seated in such a place, breathlessly waiting for the very meal that you have been fantasising about all day, only to be informed that it has sold out, results in much angst.

Often, regular customers keep returning solely for their favourite foodstuff. It is certainly not unusual to realise that the disappearance of certain patrons can be accurately linked to the removal of their favourite meal from the menu.

Indeed, customers can often become much more loyal to a certain coveted meal, than they are, in fact, to the actual restaurant itself. Remove the item, and you effectively remove the customer.

It is often an agonising process, the evolution of a menu. What to cull … what to keep. Which new creation cuts the mustard. Some of the decision is based on external factors such as the seasonal availability of certain ingredients, cost rises or supplier issues. But the majority of the process rests on attaining balance, variation and most importantly YUM and WOW factor.

You won’t equally please those customers who like things to stay the same … and those who like a change.

Me personally, I like balance. Old favourites are just that – favourites! But there is such a fine line between removing those magical, awe-inspiring drawcard dishes and inciting mayhem within your business …

At the end of the day, you simply just don’t want to cause a mass exodus of loyal regulars by taking away their heart’s desire.

So, the question is, how do you keep a menu looking fresh and enticing, while retaining the big sellers and pleasing the masses?

The answer is – well, I wish it was that simple. Unfortunately, there is no formula for menu perfection. Human beings are fickle creatures at the best of times, and the age old maxim that you can’t please everyone applies here.

But for those humans who stick to their routines and habits, sticking closely to the familiar and being slightly horrified at the idea of change – I say to you, don’t get rattled by the disappearance of your favourite dish. Chances are if you absolutely, passionately loved something that was made for you once, you may very well enjoy something else as much – if not more.

Life is an adventure …

Waiting in any sort of queue – well in my opinion, life is just too short for too much of that. And mostly the objective of the wait rarely justifies the minutes ticked away in the process.

Waiting for any type of appointment is terribly dull, but also one of life’s little banal necessities. We all need to see the dentist, the accountant or the chiropractor every now and again. Sitting in waiting rooms, staring mindlessly at daytime TV on a tiny screen, or flicking mindlessly through ancient magazines is a place we’ve all spent a reasonable portion of our lives.

Indeed, waiting is part of the human condition. It is hard wired into our psyche. Although in this age of iTunes, internet banking and Google, we have achieved a sort of instant gratification in some areas; bizarrely and conversely, we still grudgingly spend so much of our time waiting.

Funnily enough though, there are certain ‘waits’ that really make our blood boil. In such circumstances we don’t kick into our human default setting of resigned, slightly irritated acceptance. Rather, we get quite cranky – sometimes ‘enraged’ would be a more appropriate term.

The first example of this phenomenon would be having been placed on hold on the telephone. The more irritating the hold music, the quicker the rage starts to take hold. And being on hold with financial institutions or telephone companies seems to exacerbate any negative emotions here.

And then of course (you knew I would get to this didn’t you?) there’s waiting in restaurants.

Almost no other wait, apart from the sort where a life changing outcome is involved, seem to produce the stomach churning anxiety that comes with waiting for food in a restaurant.

Eyes are trained to the area where food seems to come from – “Is that ours?” Conversation is stilted, toes tap, fingers drum, other diners in the vicinity who have food in front of them are enviously regarded.

Anticipation turns to anxiety, turns to annoyance, turns to anger …

We’ve all been there. Dining out is meant to be fun, relaxing, carefree. It’s not meant to invoke rage.

In defence of the restaurant, and too, if not reassure, then to perhaps give you a simple ‘why’ there can be several reasons for a wait – some avoidable, some not.

The first and least reassuring is human error. A waiter has mucked up your order, not put it in, or lost it. It happens. Or, an error has occurred in the kitchen – one dish was forgotten, called incorrectly, or was not acceptable. We’ve all seen Masterchef et al, you know what can go wrong in a kitchen.

More likely, is that the volume of orders being received by the kitchen was too high. Put simply, a bottleneck occurs, and your table may have been on the wrong end of it.

Unfortunately, this does happen relatively easily. Especially when there are tardy arrivals, large groups and when guests simultaneously arrive at a restaurant without any consideration to their ‘actual’ booking time.

Restaurants, like any other business, work best with a steady flow. Too little, and there’s no momentum. Too much, and malfunctions kick in. There is only so much that can be processed in such a tight timeline, and waiting then becomes inevitable.

The best that one can do is to manage a customer’s expectations, to let you know that there will be a wait, and let you decide if you are willing to endure it. With large groups, we can offer a smaller selection of dishes in order to simplify things in the kitchen. Or we can split a group into two separate tables.

But at the end of the day we are only human and we hope that the experience you waited for with us was worth it, or at least somewhat more enjoyable than that trip to the dentist!

Communication was limited to exchanges on street corners, snail mail and town criers. Later on came telephone, radio and then TV, transmitting vital and not so vital information across the globe quickly and easily.

For the most part though, the lines of communication were not a 24 hour a day stream. Even the TV went off the air around midnight.

When you had something to say, there was more time to say it. And forms of correspondence came from a more considered place, where you thought about what you were going to say before you said it. Indeed, all the steps involved in writing a letter were conducive to thoughtful contemplation, rather than rash spontaneity – the tactile medium of paper, the pen – especially the kind that had to be dipped in ink, the attention to correct spelling and grammar pre email era, the envelope, the stamp, the addressing, the trip to the post office …

An envelope slipped into a post box could take anywhere between days and months to reach its destination. Letter writing was a serious business, where true love was declared in slow motion, financial matters established from one post office to another. Life changing news was waited for anxiously, every day’s journey to check the mail a minefield of emotion.

Those were the days.

Now with the click of a button, all the information we could possibly require is at our fingertips. I don’t need to extol the virtues of news online, Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook here. Friends update their status, hearts are broken and financial transactions are conducted via text message – imagine that 10 years ago …

News travels at warp speed to all our devices – some of it vital, some of it not.

The sharing of information has become so easy that everyone can do it. Got something to say to the world? Start a blog. Got something to sell? Get a webpage with online merchant facilities. Peeved by something and want to protest? Create a group on Facebook, and no doubt you’ll find yourself surrounded by like-minded individuals. Had a not so fun night out at a restaurant or stayed in a hotel room you weren’t too keen on? Write a review on Eatability or Trip Advisor and find an instant outlet for your frustration.

I might add to the above paragraph by saying you can also use such tools as Eatability and Trip Advisor to say how much you enjoyed a restaurant or accommodation!

But for owners and operators, the open slather element of such online review systems can be somewhat unnerving.

Back in the snail mail days, if you were unhappy with an experience, you dealt with it there and then or you wrote a letter to the manager. Now, however, you can broadcast your complaint to the world using your smart phone while still seated in the offending establishment.

To set the record straight, I am by no means against online reviewing sites such as these. They are a valuable research tool when it comes to making an informed choice; however, I am still amazed that we haven’t seen the proliferation of reviewing when it comes to things like professional and medical services – the stuff that really matters!

But they certainly do have the capacity to be abused by the vindictive, or on the other hand, falsely beefed up by cohorts of the establishment in question. By no means should their verdicts and scores be taken as a gospel truth – rather, they should just be seen as a snapshot of a place, a vague impressionistic painting perhaps. Definitely not the be-all and end-all.

We are bombarded with so much information in today’s world that we need to sift through the relevant and the irrelevant with a fine tooth comb. We need to remember that although everyone is entitled to put in their two cents’ worth, individual interpretations of experience are completely subjective. It’s easy to get swept away by strong opinions, whether they are negative or positive.

Sometimes we just need to put away the PC, take a deep breath, think about what it would be like to compose a thoughtful, well written letter and just trust our instincts.

Flourishes of unbridled artistic expression appear on a white porcelain canvas. In the kitchen, culinary Picassos delicately pick baby leaves, julienne symmetrical slivers, choose from a variety of fine brushes in order to place on a plate – a single delicate smear in feng-shui fashion.

The ‘plating up’ of a dish is equally as important as the ingredients and preparation of the food itself. In a modern kitchen, the chef is able to express creative and aesthetic impulses previously limited to the domain of those in the visual arts fields.

Restaurant food is no longer just about culinary skill; it’s about making plates look extremely pretty. And there’s no limit to methods employed in order to achieve that ‘wow’ factor.

This column has touched on the whole Molecular Gastronomy thing in the past – the deconstruction and re-assembling of foodstuffs using somewhat experimental and scientific methods to do so – such as liquid nitrogen to snap freeze, or thermal immersion to intensively slow cook.

Food preparation fashion has left the temples of cutting edge cuisine such as El Bulli in Spain or Noma in Denmark and found itself at a restaurant near you.

Trendy food phenomena such as foams, smears and soils, as well as blackened things, spherifications, emulsions and dehydrations, have found their way into the mainstream, buoyed up by our current obsession with cooking shows such as Masterchef, or Heston Blumenthal’s Mission Impossible.

Techniques, ‘til only recently the domain of multi-hatted or Michelin starred chefs, are scrutinised by the general public on TV and are now served up in many neighbourhood dining establishments.

The artistic impulses of the chef are enhanced by the employ of these techniques. The ‘palette’ available for ‘plating up’ is considerably broadened with colours, textures – all manner of weird and wonderful approximations of what once were ordinary ingredients.

The expectations for the chef and the diner alike are heightened. All the five senses are employed, primed for enjoyment. Sight of the masterpiece awaiting, smell and taste, of course, go without saying, touch – it’s ‘mouthfeel’, perhaps the slippery sensation of an oyster, or the salty explosion of ‘caviar’.  Sound? Well, that would be the buzz of rapturous dining surrounding you.

It’s an extremely theatrical environment, hugely transcended from the idea of food as fuel. It seems as if extravagance knows no bounds in today’s restaurant world, that chefs and restaurateurs are going to increasingly amazing lengths to wow their customers – with technical wizardry; indeed, the kitchen can be seen to be closer to a laboratory, or for that matter, an art gallery … the diner daring, only under the influence of extreme hunger, to cut into the masterpiece at hand and actually take a bite.

What does it all mean? Or, moreover, does all this intensive preparation and extravagant spectacle translate to a darn good feed?

Sometimes, like many ridiculously stylish and good looking things … dare I say they lack substance?

The culinary geniuses of the world who pioneered all the techniques mentioned above have spent years perfecting their arts. They run the world’s best restaurants and employ a massive entourage of human and scientific resources.

Does the modern chef and restaurant owner have such a playground to play in? I think not. The pressures attached to running a restaurant have an intellectual ‘gastronomisty’ of sorts. It’s hard enough dealing with multiple personalities – try finding decent suppliers and ingredients at the right price, having enough money to pay the staff, keeping those bums on seats and most importantly, plating a meal with precision and care … PHEW, I am exhausted!

Certainly, amazing new culinary innovations, ideas and excellent dishes which not only look incredible but taste incredible come from small kitchens and not-so-famous chefs from a restaurant near you. And when they do, we should celebrate their talent and give them as much support as we can.

But sometimes there might a bit of experimentation at play, lacking essential knowledge and experience. So, is the customer happy to be experimented on?

Somehow, I think not. At the end of the day, we just want a darn good feed. If it looks pretty, that’s great! But if it tastes great … well, that’s what keeps us coming back.

In any business – big or small, the most important assets are human.

Maybe that’s why there’s a dedicated branch of corporate structure entitled ‘human resources’. Effectively, that is what people are, and they deserve management strategies worthy of every other aspect of a business.

We humans feel comforted by talking to other humans. A pleasant social interaction brightens up what would have otherwise been a tedious or stressful day. To deal with a person who is warm, engaging, caring and intelligent in any setting is a bonus. To deal with such a person in a professional environment is a revelation.

Exchanges between consumers and the purveyors of customer service can wind up being a proverbial roll of the dice. When you dial up the contact number of any organisation, you inevitably take a deep breath or two as you punch in the ‘dial 5 to speak to a customer service representative’ number.

If you’re not so lucky, you might wind up with a bored, gum chewing, jaded so and so who is most likely checking out Facebook or playing solitaire while pretending to be interested in what you have to say. The conversation will probably end with you being put on hold and being transferred to, yes – another department.

However, if lady luck does happen to be on your side for once – you might actually get to talk to someone who actually – gasp! – cares about their job, and as a consequence of that – cares about you! When this happens, it can pretty much restore your faith in humanity.

Some problems that one encounters in the workplace are complex and stressful. They require energy, creativity and ingenuity to solve. Sometimes, getting to the root of such a problem involves countless wasted hours on the consumer’s part, trying to get through to someone who understands /cares / can be bothered.

Frustration and stress bring us to boiling point sometimes on our quest to sort these glitches in life out. It is a sad but true fact that on many an occasion, we can only get results when we get mad, or when we use threats.

How amazing is it when we don’t have to resort to fury or legal action to get a wrong righted. And how safely cocooned in life’s warmest blanket are we when we know that we have someone on our side who genuinely wants to help us!

When you don’t have to keep calling the same customer service number again and again, playing Russian roulette with the numerous, faceless and largely unhelpful people. When you can call back and speak to the SAME person that you spoke to last time. And that person is on the case.

It’s sad that this kind of situation is the exception, rather than the rule. It just shows us that good people are like gold. One good person has the power to cancel out countless bad ones – all it takes is one pleasant and helpful interaction that yields results to restore the faith that was about to be lost in an entire organisation.

At the end of the day, if you’re lucky enough to have a job, it doesn’t hurt to attempt to be reasonably good at it. After all, as well as the people that you deal with on a day-to-day basis being happy, you yourself will also be happy – full of the wonderful satisfaction a job well done brings and positively emanating a huge fuzzy warm glow, knowing that you’ve helped someone else and made their day a little bit, or a lot better.

Call it a pre-emptive strike, call it savvy economics based on the predictions of the Bureau of Meteorology, call it really bloody unsubtle, call it daylight robbery. It is what it is. And whether you like it or not, demand and supply is king.
Supermarkets have no problem with passing the buck (or lack thereof) onto the consumer. And, as demonstrated with Cyclone Yasi – even weeks before the effects of natural disasters are felt, they are able to protect their bottom lines with premeditated price rises.
Naturally this caused outrage within the community. As consumers, we exercised the power of choice and boycotted the gargantuan culprits, turning in favour towards our small, local independent grocers, who actually have a conscience and do not have the lion’s share of consumers (and suppliers) wrapped around their little fingers – therefore being able to use, and subsequently abuse, their power.
It’s just way the cookie crumbles. Big companies pull the strings and call the shots. Smaller, independent operators resist shonky tactics, but eventually the simple rules of demand and supply do prevail – and what there is a shortage of rises in price.
And there’s much more where that came from too, what with more than 75% of Queensland having been declared a disaster zone over this most tempestuous summer. It’s the ‘fruit bowl’ of Australia, not to mention amongst the largest producers in the world of that integral ingredient known as ‘sugar’.
Well, it’s all very well that supermarkets can pass the sting onto you. There’s the smallest comfort in being able to put a reason to it (i.e. category 5 cyclone). It’s right there in your face though, and although annoying – at least you can rationalise it.
Unfortunately however, the same opportunity to directly pass on price increases to the consumer does not exist in every industry.
Supply shortages (the kind that make supermarkets hike their prices) affect the food industry on every level. This particularly applies to your local restaurants. Wholesale prices rise in a similar fashion to retail prices. The prices of essential and basic ingredients can, and do, escalate sharply – sometimes without warning. Natural disasters, shipping issues, CPI increments and various other things all add up to steep and painful increases.
Food costs rise sharply as a result, leaving narrower profit margins. What is the solution, you may ask? Hike up prices in a supermarket fashion? It’s not that simple …
People may grumble about paying more for bananas, but at the end of the day they buy them. But many of us take enormous offence at escalated menu prices. And for that matter, the same offence to that other cost-cutting restaurant solution – smaller portion sizes. Or in the same family – perhaps using frozen instead of fresh, substituting an inferior cut of meat …
So much offence is taken, that a refusal to dine in such a restaurant is not an infrequent occurrence.
But at the end of the day, a business operator who wishes to stay afloat amidst ever increasing prices, yet still retain their quality, integrity and reputation – has no choice except to do the same as everyone else. That is, pass the cost on to the customer.
Perhaps it’s because a restaurant is one step further away on the food chain, that prepared food on a plate is a world away from the banana trays at Coles, which is the reason that many do not see the connection. Or, that many folks have a natural suspicion of prices on menus, and their connection with the value they perceive is already dubious.
On the other hand, smart operators can do a lot to keep food costs down – keeping to seasonal ingredients, using every part of a cut of meat for example. But unfortunately there’s some cost escalations which just can’t be worn and have to be passed on in order to deliver the same quality and just to keep the doors open. Sadly, this means you will keep paying more in the supermarket and more in your favourite restaurant.
On the bright side, however … we restaurateurs don’t have enough time on our hands to scour the Bureau of Meteorology’s website and reprint our menus when we see a tropical low heading our way!

They’re snap-happy, swaddled in fleece and Gore-Tex and usually standing aimlessly in the middle of pedestrian thoroughfares. Ginormous maps protrude from their hands, bum-bags pad their midsections, guidebooks add bulk, and backpacks bring up the rear. Their eyes never focus at what lies in their path, but can be found darting towards the spires of distant churches, the elaborate window displays in shops adjacent, or just generally everywhere else apart from their immediate spatial vicinity.

They are immediately identifiable, their uniform is universal, their objective clear as day to everyone around them. And what would that be, you may ask? To tick off ‘must-sees’ in their guidebooks, to rather compulsively take copious amounts of photos of absolutely anything they come across … paper bag blowing in the breeze? – “Quick get a shot of that, love! Take a few in case it doesn’t come out.” Thank heavens for the digital camera – especially so for that handy ‘delete’ button.

Their true aim, however, is to arrive somewhere exotic or historic, stay there for a short amount of time, an hour or two, or perhaps a day or two, see those ‘must sees’. And most importantly, to be able to say –”I’VE BEEN THERE!”

Locals have a kind of love / hate thing going on with tourists. The bottom line is that they’re spectacularly good for the economy. In fact, so good that there are many global destinations in which tourism is by far the largest source of revenue. That’s not to say, however, that tourists are treated with anything like the reverence they deserve, for their life-preserving cash injections.

Indeed, quite the opposite is usually true. Travel to any major tourist destination, especially in Europe, and you will often encounter disinterested, jaded and half-hearted service. That’s if you are lucky. If you’re unlucky, you will get rudeness, unpleasantness, and even blatant dishonesty. Hence the old ‘tourist rip-off’ in the ‘tourist trap’.

And then there’s the food. If you’re in Europe, stay away from the joints close to the major attractions. Unless you have a penchant for badly prepared, carelessly served slop which most of the time, puts the culture it’s supposed to be representing to utter shame.

It’s extremely sad, actually. Why don’t the locals care?

I have a few theories … First, the more beautiful and popular a place, the worse the attitude of its inhabitants. For example, if you’ve got a stunning, untouched walled medieval city, then who needs any other charms? People will come to see it even if you’re a sour faced, money-grubbing so-and-so. Similar to the all brawn and no brains theory – if you look pretty, it doesn’t matter if there’s not much inside.

Second, locals get kind of tired of crowds of randoms gawking, and zoom-lensing – blocking up the middle of the footpath when they’re trying to go about their daily chores. They get tired of everyone assuming they speak English. And they mostly get tired of their hometown being hijacked by interlopers, day in and day out, all year around.

Even though they know that tourism is really great for the economy and such, it still is a pain having loads of clueless strangers who don’t speak their language or understand their culture in their space every day, when really – they’re just trying to go about their business. This is fair enough – but it calls for compromise.

A show of patience from locals towards visitors, as well as an awareness and respect from tourists for the fact that the place they are visiting is a functioning entity in which people try to go about their daily lives in peace, and that such a destination does not exist solely for the pleasure of those who visit it.

Sure, tourists in their most clichéd, overblown sense can be figures to poke fun at. But on the other hand, they’re just people trying to see the world. And let’s face it – it can be pretty tough negotiating a path through a place you’ve never been to before.

Booking flights and accommodation is a minefield in itself. Then there’s language barriers, map deciphering, exchange rates and jetlag. All that effort to get somewhere so warrants a bit of gawking and snap-happiness, don’t you think?

The full-time inhabitants of these incredible spots could really show a little more pride in their live-in postcard vistas. As I’ve always said, a little pizzazz in the service department goes a long way. Even a smile is a great start!

And to genuinely help someone out, to make their day better – well it just makes you feel better too, doesn’t it?

That is, of course, until you’re racing across the square to get to the bank before it closes and a Gore-Texed one apprehends you with, “Which way to the leaning tower?”

The next thing you know, the restaurant manager (or someone relatively high up in the employee hierarchy) might arrive at your table in a rather ceremonious fashion, flanked by several burly, surly men in black – sporting thinly disguised gun holsters … the manager greets you with a respectful nod, a spark of excitement passes between you – you both savour the knowledge that something wonderful is about to occur.

Gingerly, the manager unveils the object of both of your desires. It is a small black lump, of a size somewhere between a squash ball and an emu egg. It actually looks remarkably like a ball of soil from an average backyard – but is it?

As the unidentified lump hits the surrounding air, an amazing aroma wafts into your nostrils, intoxicating you, your companions, and the person serving you. The more often you smell this aroma, the more exciting it is.

Just as a fine wine is almost more about the nose as well as the palate, this small black (or white) lump emits what is described as a ‘perfume’. It’s complex, evocative and powerful.

The manager produces a handsome metal grater and like a violinist poised to strike bow to string at the start of a delicate movement, they proceed to slowly, almost sensuously grate fine shavings onto your plate.

You watch, enraptured. The aroma envelops you and your table and almost fills the entire restaurant. This sumptuous performance takes barely a minute, but as the manager shaves the final delectable sliver, you are aware that your night has instantly become magical, memorable, transformed into the stratosphere of dining delight. What are these lumps you may ask?

They don’t sound like much, but from what you’ve just described they appear to have almost mystical powers?! These fantastical fungi are called TRUFFLES. And the theatrical reverence applied to their consumption described above is totally accurate (well, maybe apart from the armed security guards, perhaps).

Truffles aren’t chocolates; they’re mushrooms – fungi (Tuber Melanosporum in fact, if you want to get technical). Unlike other mushrooms, truffles grow entirely underground. There are two types – black and white, white truffles only being found in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy and a few in Croatia, while Black are found in several European countries, as well as, recently, small amounts in Australia.

Black truffles grow exclusively around oak trees. A complex interaction exists between the truffle and the root system of the host plant. Truffles are an ancient entity and are an essential part of the ecosystems they live in.

The pungent aroma of truffles attracted a multitude of animal species way before humans cottoned on to the deal. The truffles perpetuate their existence through appealing by scent to a truffle eating animal, who then digests the truffle and then releases spores (yes, out the other end). Possessing an irresistibly attractive scent, when you live underground and need to in effect be ‘pollinated’ by those who seek you out, is a necessity for survival. The aroma needs to be powerfully seductive and worth the effort for the animal in question. And boy are truffles worth the effort – we all agree.

In fact, truffles contain Androstenol – a sex hormone found in male pigs and also human sweat glands. So there you go. Maybe the connection between food and sex is closer than we think …

It all certainly goes part of the way in explaining the value of truffles – well part of the way. Truffles are, as you imagine by the fact that they grow underground, extremely difficult to harvest. Humans need to employ animals with far more sensitive noses than their own to identify their whereabouts.

Pigs and dogs are the animals of choice, with truffle producers of late leaning more towards dogs, as they are more likely to accept other foodstuffs as a reward – it would be of course, counter-productive if the treasured fruits of labour were consumed by the employee.

Especially when you look at the fact that black truffles in Australia go at over $2,000 a kilo, are only available for 3 months and in extremely limited supply over that time.

So there you have it. Are truffles the ‘food of the gods’, a transcendental culinary experience, something to try at least once in your life …or are they little black lumps of stuff that kind of smell interesting – but really, seriously – can what’s really just basically an incredibly pricey flavour enhancer actually be all that it’s cut out to be?

There’s no way I can answer this question for you. The only way is to try them yourself – so I would say, yes, do give them a go at least once in your life. Truffle season in Australia is between May and September, and yes we did have some at the Mullet.

Stay tuned for next year’s season …

Everyone knows someone who can talk the leg off a chair. Maybe it’s in the form of an ability to match a story or anecdote to any situation in life; maybe it’s just an uncanny ability to sustain a conversation.

There are those who possess this ‘gift’ and sometimes, perhaps, we wish that they didn’t … when the clock is ticking and we’re running late for work, maybe. Or, if it’s the same old story we may possibly have heard several times before …

There are those of the ilk mentioned above, and then there are those in a whole different league … they are a far rarer breed, but you know them when you see them. There’s just something about them that you can’t put your finger on – something which in the realm of reality TV, you would refer to as an ‘X factor’.

In fact, for the purposes of this article, I am going to refer to them as ‘X’.

Captivating, beguiling, persuasive, seductive (and no I’m not referring here to someone who holds purely physical charms, they can be either sex, and their allure is equally commanding over both genders).

There’s something about these people that will make you do anything they want. They seem to have an uncanny ability to pierce through all the layers and arrive right at your soul, where they somehow appeal directly to your finest of human sensibilities …

These are powerful people. Somehow they have found a way to get what they want, to make the rest of humanity happily acquiesce to their will. Occasionally they are not aware of the power they possess, although usually they are.

Many are naturally, genetically blessed with such gifts – such charisma is a genuine manifestation of human warmth and can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t. It cannot be faked – it is an intrinsic understanding of other human beings, combined with a real interest in people.

Those around such people feel an instant connection with them and trust them implicitly. Hence the desire to do anything to please them …

Coming across such captivating examples of humanity in the course of our daily lives is usually a wonderful thing. They’re the sort of people we gush to our family, and friends about, “Oh, I met this great bloke/really nice lady/lovely young girl today; we had a fantastic chat etc etc”.

It can cheer us up infinitely to really connect with a random stranger in this way, giving us a sort of renewed faith in humanity.

People with this special gift for endearing others to them can be found in all walks of life. Usually they are very successful at whatever it is they do, as their positive outlook, warmth and subsequent natural persuasiveness invite all kinds of promotion and opportunity within their given vocation.

They are always an asset to their organisation, but there is one area of danger that exists for the unsuspecting customer in a SALES environment when they come across such a rare type …

They can sell oil to an Arab, bread to a baker, beer to a brewery …

An ‘X’ in a sales role will convince you to buy anything and everything they have on offer. Before you know it, your credit card will be swiped for an exorbitant amount and you will be the proud owner of … stuff.

Stuff you might have wanted, stuff you might not have wanted. Stuff you had never really imagined in your wildest dreams, stuff you swore blind you would never buy, stuff you would actually refuse if it was given to you for free.

Such is the danger of Type X in a restaurant, the ‘X’ waiter and the ‘X’ sommelier. An encounter with this ‘X’ will imbue you with such a warm, fuzzy glow that you won’t know which way is up and which way down.

You will see the world through such rose-colored glasses, and the carnivorous inner being may prevail (regardless of the fact that you are vegetarian) or suddenly you have acquired an interest in very exclusive Bordeaux wines because you have recently acquired appreciation for fine wine.

By all means have a lovely chat in the queue at Coles with an X, or at the bus stop, or crowded pub. But run for your life if you encounter one in their chosen field if it means handing over cash!

This alone can give you a pretty good indication for the fundamental reason that over 70% of start-up restaurant businesses fail! These are cold, hard stats and pretty depressing if your dream has always been to open up a little café, pizza place, or Belgian beer hall.

The problem with the café and restaurant business is that not only do you have to worry about fixed costs such as rent, utilities, labour and costly equipment, but also you have to deal with fresh produce and turning that fresh produce into something that makes money. Dealing with raw foodstuffs is obviously volatile. You are swimming in a sea of uncertainty – massive fluctuations in supply, sudden price hikes of basic foodstuffs (eggs, milk, flour etc), questionable quality … Not to mention wastage (this encompasses a few dimensions) – parts of a cut of meat that you can’t use, but is still factored into the wholesale price. Or on the other hand – perfectly good bits thrown away, lazily under-utilised by the inattentive apprentice preparing them. And then there’s spoilage – over ordering (whether through oversight, or through unforseen quiet periods) means literally throwing money away. The list goes on ad infinitum – incorrect storage, refrigeration not at correct temperature, power outages.

Depressingly enough, that’s just before the food actually gets cooked. There’s another multitude of things that can go wrong here too! Dropping, burning, incorrectly cut … And that’s before the food goes out to the table, because once it gets there, it can always be sent back – asked for no sauce, food is drowning in sauce, asked for medium rare, it’s well done. Asked for steak, got salmon instead. It’s an absolute minefield!

This is why a successful restaurant needs to be run with military precision. There is no room for mistakes of any kind to eat into already precarious profit margins. Kitchens need to be managed with an iron fist (move over Gordon), with chefs possessing commercial skills as well as impressive knife skills. Food costs need to be calculated with absolute accuracy before any particular dish appears on a menu – and that means EVERY ingredient weighed, factored in and exactly portioned every time. 30 grams of butter, 5 grams of chopped continental parsley – it’s all part of it, and every little bit adds up.

So it’s no wonder that many start-up restaurants fail, and often they fail amazingly quickly, too. Amidst the cutthroat competitiveness inherent in major cities, it almost appears that restaurants barely open their doors (clothed in lavish opening parties and media fanfare) – momentarily basking in the sunshine, before the grim reality of day to day trade sets in and the shutters are pulled across one final time.

Extravagant fitouts replete with Italian furniture and custom-designed lighting, celebrity executive chefs romanced and brown-nosed to stamp their crowd-pleasing names on a venture, seemingly vanish overnight over a pile of unpaid invoices and livid suppliers.

To begin any type of restaurant venture requires a major leap of faith, but the grander the dream, the further the plunge to the bottom is – creating an impact of enormity in failure. Even operators with many years of experience under their belt and a string of successes on their resumé can fail spectacularly. The difference between these and the first-timers is that they are more likely to get back on their horse and try again.

With this kind of capacity for lack of success, it seems quite clear that anyone who boldly immerses themselves in this industry has got rocks in their head (and in other places too!) Well I’m the first to admit it – restaurant owners have more than a touch of nuttiness about them. After all, placing your resources in a basket gives you less than a 20% chance of success, while placing you in a position of intense public scrutiny … Hmm, maybe it’s worth hitting the pokies after all.

The first distinct human condition is the dislike of change. This applies to anyone who has ever coined the phrase, “When you’re onto a good thing, stick to it”.

Always drive the same way home? Buy the same brand of laundry detergent? Travel to the same holiday destination year after year?

If you answer “Yes” to any or all of these questions, then you fit this mould – it’s safe to say you don’t like change. You are at peace when all is as it should be, or rather – as it has been before and will be again. There’s no doubt that an infinitely comforting certainty exists in the familiar.

That being all well and good, however – on the other side of the fence sits those who live to shake things up! If the pursuit of the exotic and up-to-the minute is your daily mantra, then you are part of the opposing human subdivision.

Anything new is to be tried at once – no such thing as brand loyalty, a holiday for you is either a mystery flight or a last minute leap over to anywhere – as long as it’s unfamiliar!

You shirk the mundane like it’s an infectious disease, you chuck a tantrum when faced with a night out at that same old place again. You would rather get lost in the back blocks than drive the same old route every day … You are a human chameleon – cheating the certainty of birth and death with uncertainty – peppered liberally throughout your existence.

So there you have it! Human nature for dummies!

When you own a restaurant, you need to dabble in some basic psychology. Understanding that loyalty is a double edged sword is helpful in that you realise that it is born AND made. Some customers are part of the first camp of change-resistant humans – they were probably initially dragged kicking and screaming (by a change-lover), but subsequently loved everything and then promptly made you their lifelong regular haunt there and then. Those customers were born to be loyal and all you had to do was actually get them through the door (the hardest part). And it doesn’t hurt to keep their favourite dish on the menu and keep it tasting just as good every time … ditto for remembering their names and reserving their favourite table.

Then there’s the other type of loyalty that has to be made, that doesn’t come naturally within an individual personality. This is the sort of customer who is chomping at the bit for you to open your doors for the very first time, the very chameleon of a person discussed in detail above who is desperately searching for something new day in day out. The most enormous challenge in creating loyalty lies with this person and their ilk … the inherently restless nature of this customer ensures that as soon as they try it, they’ll be over it. The attention span is short – the need to bedazzle them with bells and whistles to keep them coming back is paramount.

And you only typically get one chance – a failure to impress from the get-go means you’ve lost them, probably for good …

It’s a lot of pressure, but it puts the importance of first impressions into perspective and shows us that it is imperative to get it right every time. In a restaurant, as in any business, it’s essential to find that correct balance of familiarity and innovation.

You want to hold on to what makes you who you are and what drew people to you in the first place, but you also want to make things fresh and exciting – continually drawing on new knowledge and technology, projecting into the future to re-invent yourself in order to lure those who may tire of you back time and time again.

That is why in business, as in life, it is wise to never stop learning. There is no point which we reach, even after years of experience, where we truly master anything. What we think we know keeps evolving and changing in our modern world. To never be afraid that we do not know something, and to be eager to learn it is to invite success into our lives. That way it is possible to keep abreast of the new, to stay one step ahead of the chameleons …

Although come to think of it – it is kind of nice establishing a consistent dialogue with the customer, so ordering the same thing and sitting at the same table is a mutual benefit to all involved!

At a touch of a button we can upload a picture of, let’s say – a car we bought today, to all our family and friends scattered far and wide throughout the globe.
Any scarce collector’s item can be ours after a quick Google and a bit of postage and handling, no matter where we live and who we are. It’s even possible to negotiate the price – a delicate tiptoe through online auctioning and bartering sites means that not only can we have what we want, when we want it – but also it’s possible to control the perceived value or worth of an object … seemingly tailor made to personal specifications.
At the supermarket it appears that everything is in season all the time – and it is! At least it is somewhere on the globe, or was several months before somewhere on our continent – conveniently snap frozen and thawed for your convenience at a time you should so hanker after it. Fancy an orange in January? No worries – there’s an abundance of Californian navels heading our way on a big plane. Or a mango in July? Hello Dominican Republic (or somewhere like that).

Food miles and carbon footprints aside, pandering to the daily whims of the public is big business, and we’ve all grown to expect an enormous array of choice in our everyday lives. Although we have the voice of environmental sustainability speaking in one ear imploring us to think local, to support regional produce – on the other hand we demand global diversity. Our competent digital communication conjures up a daily international perspective to entice us towards other cultures. They are accessible with a click on the mouse, so we want them in our daily diet too. Japanese tonight, Mexican tomorrow … No problemo, all the ingredients are available at Coles.

So too, when we go out to eat we expect a selection of international cuisine, a tempting array of choices – appealingly and lovingly ordered with all our favourites, plus a couple of weird and wonderful quirky options too. All too often we display our natural human tendency to stay with what is safe, known, familiar … If there’s Barramundi and Mulloway, we’ll choose Barra. It’s an Aussie staple, right? But is it a staple in February, or is it just plain out of season?

What a customer wants is not necessarily what’s best or what’s freshest. Restaurants pander to the whims of the public in much the same way that supermarkets do, offering a selection of the most appealing options. While attempting to attune to seasonality (fish of the day for instance), standard menu choices are built around staples – white fish of some sort, omega 3 fish (tuna, salmon or ocean trout), chicken, prawns (cos people love ’em), red meat and maybe something gamey too.

That way there’s something for everyone! All bases are seemingly covered, but at what cost? Higher raw food costs for produce that’s hard to come by for one, a compromise in quality and subsequent flavour for the other.

Wouldn’t it be better to just forsake all that feel good crowd pleasing stuff, and well, let’s just put it out there … DO AWAY WITH A MENU FULL STOP?

There’s actually a restaurant in Melbourne that does it called Da Noi – they ask you if there’s anything you can’t eat, and you can say, “I feel like fish”, and then something delicious and fishy comes out. What a great way to dine – the responsibility of choosing that winner of a menu item is out of your hands, the possibility of eating something fresh, flavoursome and seasonal is highly likely, and the chef gets to indulge any creative inspiration that appears in front of him at the market seemingly yelling, “Pick me; I taste absolutely amazing right now!”

But we humans are creatures of habit. And when we want something, we just want it – forget about the alternatives. Let’s face it – the known is much safer than the unknown, even if it is snap frozen from last year’s harvest.

Phrases like these are a common catchcry in café/restaurants all over the place. Just a casually placed request entailing specifications required in a beverage delivered to you in a timely fashion every morning, right?

An ever perpetuating hangover from Starbucks, such minutely detailed tailor-made coffee requests are mandatory in today’s espresso consuming world.

There’s no doubt that coffee is a beloved addiction in our society. Whether it’s a couple of teaspoons of Nescafe, a trip to your favourite café en-route to work, or a skim flat white on your own home espresso machine – it’s something that many of us actively seek out on a daily basis.

A coffee machine is often the cornerstone of the café/restaurant, the engine room of production – plumbed into the guts of the premises, steaming and pouring away. Like any well-oiled machine, the coffee machine requires firstly an experienced operator, regular maintenance and TLC.

To say a good barista is hard to find is an understatement; to find three if you operate varying hours, 7 days a week is an impossibility.

It is by no means difficult to make coffee on an espresso machine – once you get the hang of it. Like any other production line process, it’s all about learning and perfecting all the steps and repeating them over and over again.

It’s usually getting the HANG of it that is the problem …

Coffee training is more often than not a lengthy and time consuming process, involving much wastage of coffee and milk.

To start training someone from scratch and getting them to the point where they can competently run a busy shift on the machine often takes months – by which time in our industry’s fly-by-night employment track record, they’ve often moved onto a new job, or even new career.

Making coffee is also highly labour intensive. Espresso does not mean ‘fast’, as you may believe. It actually means ‘specially made for you’– which means that each cup of milk-based coffee requires its own individual 3-step process of dosing, steaming and pouring.

In order to run a coffee machine you at least need one extra staff member. On a busy shift you may need two people – one dosing coffee shots, one steaming milk and pouring.

So it better be worth it for an operator, right? At $3-$4 a cup, you must be joking! Perhaps this is why our housing prices are amongst the highest in the world … we spend next to nothing on our coffees! I would like to see one other example of a tailored service with such a low capital outlay.

To serve one coffee you need to consider –

1. A dedicated state of the art machine valued at 15-25K

2. Experienced baristas – hard to come by, frustrating to train and easy to lose.

3. Additional labour costs per shift of at least one, sometimes two persons.

4. An often cranky, caffeine and sleep deprived early AM clientele who demand their fix NOW, or the other end of the spectrum – those who linger in your premises sitting on the best table for 3 hours over one cup of $3.50 weak, skim cappuccino, super hot. AND:

5. A fickle customer base with complex and varied requests involving the same beverage, with a choice of many other establishments serving the said beverage if they get one cup not to their liking at your place …

One must ponder; do we actually need to spend more time ordering a coffee than we do on, say, ordering a new car? Amortise your order time over utilisation of both and the capital outlay and you will be amazed at the conclusion.

Also – what other industry allows such variations to be factored into an individual product without huge additional charges?

I cannot think of another instance where a base good or service is altered and tailor made for you, without a premium whacked on. And not to mention the WAIT involved for personal specifications – let’s say you want your new car in a specific colour with additional safety features, that’ll be another 2 months delivery time sir …

It’s enough to make me need a coffee myself, or actually … perhaps something stronger!

And again: “Soy decaf, not too much froth, double shot hot and FAST”.

Too many words, one coffee … and YES, there will be a WAIT.