Zhao Jun still remembers that 40 years ago, when her mother held her little hand and walked past the door of the Red House Western Restaurant on South Shaanxi Road, she clinged to the bright window at the entrance of the store. That year, Zhao Jun was only six years old, which was her first memory of the Red House Western Restaurant.
What she wouldn't have imagined was that 40 years later, she would become the deputy manager of the Red House Western Restaurant, which had moved from South Shaanxi Road to No. 845 Middle Huaihai Road. Nowadays, the century-old "aristocratic" temperament is slowly calming down, but in all the details, it still maintains the pride and calmness in the bones.
"From listening to guests to bringing guests how to order"
"Times are changing, customers are changing." Zhao Jun said.
In 1990, Zhao Jun had just entered this Western restaurant. At that time, most of the customers were Shanghainese, and the middle-aged and elderly accounted for the vast majority; and now, the proportion of middle-aged and elderly people and young people, Shanghainese and foreigners, and new Shanghainese has a relatively obvious inversion.
Interestingly, every day at noon and in the evening, two diners of different ages and different regional cultures form a tacit understanding. "At noon, most of them are middle-aged and elderly, and most of the people heard in the store are Shanghainese." In the evening, there are more young people, and Mandarin is the main language of communication. Zhao Jun sighed at such a change.
Old photos of the Red House
The ordering of different groups of people tests the skills of managers like her who take the quality of service as the skill. "Ordering food is the housekeeping skill of our waiters." Zhao Jun said that to identify the appearance and color, it is necessary to provide appropriate a la carte service according to the appearance, dress, behavior, conversation, different mentalities and different scenes of the customer: some focus on affordability, some focus on face, and some focus on speed. The waiter is half a marketer, half a psychoanalyst, or even half a chef.
The so-called half chef refers to food station service, such as fried steak. According to the needs of the guests, it is necessary to cook in three, five and seven points, and cook it on the spot. "Three minutes of cooking is one minute of frying, and seven minutes of cooking is three minutes of frying."
In fact, as soon as Zhao Jun entered the Red House, he followed Master Tang to learn the service of the store, starting from knowing the Western knife and fork, the use of knives and forks, and the spreading of napkins and tablecloths.
At that time, the first floor of the Western restaurant was a company dish, that is, a business package, such as pork chops and borscht; the second floor was a la carte; the third floor was a private room. Zhao Jun did it one by one on each floor, and he was already familiar with various techniques. The master taught her a sentence: from listening to the guests to ordering, to bringing the guests how to order. "While respecting the choice of guests, reasonable guidance, the principle is the combination of demand and reality, the combination of nutrition and taste, and at the same time pay attention to the order is not overlapping, not wasteful."
In addition to ordering food, the Red House requires the waiter to be warm, smiling with courtesy, humility and respect, making people feel that eating here is very valued, such as the waiter will pick up and drop off guests at the elevator entrance...
Today, Zhao Jun is a national-level senior service technician. Many of her customers became her friends.
"The Red House has a strong innovation gene"
"Some people say that the Red House is turned over and turned over those few dishes, and there is no innovation; I think that is a great misunderstanding." Zhao Jun said. In fact, the old regular customers know the dishes of the Red House very well, and the order is more like a feeling, while for new customers, Zhao Jun will spend a lot of effort to train the waiters to introduce innovative dishes.
Old photos of the Red House.
"Our recipes are updated once a year. Classic dishes account for 40% and innovative dishes account for 60%. When we meet new customers who order food, we recommend a classic dish, and the rest will introduce innovative dishes developed in recent years. ”
In fact, the Red House has a strong innovation gene. Zhao Jun introduced that in the early years, the Red House had a tradition, "Once a week, the master chef in the kitchen, each person said three dishes to everyone, and changed one person a week." These dishes are not on the recipe, but the 'dry goods' that these masters have seen, tasted, and pressed the bottom of the box in the past years. The new chef, at this time such as entering Baoshan, recorded word by word, and will be used as a dish update in the future. ”
However, classic is still classic, and the recipe of Western food is unchanged, which is one of the bases for those old acquaintances in the Red House to taste "feelings".
In 1998, the company organized a delegation to visit France, the birthplace of Western food, for a month, and the dishes produced by the delegation surprised the French counterparts who received them: it was the taste of their grandparents' cooking. The French counterpart has made a lot of improvements to Western food, and even introduced Chinese ingredients and raw materials into Western food.
However, to the relief of the Chinese delegation, the French onion soup still has the same taste, the same cooking, and the same heat.
Zhao Jun is very familiar with the process of making this onion soup, which is one of the most ordered dishes in the Red House at present.
"The onion is peeled and shredded, fried until the water and sugar are spit out, and the color of the onion becomes brown; 10 pounds out of a pound, can not be burned, can not be bitter; add high concentration of beef tea (beef soup, but there is no beef in it), and then put salt and pepper ... This is a traditional craft that is best preserved. This dish takes time, and the action of frying onions alone takes two hours. ”
"It's a shame to lose it, just like the Shanghai dialect"
When she is not too busy, Zhao Jun will tell the interested guests about the preparation and allusions of some food.
"You look at this shrimp chicken tail cup, using water and oil, wait for the shrimp to float up, skim the foam to catch up, and then the oil pot is hot, the shrimp are turned over, and it is served in a cocktail cup, which is a classic traditional dish..."
"Philips steak bacon foie gras, this dish has been 20 years, the ingredients are the first, and then the cooking technique - the foie gras should be fried without greasy and just right, the maturity of the steak depends on the heat, the smoky taste of the bacon enters the steak, which can increase the aroma of the steak..."
What Zhao Jun is most willing to tell is the allusion of the clam.
After the founding of New China, for a period of time, the French snail used as an ingredient in the famous dish of the Red House, "Roasted Snail", broke off its stall and could not come from abroad; Chef Yu Yongli searched for ingredients and finally replaced the snail with clams. "This dish is a clam with high ingredients. Clams are easy to shrink, fat clams, 1 pound only out of 3 two 3 money meat. The clam shell is a container, salted and roasted until a few points are cooked, then enlarged garlic and coriander grass are burned in the open stove, and when the iron plate is served, the room is full of fresh aroma. Zhao Jun said that this is innovation, and innovation should conform to the characteristics of ingredients, customer needs and the rhythm of the times.
"In the past, the pace was slow, and the guests of the Red House were willing to wait and enjoy the Western food in front of them; now, most customers have lacked patience, and young people are even more so, hoping that just after ordering, they can be delivered to the eyes." We also have to adapt to such changes and use modern kitchen equipment to speed up the pace of the operation process. ”
Zhao Jun feels that the Red House Western Restaurant is the place where she can settle down, and she has put decades of youth and enthusiasm into it. The Red House Restaurant, like Zhengguanghe soda, white rabbit milk candy, and the Shanghai dialect with its correct characters, represents Shanghai's culture and is a lingering complex in the memory of some Shanghainese.
"It's a shame to lose it, just like the Shanghai dialect, my son said it badly." My biggest mission is to attract young people. In another ten years, otherwise when our current batch of old customers can no longer walk and can't come to the store, no one in the Red House Western Restaurant will remember it anymore. ”
Over the years, Red House Restaurant has joined hands with the community to open some courses every year: teach children in the community to cook simple Western dishes, understand the etiquette of Western food, and do some online live broadcasts. She saw that some fans said: When I was a child, I wore a beautiful white princess dress, and my parents ate here, the first time I used a knife and fork, the first time I knew that I had to whisper in public, the first time I knew that borscht and pork chops were a combination of Western food, and after eating I wanted to play in the restaurant for a while, I was stopped by my mother booing, "Eat elegantly, don't run around"... Zhao Jun smiled, and she remembered the scene when her mother pulled her when she was a child and sped up her steps through the red house.
Image: Courtesy of the interviewee
Column Editor-in-Chief: Tang Ye Text Editor: Tang Ye Title Image Source: InterviewEe Provide Photo Editor: Yong Kai
Source: Author: Ye Shifu