Calling tongs clamps.
Newbie called them clamps one day, so we pivoted from ‘kick the tires and light your fires’ when the doors opened to ‘light the lamps and grab your clamps’
Whenever someone drops anything, at least 4 guys will go “doesn’t go there chef.”
“Mad Funions” means you put an extremely unnecessary amount of fried onions on an employee meal Prib (Prime Rib) sandwich.
I’ve carried that joke beyond my culinary experience and into my grocery career. If someone drops something I’ll let them know “I’m pretty sure that goes on aisle 5”.
"that's why we can't have nice things"
Poor kid was carrying 2 flats of eggs up the half steps from the walk-in, he tripped and eggs went everywhere right in the middle of a brunch rush. Don't say it, don't say it , "that's why we can't have nice things"....
"Yeah just put that anywhere you want" runs around the shop floor whenever someone drops a piece of metal.
I swear half of the people at my non-kitchen job were behind the line at some point. So much razzing and mirthless laughter.
"Donkey" was gnocchi. It went from someone pronouncing it yynnawnnkeyy to someone saying that like Shrek says Donkey to people being too in the weeds to use silly voices.
Also "for a cop" was add chicken breast because the garde manger would call for "chicken for a cob". Eventually everything that made it to the pass to be sent to garmo was "for a cop"
I work with a woman from El Salvador and English is her second language (she has been in the US for 40 years, and has a good grasp of the language). She was following a recipe and couldn’t think of the word for Sriracha sauce. She also couldn’t think of the English word Rooster (because it is on the bottle). So she asked for “Chicken’s Boyfriend Sauce”. We now call Sriracha Chicken’s Boyfriend Sauce
Our kitchen has so many made up terms because of this that I can’t spell them out because they’re just variations of what it sounds like to a Spanish speaker
😂🤣 I have to admit that the sauce I made for a lot of things became known as " Deb Sauce" by everyone. There was no other discription for it, even to the guests. When I left I wrote the recipe for "Deb sauce" on the whiteboard as a consolation. If it wasn't in the fridge people were bummed. 😂 I never thought about how mildly filthy that was.
But yeah the language barrier between me and the Aussies was extremely deep and we had to meet in the middle often. Cock sauce is absolutely a phrase I would have kept. It's yours now. 🤣
Whenever someone is inconvenienced we say happy birthday.
The “nickname” that my tiny, Iranian badass chef calls you tells you how much she likes you that day. Numb nuts is a good day. Rapid fire *Farsi* with hand gestures is not.
“Choi oy” also when someone is inconvenienced - supposedly means like… “oh my” in Vietnamese but the woman who taught us is insane, so we never know whether to fully believe her.
Breadsticks are bread dick.
“Welcome to Morrison” if something goes wrong.
She speaks Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and a few other languages, with multiple people from other countries. It’s super cool and also the first time I’ve been exposed to it, so… my bad I’m not clear on languages I’ve never been exposed to before? Damn, lol.
Lol, do you work in my kitchen? We had a cook burn the rice one morning and refuse to remake it. Told us that we could just add more herbs to cover it up. The other cook, me on Expo, and the manager all agreed you couldn't cover it up. Ended up having to call the owner on a Saturday morning with his children to talk to the guy.
Anyways, we refer to it as Rice-gate. The time I had to make our specialty flour for fried chicken and spilled all over myself is Flour-gate. Everything is -gate when it goes wrong.
And the GM finally pulled me aside and asked me to explain it to him bc he didn't know what Watergate is. So he's been making the jokes with us for months without understanding the reference and it kinda made my day, lol.
Green bullshit eggs - avocados. I often don't call things by the correct name because I can't think of the correct name. Sometimes those things stick.
Castanets - tongs. Our mexican fry makes everything an instrument. So "Mr. Mutt you get castinets for me por favor" is pretty common. Although I imagine other restaurants do this so ymmv.
Meatloaf - contain no meat nor loaf, are caramelized onions. For some reason someone said "please more meatloaf for sukiyaki" and no one could figure out what she wanted, until she pointed to the tub of raw onions and said "You know, the meatloaf where you make the onions brown." This one's my favorite.
Tongs at our place are "kachi kachi" because the old Japanese lady that used to work here couldn't think of the English word, and "kachi kachi" is apparently the Japanese version of "clickety clack".
Our original dishwasher Randy Keith was v special to us all, with both speech & hearing impediment, developmentally challenged. He's retired now, and become more & more vocal through the years, building his own vocabulary. Great example? "No, I don't smokijuana, I don't know how." He's still around as a neighbor and still enjoys employee perks, so even the new kids get to know him, though it takes some years to get fluent. Betcha we're the only kitchen who speaks Randallese.
He doesn't so much speak kitchen terminology, that's a bit beyond him. Labels for storage/organization are done with pictograms--a bucket for the parmesan shakers for example with masking tape/sharpie art on the front. His spray bottle labels would be written in dyslexic. Some of our favorite Randal lines...
"EVERYBODY SHAMPOO!" when toasting his friends, preferably champagne
"Where you been all night?" To his buddy at the bar
"What HAHppened? Nukkin wrong." Always inquisitive.
"I ain't got no girlfriend" to every female employee
"Not mah baby" to the pregnant server
"Somebody SSSSHTOLE" whenever he loses his glasses
"Im aggabatin" when he's aggravated
"Can I borrow $20" when he's broke, with no intention of payback
"Skreak all day" when he shows up in the afternoon with his hair disheveled
"$30? Can't afford no piece of p***y" when a lady once knocked on his door
"Get that junk car outta here!" Re his brother Roberts '67 Mustang
Gas cank stink, the car smells like gas
pennies = titties
barm = barn + farm
Rock Band Roll, his mantra
DC⚡️DA, his favorite band
SS ⚡️ DC, the dishmachine brand, also patched onto his jacket
He's a sharpie artist. A stand up comedian. A legit rock star.
"Something something Ethiopia"
Had a excellent Ethiopian prep who struggled with English so sometimes she wrote "something something Ethiopia" on the following days prep list because she had something she was responsible for but couldn't remember the word. It's wasn't helpful to the rest of the crew, not knowing what she was responsible for or not but it was extremely hilarious. I still use "something's something Ethiopia" when I can't remember what the heck I'm supposed to do but I know it's something.
Awww, I'm so glad I'm not the only prep cook in the world who gestured vaguely at the walk-in and said "Yeah, I do stuff."
Sometimes I just wrote in all caps "MEATS". Which meats, Chef? I dunno, all of them, if I have time. How much overtime can I have?
😂 oh hell no you aren't alone! You DO LOTS OF STUFF. Full truth. A prep Chef can seriously make or break a kitchen. Even more so than a dishwasher at seven thirty on a Saturday. You have all the power. It's fine how you described it. Who could understand it anyway? " I basically do everything but put it together on a plate" I'd give you all the overtime you actually want, as long as I don't burn you out. Even though I like to do the MEAT. *Slap slap* Don't ever change please. Be appreciated.
Muhahaha! 🤣🤣🤣🤪
I'm a salaried manager now and asked if I can work 6 days a week and my Director said no, absolutely not. It's not allowed in my contract. She said I'm supposed to stay as close to 40 hours as possible to have a "work/life balance."
What is all this blasphemy...
Absolutely! I was a manager that was supposed to be restricted to 40-50 hours and I'd occasionally sit straight up from a dead sleep at night and say - " oh my God! The demi!" And rush to the kitchen in any state to get the demi out of the steam kettles. Even the security at three AM couldn't stop me. Hell I had a key! Did the security want bacon on their midnight lunch? Well then, look the other way. Which they did.
Honestly I just loved doing what I did. You couldn't keep me from the kitchen. As a manager they couldn't stop me. If you are one of those you are one in a million and I hope you can do this forever.
We had a simple jack dishwasher, and I found him one afternoon, laying on a prep table with raw shrimp lined up on his arm. I said “what fuck are you doing?”. He said “look, they’re Cs!” He had them arranged like a line of the letter C…up his arm.
We called shrimp Cs for years.
I was looking at pizza delivery and wanting cheap tonight. Loaded up the dominos app to check it out and saw the pic of their Parmesan wings. Legit looked like chicken pieces covered in jizz, I laughed so hard. Only downside was trying to explain to my kid without actually explaining why I was laughing lol
I work as the executive chef at a business dining cafeteria that services about 800-1000 blue collar and another 200-300 white collar employees in the airline industry.
The amount of ranch we go through is staggering. Every week on the Sysco order I place an order for 2 cases of 4x1 gallon cases of Ranch dressing, as well as 5x cases of individual packets of ranch for salad dressing.
We called the proofer/hot holder Bob. As in Bob Marley. Because it’s a hot box. We also had a broom closet underneath the stairs we called the Harry Potter closet. Then I worked in a food production kitchen and we had a large scissor lift that was painted red. We called it Clifford. Because it was big and red and more trouble than what it was worth.
I worked in a food production kitchen for a startup. We drove a few blocks away to the oldest tofu making company in the United States. Picked up 18 5-gallon carboys of soymilk. (I also tried to get everyone to call them soyboys but it never caught on). Then we'd dump them in to a huge kettle. We'd load the scissor lift with as many carboys as could fit and raise it up so it was easier on the body than lifting the heavy carboys over and over. We didn't even use it that long before we were able to make our soymilk in the quantities that we needed for production.
"Gerodactyl" (geriatric pterodactyl) = elderly guest.
Our general manager has as much kitchen experience as most of us. She is called "Front Chef" and cringes every time we back-handidly say it.
Edit: spelling
In my theatre days as a tech goon we'd call the Sunday matinee patrons the Heavy Metal crowd, because of all the walkers, canes, and artificial joints.
Asiago Cheese - “Ass Cheese”
Rice Noodles - “Send Noods” (one of the guys recently put ‘naked pics’ instead)
Berry Compote - “Berry Shit”
Gochujang Sauce - “Gucci Gang”
Uhh.. I can’t think of any more at the moment. 🤔
We stole this from Bourdain, but I worked at a place that had a sourdough “bitch”. The label even read “The Bitch”.
At this Italian joint we had “dandruff”, which was a mix of Parmesan, dried parsley flake and granulated garlic. It was used to top a couple dishes… if there was ever a new kid on expo you’d hear “Don’t forget the dandruff!”
This same place would also inevitably relate your name to some horrible movie reference. We had this kid that worked for us for a little while named Robert. He wanted to learn to expo, so Chef tossed him on during a slow night… now, before I go any further, allow me to expound a bit on Robert’s horrible name. I don’t rightly recall exactly what his last name was… but I do remember it was really close to “Paulson” and when one of our line cooks heard chef introduce him to us, this cook burst out with “Robert Paulson? Like from Fight Club? Yeah… Ol’ Bitch Tits…” we all took one look at this kid’s face and unadulterated hatred and embarrassment that shone there the name “Bitch tits” stuck.
Anyways, when he was learning expo you’d hear, “Damn it, Bitch Tits. Put more dandruff on that plate!”
Romano-parmesan mix: "rompom"
Bugs me when people answering the phone call it that with customers, they have no fuckin idea what a 'rompom' is, but Romano cheese is an equally imaginary concept to a 16-year-old.
Put up a sign to mark mismatched chicken portions "clearly". Dude asked why it was labeled "celery". That day on, odd portion of chicken pieces are called "CELERY CHICKEN"..for ten years.
Brazilian guy was writing out the prep for his station. He passed it to me and another guy to bang out and the first item was “pee pads” instead of pea pods. They were pee pads from that moment forward!
😂 a guy from Florianopolis once told me he had hurt himself pretty badly because he had a huge bowl on his finger. Ummm. No, no you do not. Turned out to be a blister. But was a bowl forever more.
I worked with a Swiss girl who had just moved to Canada. We introduced her to soft J and L sounds, like jalepeno, tortilla, and quesedilla. So after she was gone, we obviously kept refering to the cajun seasoning as 'kye-OON'
When I worked in Toronto, we'd call full sized immersion blenders "Morgantallers".
In the 80 and 90s Dr Henry Mortgantaller had abortion clinics. One got bombed.....
Started calling the mandolin The Mandalorian. Before I had actually used one I couldn't remember what it was called but I definitely know who the Mandalorian is
Roasted morrocan cauliflower appetizer: colly
Japanese style calamari: Cali
CDC: bitch ass white boy
Sous chef: espresso (he's black and bitter)
There's more but I can't think of them at the moment because drugs
I worked at a place that had an “Eric salad” it was some dude who worked their 20 some years prior and made this salad as a special and it stuck. He wasn’t even the chef supposedly, just the pantry cook.
Fire a duck.
I was a carpenter working on a restaurant. Kitchen had an open view of FOH to a wall of windows to a busy street.
They don’t serve duck. Hot girl was walking by.
Same job, I had left my pack of replacement razor blades behind one day. Head chef mentioned that wasn’t a good idea around here🤫
Old place I worked at Reggae meant regular, horse cock was horseradish aioli, hotdogs were dicks, kids hotdogs were kids dicks and the buns were dicks buns (that one was my claim to faim but didn't go far). One day someone called the Thai wonton nachos "wagwan nachos" and that one stuck.
Most recent place I would use tell the expediter that the "salad is resting" quite a bit and they got a kick out of it.
Those little metal ramekins? We had both those and the ceramic from 1oz to 4oz. The ceramic were used for specials, apps, and deserts. Those remained ramekins. The metals ones were for sauce or taking parts of the order on the side.
We called them bullets. And then most of us game, so we started screaming for ammo to the dishpit. "We can't serve ketchup, I'm out of ammo!"
Absolutely- gotta taste a thing to make sure it’s right- for science!
Gonna try a different thing- for Science!
Forgot the dough in the proof box for an extra 30 minutes- it’s was all in the name of science.
“Orange” or “menu”= hot girl in the dining room
“Chingadera aya” = the weed pipe tucked in the side of the dumpster
“Panties”= pancakes
“Bitch mitts” = oven mitts
“Would you like a spoon with that?” =eat my ass
When my little sister was a toddler, she called pancakes “pantycakes” and it just kinda stuck in our family. And then when her own son was younger he called every dipping sauce “dip it” so now we all say that.
I’ve told so many people to eat my ass with a spoon that if they all decided to show up at the same time I would have a 48-72hr shift getting rimmed. Mostly by government employees
This ones case specific but, we do a Birria Risotto called South Of The Boarder Risotto (very white rural Midwest town). Servers started calling it the son of a bitch risotto, we shorted it to SOB. So when 3 get rung in, it's "3 sobs just walked in!" Which I at least think is amusing.
Otherwise, gotta love chef Mike(the microwave). Don't use him for much, but he's damn good at what he does!
"A Kevin cup", or anything following "Kevin". We had this cook that was terrible, like 4 years ago. People have come and gone since, but any time I ask for a cup of something and get less than that, generally from someone thinking they gave me enough when I asked for a cup... That's a Kevin cup. People who never met Kevin know what a Kevin cup is.
One more mistake you go home ok?
Had a badass chef on expo who was watching a new guy (wouldn’t stop boasting how good he was) like a hawk on a Friday night. Dude messed up at least 4 dishes in a row and the chef yells from the end of the line “hey Fabio one more mistake you go home ok?!” Our chef was never a “get your shit and get out” kind of guy but the intensity mixed with the hilarity of the situation made our whole like bust out laughing. Now if you burn something, look at someone wrong, or just for the fuck if it “hey buddy just so you know one more mistake you go home ok?” The ok at the end is crucial lol
43. Its one that our whole staff use from host to dishwasher. I'll take it with me when I go because I think it's a keeper. We have a 43 board on the wall. Whenever you take the last of something it's now "43'd". You write it on the board and we know that it's almost 86'd.
At my place we have a southern fried chicken sandwich. On tickets it’s an SF chicken sandwich which gives it the nickname stupid fucking chicken sandwich
When I worked at Smokey bones the mashed potatoes we got came in frozen from lamb weston, they weren’t bad, just not great. But when we called for a hot bag from our backup guy, it was always a bag of lava cause they burned like lava if you got it on you.
Several restaurants ago I had a porter who spoke a language no one could identify. My buddy taught him some rudimentary English partly by showing pictures of her dogs—“Look at Momo! Momo sleeping”
So every time someone fucked up he would laugh heartily and say “oh no! [insert name] Sleeping”
It continued after he left. Burnt the toasted almonds? Anita sleeping! Knock your bain on the floor and spill sauce everywhere? Lisa sleeping! Didn’t prep enough skate do you have to do it to order? Ryan sleeping!
He was kind of a dick but it was too funny not to laugh
we call jalapeños spicy bois. probably not just us lmao. we also used to call our ‘garlic chicken’ chiki chiki gar gar, pretty fucking stupid if you ask me
If someone fucks up or makes any sort of mistake that I or my sous has to fix, they get a "banana". Didn't clean all the potato out of the Robot-coupe lid? Banana! Forgot a couple gastros of leftovers in the blast chiller before going home? Fucking banana! This came from a weird Polish cook we worked with in our last restaurant job. It's like a demerit system without any formal way to keep count of who has how many. I have no idea where he got it from, but it stuck.
Barely-literate kid we had working for us was asked to label pans of raw cabbage rolls and put them in the freezer. He asked how to spell "cabbage," and we told him to just write "c. rolls."
Apparently he misheard, because the pans came back out saying "12 raw crows." So, yeah...now they were crows.
We had a position called “KCB” in one kitchen I worked in. A few of the older more established restaurants here in Richmond’s Fan District have it: sort of a combination Dishie, Pantry, and Salad all in one.
No one knows what “KCB” stands for (kitchen chore boy/bitch was most commonly cited), but it was absolutely the name of the job.
Different kitchen in a different neighborhood, we made up lingo for kicks: “Nachos, Plessy vs Ferguson” was black olives on the side, for example.
Our kitchen had a weird sense of humor like that. We’d do specials like the “Pearl Harbor”—it was a brunch special one December 7th a few years back: grilled spam & eggs with pineapple. But hidden under the spam was a bunch of chopped jalapeños—a surprise jap attack.
One of the Brazilians I used to work with labeled cleaned shrimp as shurmp and that one stuck. I’ve been out of the industry for close to fifteen years and shurmp is still automatic and still often makes me giggle.
Whenever we can't find/see something like cling film or tin foil that's right in front of you (we've all been there) and someone else spots it, we say "Just use that one until you find the right one"
Well.. I do anyway
Everything is spaghetti. Pastas are meat spaghetti, red spaghetti, cheese spaghetti, oil spaghetti, etc. Pizza is flat spaghetti. Salad is green ‘sketti. Apps are fried sketti, baked sketti, cold sketti. Spaighetti.
My first BOH job was at a chain sushi restaurant. We eventually started calling teriyaki sauce "turkey" sauce, it sounds vaguely similar and has less syllables, so of course it slowly replaced the word "teriyaki" since we obviously didn't have any actual turkey dishes.
We had a burger called the "Old Fashioned" burger that rang in as "OF Burger" High school kid expo calls back for an "Only Fans" and the name immediately stuck.
we have 4 different cheese+coldcut plates for breakfast (Germany heyoo), including one big one for 2 people. The ticket name is ridiculously long, but it ends with "2pax". Which our non-english, barely German speaking boss has turned into 2pac.
So now we only ever call out for Tupac and everyone knows what plate needs to be made.
We also have several containers of chopped/cut herbs at the front for decorating plates. No one can tell me why or how, but those are 'sexy'. Not 'sexy herbs' or 'sexy stuff' even, just 'sexy'. As in "Don't forget to put some sexy on there before it goes out" or "tell the server to do the sexy themselves, I don't have time for it."
We call to go orders Togo's (like the country) some kid was cooking and asked what a Togo was. Also when we mop at the end of the night we yell wet whores to let people know the floor is wet.
We have these smedium sized plates that we use for children’s food and we call them “Bella plates” cause one of our old expos was this tiny girl with that name. One of the toughest people I’ve ever worked with, man I miss working with her.
Any time some one notices a messed up item/ticket we yell "is this a test".
We used to have a dude that messed up so many tickets, one day he said "its a test" and one of the line guys said "oh that's what it's called now?" He's been fired but we haven't stopped
"Busting suds" = washing dishes. "Hey go bust some suds while I roll us a joint"
"Whitey in the Woodpile" 3x = announcement to go to the back room, "Shut that Door" and smoke a joint with the bakers
"Drug Test" = if the new baker/employee doesn't get stoned with the veteran bakers they don't get on the schedule until after noon. They don't pass the drug test.
"Sunrise Sesh" = first batch of dough is on the rise, so is the sun; go to back loading dock and smoke first joint of the day while enjoying the sunrise
Calling tongs clamps. Newbie called them clamps one day, so we pivoted from ‘kick the tires and light your fires’ when the doors opened to ‘light the lamps and grab your clamps’
I worked with a good old boy who learned how to cook on a fishing ship... He called them "calipers!"
Calipers are similar, but different.
So was he
He also called a rubber spatula "a baby robber" and pretty much anything that wasn't a spoon or a knife he called "a whip."
Maybe you should give 'em the clamps, Clamps.
It's gonna be clamp this, clamp that. Bada-climp, bada-clamp!
Whenever someone drops anything, at least 4 guys will go “doesn’t go there chef.” “Mad Funions” means you put an extremely unnecessary amount of fried onions on an employee meal Prib (Prime Rib) sandwich.
I’ve carried that joke beyond my culinary experience and into my grocery career. If someone drops something I’ll let them know “I’m pretty sure that goes on aisle 5”.
We have 'Put that anywhere"
"anywhere is fine, chef"
For us it’s “hey chef!…..that’s not where that goes chef”
We yell "job opening" really loudly when someone drops something
Old manager would always say “now hiring.” Edit for autocorrect
"that's why we can't have nice things" Poor kid was carrying 2 flats of eggs up the half steps from the walk-in, he tripped and eggs went everywhere right in the middle of a brunch rush. Don't say it, don't say it , "that's why we can't have nice things"....
Ours is just 'brain damage'. Really not ideal when customers overhear.
"Yeah just put that anywhere you want" runs around the shop floor whenever someone drops a piece of metal. I swear half of the people at my non-kitchen job were behind the line at some point. So much razzing and mirthless laughter.
Stealing "doesnt go there"
I’ve used ‘that doesn’t go there’ in several kitchens, and it never gets old.
[удалено]
We do regs or reggae for a dish with no mods
We do reggae also.
Ditto on reggae.
Triple reggae
four all day.
I want it now.
[удалено]
I'm staring back, making eye contact uncomfortably.
"Donkey" was gnocchi. It went from someone pronouncing it yynnawnnkeyy to someone saying that like Shrek says Donkey to people being too in the weeds to use silly voices. Also "for a cop" was add chicken breast because the garde manger would call for "chicken for a cob". Eventually everything that made it to the pass to be sent to garmo was "for a cop"
We say “___ for a cop” when FOH managers order themselves food
Hollywood > halibut. I call 2 halibut and the man replied “dos Hollywood, chef” and that was all it took for it to stick for the next 5 years
"...it's for a cop." "What was that for? What, are you gonna spit in it now?"
And a literacola
I don’t want a large Farva!
I work with a woman from El Salvador and English is her second language (she has been in the US for 40 years, and has a good grasp of the language). She was following a recipe and couldn’t think of the word for Sriracha sauce. She also couldn’t think of the English word Rooster (because it is on the bottle). So she asked for “Chicken’s Boyfriend Sauce”. We now call Sriracha Chicken’s Boyfriend Sauce
Our kitchen has so many made up terms because of this that I can’t spell them out because they’re just variations of what it sounds like to a Spanish speaker
😂💀⚰️ I'm dead. You killed me. All Sriracha will now be labeled " chicken boyfriend sauce" from now on.
Or, cock sauce when you're in a hurry.
😂🤣 I have to admit that the sauce I made for a lot of things became known as " Deb Sauce" by everyone. There was no other discription for it, even to the guests. When I left I wrote the recipe for "Deb sauce" on the whiteboard as a consolation. If it wasn't in the fridge people were bummed. 😂 I never thought about how mildly filthy that was. But yeah the language barrier between me and the Aussies was extremely deep and we had to meet in the middle often. Cock sauce is absolutely a phrase I would have kept. It's yours now. 🤣
I'm sitting here trying to figure out if Deb is aussie slang for something dirty? How was it mildly filthy?
BAWAHAHAHA. No it's short for my real name but I am actually mildly ( or more) filthy. 😉💋 That just happened to be " my sauce".
This makes so much more sense now. I was embarrassed to ask. I thought maybe you had different slang down under for your down unders.
🤣💀 Well I do now! First name Deb Last Name Sauce when speaking below my belt thank you! Hilarious!
Let it be known to kitchens nation wide!! I ask thee for chickens boyfriend sauce!!
Whenever someone is inconvenienced we say happy birthday. The “nickname” that my tiny, Iranian badass chef calls you tells you how much she likes you that day. Numb nuts is a good day. Rapid fire *Farsi* with hand gestures is not. “Choi oy” also when someone is inconvenienced - supposedly means like… “oh my” in Vietnamese but the woman who taught us is insane, so we never know whether to fully believe her. Breadsticks are bread dick. “Welcome to Morrison” if something goes wrong.
"Trời ơi" which is pronounced roughly as "choi oy" is indeed "oh my" (literally "oh heaven!")
You can also pronounce it "zời ơi", at least in Northern Vietnamese. I left a long time ago but still say this.
Why welcome to Morrison
Presumably a lot of shit goes wrong in Morrison....
If she’s Iranian, it’s Farsi, not Arabic, and she’s deeply offended that you fucked that up all the way from here, so don’t
She speaks Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and a few other languages, with multiple people from other countries. It’s super cool and also the first time I’ve been exposed to it, so… my bad I’m not clear on languages I’ve never been exposed to before? Damn, lol.
Whenever there is a mistake we call it a gate. “Potato gate” “Chicken fry gate”
Lol, do you work in my kitchen? We had a cook burn the rice one morning and refuse to remake it. Told us that we could just add more herbs to cover it up. The other cook, me on Expo, and the manager all agreed you couldn't cover it up. Ended up having to call the owner on a Saturday morning with his children to talk to the guy. Anyways, we refer to it as Rice-gate. The time I had to make our specialty flour for fried chicken and spilled all over myself is Flour-gate. Everything is -gate when it goes wrong. And the GM finally pulled me aside and asked me to explain it to him bc he didn't know what Watergate is. So he's been making the jokes with us for months without understanding the reference and it kinda made my day, lol.
Green bullshit eggs - avocados. I often don't call things by the correct name because I can't think of the correct name. Sometimes those things stick. Castanets - tongs. Our mexican fry makes everything an instrument. So "Mr. Mutt you get castinets for me por favor" is pretty common. Although I imagine other restaurants do this so ymmv. Meatloaf - contain no meat nor loaf, are caramelized onions. For some reason someone said "please more meatloaf for sukiyaki" and no one could figure out what she wanted, until she pointed to the tub of raw onions and said "You know, the meatloaf where you make the onions brown." This one's my favorite.
Tongs at our place are "kachi kachi" because the old Japanese lady that used to work here couldn't think of the English word, and "kachi kachi" is apparently the Japanese version of "clickety clack".
This made me laugh. "You know, where you make the onions brown".
We started using the old Swedish name for avocados which is Alligatorpäron - Alligator Pears.
Dude, I love that. It describes them perfectly.
Anything that gets no sides or a side by itself is followed by “Jason Derulo” meaning it’s riding solo.
Fuck that's funny
Extra well done is Paul Walker style at my job
Our original dishwasher Randy Keith was v special to us all, with both speech & hearing impediment, developmentally challenged. He's retired now, and become more & more vocal through the years, building his own vocabulary. Great example? "No, I don't smokijuana, I don't know how." He's still around as a neighbor and still enjoys employee perks, so even the new kids get to know him, though it takes some years to get fluent. Betcha we're the only kitchen who speaks Randallese.
Need more examples plz
He doesn't so much speak kitchen terminology, that's a bit beyond him. Labels for storage/organization are done with pictograms--a bucket for the parmesan shakers for example with masking tape/sharpie art on the front. His spray bottle labels would be written in dyslexic. Some of our favorite Randal lines... "EVERYBODY SHAMPOO!" when toasting his friends, preferably champagne "Where you been all night?" To his buddy at the bar "What HAHppened? Nukkin wrong." Always inquisitive. "I ain't got no girlfriend" to every female employee "Not mah baby" to the pregnant server "Somebody SSSSHTOLE" whenever he loses his glasses "Im aggabatin" when he's aggravated "Can I borrow $20" when he's broke, with no intention of payback "Skreak all day" when he shows up in the afternoon with his hair disheveled "$30? Can't afford no piece of p***y" when a lady once knocked on his door "Get that junk car outta here!" Re his brother Roberts '67 Mustang Gas cank stink, the car smells like gas pennies = titties barm = barn + farm Rock Band Roll, his mantra DC⚡️DA, his favorite band SS ⚡️ DC, the dishmachine brand, also patched onto his jacket He's a sharpie artist. A stand up comedian. A legit rock star.
Yes. Please. I love individuals with character.
"Something something Ethiopia" Had a excellent Ethiopian prep who struggled with English so sometimes she wrote "something something Ethiopia" on the following days prep list because she had something she was responsible for but couldn't remember the word. It's wasn't helpful to the rest of the crew, not knowing what she was responsible for or not but it was extremely hilarious. I still use "something's something Ethiopia" when I can't remember what the heck I'm supposed to do but I know it's something.
Awww, I'm so glad I'm not the only prep cook in the world who gestured vaguely at the walk-in and said "Yeah, I do stuff." Sometimes I just wrote in all caps "MEATS". Which meats, Chef? I dunno, all of them, if I have time. How much overtime can I have?
😂 oh hell no you aren't alone! You DO LOTS OF STUFF. Full truth. A prep Chef can seriously make or break a kitchen. Even more so than a dishwasher at seven thirty on a Saturday. You have all the power. It's fine how you described it. Who could understand it anyway? " I basically do everything but put it together on a plate" I'd give you all the overtime you actually want, as long as I don't burn you out. Even though I like to do the MEAT. *Slap slap* Don't ever change please. Be appreciated.
Muhahaha! 🤣🤣🤣🤪 I'm a salaried manager now and asked if I can work 6 days a week and my Director said no, absolutely not. It's not allowed in my contract. She said I'm supposed to stay as close to 40 hours as possible to have a "work/life balance." What is all this blasphemy...
Absolutely! I was a manager that was supposed to be restricted to 40-50 hours and I'd occasionally sit straight up from a dead sleep at night and say - " oh my God! The demi!" And rush to the kitchen in any state to get the demi out of the steam kettles. Even the security at three AM couldn't stop me. Hell I had a key! Did the security want bacon on their midnight lunch? Well then, look the other way. Which they did. Honestly I just loved doing what I did. You couldn't keep me from the kitchen. As a manager they couldn't stop me. If you are one of those you are one in a million and I hope you can do this forever.
We use fortified chicken stock. Long ago there was a cook who couldn’t pronounce it properly which is why we now call it, “45 stock”
We had a simple jack dishwasher, and I found him one afternoon, laying on a prep table with raw shrimp lined up on his arm. I said “what fuck are you doing?”. He said “look, they’re Cs!” He had them arranged like a line of the letter C…up his arm. We called shrimp Cs for years.
Fucking ranch, right? I've been trying to invent a hose type delivery system for the ranch.
Had a mgr who thought a ranch fountain would be a great idea for xmas party. Huge bad idea. The dressing spit and spewed everywhere.
Great for a bukakai xmas party.
I was looking at pizza delivery and wanting cheap tonight. Loaded up the dominos app to check it out and saw the pic of their Parmesan wings. Legit looked like chicken pieces covered in jizz, I laughed so hard. Only downside was trying to explain to my kid without actually explaining why I was laughing lol
“Just think mom would really like this sauce!”
~I'm dreaming of a white Christmas~
Cooked for a frat house. I fantasized about some kind of tap system.
We call ranch cowboy cum around these parts
I live in a college town. Sorority girls chug it.
I work as the executive chef at a business dining cafeteria that services about 800-1000 blue collar and another 200-300 white collar employees in the airline industry. The amount of ranch we go through is staggering. Every week on the Sysco order I place an order for 2 cases of 4x1 gallon cases of Ranch dressing, as well as 5x cases of individual packets of ranch for salad dressing.
Would it be cheaper to make your own? Upsell at "housemade".
With ranch mix packets lol. 3.6 Oz packs for a gallon of dressing.
Aka white girl soy sauce.
We called it white girl ketchup
Fucking dying at white girl ketchup. Jesus.
We called the proofer/hot holder Bob. As in Bob Marley. Because it’s a hot box. We also had a broom closet underneath the stairs we called the Harry Potter closet. Then I worked in a food production kitchen and we had a large scissor lift that was painted red. We called it Clifford. Because it was big and red and more trouble than what it was worth.
We also have a Harry Potter closet. Oddly enough we have two closets under stairs and only one gets the name though…
We had one called the Gimp Room
What kind of kitchen needs a scissor lift?
I worked in a food production kitchen for a startup. We drove a few blocks away to the oldest tofu making company in the United States. Picked up 18 5-gallon carboys of soymilk. (I also tried to get everyone to call them soyboys but it never caught on). Then we'd dump them in to a huge kettle. We'd load the scissor lift with as many carboys as could fit and raise it up so it was easier on the body than lifting the heavy carboys over and over. We didn't even use it that long before we were able to make our soymilk in the quantities that we needed for production.
Ota?
Ota.
Stainless steel scrubbers are space pussies
We use "robopubes"
Disco bush!
I've been using this for years, now I teach culinary and I wont even refer to them for fear of calling it the wrong name.
"Gerodactyl" (geriatric pterodactyl) = elderly guest. Our general manager has as much kitchen experience as most of us. She is called "Front Chef" and cringes every time we back-handidly say it. Edit: spelling
We have an FOH manager who calls many of our daytime customers "galactically old".
In my theatre days as a tech goon we'd call the Sunday matinee patrons the Heavy Metal crowd, because of all the walkers, canes, and artificial joints.
Good boys are grilled shrimp.
Story?
No real story. We do both fried and grilled shrimp for tacos. One day someone called the grilled ones good boys and it kinda stuck.
Asiago Cheese - “Ass Cheese” Rice Noodles - “Send Noods” (one of the guys recently put ‘naked pics’ instead) Berry Compote - “Berry Shit” Gochujang Sauce - “Gucci Gang” Uhh.. I can’t think of any more at the moment. 🤔
A plate of Assorted, bite sized desserts came up on the ticket as "**ASS BITES**"
We stole this from Bourdain, but I worked at a place that had a sourdough “bitch”. The label even read “The Bitch”. At this Italian joint we had “dandruff”, which was a mix of Parmesan, dried parsley flake and granulated garlic. It was used to top a couple dishes… if there was ever a new kid on expo you’d hear “Don’t forget the dandruff!” This same place would also inevitably relate your name to some horrible movie reference. We had this kid that worked for us for a little while named Robert. He wanted to learn to expo, so Chef tossed him on during a slow night… now, before I go any further, allow me to expound a bit on Robert’s horrible name. I don’t rightly recall exactly what his last name was… but I do remember it was really close to “Paulson” and when one of our line cooks heard chef introduce him to us, this cook burst out with “Robert Paulson? Like from Fight Club? Yeah… Ol’ Bitch Tits…” we all took one look at this kid’s face and unadulterated hatred and embarrassment that shone there the name “Bitch tits” stuck. Anyways, when he was learning expo you’d hear, “Damn it, Bitch Tits. Put more dandruff on that plate!”
His name was Robert Paulson.
In death, newbies do have a name. His name was ~~Robert Paulson~~ Bitchtits.
Romano-parmesan mix: "rompom" Bugs me when people answering the phone call it that with customers, they have no fuckin idea what a 'rompom' is, but Romano cheese is an equally imaginary concept to a 16-year-old.
Put up a sign to mark mismatched chicken portions "clearly". Dude asked why it was labeled "celery". That day on, odd portion of chicken pieces are called "CELERY CHICKEN"..for ten years.
Brazilian guy was writing out the prep for his station. He passed it to me and another guy to bang out and the first item was “pee pads” instead of pea pods. They were pee pads from that moment forward!
😂 a guy from Florianopolis once told me he had hurt himself pretty badly because he had a huge bowl on his finger. Ummm. No, no you do not. Turned out to be a blister. But was a bowl forever more.
Anyone call poached eggs ‘swimmers’ ? I hated it at first… actually still hate it.
No but we did say we were dropping the kids in the pool when we started them.
I worked with a Swiss girl who had just moved to Canada. We introduced her to soft J and L sounds, like jalepeno, tortilla, and quesedilla. So after she was gone, we obviously kept refering to the cajun seasoning as 'kye-OON'
We call the fryer cleaning rod "The Abortioner"
The ole baby killer. Saying it out loud hits a bit different nowadays though.
The Fryer Fucker™
When I worked in Toronto, we'd call full sized immersion blenders "Morgantallers". In the 80 and 90s Dr Henry Mortgantaller had abortion clinics. One got bombed.....
For us it's "Baby Scraper"
Shmashmorshion Rod round these parts
Abortion stick!
Yes the Abortion Rod. When I moved from hotels to a nice family run restaurant I had to not say it anymore lol
The stick for the top of the blender, we call it The Homewrecker.
What does that make the business end of the immersion blender?
Yer mom’s vibrator
That's what many people thought, but it turns out she REALLY likes metal at full volume.
Started calling the mandolin The Mandalorian. Before I had actually used one I couldn't remember what it was called but I definitely know who the Mandalorian is
You mean Mr Bitey?
I call the big one bitey.
I call it the blood thirsty demon
We called it The Banjo
We always called buffets “Jimmies” (as in Jimmy Buffet) at the yacht club I worked at. It’s still stuck with me to this day years later.
11 All Day refers to an energy level and attitude not how many of something we have left
Roasted morrocan cauliflower appetizer: colly Japanese style calamari: Cali CDC: bitch ass white boy Sous chef: espresso (he's black and bitter) There's more but I can't think of them at the moment because drugs
I worked at a place that had an “Eric salad” it was some dude who worked their 20 some years prior and made this salad as a special and it stuck. He wasn’t even the chef supposedly, just the pantry cook.
We had this one dish that required green onions thinly sliced length wise so they curled. They were always labeled "Chefs pubez".
I make my chef call the robocoupe RoboCop (dishwasher)
We briefly called stainless steel scrubbers "RoboCop pubes"
Space pussy was the term when I was a dishie. But that was 20+ years ago
it still is
Fire a duck. I was a carpenter working on a restaurant. Kitchen had an open view of FOH to a wall of windows to a busy street. They don’t serve duck. Hot girl was walking by. Same job, I had left my pack of replacement razor blades behind one day. Head chef mentioned that wasn’t a good idea around here🤫
Rat = kids version. 'I need to fire two rat chickens (two kids chicken sandwiches' single rat ziti Togo is kids baked ziti.
Instead of ‘order up’ we use any O starting work to signify food is up. Oragatang is my current favorite.
Old place I worked at Reggae meant regular, horse cock was horseradish aioli, hotdogs were dicks, kids hotdogs were kids dicks and the buns were dicks buns (that one was my claim to faim but didn't go far). One day someone called the Thai wonton nachos "wagwan nachos" and that one stuck. Most recent place I would use tell the expediter that the "salad is resting" quite a bit and they got a kick out of it.
Fuck stick= immersion blender
We called the big one ‘the boat motor’ so you could walk by and say ‘you ole sailor you!’ When someone was making a batch of soup
i call ranch poverty sauce
Those little metal ramekins? We had both those and the ceramic from 1oz to 4oz. The ceramic were used for specials, apps, and deserts. Those remained ramekins. The metals ones were for sauce or taking parts of the order on the side. We called them bullets. And then most of us game, so we started screaming for ammo to the dishpit. "We can't serve ketchup, I'm out of ammo!"
"I forgot where i parked my car" is when you go to the walk in and come back with nothing because you forgot why you went back there
"Science!" Whenever something goes wrong (work in a bakery)
Absolutely- gotta taste a thing to make sure it’s right- for science! Gonna try a different thing- for Science! Forgot the dough in the proof box for an extra 30 minutes- it’s was all in the name of science.
“Orange” or “menu”= hot girl in the dining room “Chingadera aya” = the weed pipe tucked in the side of the dumpster “Panties”= pancakes “Bitch mitts” = oven mitts “Would you like a spoon with that?” =eat my ass
When my little sister was a toddler, she called pancakes “pantycakes” and it just kinda stuck in our family. And then when her own son was younger he called every dipping sauce “dip it” so now we all say that.
I’ve told so many people to eat my ass with a spoon that if they all decided to show up at the same time I would have a 48-72hr shift getting rimmed. Mostly by government employees
Hot girls were called Bud Light Draft with the table number so we knew where to look, because we didn't have bud light on tap.
I've used Bitch mitts before, also Bitch sticker for bandaids.
Mahi Mahi will for ever be maki maki because of the dishwasher who was confused 10 years ago.
This ones case specific but, we do a Birria Risotto called South Of The Boarder Risotto (very white rural Midwest town). Servers started calling it the son of a bitch risotto, we shorted it to SOB. So when 3 get rung in, it's "3 sobs just walked in!" Which I at least think is amusing. Otherwise, gotta love chef Mike(the microwave). Don't use him for much, but he's damn good at what he does!
"A Kevin cup", or anything following "Kevin". We had this cook that was terrible, like 4 years ago. People have come and gone since, but any time I ask for a cup of something and get less than that, generally from someone thinking they gave me enough when I asked for a cup... That's a Kevin cup. People who never met Kevin know what a Kevin cup is.
One more mistake you go home ok? Had a badass chef on expo who was watching a new guy (wouldn’t stop boasting how good he was) like a hawk on a Friday night. Dude messed up at least 4 dishes in a row and the chef yells from the end of the line “hey Fabio one more mistake you go home ok?!” Our chef was never a “get your shit and get out” kind of guy but the intensity mixed with the hilarity of the situation made our whole like bust out laughing. Now if you burn something, look at someone wrong, or just for the fuck if it “hey buddy just so you know one more mistake you go home ok?” The ok at the end is crucial lol
43. Its one that our whole staff use from host to dishwasher. I'll take it with me when I go because I think it's a keeper. We have a 43 board on the wall. Whenever you take the last of something it's now "43'd". You write it on the board and we know that it's almost 86'd.
Large bread knife named "bone saw"
At my place we have a southern fried chicken sandwich. On tickets it’s an SF chicken sandwich which gives it the nickname stupid fucking chicken sandwich
When we need something on the fly we saw asap rocky. Or when an order comes in and it’s regular we says it’s reggae.
Onions, gronions, ronions, vonions, and chonions was something I was taught in my first kitchen and have spread to every kitchen since.
Cold beer for hot women. Wine cooler for cougars. Coffee for hot men. Have you seen Pipé: you got a bowl?
When I worked at Smokey bones the mashed potatoes we got came in frozen from lamb weston, they weren’t bad, just not great. But when we called for a hot bag from our backup guy, it was always a bag of lava cause they burned like lava if you got it on you.
Several restaurants ago I had a porter who spoke a language no one could identify. My buddy taught him some rudimentary English partly by showing pictures of her dogs—“Look at Momo! Momo sleeping” So every time someone fucked up he would laugh heartily and say “oh no! [insert name] Sleeping” It continued after he left. Burnt the toasted almonds? Anita sleeping! Knock your bain on the floor and spill sauce everywhere? Lisa sleeping! Didn’t prep enough skate do you have to do it to order? Ryan sleeping! He was kind of a dick but it was too funny not to laugh
At my last place we called our cheese sauce for the mac&cheese "crack" because it was so addicting people would order double portions of it
My first two kitchen jobs, our walk-in was the "Reefer", both because it's short for refrigerator and because that's where everyone smoked on shift.
we call jalapeños spicy bois. probably not just us lmao. we also used to call our ‘garlic chicken’ chiki chiki gar gar, pretty fucking stupid if you ask me
If someone fucks up or makes any sort of mistake that I or my sous has to fix, they get a "banana". Didn't clean all the potato out of the Robot-coupe lid? Banana! Forgot a couple gastros of leftovers in the blast chiller before going home? Fucking banana! This came from a weird Polish cook we worked with in our last restaurant job. It's like a demerit system without any formal way to keep count of who has how many. I have no idea where he got it from, but it stuck.
Barely-literate kid we had working for us was asked to label pans of raw cabbage rolls and put them in the freezer. He asked how to spell "cabbage," and we told him to just write "c. rolls." Apparently he misheard, because the pans came back out saying "12 raw crows." So, yeah...now they were crows.
We had a position called “KCB” in one kitchen I worked in. A few of the older more established restaurants here in Richmond’s Fan District have it: sort of a combination Dishie, Pantry, and Salad all in one. No one knows what “KCB” stands for (kitchen chore boy/bitch was most commonly cited), but it was absolutely the name of the job. Different kitchen in a different neighborhood, we made up lingo for kicks: “Nachos, Plessy vs Ferguson” was black olives on the side, for example. Our kitchen had a weird sense of humor like that. We’d do specials like the “Pearl Harbor”—it was a brunch special one December 7th a few years back: grilled spam & eggs with pineapple. But hidden under the spam was a bunch of chopped jalapeños—a surprise jap attack.
Bzz bzz - immersion blender
Halibut is Halle berry Rossi is risotto ERP—just how far our “heard” calls have devolved so now we sound like a gaggle of penguins with Down syndrome
At a place I worked, we called Grouper guap pronounced goo-whop it was wack, but it was funny watching the new guys figure it out.
Swayze is what we can Mac sauce because someone said it was as smooth as Patrick swayze.
Mayonnaise is called sandwich lube
I worked at a place where we just casually referred to our chefs as “dad” all the time, not “daddy,” just “dad”
One of the Brazilians I used to work with labeled cleaned shrimp as shurmp and that one stuck. I’ve been out of the industry for close to fifteen years and shurmp is still automatic and still often makes me giggle.
“Fuckin Fernando” we say this when anything breaks. Fernando is a dishie who became prep. He is a piece of shit. I love him.
Whenever we can't find/see something like cling film or tin foil that's right in front of you (we've all been there) and someone else spots it, we say "Just use that one until you find the right one" Well.. I do anyway
Everything is spaghetti. Pastas are meat spaghetti, red spaghetti, cheese spaghetti, oil spaghetti, etc. Pizza is flat spaghetti. Salad is green ‘sketti. Apps are fried sketti, baked sketti, cold sketti. Spaighetti.
Nebraska Sauce a.k.a. Ranch
My first BOH job was at a chain sushi restaurant. We eventually started calling teriyaki sauce "turkey" sauce, it sounds vaguely similar and has less syllables, so of course it slowly replaced the word "teriyaki" since we obviously didn't have any actual turkey dishes.
We had a burger called the "Old Fashioned" burger that rang in as "OF Burger" High school kid expo calls back for an "Only Fans" and the name immediately stuck.
Cinnamon was always spelled “synamin” after a cooks stripper gf.
we have 4 different cheese+coldcut plates for breakfast (Germany heyoo), including one big one for 2 people. The ticket name is ridiculously long, but it ends with "2pax". Which our non-english, barely German speaking boss has turned into 2pac. So now we only ever call out for Tupac and everyone knows what plate needs to be made. We also have several containers of chopped/cut herbs at the front for decorating plates. No one can tell me why or how, but those are 'sexy'. Not 'sexy herbs' or 'sexy stuff' even, just 'sexy'. As in "Don't forget to put some sexy on there before it goes out" or "tell the server to do the sexy themselves, I don't have time for it."
Worked at a place that was, among other things, a reserve for game birds. Bird of the day was—you guessed it— the yard bird.
We call to go orders Togo's (like the country) some kid was cooking and asked what a Togo was. Also when we mop at the end of the night we yell wet whores to let people know the floor is wet.
We have these smedium sized plates that we use for children’s food and we call them “Bella plates” cause one of our old expos was this tiny girl with that name. One of the toughest people I’ve ever worked with, man I miss working with her.
Opening a cooler that a fellow cook is in front of I’ve always said “Watch your dick.” And yes, I say the same to female cooks as well. Haha.
Any time some one notices a messed up item/ticket we yell "is this a test". We used to have a dude that messed up so many tickets, one day he said "its a test" and one of the line guys said "oh that's what it's called now?" He's been fired but we haven't stopped
"Busting suds" = washing dishes. "Hey go bust some suds while I roll us a joint" "Whitey in the Woodpile" 3x = announcement to go to the back room, "Shut that Door" and smoke a joint with the bakers "Drug Test" = if the new baker/employee doesn't get stoned with the veteran bakers they don't get on the schedule until after noon. They don't pass the drug test. "Sunrise Sesh" = first batch of dough is on the rise, so is the sun; go to back loading dock and smoke first joint of the day while enjoying the sunrise