In Your Shoes - Martha Doyle

Thinking ahead

Most Mondays at the restaurant involve going over the accounts from the previous week and re-stocking on produce, ingredients and drinks.  This week we will focus on ordering and polishing final details for our Mexican independence party next weekend. We have published the festive menu online, and now need to ensure we have all the ingredients ordered and/ or delivered, to prepare our traditional dishes for the Mexican Independence Day.

Today, we also collected some our fresh produce from Fare of Scotland near Inververbie, a family run farm where we get eggs, tomatoes, courgettes, and edible flowers. We prefer to collect these produce personally, as we like to look after the relationships with our providers and ensure we receive the freshest produce possible.

Recruitment and Mole Paste

As many of our regular staff have made their way to university (including our youngest daughter), this morning was spent reviewing CVs and interviewing potential candidates for the positions of kitchen assistant and restaurant staff.
After finishing our interviews, I drew my attention to preparing the paste for our traditional Mole sauce, which will feature in our menu next weekend. Mole is a smooth rich sauce made with 20-30 different spices and ingredients including: different varieties of dried chillies, nuts, dried fruits, and a little bit of chocolate. As this is very complex sauce, I have made a start this week, so it gives it time to mature and acquire the right texture and flavour for next weekend. It has taken me approximately 4 hours to have the sauce ready, but I am happy with the end result, I just hope my customers enjoy it next weekend.

The tortilla crisis!

It’s an early rise for me every day at El Tajin, so today I left my house around 6:30 AM whilst my family were still in bed. Once at the restaurant, I play some music and make coffee to start preparing vegetables and salsas for the day. During this period, we also catch up with telephone enquires and online reservations, as well as receiving deliveries from Turrifs Montrose and collecting produce from our local butcher’s J. Barclay butcher.
Today, our order of tortillas from London did not arrive on time. Plan B: making tortillas from scratch in addition to the preparation of the 16 different dishes from our menu! Making tortillas involves preparing the flour for the dough and then hand pressing individual tortillas into round shapes. Tortillas are a fundamental part of our diet and menu, so we cannot go a day without them. It took me a couple of hours, but we did it. Panic over!

Taco Thursday sell out

Last night was an unusually quiet day for El Tajin, but having had a restaurant in the past, we know that this can happen some times. Taco night normally means cooking 7 meaty and veggie recipes in addition to our All Day Menu.  It’s a one-man show, as we don’t have a kitchen assistant working on Thursdays, but the tortillas arrived so we are back on track and ready for the weekend.

Today was particularly successful as we had a full house and by the sounds of it our customers were very happy. I had a chance to talk to some of our guests and hear their feedback. I think it’s nice for them to meet the person who cooks their meal and find out more about our recipes. As a family run restaurant, we like to have a good chat with our customers and find out more about our local community.

Friday’s Specials!

Friday is the end of the week and a good day to treat ourselves. I like to treat our customers by cooking a variety of  ‘Specials’ every Friday. Today I made fish, prawns, and pork chops.

This is a very exciting part of the week, as I get to cook with different ingredients and introduce new flavours in our restaurant.  Our intention is to change our menu each season and this is a great opportunity for us to find out what our diners like and prefer.

Friday ‘Specials’ can be challenging for our staff, as they have to familiarise themselves with new dishes quickly and effectively to be able to answer any queries from our customers. Names in Spanish and Mexican ingredients are difficult to learn, so our staff are always invited to sample our dishes before anybody else and let their palates do the explaining. 

Busy Saturdays

Saturday is the busiest day of our working week and without a doubt the fastest paced. Today was no exception and we were fully booked throughout the day, especially as we welcomed a table of 12 diners.  The day went by smoothly with both the front house and the kitchen coping with the amount of guests that we had in. All of our guests seem content with both the food and the service that they received, as well as commenting on the delicious cocktails that we have available for them. The day starts coming to a close when the last customer departs, however there is still some things to sort out before everyone can go home. In the kitchen everything must be cleaned and put away for the next day and at the front the tables have to be wiped and new cutlery set in preparation for the next day.

Family Sunday

Sunday's at El Tajin are relatively quiet, so this is a good chance to catch up with my family in the morning, before we get busy in the late afternoon.  Today, I heard all about my youngest daughter’s first week at university and had a chat with my eldest daughter and the rest of the family about our plans for the Independence Day weekend. 

We have decided what the presentation for our dishes will be, as well as the decorations that need to be set up. We have allocated a table plan for our diners and agreed a detailed staff rota to ensure all runs smoothly during our festivities.

Next week, some of our our diners will be making their way to Montrose from Aberdeen, London and even Denmark, so we must ensure we make their trip worthwhile and are ready to provide them with the best dining experience possible. Fingers crossed and Viva Mexico!!