Even if you have your dream job and enjoy it thoroughly, it is normal that there are parts of it that are less exciting than others and maybe even insufferable. Most jobs involve more than just doing the task you like.
For example, if you’re a chef, that means you like cooking, but the downside is that you don’t cook what you want to, but what the customer wants instead, and they may ask for something that you would rather skip.
Chefs, cooks and amateurs came to this Reddit thread to vent about the dishes that they hate seeing ordered but have to suck it up and just do it. This is not their first therapy session and Bored Panda has another article you can find here if you would like to know what not to order to not burden your chef.
More info: Reddit
#1 German Apple Pancake
Our German Apple pancake.
First you sauté Granny Smiths in clarified butter.
Then add three ladles of our German batter into sauté pan.
Throw in oven for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and add clarified butter and cinnamon sugar.
Flip delicate pancake with spatula and a dash of learning curve.
Return to oven and cook 5 more minutes.
Flip pancake onto plate and insure it makes it to the table in less than a minute as it deflates rapidly.
Bonus points for when it’s ordered 10 minutes before we close.
Edit: those who are apologizing for ordering it, don’t it’s our job. Kitchen staff are gluttons for punishment.
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144points
Bored Panda got in touch with Reddit user ALiteralPotatooooo who contributed to the thread and their most hated item on the menu was charcuterie boards as they are so messy and everything is falling off.
As you may have noticed charcuterie boards aren’t the most complicated things to make and many of the chefs who answered the question had a variety of reasons they didn’t like cooking one dish or another besides it just being complicated.
#2 Moo Shu Anything
Not a chef, but when I worked for a Chinese restaurant, the chef there hated Moo Shoo anything, he always had to cut up the cabbage to order. So as a server, whenever they pissed me off at the front, I go ahead & tell the customers how great our moo shoo is that day, & we get practically every one trying it. Then I would hear the kitchen people cursing everyone out & their mother lol
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119points
#3 Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwitch
Worked in a sandwich shop for a bot in college. Not fine dining by any stretch of the imagination, but a couple steps above Subway.
Every time someone ordered a PB&J off the kids menu we had to clear off both lines, change our gloves, wipe down every surface the peanut butter got close to, and wash the knife we used to cut it. Like, I get it. But having to treat peanut butter like nuclear waste in the middle of a lunch rush was never fun.
Plus, the peanut butter was too thick for the bread we used for the PB&J, so the bread ended up tearing half the time
97points
The chef we got in contact with told us that actually, they enjoy making more complicated dishes that could scare amateurs because not only it shows off the skills of the chef, but “also because the end product is usually delicious like you can't get anywhere else.”
They enjoy cooking in general as “It makes [them] feel human. Most people think that when you're rich and powerful you can hire someone to do your laundry and cook and clean for you but eventually those become the things you want to make time for. [They] also love to have company while cooking.”
#4 Marshmallows
Pastry chef here. I HATE making marshmallows (just the worst texture for touching, tasting, preparing and cleaning) and tempering chocolate (fickle, frustrating & expensive).
I’ll happily flambé you a goddamn bananas foster if it means I don’t have to make marshmallows or filled chocolates.
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95points
#5 Soufflés
Soufflés. We make the creme pate in advance but when it’s ordered the process is:
Warm creme pate over a double boiler, while that is warming you need to hand whip a fresh meringue. Once the creme pate is warm, you have about 3 minutes to fold in the whites, fill your molds to make sure you don’t touch the edges(as it makes them rise crooked). Into the oven for 3 minutes, open oven and rotate for 2 minutes. In those 5 minutes you have to plate the rest of the tables desserts, which all have 8-10 components. Soufflé comes out to a waiting waiter, has to go to the table immediately or deflates.
Warm creme pate over a double boiler, while that is warming you need to hand whip a fresh meringue. Once the creme pate is warm, you have about 3 minutes to fold in the whites, fill your molds to make sure you don’t touch the edges(as it makes them rise crooked). Into the oven for 3 minutes, open oven and rotate for 2 minutes. In those 5 minutes you have to plate the rest of the tables desserts, which all have 8-10 components. Soufflé comes out to a waiting waiter, has to go to the table immediately or deflates.
While it’s not the most difficult thing in the world, when you’re busy and have 4-6 on order and each one needs to pass a 3 finger test(height above rim of mold or it gets sent back and you need to restart), it can get quite hard and demoralizing when they don’t work.
And then you send out 4 at once and someone at the table gets up to go to the bathroom or have a cigarette and the tray comes back and you start again and cry inside.
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83points
#6 Type Of Schnitzel
When I briefly worked as a waitress in a restaurant the chef would always scream at me when someone ordered that one meal we served. It was a type of schnitzel but in a very special dough that would burn very quickly when fried, so he had to watch it very carefully and couldn't work on anything else for a few minutes.
(Sorry if I butchered some words, english is not my first language)
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80points
But the Redditor admits that shills are way more important than passion and to make something delicious passion isn’t needed. However, “the experience wouldn't be as gratifying without it. Skills are way more important, though.”
As the chef enjoys their job themselves, they have a suggestion for those who would like to enjoy it more as well, “Forget the recipe. Just imagine what something would be like to eat to make something great. Also, just extensive experience helps prevent the hassles and mistakes that disappoint younger cooks. Just keep learning and maybe even read a cookbook in your free time.”
#7 Lobster
Worked at a kitchen after high school. Some guy orders f*****g lobster on Valentine's Day and we were this low-midrange fish and chips chain where high school kids hung out and the most fancy thing most people ordered was probably swordfish collar. We didn't even know we had lobster in the menu. I remember the head chef swearing and actually taking out the restaurant's recipe book to see what was needed. We actually didn't have some of the ingredients and we had to send one of the cooks out to take a cab to the next outlet a few streets down to pick up the stuff. The rest of us dug through the freezer and actually found lobster that we didn't know we had. Cooking it was pretty much referencing the recipe book all the way. On hindsight it was hilarious. Why you would you order lobster at a restaurant like this? The head chef was pissed as hell the rest of the day.
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76points
#8 Lean Beef Burger
I used to work at McDonalds. Years ago we had this promotional burger we called the ‘lean beef burger’. It was aimed at people who wanted to be more healthy - haha.
Normally the meat patties are cooked on the grill, but this one was nuked in the microwave. When it was heated, it looked grey, and it smelled so putrid no one wanted to work near the microwave so they wouldn’t have to smell it.
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71points
#9 Something Off The Menu
When someone is just “big” enough to be able to get away ordering off the menu
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70points
Do you like cooking? Why do you enjoy it? Are you good at cooking? Maybe you don’t like cooking but every dish you make is both beautiful and delicious? Let us know in the comments!
#10 Fillet Steak Cooked Well Done
People ordering fillet steak cooked well done. ☹️ They will always send it back because its like a 'rubber boot' or 'too tough' well DUH what do you expect, fillet is not the right cut to be served well done in the first place. Takes a good 30-45 minutes to butcher the steak without burning the outside, order a thinner cut if you would like well done. It's my job so I still fulfil the requests as that's what I am paid to do but I do die inside when I see that on the ticket 🤣
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61points
#11 Omelette
I worked as a chef for a long time, I worked in a cafe in a really sort of rich area. We had a few people who were CEOs of big companies in my city, my boss treated this one guy like royalty even though he was a slimy piece of s**t. He would always make him an egg white omelette with various vegetables. Something that was absolutely not on the menu, we only offered fried, scrambled or poached eggs.
One day the boss didn't work in the kitchen anymore and low and behold, that a*****e guy came back asking for his omlette and the manager asked me to make it.
It was in the midst of a very busy rush on a Saturday. F**k that guy.
He owns cotton on and even though I know it doesn't impact anything, I refuse to buy from them.
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60points
#12 Quesadillas
I'm not really a chief, just a Taco Bell line cook. Think what I've got to say is relevant though.
I hate making quesadillas. Especially multiple in a row. First off, because of their shape they need to go in the largest bag on the bottom, meaning that if it's ordered last I have to let food pile up taking up space so that I can put it in the bag first. It requires two scoops of cheese, being the only item that does, taking up extra time. It then has to be melted inside a hot steam machine that's finicky and doesn't want to work sometimes. Then it is carefully removed, folded, and plopped onto the grill where the jalapeno sauce likes to leak and make a mess on the grill. After grilling it has to be slipped into a sleeve, put in an open space and cut, and finally put into the bag. Having more than one makes it harder, as there is a limited number of steam machine and grill spaces so they end up backing up and taking up space. Finding the space to cut a quesadilla when you have many items taking up space is really frustrating. People hate how expensive they are here, but I think it's justified.
Thanks for reading my rant.
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59points
#13 Ham Salad And Chicken Salad
Not a chef but a butcher, and i can't even begin to express how much i loathe c**p like ham salad and chicken salad.
I love when new customers come in for the first time, but my heart always sinks when they say "i heard this place has great ham salad!"
Sorry but if you like ham salad it's all gonna be great, because what you actually like is an obscene amount of mayonnaise and sweet relish.
Sorry but if you like ham salad it's all gonna be great, because what you actually like is an obscene amount of mayonnaise and sweet relish.
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54points
#14 Clementines In The Pre-Cut Fruit Boxes
I used to work at a grocery store and I was the person who made all those pre-cut fruit boxes. I didn’t particularly mind any of them all that much except clementines. We had to peel clementines and put them in a box. First, it was a huge waste because no one ever bought them (why would you pay $5 for 6 peeled clementines when you could buy a whole bag unpeeled for the same price) except for old people who couldn’t peel the fruit themselves, and secondly because the acid would eat through our gloves and then destroy our nails and leave orange smell on your fingers for days.
The only other thing I hated making was 5 mix. We have a mixture called “six mix” which is just 6 different kinds of fruit together, but this one guy would come in and ask for six mix without the cantaloupe in it. We actually started calling him 5 mix. When he walked in someone from a different department would ring us and let us know 5 mix was there and to start making some 5 mix. I hated it because when he asked we’d have to go get a whole watermelon, a whole honeydew, and 3 other fruits and cut them all up just so he could have like 5 cut up pieces of each instead of just eating around the cantaloupe. And he always showed up right as our department was starting to close down for the night too. So we had to them rewatch all our surfaces after five mix came in
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53points
#15 Cinnamon Buns
Baker here...cinnamon buns are the majority of our business but so f*****g time intensive and while the finished product comes out SO good they take 3 days to make between dough, proofing, and baking by the time the customer gets them (warm) I swear they owe me much more than $5 a bun lol. Exhausting
51points
#16 Charcuterie Boards
Charcuterie boards. Stuff falling off all over the place.
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50points
#17 Anything Puréed
Slightly different take, but I was a chef at a nursing home and anything puréed for people who are on that dietary restriction was gross to me. I literally had to take whatever meal I made, throw in a blender and put it in a bowl. I always felt so bad.
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49points
#18 Breadsticks
When I was working as a waiter, we had one customer who we called "The Spaghetti Lady".
She came in 1-2 times per week for lunch. She always ordered spaghetti with sauce on the side. Salad with Pepperoncini and ranch on the side, Coke/no ice, breadsticks/no butter. She camped for 1.5 hours, then stiffed the tip.
Lunch was always a nothing shift, so tying up one 4 top for all of lunch killed the whole shift.
Most of it was side work, but the breadsticks were a huge pain. Chain restaurants aren't really built for special orders, they break the rhythm like a car slamming on the brakes on a highway.
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48points
#19 Crepes
Making crepes .. and boning quail for pate’ .. things young chefs do in training .. mind numbing .. yeah, about those crepes, so many of you mention the finished product (filled, etc) or using a crepe maker .. I’m talking about making them in a pan, in large amounts , like a big catered event where you have hours pouring and flipping .. beyond boring ..
44points
#20 Panini
I’m a chef working in a lunch cafe. I absolutely hate it when someone wants a panini.
Not because it would be a hassle to make one, as they’re all premade, store bought, but because that is exactly why I hate them. All I do is open the packet, slide the bread into the bag it’s served in, pop it onto the grill for three minutes and serve.
If I could make them myself, I probably wouldn’t hate them at all.
If I could make them myself, I probably wouldn’t hate them at all.
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41points