Team Building Activity - Culinary Creations

So amazing! I had a blast and learned a lot - can't wait to do this again.

The resident chef was kind and caring. It would have been nice to start with an overview of how the evening was going to proceed. We weren't sure of the steps and cooking tips would have been helpful. We had a good time and the food was delicious.

It did not appear that the chef had taught this class before or made these recipes The chef kept looking at the ingredients and directions on how to make these dishes, and stumbled through explaining things. Rather than have the class make the aioli, the chef did it. While adding oil, the chef had the aioli at a good consistency, he glanced down at the directions again and added another 2 cups of oil, which broke the aioli. He then had to start again from the beginning and remake while the class looked on. Why wasn't the class doing this, and why doesn't a professional chef know how to do this off hand? The chef didn't speak up enough to hear instructions in the back of the classroom. Kitchens are loud, but it feels like a key part of being an instructor is ensuring everybody can hear the instructions. Chef kept looking at his assistant to confirm line items on the recipe The classroom format was sloppy Lettuce and other ingredients were not prepped for the students ahead of time. Crammed quarters at the front of the classroom with all three burners next to each other. There wasn't much room to have the class gather around and watch/participate. We kept running into each other. After the first glass of water, there was no water for drinking in the container. One of the participants asked if we could have some more, but it was never refilled over the course of 2.5 hours. There was no seating in the classroom - we had to stand while eating, which made for an uncomfortable meal. The chef kept pushing items for sale in the store - this felt more like an advertisement than a cooking class. It happened at least 3 times during the class. There wasn't much instruction on how to cut or use kitchen techniques. When we sliced shallots and other items, the teams were just expected to do vs. learn techniques appropriate for the dish. The students were excused for ten minutes halfway through the class while the chef prepped the next dish. This didn't feel planned and was more due to disorganization. It's odd to roam a retail store to just kill time. The steaks were not ready when we got to that portion of the class, and the chef had to go into the refrigerator to get them, remove them from packaging, and portion them. Then the chef seasoned and prepped steaks vs. allowing students to do so. I thought the purpose of a cooking class was to have the students do the work. Things felt rushed throughout the class, and especially towards the end. It would have been nice to have this a little better paced, and not feel like we were getting in the chef/team's way while we ate our meal. The food was not done properly While cooking the steaks, there were no meat thermometers to see internal temps. The assistant went out into the store to grab one off the shelf, which ended up not working. We then had to rely on the thumb test to see "doneness", which led to the thicker steaks being rare. The solution to this after cutting them open was to sear them on the grill. This resulted in seared steaks with no juice, and little flavor. Really disappointing to have the main course being such a miss. Steaks and salads were ready first, but not the fries, which were brought out after we were mostly done with the meal. The point of cooking steak frites is having those dishes served together. Overall this was one of the least instructional cooking classes I've ever taken, and it was disappointing to see the chef doing the work I expected us as participants to be taking on.