29th November, 2005 – I was working at Brisbane’s leading fine dining restaurant, had been for six months. It was my first real exposure to fine dining. The call came at 8am, “Adrian, sorry to bother you mate, can you start at 10am?â€Â? I sighed, 14 hours straight? I’d be there with bells on. I rocked up with a bag of M&Ms and skittles as always. It had become my habit to put a bowl of mixed lollies on the pass (THE PASS: Where the chefs put the plates for waitstaff to take out, A.K.A. The Servery) for staff to gorge on. I arrived to find the owner all sheepish. “They told me it’s your birthday,â€Â? he smiled at me, handing me a bottle of wine exactly my age, carefully wrapped in aluminium foil and scrawled over with a pen. I came, I did my thing, I totally rocked their world that day. I was fast, accurate and able to anticipate needs of the kitchen. Towards the end of service a plate came in from out the front and was dumped in my section. On this plate was written in chocolate “Happy Birthday Adrian!â€Â? I turned to Joey, a large Italian waiter and his girlfriend Loza, another waiter and asked, grinning from ear to ear, “Wow, you filthy Joe-Mo-Sexual, There’s a customer with the same name, who’s also having a birthday today!â€Â?

I felt wanted. I felt like I belonged. I felt loved.

29th November, 2003 – My ex took me out to Marco Polo’s, the 5 star restaurant in the casino. It was a fantastic meal and it had THE BEST SAUCE EVER. I have never been able to make a sauce as good, even with all my exposure and experience now, all my knowledge and I still can’t make or know of anyone who can make a sauce as good (and making sauces is one of my strongest points).

School camp, 1994 – We went to an old gold prospecting town. The place was riddled with fool’s gold. However, I managed to find a gold nugget that weighed just over an ounce (think about $300 worth of gold). I was so excited, it’s now easy for me to runderstand why people would up and leave their homes to go gold prospecting.

Dinner on the Bridge, 2005 – Every year Brisbane ‘The River City’ has a week of Riverfest. There are celebrations, fireworks, and they close down some of the bridges one night of this festival and restaurants set up tables and chairs and provide meals overlooking the city and river at night with fireworks. Working that was a load of fun, and I go some cool shirts to boot!

Related posts:
How gauche!
Up and down
Colin’s (long) story of Christmas and the vicious circle
6:45 am (apparently)
Ain’t nobody got any style no more

Written by Adrian on 28.07.07 at 3:27 pm.