To my recollection, many Asian dramas (and anime), even if the restaurant is supposed to serve cuisine that doesn’t really have fried rice as traditional repotaire (eg: western), ended up using fried Rice as a way to demonstrate the new guy’s skill (at least, being acceptable to the restaurant). Why is that?
In: 183
Former kitchen manager here.
Many restaurants that have some reputation or high star rating need to have a way to test their new cooks. Its one thing to see a wonderful resume and solid references but even if you call their references and say they are the best, you still have to do your due diligence and make sure they are up to the standards that your restaurants decided on. The higher rating the restaurant, the more important this test becomes.
Gordon Ramsey, a very well known and respected chef, says that he asks any potential new cooks to cook him a scrambled egg. He let’s them do it any way they want and like many people have described here, the new cooks technique will be quickly shown if they understand what makes a good scrambled egg.
I imagine that he looks at how they handle the pan, whisk, flame control, proper oil, salt and milk ratios to see how they handle what most would see as a simple task. This test shows how they will handle all kinds of layers of being in a kitchen from listening to instructions, prepping the ingredients to even the plating of the food to present to the Head Chef.
This is the western version of the Asian test.
Rice is a staple in Asia and has been for longer than most countries have been around so knowing how to cook rice is not only expected as an Asian chef but how they cook and integrate other foods into it as well.
Some additional information: Fried rice is usually made with day- old rice and leftover ingredients. If done right, this is a wonderful way for restaurants in Asia to use the leftover ingredients without letting them go to waste. Its difficult to mess up fried rice so its a perfect way to test incoming chefs.
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