the short of it.

Portobello re-opened last night. Word is that the place was teeming with multi-celled organisms looking to chow down. By all accounts it was a success.

I did spend most of the first three hours of service in pretty much a complete panic, though according to the chef and sous chef, I at least appeared to be handling myself on the line pretty well considering it was my first day.

The head chef schedules the orders when they arrive. He keeps track of what table is getting their 1st, 2nd, 3rd course, etc. There are a few key cues that I had to learn. When he says, "order in" a pizza (or 3), it's to let me know to prep my station for those pizzas. "Pick up" is the go cue—cook it. If someone asks for an "all day," it means, "tell me how many orders I have in total—both order in and pick up."

In all, I made about 40 pizzas during the opening. Tonight I only made about 20 though we also had a packed house this evening—people actually waited over two hours to get a table. And the few comments that I received were very complimentary. I was told that the folks over at Food Fight may mention the pies in their blog. Isa Chandra Moskowitz dropped by the kitchen for a moment (though I didn't realize it at the time, she's the author or co-author of a number of cookbooks, including one of my favorites Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World), and had very nice things to say.

So far so good.