Seafood Tower, No Refrigeration, One Allergy
Saturday wedding, 180 guests, hall held at 24 °C. The cold buffet goes out at 16:30 and stays open until 19:00. It includes a seafood station - poached shrimp, crab salad bound with mayonnaise, cold-smoked salmon and raw oysters on crushed ice - plus a charcuterie board and twelve salads. The venue's display table has no refrigeration. You have six ice-filled bus tubs, one speed rack and 40 kg of ice, with a walk-in 20 m away. At 15:50 a server tells you a guest at table 12 has a documented shellfish allergy, and another guest is seven months pregnant.
1. Set the time and temperature plan for the shrimp, crab salad and oysters from 16:30 to 19:00. What goes out, and when do you pull it?
Read the worked answer
Assume no mechanical refrigeration, so time becomes your control.
- Everything is held at 4 °C or below until it leaves the walk-in. Display only what a station can sell in about 30 minutes; the rest stays cold on the speed rack behind the line.
- Ice beds must be deep - ice plus a little water, with the product pans nested so the base of the food is below the ice line. Never sit product in meltwater; drain the tubs and top up ice every 30 minutes.
- Crab salad is the highest-risk item (mayonnaise, hand contact, protein): smallest pans, shortest window, 2 hours maximum on display.
- Oysters stay deep in ice, drained, and go out last; discard any that have lost their liquor or sat in standing water.
- Pull times: nothing that has been on display more than 2 hours is replenished into the same pan or served. At 18:30 the station closes and remaining displayed product is discarded, not re-chilled and returned to the walk-in.
- Log the time each pan goes out and comes off. Topping up an old pan with fresh product is how a good plan fails.
2. How do you handle the shellfish allergy at table 12, and what will you refuse to do?
Read the worked answer
This is a cross-contact problem, not a picking-around problem.
- Do not send a plate assembled from the buffet by removing shrimp from a mixed platter - tongs, ice, garnish and hands are all shared.
- Build a separate plate in a clean area of the cold kitchen: clean board, clean knife, clean gloves, utensils that have not touched the seafood station. Include only items you can name.
- If the charcuterie or salads share a garnish or ice with the seafood, either omit them or make a fresh portion from unopened product.
- Deliver it personally or by a designated server, labelled with the guest's name and table, and confirm with the guest what is on the plate. Do not simply tell the server, 'it's shellfish-free'.
- Refuse: guaranteeing a dish you cannot trace; offering a 'maybe' plate; or letting the guest serve themselves from a buffet where tongs are shared with shellfish. If you cannot build a safe plate, say so and offer a hot kitchen alternative.
3. What do you tell the pregnant guest, and how does that change your station?
Read the worked answer
Inform, offer alternatives, and never diagnose.
- Raw oysters carry Vibrio risk and cold-smoked (ready-to-eat) salmon carries Listeria risk; both are commonly avoided in pregnancy. You are not giving medical advice - you are stating what the food is and offering a cooked option.
- Offer cooked shrimp heated to 74 °C, a hot-smoked or cooked salmon portion, or a vegetarian plate from the salad station, prepared in the same clean-area way as the allergy plate.
- On the station: keep the oysters clearly identified as raw with a small sign, keep them out of reach of guests serving themselves, and make sure servers know which items are raw or cold-smoked so the question can be answered without a trip to the kitchen.
- Note both guest requests in the event file so the next function with the same client is not starting from zero.