Power Failure and a Peanut Allergy at the Tea Bungalow
The Heritage Tea Bungalow, a 60-cover restaurant in a converted 1890s planter's bungalow near Jorhat, is fully booked for dinner: 44 covers plus a pre-booked group of 30 at 19:30. At 18:40 the main fuse blows and the standby generator takes four minutes to start. The generator carries lights, fans and the chiller but not the three induction hobs or the convection oven; the kitchen has two LPG burners as backup. Two of five kitchen staff are absent, one sick and one at a festival. At 18:50 the group's bus arrives 40 minutes early and all 30 guests are seated. One guest tells the server she has a severe peanut allergy. The walk-in chiller display reads 7°C and is rising, and the fish delivered that morning is inside. A couple has booked the veranda table for their anniversary at 20:00.
1. Rank what you handle in the first 30 minutes - power, the group, the allergy, the chiller - and justify the order.
Read the worked answer
1. The allergy (0–5 minutes). Peanut protein is not destroyed by cooking, and a shared spoon, pan or fryer is enough to trigger a reaction. The risk is irreversible harm and the fix is cheap, so it goes first. The server stops, takes the declaration at face value, and carries a written ticket to the chef. The chef confirms which dishes can be made safely with clean equipment and separate oil, and the server repeats the confirmation back to the guest before taking the order. If the kitchen cannot guarantee it, say so and offer a simple safe alternative - never a vague 'it should be fine'.
2. The chiller and the fish (5–10 minutes). The clock is running and the decision is binary. Probe the fish; move stock to the freezer or ice boxes; log the reading and the time. Food safety is second because it cannot be undone later, and because the fix takes two minutes.
3. Power and the group (10–20 minutes). Call the electrician, establish exactly which equipment the generator supports, and decide what can actually be cooked. Then tell the 30 guests the truth with a timeline. A group that is informed waits; a group that is ignored complains, and 30 complaints in one room is a reputation event in a small town.
4. The anniversary couple (20–30 minutes). Move them to a quieter table, offer a complimentary starter and a realistic seating time. They need to feel considered, which costs almost nothing.
Principle: handle risk of harm before risk of dissatisfaction, and cheap fast fixes before slow expensive ones.
2. Redesign the menu for the 30-cover group using only the two LPG burners and whatever the generator supports. State the principle you are applying.
Read the worked answer
Principle: cut choice, cook in one pot, plate in the kitchen. A reduced menu executed well beats nine dishes executed badly, and the group has already arrived early - they will judge speed and warmth, not variety.
Set menu (three items, fixed)
- One large-vessel rice or pulao, cooked in batches on burner 1.
- One chicken curry and one vegetarian curry, both one-pot, cooked in large pans on burner 2 in rotation.
- Cold items that need no heat: salad, papad, curd-based dessert. No baked dishes, no tandoor, no fried-to-order - the oven and the induction hobs are out of service.
Burner allocation: burner 1 is dedicated to rice for the whole service; burner 2 rotates the two curries. Do not try to cook both curries simultaneously on one burner - sequence them and hold in insulated containers.
Service design: plate in the kitchen as pre-plated thalis and send the 30 in two waves of 15, roughly ten minutes apart. This avoids a plating bottleneck at the pass and gives the kitchen a rhythm it can sustain with three staff.
Commercial handling: ask the group organiser to accept the set menu at the original per-head price, with a complimentary dessert and a soft drink. That costs a few hundred rupees and converts a potential complaint into goodwill. Offer the same reduced menu to the à la carte covers with an apology and a small discount, and tell walk-ins honestly at the door what is available tonight.
Why this works: it matches the menu to the equipment actually available, reduces the number of decisions the three remaining cooks must make under pressure, and keeps the promise of a full meal even though the promise of a full menu has gone.
3. What do you do about the chiller and the fish, and how do you handle the anniversary couple?
Read the worked answer
Chiller and fish - decide on temperature, not on appearance. Probe the fish at the thickest part and read the core temperature; smell and look are unreliable indicators.
- If the core is 5°C or below, it is safe: cook it first tonight and feature it as a special, so it leaves the chiller quickly.
- If it is above 8°C and the duration above that temperature is unknown, discard it and record the decision. A ₹3,000 loss against a food-poisoning claim, a licence problem and a local reputation is not a close call.
- In between, the four-hour rule applies: the stock must be cooked and served within a defined window, and anything not used is discarded.
Move all remaining high-risk stock to the freezer or ice boxes now, log the readings with times, and get the chiller serviced before the next service. Note that the displayed 7°C may already be under-reading - trust the probe.
The anniversary couple. Tell them at the table, not after forty minutes of watching other people get served. Something like: 'The kitchen is running a reduced menu tonight because of a power fault; here is what we can do really well, and your dessert is on us.' Keep the veranda table they booked, bring a complimentary mocktail while they settle, and give a realistic time rather than an optimistic one. If the delay is long, offer to move them to a quieter corner with the same view.
The general rule: guests forgive a fault they are told about and compensated for; they do not forgive being ignored or discovering the problem themselves. A power failure is a story they will retell - make sure the ending is about how it was handled.