Day 69: Final Practical Exam Day 2

Morning prep begins at 8am, here our classmate who 

came to us all the way from South Africa is 

making cones for chocolate writing.

Second restaurant day today. I can't say the last 2 days have gone smoothly, but they weren't total disasters either. In fact, each day that goes by, my team of five gets better and  better. I know I still make a lot of mistakes, and I could still make better choices, (especially when it comes to choosing the right tool for the job), but we are all slowly getting better. Here is our day today in pictures. 

Setting the table for our guests.

Last minute instructions for the servers.

(Yes that is the same girl in all three pictures!)

On the line! 

My stove-mate plates up our quail appetizer...

... and another partner steps in with the sauce.

Another stove's cream soup.

Our consomme. 

That's a little rice paper bag of brunoise veg. This presentation

 got good comments from our guests.

Pear 3-ways! (Next stove's dessert.)

Our dessert just before going to the pass. 

I swore at this dessert all morning, it 

worked out (mostly) in the end, but this 

was a challenge to put together.

 It's delicious though, my classmate 

Tristan gets all the kudos for inventing it..

So tomorrow is it! The culmination of the last four months, there will be a bigger, longer service and a few of our guests will be chefs from some of the busiest kitchens and catering companies in the city who will give us 20% of our final grades.

I'll be leaving my team of five to take my turn on the banquet team, and although it's a little disappointing that I won't be on the line -  I'm also happy, because I really need a break. My hands and arms are all blistered up from various burns from working the stove, and I think I might be developing tendonitis in my right wrist.  I'm also hoping that being on banquet will allow me to take more pictures.

It's a cliché but - I really can't believe it's almost over.