Chifa Restaurant

Chifa Restaurant

Watering our new houseplants

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Hey guys, it’s me again!

So, I recently convinced the team here to bring in some greenery to freshen up the place. We got some beautiful indoor plants and I was so excited to see them grow and flourish. But then we hit a little roadblock when we realized that not all of our staff were experts.

With different people watering the plants at different times, we had a bit of a hydration issue on our hands. I decided to take on this challenge myself and found a few helpful tips that I’m going to share with you so if you’re trying to grow plants indoors at your restaurant you can make sure they get enough (and not too much) water.

Stick with me, I’m not an expert, but I’m an amateur with some experience!

How we fixed the issue

We had a problem at the restaurant with different people watering the plants at different times. It was confusing and hilarious at times, with two people watering the same plant within an hour!

To make things simple, I asked staff to check the soil in each plant’s pot before watering. If it feels dry to the touch, then it needs water. It’s been working like a charm, and everyone has been getting into the whole plant caring thing.

Nobody overwaters, and we’re all pretty happy with our little green friends – they’re even growing faster!

Looking forward

Yo, it’s been a few months since we began our indoor plant journey at the restaurant, and let me tell you, things are still looking pretty great. Those babies are still thriving and we’ve even grown our little plant fam with some new additions. It’s crazy how much of a difference they make in creating a cozy and lush atmosphere. Your girl loves a good ambiance!

But listen up, it’s not just the plants that are flourishing – we’ve been getting super creative in the kitchen, picking some herbs and nuts directly from our own garden to incorporate into some new recipes. And let me tell you, the customers are lovin’ it! Plus, being eco-friendly just fits right into the vibe of our little plant oasis.

Our staff has really come together too, doing some group building stuff and even having some meals together. It’s all about building a sense of community, you know? It’s crazy how our growth in one area has led to growth in so many others.

Overall, we’re excited to keep growing and trying new things at the restaurant. Who knows what’s next, maybe we’ll open up our own little plant store or something. Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but hey, dreaming big is the first step in achieving great things, right? Anyway, cheers to our plant babies and all the good things that have been happening!

How We Boil Our Water

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Now that we’ve a bit closer to reopening our vegan restaurant, I wanted to cover a question we get sometimes, which is: how do we boil water? It might seem like a silly question, and I like to tease people that “water is vegan,” but there’s actually a bit of water science that goes into this problem. You’d think it’s as simple as putting the water on the stove and adding some heat, but it’s not.

If you’re in a rush and wondering how long to boil water, there’s a great chart at that link which will tell you the cooking time needed for each type of appliance, but it always comes down to how much heat you’re applying to how much water.

First, there are two different kinds of boils.

  • There’s a hard boil, or a full boil. This is where the water hits 212 degrees f. and you’ll notice it when the entire pot is eagerly bubbling. You’ll see a lot of steam, and a lot of agitation in the water.
  • There’s also a slow boil, or a soft boil. You’ll see water bubbles coming up to the surface, but they’ll be larger and moving more slowly. A slow boil is where the water hits 204 degrees f.

We use the soft boil a lot in vegan cooking, especially with vegetables that we want to lightly blanch. The hard boil is used more for pasts where we need the faster agitation of the water to keep food from sticking. If we’re steaming vegetables, we’d use the hard boil to cook them a bit faster.

Just because you see bubbles doesn’t mean the water is boiling. What we want is for the entire body of water to be the right temperature, otherwise when we add our food it’ll cool too quickly.

There’s no difference between bringing the water to a boil quickly or slowly, so feel free to crank the heat until it boils, then bring it back until you start to see a change in how vigorously it’s boiling. Once you see that change, just add a little bit more heat to the pot and you’ll be at a full boil.

On to the biggest question we get: what’s the deal with adding salt to the water for pasta, and do you still need to do that if you have a water softener, as they add a bit of sodium to your water supply.

We do add salt, and there’s not really a big secret about it. It’s just an easy way to infuse the pasta with a bit of salt, it doesn’t make it boil or cook faster, and even if it did, you’d be talking a few seconds either way, nothing dramatic.

What the heck is a soft water loop anyway?

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One of the first projects we had to take on was getting some soft water into the restaurant. I’m sure you’re wondering: why?

Well, a lot of our friends in the industry had the same question. They were under the opinion that soft water isn’t even good for cooking.

They couldn’t be further from the truth.

We like soft water because:

  • The food tastes a lot better. The water here isn’t that great and with water filtration and softening we can guarantee a certain standard in the water.
  • The appliances tend to last longer. This isn’t as public-facing as the first reason, but if our appliances are breaking down from accumulated minerals in the pipes that raises our costs. We’ve had this issue before but have always inherited or rented a space where it wasn’t feasible to do anything about it – plus we didn’t even know to think about it. We’re more seasoned and experienced now, so this is something we’re planning out from the start.
  • The dishes look better. Believe it or not, it’s a pain to clean dishes with hard water and it’s awkward to explain to a diner that the spots they see on the glasses are just water deposits. We’d rather have everything looking perfect for you when you eat out with us.

Okay, so enter the water loop.

What’s a soft water loop?

It’s the spot where the outside water interfaces with the inside water. So for us, we don’t really need the water we use for watering the lawn or grass to be soft, it’s a waste of water softener. We’d rather just have it flowing where we need it.

You can think of a soft water loop as the pipe which is accessible from the outside for turning the soft water filtration on or off. That exposed pipe is where a soft water loop can be installed.

So the main purpose is for us to have water inside which is soft and water outside which is hard. But there’s a wrench thrown into things: we still want our ice and drinking water to be hard.

Why is that?

 

It’s funny the things you plan for with a restaurant and how the smallest details can add up together to create a larger effect. People love to chew ice, and what we’ve found is that if the ice is made with hard water it crumbles gently in your mouth. If you make it with soft water, it’s harder and generally unpleasant to chomp down upon.

Another small detail: hard water tastes better. But didn’t we just say we’re moving to soft water to improve the taste? Yes, of the food, but in our water those very same minerals which cause issues for our appliances and food are what add the important flavor to our water.

Also, running less water through the loop is going to save us material and energy.

This we’re still in the process of installing our soft water loop, but we basically had to locate the point where water is entering the building. We were lucky that we have a mechanical room that has the correct pipes to plumb, so we can just installer the water softener right there next to the loop.

We’ll post pictures later on as the project is completed – it’s a lot more work than we thought it would be but getting everything right from the start will be well worth it.