Sandra as a Saetre: Working at Cornelius!

So the news since the last post is that I started working!! Last Friday was my first day working and it has been great. The restaurant is wonderful and the guests always have an incredible time. The guests almost feel as though they are on a vacation because it is a whole experience, taking a boat for 20 minutes from downtown Bergen, getting to the restaurant, spending a couple hours on an island, eating, drinking, dancing, and then taking the boat back. So people really let loose and have a great time, it's a lot of fun to be a part of. Not to mention the food is fantastic. We have large tanks, 8 total, where we keep living seafood with fjord water constantly flowing through the tanks. So whenever our chefs need some more seafood, they take a big pan, a net, and go out to the tanks and go "fishing". They bring living scallops, oysters, mussels, langostines, sea urchin, into the kitchen, clean it, cook it, and it's on the table half an hour later. Pretty fantastic!

My coworkers are great and I am finally making friends! We have some Swedish servers who work in different places determined by the season. So they are also here for the summer which is perfect because we are all new, and working together, and exploring Bergen. During the winter they work at ski resorts in the mountains. They're really nice, great servers, and a lot of fun.

Here's an example of a trip to the restaurant:
Picked up by boat in Bergen, the group then arrives at the restaurant.
They are greeted with champagne, and go upstairs (outside) to have a speech from Alf, the owner. He is charming, funny, and gives a presentation about the restaurant, it's history, our family, and then opens and serves fresh oysters, scallops, sea urchin, and mussels. People LOVE it, I don't understand everything, but they laugh really hard. They also love the seafood. It's a great start to the night!
Then, they sit down, are served wine, and we serve the first course:
A salmon, lobster, and trout tartar with capers, red onions, on top of mixed greens dressed with with a garlic olive oil and creme fraiche.
We remove that, pour the wine for the next course, and bring that out:
Broiled hake (white fish) served with a mussel risotto, blanched asparagus, a passion fruit sauce, and topped with pomegranate.
We remove that, serve dessert wine, and bring out dessert:
Mascarpone/mango ice cream served with plum, lingonberry, and raspberry sauces.
After dessert we serve coffee and cognac, start up the music, and they dance and get crazy until their boat arrives to bring them back to Bergen.
We have some very happy customers by the time they leave!
If they're lucky, my uncle (Alf) will stay, and charm and dance with the ladies, wearing his classic dark leather Australian cowboy hat.

The menu changes everyday, but that is just an example. It's so, so good.

So after work, we all have a glass of wine, clean up, and set up for the next day. Then we get in our boat, take it back to the mainland, and go either home, or go out downtown. But Fridays and Saturdays the guests' boats sometimes leave at 2am, so we don't leave until 3. It's a crazy lifestyle... but I love it!

I start working in the kitchen this week, and I can't wait!

I promise I'll have more funny stories next post, this one was just business! One funny thing... one of the groups, a photography/camera company, came to the island. They got really crazy, and I guess they expected that to happen. All of the guests were wearing BRIGHT yellow and orange vests, with the name of the company on the front, and on the back it said "Jeg er foll". Which means "I am drunk". Planning in advance, I like it.

Tata for now! Here are pictures...

Some friends from work:

Setting tables, this was around 10:30pm

The back of the restaurant

Lots of boats at the restaurant for an exhibition day!

One of the chefs, getting a little fishing in after work

Me, all geared up for a trip on this really really fast boat!

I had to get a couple casts in as well. This was probably around 11:00

A little wine break from work, after the guests had left, before we started cleaning and setting up. I was trying to take a picture like Cajakes' from Spain...