SIMPLE IS BETTER
Internship Experience 1
In 2016, I had my internship from 4 January to 12 March in Bayview Beach Resort Penang, Malaysia. In the internship program, I worked in two departments which are food and beverage department and kitchen department, I joined each of them only for five weeks, it is too short for me to learn more and earn more experience.
In the food and beverage department, I have learnt some knowledge that different from what I have learnt in university. Because I worked in a coffee house, where required us to work more efficient especially they serve breakfast buffet every morning. So the supervisor asked us to use a tray to clear those dirty plates which different from what I have learnt in university before. Besides that, when I served 10 VIPs who came from Scotland and had food tasting for their banquet event, he also taught me to clear the plates from both left and right sides to make the service faster.
In the kitchen department, I worked in cold kitchen and main kitchen. In cold kitchen, normally I was in charged to refill the food for breakfast buffet. After breakfast buffet, they taught me to make their sandwich and salad. In hot kitchen, I learnt how to make pancake, oatmeal, omelette, otak and so on in every morning. After that, most of the time I was in charged to do mise en place, cut the ingredients or assisted the chef to cook. If the resort had any events, they asked me to make ice kacang or grill food for customers on the spot.
Most of the customers came from Europe country and they have full of life experience. They liked to talk about their pasts and gave us some advices; they like to ask "you like your job?" and said "do not afraid to make mistake", "try". Because of them, I have learnt a lot of different experience.
The staff in Bayview Beach Resort are not well trained and nonprofessional, but most of them have been working in the resort for a long time and have a lot of working experience in the resort, they were willing to teach trainee how to do and what to do. This internship program gave me a chance to learn and have more experience.
Internship Experience 2
I had my second internship from 5 September 2017 to 15 January 2018 in Matsusaka Yakiniku M, Osaka, Japan. It supposed to be ended on 15 December, however, I extended it until January 2018. In the internship program, I worked in two departments which are food and beverage department and kitchen department. Besides, they provided me off-job training as well.
I had both off-job training and on-job training with “Matsusaka Yakiniku M”. Since they only opened their restaurants at 5 p.m., they provided me some theories class for the first month before the restaurant opened. Firstly, I learnt about the beef, then moved on to the Japanese cuisine and beverage. Sometimes, they even taught me the Japanese cuisine that they do not serve in their restaurants like takoyaki, tempura, and sushi. After the first month, I did the mise en place before the restaurants opened for the rest of the internship, either in the kitchen or the food and beverage area. I usually worked in both kitchen and F&B in one day. The restaurants open at 5 p.m., so afternoon, I did the mise en place in the kitchen or/and F&B, then, I changed to F&B for the dinner service. In the kitchen, I just cut the vegetables and prepared the appetizer; in the food and beverage area, I just cleaned up the section and get ready for the dinner service. Every day, after 5 p.m., I worked in food and beverage department. I served all the customers who from every corner of the world, except Japanese, sounds funny, I worked in Japan but did not serve the local there. The reason why I did not serve them is because of the language barrier, just like you are a French and you go to a restaurant in your country, but the waitress does not know how to speak French, you would feel ridiculous.
I really enjoyed myself during the internship in Japan, I met people from all around the world, no matter the staffs or the customers.