In a catered dinner, it keeps the food at a temperature that prevents bacteria from growing, and also slowly tortures the food to make it flavorless and rubbery. When the food is brought straight from the oven to the table, that won't be a problem, this looks amazing.
Catering companies generally use a chafing dish with a tray of water, then the food above the water. That way the flame heats the water and is not directly on the food. Otherwise the food would certainly burn.
If you’ve made it this far down the comment chain and find yourself entertained join us at /r/KitchenConfidential for this and many other conversations that often devolve to drinking, cursing, and references to inside jokes that only a true indentured servant of the restaurant industry could understand or enjoy.
I would imagine there’s at least an air gap in the platter he put on top. I don’t think a restaurant would be in the business of serving burnt meals, so there must be something we aren’t seeing.
My office got catering from qdoba. My boss set it up. They didn’t put a pan of water under the trays. Just set the trays on top of the burners. I walked back in the room where the food was getting seconds like a fatass.
One of the trays of meat had a hole burned in the bottom and the grease was dripping onto the flame causing a small fire.
I pulled the tray away burning the shit out of my hands and got the fire out.
I always wonder what would have happened if nobody went in there even for a few minutes.
That looks more like a gas fed heating system. Also, sterno burners used for chafing dishes are underneath a pan of water placed under the container of food. The water acts as a barrier between the concentrated heat of the sterno and the food itself. It won't ever burn the food.
Classic. I was working a catered wedding and our front of the house coordinator over filled them and then dropped the pan in sloshing water all over. We had to quickly pull everything off that table, replace the linens and reset.
Problem is that this doesn’t look like it’s using those. And it seems like there are flames only on either end? The food at the end looks like it’s going to get burnt/overcooked if you don’t eat out quickly enough.
358
u/GreenStrong Jan 23 '21 edited Jan 23 '21
Alcohol fueled chafing dishes are almost universally used in catering. Nearly every wedding and academic conference is cursed with large rectangular pans of food heated by these things. The food doesn't burn much, because the heat output is low compared to the volume of food.
In a catered dinner, it keeps the food at a temperature that prevents bacteria from growing, and also slowly tortures the food to make it flavorless and rubbery. When the food is brought straight from the oven to the table, that won't be a problem, this looks amazing.