I just got a part-time job (kitchen staff) at Yakiniku King. The work description says. “help with simple cooking, serving dishes and washing. No cooking experience.”
This is my first time doing a part time job in Japan. I want to know what kind of tasks I need to do as a kitchen staff other than washing because I am afraid that I won’t understand their instructions when it comes to cooking. My japanese skill is N4-ish.
What Japanese do I need to learn in advance (ingredients, cooking techniques, culinary tools, etc).
What should I prepare, both mentally and physically?
8 comments
Nothing, “no experience needed” = exactly what it means. You’ll be told and taught what to do when you show up. Your task will be to repeat it without fucking up. That’s all. If there’s some language/whatever that’s needed for your tasks to complete, it will be explained to you.
Sounds like you’ll be lowest on the ladder. You’ll probably be peeling onions and since it’s yakiniku maybe portioning and weighing meats/veggies. Most likely you will be doing tedious tasks no one else wants to do. Maybe they will have you on a deep fryer for French fries or something.
washing dishes half a year
Be prepared to toil…
Kitchen-work is tough everywhere.
I suppose it goes without saying to bring a translation application with you, so you can pick-up on anything you don’t understand.
It’ll be good for your language skills.
Good luck!
(I worked as a line-cook back home in Vancouver for a year in my twenties. It’s hard work wherever you are in the kitchen’s hierarchy.)
If they hired you they’re probably not worried about your language skills. Make sure you learn everyone’s names, call them by name when you talk to them (never say “anata”) figure out who’s on the same status/age level as you and pay attention to how they talk and copy them (don’t copy the way your boss talks!), pay attention, say all your greetings when you’re coming and going, work hard, and you’ll be fine.
Your clothes are going to smell after every shift; if you have a uniform make sure you change into it at work and change out before you leave.
When I worked yakiniku we had heavy metal 鉄板 that we would change in and out and even though we had a machine that could clean them it was always broken, so maybe expect a lot of scrubbing.
I would also recommend taking the menu home and memorizing it, including looking up all the kanji and cooking terms you might not know. You don’t need to worry about using “advanced Japanese” with customers but you’ll need to understand what your coworkers are saying and be able to read enough to not mix up the tare etc.
The last thing is that yakiniku was one of the first places I really experienced Japanese hierarchy in a very strict and masculine sense, almost like a sports 部活 at school. Be prepared to be on the bottom of the totem pole and expects people may be gruff with you.
Overall though I’m sure you’ll have a nice experience! And switch to Italian when you’re sick of the smell clinging to your clothes.
I’m sure you’re going to be fine. Not a whole lot of “cooking” at a Yakiniku King restaurant. Food preparation more specifically. And this is one of the cheapo chains, so full of baito types like yourself. My sons go there with their soccer teams and just chow down.
Yakiniku King is pretty great as a restaurant. Just expect that the silly robot waiters will both know more than you and also be higher on the totem pole for the first few weeks/months.
They use an electronic ordering system too so there’s generally little/no wait staff interaction beyond the host(ess) taking the customers to their table.