Does anyone know Lin Jingjun, the chef of Google canteen?

As we all know, Google is the world's largest search engine company with a market value of more than 200 billion US dollars. But little known is that Google's canteen is also "the best canteen in the world". One-third of employees admitted that it was the exquisite food and happy dining environment in the company cafeteria that made them choose to stay at Google.

Envy envy hate! I worked as a chef in the best Google canteen in the world. In 2008, China chef Lin Jingjun, who worked in the United States, was lucky enough to be a chef at Google headquarters and saw the charm of "the best canteen in the world". In Google Kitchen, which advocates innovation and invention, Lin Jingjun is immersed in the ocean of skills all day. Today, he is not only a great chef, but also promoted to assistant chef with an annual salary of 600,000.

Walk into "the best canteen in the world"

Lin Jingjun is 30 years old. He graduated from a technical school in Guangzhou eight years ago and was introduced to open a Chinese restaurant in California in 2006. A year later, in order to be a chef in a high-end western restaurant and get a higher salary, he studied in a high-end cooking school for one year and learned to cook western food. After finishing his studies, he entered a western restaurant in Silicon Valley and became a senior chef.

In 2008, Lin Jingjun read a cookbook called Food 2.0: The Secret of Google's Former Executive Chef. The author of this book, Charlie Ye Si, was Google's first chef. Joined Google from 65438 to 0999 and became the 56th employee of the company. With the huge budget support of the company's two bosses, Charlie built Google canteen into the best canteen in Silicon Valley and even the world, with countless fans inside and outside the company. In 2005, Charlie left the company to start his own business, which once caused panic among Google employees and attracted the attention of The New York Times.

In this book, Lin Jingjun learned that Google attaches great importance to employees' meals, and spends $80 million on "eating" every year, so that chefs can use the best ingredients in the most relaxed environment, show their talents to the maximum extent and make the best meals. Therefore, in Google, which advocates freedom, not only there are countless delicious foods in the canteen, but all the offices and even the corridors are filled with food, and all of them are free. ...

Because of this, Google employees are extremely happy. In Forbes magazine's list of "Best Employers in America", Google ranked first. Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google, even joked, "I told my two bosses that I would come to work every day even if they didn't pay me." In fact, one-third of Google employees admit that it is the exquisite food and pleasant dining environment in the company cafeteria that make them choose to stay in the company.

Lin Jingjun was deeply moved by these introductions. He began to pay attention to Google's recruitment information.

In July 2008, Descimon, Google's assistant chef, was poached by Facebook, a newly established social networking company. Not only that, after Descimon became a Facebook chef, he also poached 30 chefs from Google. Google has no choice but to openly recruit 30 new chefs around the world.

According to the recruitment conditions provided by Google, candidates must have worked as chefs for more than 3 years, have at least 1 year working experience in star-rated hotels or high-end western restaurants, and must also master at least one language other than English. In addition to these "basic thresholds", it is more important to master the methods of 100, and to be able to cook several good dishes. Of course, the salary after admission is very high, depending on the specific position and business ability, the monthly salary is between 5000 ~ 10000 US dollars.

After reading this information, Lin Jingjun was very excited. He meets all requirements! So he couldn't wait to submit his resume. A week later, Lin Jingjun received an interview notice.

In August 2008, Lin Jingjun came to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California for an interview. In order to prepare for this large-scale chef recruitment, Google set up a "Chef Recruitment Committee", which consists of 1 vice president in charge of catering, 1 executive chef, 3 deputy chefs and 5 employee representatives. These 10 examiners come from six countries: America, Europe, Asia and Africa, with different food cultures and personal tastes. Applicants must impress more than half of them before they can finally be admitted.

In the question-and-answer session, an examiner asked him, "What will you do?" Lin Jingjun made a lot of preparations before this, and then he slowly replied, "I studied cooking in China, and I can cook all eight Chinese cuisines. After coming to the United States, I went to cooking school to learn how to cook western food. In addition to the best American western food, I also know French, British, Italian and Russian western food, and I know a little about Southeast Asian food and authentic food. "

The examiner nodded his head when he saw that he was familiar with all kinds of dishes and everything. Another examiner asked, "Why do you want to apply for this job?" Lin Jingjun once again talked about Kan Kan: "I read a lot of information about Google before, and I found myself like the first chef Charlie. I think the cooked food can make people like and happy from the heart, which is the highest level of a chef. So I especially like to communicate with people and try to understand their needs. If the company has China employees, I believe they will like me very much ... "

Lin Jingjun's wonderful answer was unanimously affirmed by 10 examiners, and he successfully entered the final round of examination-cooking a dish that he is best at.

After entering the kitchen, Lin Jingjun was stunned by what he saw: a huge kitchen of 600 square meters with a passage in the middle and dozens of kitchen areas with equal areas on both sides. Each kitchen area has different functions, some are used to make western food, some are used to make Chinese food, and some are used to make bread cakes in the oven. At the end of the kitchen is a 100 square meter cold storage, and there is a door to carry the ingredients outside.

Lin Jingjun was taken to the cold storage, where he wanted to choose the ingredients he wanted from the mountains of classified raw materials and make a unique specialty. After some consideration, he decided to create a dish with Chinese and western characteristics-"Water Cube" French foie gras. Because Beijing is hosting the 29th Olympic Games, one of the landmark buildings of the Olympic Games is the Water Cube. French foie gras, on the other hand, is listed as one of the "three great delicacies in the world" by Europeans because of its expensive ingredients, difficult cooking and good taste. Lin Jingjun learned to cook this dish hundreds of times when he was in the American Chef School, and he has mastered it completely.

After an hour of cooking, Lin Jingjun's "Water Cube" French foie gras is ready. Examiners saw this dish and were immediately attracted by Lin Jingjun's unique creativity. After they tasted it, they found that the foie gras was delicate and tender, fragrant but not fishy, and it melted in the mouth, which was very authentic. So, without exception, they gave Lin Jingjun a "yes"!

If you don't innovate, you die.

In September 2008, Lin Jingjun officially joined the company. Because Google headquarters has nearly 140 chefs, it is divided into several departments, such as Chinese food department, western food department, Muslim department and pastry department. Lin Jingjun was assigned to the Chinese food department because she came from China. However, due to the small number of employees in China, the Chinese food department has less than 10. Seeing that he was assigned to a small department and returned to China to be a chef, Lin Jingjun was a little unhappy.

However, to Lin Jingjun's relief, most of the new chefs were only appointed as assistant chefs, while he and a few others were directly appointed as chefs because of their outstanding performance in the interview.

Of course, Google chefs are not so easy to be. The level of a chef is basically determined by his cooking skills. The company holds a cooking competition every year. In addition to the chefs from the headquarters, there are also executive chefs from all branches around the world, and the judges are the "Cooking Review Committee" of the headquarters. Members include the company's vice president, chef, deputy chef and employee representatives, and even the kitchen minister is not eligible to participate. This shows that the review is strict and fair.

Lin Jingjun's immediate boss, Zhu, is a China native in his fifties. He has been a chef in America for 20 years and worked in Google for 7 years. He is the first China chef recruited by Charlie after he became a chef, and he has a long experience. On Lin Jingjun's first day at work, Lao Zhu said to him, "The atmosphere of Google is very relaxed, and people are very equal. Employees in any department can give their opinions directly and even argue with the boss. But in the kitchen, you can't confuse grades. Everyone's position is spelled out by their own cooking skills. If you have the ability, you can get my position. If not, you must listen to my arrangement ... "

Lin Jingjun found that except the chef, Google employees are really free and equal, which can be seen from the setting of the restaurant. The company has 13 restaurant, but it is only divided into different dining areas, such as Chinese food area, western food area, salad area and cooking area. It is not divided into employee dining area, manager dining area and boss dining area like many large companies. As long as they eat in the same dining area, both ordinary programmers and company bosses, Page and Brin, sit at the same table and eat the same food.

Because there are tens of thousands of employees in Google headquarters, and all employees have to have lunch in the company, quite a few employees also have breakfast and dinner in the company. Chefs have to prepare nearly 20,000 servings of food every day, and each chef has to cook about 140 servings of food on average, which is very heavy.

At first, Lin Jingjun thought it would be easier to work in the Chinese Department, because there were few China people in the company, so there was no need to cook too many Chinese dishes, and Chinese food was generally "big pot rice" and "big pot dishes", unlike western food, which needed to be divided one by one before it could be served in the restaurant. But he soon discovered that their daily workload was not small. First of all, many foreigners like to eat Chinese food. Second, Chinese food is rich in ingredients and complicated in cooking methods. Even the chef has to wash and cut vegetables himself. At the end of the day, he will be busy from 5: 00 a.m. to 6: 00 p.m. and be tested by 10 for more than hours.

What makes Lin Jingjun uncomfortable is that, as a famous high-tech company, Google advocates innovation extremely, and this concept of "innovate or give me death" extends to the kitchen. Chef Google stipulates that every restaurant must launch at least one new dish every day. Because there are few people in the Chinese food department, it falls to the chef, and everyone needs to contribute at least one new product every week. Although Lin Jingjun is new here, he also asks him to develop at least one new dish every week.

Two months ago, because I didn't know the tastes and hobbies of the staff, and I didn't know which dishes were cooked by my colleagues, Lin Jingjun had to write down thousands of Chinese dishes that he could cook, and asked Lao Zhu to pick out the dishes that the chef of the Chinese food department had not cooked and cook the same. After each dish is cooked, Lao Zhu and other colleagues need to taste and comment together. After everyone agrees, it can be sent to the restaurant for employees to eat, otherwise it will be improved. If several improvements still fail, this dish will have to be abandoned.

In addition, there are many strange rules in Google Kitchen, such as: the oil used to cook a dish in Google should not exceed one twentieth of the oil used to cook the same dish in a restaurant outside; And monosodium glutamate is forbidden, and only natural spices can be used. In the process of introducing new dishes in the forest, more than a dozen dishes were rejected by Zhu without hesitation because they used too much oil or needed monosodium glutamate.

Fortunately, because Lin Jingjun just came to the United States for a few years, many of the dishes he listed appeared in Chinese mainland before he came to the United States. Colleagues in the Chinese department in the United States for many years can't do it, and Google employees have never tasted it. Therefore, a large part of his new dishes were welcomed by employees, and two of them were rated as "the most popular dishes of the month".

It turned out that the company established an internal website called Foodback. After each new dish is developed, it will be put on the Internet for employees' feedback and comments, and five most popular dishes will be rated every month. These classic dishes will not only become common and frequently used, but also be shared and used for reference by chefs in branches all over the world. And those dishes that have a general response may be "in the cold" and will never be cooked again.

In addition, Google employees also set up a special group on Google+, a social networking site developed by the company, to discuss the formulation, development and innovation of menus online. The discussion of the engineers here can often bring a lot of inspiration to the chefs.

This strong atmosphere of innovation and interaction has greatly stimulated the creative enthusiasm of chefs. While developing new dishes according to regulations, they are also actively involved in the skill ocean of food research and development. This has become their conscious pursuit and professional mission as chefs of this innovative company. For this reason, in general restaurants, chefs, especially chefs and chefs, will change every few years to ensure new tastes, while in Google, as long as they can constantly introduce new dishes, dishes and tastes, all chefs can do it forever.

Became "Assistant Chef" in 3 years.

By June 5438+ 10, 2009, all imported new dishes were completed, and Lin Jingjun began a real "journey of innovation". At this point, he has a deep grasp of Google kitchen culture and employee tastes. But in order to be an instant hit when cooking a new dish for the first time, he still did his homework and spent a week just preparing the materials. Finally, he cooked a dish called "Assorted Roast Duck".

This dish is improved on the basis of Beijing roast duck, which combines the practice of Guangdong roast duck, but the raw material is ducklings produced in Southern California, and the meat is fresh and tender. The preparation method is as follows: put the washed duckling into a pot, marinate for 30 minutes, take it out, rinse it, add duck salt to spread the surface and cavity evenly, marinate at low temperature for 8 hours, take out the washed surface, pour boiling water on the duckling until the skin is tight, suck it dry, hang skin water and dry it for 5 hours. Then put the duckling into the oven, roast it slowly for 20 minutes with medium heat, and then continue to roast it with the residual temperature after roasting for 10 minute, so that the water in the duck meat can continue to be heated and evaporated. Finally, put it into the pot, add salad oil and heat it to 60% to 70%, then pour in the oil for 4 times until it is ruddy and crisp.

After the launch of this roast suckling duck, it immediately became the dish with the highest praise rate on Foodback, and was also rated as the "most popular dish" at the end of the month. To our surprise, Xue, the executive chef of Google China Branch, saw it on the Internet, specially called Jing to learn from it, and brought it to the table of China employees. Because this won the honor for the Chinese food department, Lao Zhu was very happy and gave Jing a high-standard reward at the departmental meeting.

Lin Jingjun was satisfied with the affirmation. Since then, in order to make more popular food, he has been immersed in the world of studying food every day and is full of interest. Whenever he has time, he will go online to collect new recipes and try to improve them. On holidays, he will go to large and medium-sized restaurants in California to taste all kinds of Chinese food, so as to learn from others. In addition, he also made extensive friends with the company's engineers, learned about their eating habits and collected private recipes from them.

Lin Jingjun once learned from the exchange that many foreign employees are interested in the beautifully carved plastic arts dishes in China cooking. So he decided to work hard on the shape of the dish. After conception, he carved green radish and carrot into beautiful flowers and beautiful butterflies. Those "flowers" and "butterflies" that have been soaked in water for a whole day are lifelike, watery and pleasing to the eye, and are very popular among foreigners. Since then, he has developed this art to the extreme, and successively developed a series of "Chinese style" carved food with flowers and animals, and even the morning porridge was made into "flower porridge" series.

At the end of 2009, Lin Jingjun also took advantage of the opportunity to return to China for the New Year, bringing a lot of ingredients that could not be bought in the United States, such as tofu and bean sprouts. Unexpectedly, these China home-cooked dishes, when they arrived at the cafeteria of Google headquarters, immediately became delicious food that everyone scrambled to grab. 20 10 in may, in order to prepare for the Google chef competition, Lin Jingjun returned to China and went to Jiangsu to learn how to make puffer fish from "China chef" and "king of puffer fish" Zhou Changshun. With this unique skill, he won the annual champion of the chef competition and attracted the attention of the company's chief chef, Ivey.

Ivey appreciated Lin Jingjun's talent very much and promoted him as the second chef of Chinese food department. Three months later, he was transferred to the western food department for exercise.

The western food department is the largest department in the kitchen of Google headquarters, with a large number of talents. In order to make a name for himself here, Lin Jingjun combined his own experience in cooking Chinese food and added Chinese cooking technology to western food. For example, western food pays attention to baking, so he adds stew, frying and steaming appropriately. Once, when he was cooking American-style grilled salmon, he added the technique of "steaming", which made this dish softer and more delicious than others and was welcomed by everyone. After his success, he cooperated with the pastry chef and launched Tiramisu snowballing, which covered both Chinese and western, subverting the traditional single style of Tiramisu snowballing.

From then on, he began to use his imagination to cook delicious food. While continuing to explore Chinese and western food practices, he also combined American, French and Italian western food styles and made a unique western food that absorbed the strengths of hundreds of schools. Slowly, he formed his own unique cooking style and boldly used his own style to shape the tastes of diners.

On September 20 1 1, in view of Lin Jingjun's outstanding performance, he was promoted to assistant chef and served as Ivy's assistant with the approval of "Cooking Review Committee".

20 12, Jing Jun forest added another job-"storing vegetables". Because western food materials are more expensive, chefs sometimes face the waste of ingredients because they accidentally mix salad dressing wrong. At this time, Lin Jingjun will help them turn waste into treasure, turn decay into magic, and process the wrong or unsuccessful dishes into delicious food. This is the highest realm of western chefs.

With unremitting efforts and superb cooking skills, Lin Jingjun now earns $8,000 a month and $600,000 a year. Last year, after buying a house and a car near the company, he also made a beautiful American girlfriend, and is going to get married this year.

"Good wind helps me to reach Qingyun with its strength." From Lin Jingjun's experience, we can find that a good platform can play an infinite "amplification" role in the development of an excellent person. I'm afraid Lin Jingjun, a wage earner, wouldn't have achieved today if he hadn't broadened his horizons in Google's "world's best canteen". Readers, if you have a chance to find a better platform, don't miss it!