Had a customer call me out on my lamb chops and I'm glad they did

A woman came into my shop about 6 months back and said my French style lamb racks looked like I'd been in a hurry. She was right. I was trimming them too aggressively and leaving ragged edges on the bones. She told me to take more time cleaning each bone individually with a smaller knife instead of trying to scrape them all at once. I switched to a 4 inch boning knife and now I spend about 2 extra minutes per rack. The difference is night and day. Clean bones, no meat scraps hanging off, and the presentation is actually professional now. Has anyone else had a customer give you a tip that actually improved your work?

3 comments

3 Comments

anthonymurray1mo ago

Made the same mistake myself a few years back with my pork chops. Was using a long blade to trim the fat cap and always ended up with jagged edges and uneven thickness. A customer who used to work in a butcher shop told me to chill with the big knife and use a curved boning knife for that part. Took his advice and it changed everything. Now I take the extra minute to trim each chop by hand instead of trying to slice through the whole rack in one go. Keeps the fat cap even and the chops look like they belong in a magazine. Sometimes the simple stuff is the stuff nobody tells you.

taylor_young1mo ago

Makes me wonder what other basic stuff I'm doing wrong.

morgan_ramirez1mo ago

Wait hold on, you're telling me you didn't know about this either? I seriously thought I was the only one who missed something so obvious until now. It's actually kind of wild how many basic things we just never learned or got taught. Makes me feel like I've been walking around with half a manual my whole life.