Here at Manna we make everything fresh. We do our best to estimate how much of each item we’re going to need for the menu on any given night but we don’t always get it right. Sometimes people surprise us. As a matter of fact, on a Wednesday night a few weeks ago we ended up being completely full by 7:30. We had to scramble to have enough hot rolls!

So making a reservation helps a restaurant in two big ways…

Have enough staff is on duty. People get frustrated when they have to wait to have their order taken or be served but a restaurant staffs itself based on the estimated number of diners. When you surprise us we don’t always have enough people on hand to take care of you in the way you want us to.

Have enough food prepared. We do some prep work before we open of course, and we do that based on the estimated number of diners. This prep work allows us to get your food out to you as quickly as possible but still maintain quality. Again, if we get surprised we’re forced to work faster and play catch up doing work that we would have liked to do in the preparation phase before opening.

Just imagine if you were expecting Aunt Jane and Uncle John for dinner one night but in addition to them Aunt Rosie, Uncle Ed, and your cousins Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sue all decided to stop by too! That’s what happens at our “house” when people don’t make reservations.

We don’t require reservations because we don’t want people to think they can’t stop in. But at the same time, we’re always concerned our product or our service will suffer.

So if a restaurant isn’t a casual place (like a diner or fast-food restaurant) take the time to make a reservation. Everyone benefits when you do.

There are several ways to cook fish, but since we’re focusing on being healthy I’ll just address poaching.

Fish is poached in bouillion or stock. If you don’t want to make your own, vegetable or chicken stock is fine.

Make sure you…

• Use a pan big enough for all of the fish to lie flat in the pan
• Use enough liquid to barely cover the fish
• Bring the liquid to a simmer rather than letting it boil (if you see bubbles the pan is too hot)

How long it takes depends on the type of fish and the size of the pieces. It’s best to use a piece or pieces of fish that are the same size so everything cooks evenly.

First we pick out the best ribs from the market. We look for 3 pound racks.  We rub the ribs with our own special  9 spice barbeque rub we call “Bob’s Rub.”  We then smoke the ribs outside on our charcoal barbeque grill for 3 hours and finish them in the oven by slowly  cooking them on a relatively low temperature for 1 hour. We use the smoky juices left over from the ribs to make our barbeque sauce. We than finish them on the grill basting with the sauce.

Makes my stomach growl just writing about it.