I am almost a third of the way through Anthony Bourdain's infamous Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly and he is talking about why to not order fish on Monday as a general rule, and other horror stories about the restaurant world. Now, I know he is an author and is just trying to make a buck, so some of this stuff is most likely inflated a bit, but he mentioned how he has never seen a hollandaise sauce be made-to-order in a restaurant. He proceeds to say: "Hollandaise...must be held at a temperature not too hot nor too cold, lest it break when spooned over your poached eggs. Unfortunately, this lukewarm holding temperature is also the favorite environment for bacteria to copulate and reproduce in...Most likely, the stuff on your eggs was made hours ago and held on station."
The restaurant I work in doesn't deal with hollandaise, but perhaps some of you others work in restaurants that do (Chef Burton, of course). Any word on this?
Thanks,
~Eh