The Portable Omelet Buffet Kit

Posted on 18 July 2007 under Catering etc., Kitchen Gear

A few months ago, 14-year-old Adam and I did an omelet buffet for Mary and her girlfriends. At that time I’d picked up some decent catering-grade storage containers for the omelet filling mise en place, which worked rather well, and had a couple commercial-grade non-stick frypans from Wear-Ever Lincoln Foodservice. Since then there’s been plenty of discussion about my doing other omelet buffets for various purposes, such as Senior Centers. I’d picked up a Pro-Cook M0005 portable butane gas stove from GFS Marketplace for $27, along with some butane canisters (a pack of four for $7).

The thing’s been in my closet for … three months? No, must be four …

The talk has continued about my doing the omelet thing on a regular basis. Looking through a Cabela’s catalog last week I found their three-burner cast iron stove. I mentioned this to Mary, that I could cook an omelet on each of the outer burners while sautéeing fillings in the middle, similar to how they do it at the Marriott World Center in Orlando. She liked that idea. But then I added up the necessary hose, the carry bag, a filled 20 lb lp gas bottle, and we’re suddenly way past $100 for three burners. And I still needed another 10″ fry pan.

Then something clicked: I remembered I’d looked at single-burner stoves similar to the Pro-Chef at an Asian grocery in Ann Arbor … for $17! I had one burner already, and could get the other two for $34, carry cases included. So yesterday, I did just that, picking up two Thunder Range stoves, and more butane for running all three stoves. I also picked up the other 10″ pan at GFS.

The picture shows the completed kit, minus utensils. The pans came to $55, the cookers were a total of $61 (if the three were the same Thunder Range brand they would have been $51), eight cans of butane was $14, and the mise en place containers came to $15 or so. So, over a period of four months I spent about $145 putting this kit together, instead of over $200 going the lp gas route that I could only use outside.

Let’s see … need some fiberboard plates … plasticware … paper napkins … ummm … oh, yeah, eggs! … right, and maybe some cheese …

Read Comments

  1. 24 July 2007 @ 4:32 pm Posted by Mike Ingels

    Thanks, Dave, for the tips on the portable cookers.

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