The thing about the scallops is that he’s been sickened by them several times on some of his other shows. Most memorably on the premiere episode of Kitchen Nightmares when the “executive chef” Tim (at Bonapartes Restaurant) gave Gordon a spoiled one. And as for the complex dishes, the worst thing was the over-the-top complexity of the dish that featured venison, quail egg, white chocolate, caviar and capers. If I were one of the contestants, I would have seen enough of his other shows to know that he’d appreciate something simpler, but well-prepared. (I think I remember him saying that he asks a new chef to prepare an omelet, as a test of skills.)
And I expected that “Black Gordon Ramsay” was not going to get eliminated. He’s going to be far too entertaining to eliminate immediately, given his outspoken arrogance and then his lack of leadership during the dinner service.
My biggest thing about this show is that none of the people seemed to have ever worked in a restaurant before. There was no evidence of people working stations that played to their skills. Different stations require different talents/skills. Just cause you can run a fryer doesn’t mean you know a damn thing about running a grill or a saute station and vice-versa. Putting the stay-at-home dad on saute was pretty much dooming him to failure. No one starts on saute or grill. You work your way up to that position by proving you know how to cook first. He should have been doing salads where his lack of experince doesn’t ruin the dishes or make people ill. Ideally, he should have been washing dishes.
Whoever was elected as the leader should have studied the menu back and forth. As the last person to inspect the food before it gets to Ramsey, it is up to him/her to say whether the dish is up to snuff or not. How can you do that if you don’t know the menu? The girls seemed to have the right idea but their execution sucked. The guys were all in a pissing contest to see who had the biggest balls, and they still haven’t sorted out the pecking order.
He told that first young woman that her risotto was raw. I presume he meant undercooked, and the grains of rice were still crunchy. Is that a safe presumption, or was he just being a douche to everyone, because, that’s what he does?
I didn’t see anything past the puking scene, but how could nothing in the restaurant be edible?
Nobody thought of opening a box of Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese? It’s really difficult to screw that up.*
IIRC, there was both, as well as olive juice and lemon zest. Sounded like a real mess to me.
If he says it’s raw. it’s raw. In my opinion Gordon Ramsay is one of those rare people on television who isn’t being a bastard simply to be a bastard. He just happens to hate the traits that get people cast in reality shows: backstabbing, ego, laziness, etc. The people that tend to do the best on Hell’s Kitchen are the ones that shut up and do the job.
I’m kind of suprised that stay at home dad went home versus Black Ramsay, but I can understand it. He may be a fine cook at home, but he was really having a hard time dealing with the tempo of the kitchen. Poor guy looked lost.
What really made my eyes roll last night was the entire opening sequence.“The beast has awakened!” Oh come off it. This show would be a million times better if they stopped making Gordon Ramsay sound like some sort of psychotic instead of what he really is, kind of a jerk.
Yep, he did and there were. Just the idea of capers and chocolate is enough to make me gag, even before adding the raw venison, egg, scallop and caviar. Bonkers. It all looked slimy as well. Funny stuff.
I dunno though; only having watched the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares prior to this first episode, the whole thing seems pretty contrived to me, but then it’s a deliberately contrived format from the outset. Kitchen Nightmares may have a by now very well-worn formula, but at least some of the time you can see he genuinely makes a difference at some of these places, and the ritual abuse is somewhat justified by the fact that the problem with almost every restaurant he visits comes down to self-delusion.
He (occasionally) lives just down the road from where I’m sitting, actually. In the last UK series he’s at a place in Hampshire and mentions the “tiny cottage” he’s just bought nearby. That’s a couple of hundred yards down the road from my parents’ house, and while it’s no stately home, it sure as hell isn’t a fecking “tiny cottage” - it’s the biggest house in the street by a distance. What a nobber that man is.
To clear up the Tartar that moonface served… it appeared to be a duo of venison and scallop tartar with raw quail egg, capers, white chocolate, and caviar.
Definitely, an over the top retch by Ramsey… but then again, the white chocolate certainly seems over the top and retch-worthy in that particular combination.
(I hate white chocolate… and b.t.w. pulykamel, seafood and vanilla might be one thing, but white chocolate has nothing to do with vanilla. White chocolate isn’t even really chocolate. It’s ingredients are cocoa butter, sugar, and milk.)
I know what white chocolate is. My point is that something so strongly associated with dessert/pudding/ice cream may just work unexpectedly. My shrimp in vanilla nage basically tasted like shrimp in a sweet vanilla custard sauce. That’s really not much different than white chocolate which, as you said, is just sugar, milk, and cocoa butter.
Also, to be fair to Moonface’s tartare combo, they were composed seperately on the plate-- a fairly traditional mold of venison tartare with the quail egg and capers, and the mold of scallop tartare, presumably, with the caviar and white chocolate shavings. Ramsey kinda smeared them together and took a big bite of them together with a fork, which is rather disingenuous and willfully ignorant (They were to be eaten seperately with the toast points.).
Really the only time I have seen anything with GR was a show on (I think) PBS, called Faking It.
They took a fry cook from a roach coach, trained him up in being a real-live chef (I can’t recall the time frame; I think it was about two weeks), put him in a professional kitchen, with a staff, and put him into a competition against three real real live chefs. The judges needed to not only rate the kitchens’ performances, but try to spot the ringer. He won, and wasn’t sussed out by a single judge. Awesome show.
Anyway, Gordon Ramsay was the maestro who gave him his training, and he was actually quite supportive.
The difference between the US and UK Kitchen nightmares is amazing, in the US one they get whole new kitchens and stuff bought for them and they contrive a plot to try and get you ‘emotionally involved’ its entirely disneyfied.
The UK version is much more low key, and much more interesting for it - it focuses more on the advice he gives out and teamwork, its far more involving as a result. Oh and they don’t get anything from being on the show so it has a more diverse selection of restaurants. So they’re not always fuck ups, he had a good one with an amazing chef in Scotland who actually had to be taught to tone down the quality of is food to make the restaurant more financially successful.
That was a classic episode; it was before Mr Ramsay was anywhere near as famous as he is now, and at one point the burger cook told him what he thought of him, then stormed out - and this is where Gordon Ramsay won my respect - he took it on board and said words to the effect of “you know, that little shit was right, I do act like a wanker, and I do need to be kinder”. And the “little shit” won. Fucking brilliant.
You’re right! I think he may have a scallop phobia. The ones I remember from UK kitchen nightmares were the rotten ones on the show about the restaurant whose owner later sued him. That poor kid. Can you imagine how it feels to cook something that damn near poisons a three-star chef?
I think another poster had it correct in that a lot of his anger is because these people are supposed to be able to cook. I mean come on…after 3 seasons, how does anyone go on this show not knowing how to make risoto?
I applaude the woman’s team for taking the time to learn the menu. Stupid move on the guys part. While the editing did look screwed up and some of the men may have known some of the menu items, I do think that none of them could name all five.
I also agree that Ramsey really does want people to reach their potential. He paid for Julia from last season to attend cooking school so that she could learn those more refined aspects of the culinary arts that she wasn’t familiar with. He recognized that she was an excellent cook in her own area of expertiese, but that she lacked the formal training that she would need in a truely high-class establishment.
The exodus of the patrons must have been orchestrated too. Everyone left at once, even the people who had received their appetizers. In real life I don’t think those tables would have left.
You were lucky. You missed the scene where “ironing contest” misogynist Jason was missing when they started dinner service. The editing showed him outside, blowing a butt. Then, cut to Jason, shoes off, picking his nasty toes. :eek: Seconds later, he rushes inside to start cooking. Yes, cooking. I was relieved none of his initial dishes passed Gordon’s taste test.
