Hell's Kitchen: Season 3 premiere

Is Vinnie the most arrogant prick of all time or what?

I felt for poor Julia and all the snobbery she was getting for being a waffle house cook. The irony of that, of course, was that she appeared to be the only one on the team that could fry a frigging egg without breaking the yolk. They should have let her cook the damn eggs from the beginning but I think they were afraid of letting themselves get shown up by a [gasp] short-order cook.

The girl that won tonight (the hot redhead? Melinda, Melissa, something like that?) seemed like she was reasonably on the ball, not bitchy (at least not yet) and she made the right decision about who to toss up to Ramsay. She didn’t let the others talk her into Mean Girl-ing Julia, so kudos to her for that.
I didn’t get much feel yet for the guys’ personalities except that Vinnie is a douche. Rock seemed like he might be pretty cool.

I posted in that other HK discussion thread. I missed most of it but I caught the end where Melissa told Tiffany that it definitely wouldn’t be her and then she put Tiff up for elimination. Whether she deserved it or not, lying to someone like that is just shitty.

Tiffany deserved what she got and then some for her attitude about Julia. I’ll put a waffle house cook against her any day. Scattered, shattered and battered. Cook a damned egg already!

Aaron is a big ol’ mess. Are there really 48 year old men like that? I thought he was in his 20’s.

Is it me, or is there really a disproportionate portion of the world that they can’t suck and that everyone else must be jealous? What on earth could that boys mother whispered in his ear every night of his life to think that someone like Gordon Ramsey could be intimidated by him? Excuse me?

When you see Gordon on his Kitchen Nightmares shows, it really shows how much heart he has and how much pride he has in what not just what he does, but what he thinks every cook should do. Make good food right.

FTR: I’m a lousy cook, but I can fry a damned egg.

When she said that, I just laughed and made stabbing motions. It’s the Judas kiss, all right.

I was really glad Ramsay sent that girl home; she seemed like one of those people who always want to be in charge and never take blame for anything. Crying Man can go next.

So…where did Ramsay ever taste gnat piss? Sounds expensive.

I don’t like the “no, you’re safe” reassurance, only to be followed by a nomination for elimination. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see the winner make the decision without consulting the others. In fact, I think this kind of consultation reflects badly on the night’s winner–somehow, I don’t think that in a fancy restaurant in a Vegas resort, the head chef makes decisions through consensus. So at this part of the show, I found myself saying, “Don’t ask–tell!” to Melissa.

I do have to wonder about the women’s team though–what part of “short order cook” tells them that Julia is incapable of frying an egg? And yes, Vinnie is arrogant, and I’m sure Ramsay will enjoy taking him down when the time comes.

Did anybody notice Ramsay’s softer side when he was talking to an upset Aaron after Aaron just quit the kitchen? I was a little surprised; gone was the drill sergeant attitude, and instead he displayed a “hey buddy, it’s OK” attitude. Where did this come from, and why, do you suppose?

I agree that it’s surprising they ignored the short-order cook when they were having problems frying eggs, since that’s something she probably does several dozen times each day.

As for Ramsay’s softer side, I think it’s only surprising because he deliberately plays up the drill sergeant role in this show. He seems more mellow on his other shows, like The F Word and Kitchen Nightmares (which is my favorite by the way, and I’m looking forward to the American version this autumn).

I read an interview once with the first HK winner (Michael something), who said that GR kind of turns it on and off, that he goes into the drill sergeant rotine in the kitchen but at the end of the evening he kind of switches it off and becomes much more relaxed. Michael said he doesn’t act crazy outside of the kitchen. I think it’s sort of a mode he goes into while he’s working (and that’s kind of the norm for prfessional kitchens, actually), but it’s not like he’s really that pissed off all the time. I’d also bet anything that the producers of HK encourage him to play up the psycho routine and that it’s at least partially an act on the show anyway.

With Aaron, I think he might just know that the dude isn’t going to make it no matter what, that he doesn’t have the thick skin of an experienced line cook and that the drill sergeant routine is wasted on him. He’s basically saying, "come on, kid, it’s just a TV show, don’t take it so personally. we’ll tape a couple more shows, I’ll send you home and you’ll get a paycheck. "

I believe that he’s the toughest on people that he thinks actually have a shot to be good chefs. If he already knows they have no chance, he doesn’t waste much emotional energy on them.

This show made me really wonder about the casting and preparation. I picked up watching last season in the middle, when there were pretty competent cooks dealing with the stresses, so I don’t know if last season started with this chaos.

But in this show, it seemed to me that they picked a dozen people based on their video applications, without much consideration of whether they can cook or handle the pressures of a commercial kitchen (much less a GR kitchen). I don’t know how much GR was being (or was edited to be) overly critical, but I found it really surprising that he had nothing positive to say about all but two or three dishes. I would think that the twelve best candidates of the of all those who applied would at least be able to throw off one competent dish on a moment’s notice (and not almost faint before GR tasted it) – particularly when I understand that this is the traditional opening activity. It made me wonder if the casting involved any cooking at all, or just the videos and interviews.

The next day they were thrown into cooking for the restaurant without any apparent organization or explanation of what they were to do (though I’m sure there was some explanation not shown). It seemed that they were told “cook these dishes” without any training or mentoring, and GR expected them to be able to do it. That’s fine if you have a group of competent and experienced line cooks from high end restaurants, but the show deliberately cast a group with varied experiences. It was, it seemed to me, deliberately cruel and a recipe for disaster to throw them together to run a restaurant.

For the women at least, it seems like they almost universally cast the ambitious and egotistical, as opposed to, for instance, women who could actually cook eggs. It seemed that everyone looked down on Waffle House Julia both before and after the night’s debacle, despite her being the only one who seemed to have basic egg-frying skills (and I suspect that Waffle House is not the only thing in Julia’s culinary background). I forget who it was, but there was the one who wouldn’t give up the “glamour” of failing disasterously at the apps station by accepting Julia’s help. It is almost cliche to put the women together and have a catfight, but here there seemed to be nobody with any interest in teamwork (a necessary skill), save for Julia, who was universally disdained, or at best ignored. They all seemed to already think they were prima donna chefs, rather than trainees. The only ones who stood out at all were Melissa, who seemed both competent and wise enough to not to choose Julia for elmination despite her collegues recommendations, and Julia, who was personally likable and has the potential to be a diamond in the rough. The rest just seemed like bitchcakes in this episode.

For the men, I didn’t see such obvious mutual bitchiness, just an absence of competence. They seemed to be personally getting along well enough, and I wasn’t sure why they were so delayed in getting the apps out, other than difficulty with the particular recipes (which, if I recall correctly, one of them said were never demonstrated to them). Other than Aaron, who I initially liked when he sassed GR back over his cowboy hat but disappointed me when he totally melted down despite no apparent personal screw ups or GR abuse, and Vinnie, who seemed like he’ll be a short-lived asshole unless he has the actual chops to back up his attitude, I couldn’t really distinguish between the guys (other than the fact that one is black and another is short with some kidney disease).

Was it this way in the opening episode of the other seasons, or does this seem to be a particularly messed up group of misfits?

Pretty much identical to every season, although they might have been a tiny bit more disorganized in the kitchen (where did all the chicken and wellingtons go, when they didn’t seem to have actually served anybody?) and the women might have been a tiny bit bitchier.

Ramsay always spits out most of the signature dishes and calls them shit, and he always ends the first service early when the screwups get to be too much for him.

This followed the pattern of the last two seasons. The “signature dish cook-off” (in the first season, Ramsay only liked one dish) and the badly-botched dinner service that resulted in the kitchen being shut down before service was completed were par for the course in the previous season openers.

The contestants aren’t really any different from the prior seasons also. They’re a varied bunch, with different levels and kinds of professional cooking experience. The idea, it seems to me, is that there may well be a diamond in the rough–in fact, if I recall correctly, the woman in the first season who had no commercial kitchen experience (she just liked to cook, and did so for her kids mostly) went all the way to the last three or four. She was competent in the kitchen, capable of following orders, and was a team player besides: all the things that Ramsay likes to see.

On the topic of Ramsay’s softer side; DtC and Dewey, I think you’re right. I’ve seen some of the British Kitchen Nightmares, and he’s not always a drill sergeant. He can be, but he does seem to have the restaurant’s best interests at heart, and if he can make his point without flying off the handle, he will. I wouldn’t be surprised if the producers of HK do encourage him to play up the drill sergeant routine.

Yep. Reg’lar as clockwork.

Blech! … Yeck! … Pee-yew! … This one is quite good … Poison! … You mean you’d eat this crap? … Not totally horrible … Dog vomit!

Can anyone remember what one of them said about Julia? She made some classless crack about her being only a fry cook.

And yes, presumably they knew they were expected to make a signature dish, so you’d think they’d have the recipe down cold. And the dinner service was a disaster, but you’re right that it was a completely unrealistic situation. I have no restaurant kitchen experience, but even I’d expect that in the real world, the roles and hierarchy would be clearly defined (one person does appetizers, one does salads, etc.).

OK, I see that this episode was just the ususal breakdown intro, though perhaps a tad more broken down than the others.

If this is what GR likes, and anyone who reviewed the prior seasons would presumably see this too, why did it seem that at least four of the women were none of these things (even allowing for some editing distortions).

I’ve seen some of GR’s other shows and I realize that he can vary from raging asshole to warmly supportive. I imagine that, particulalrly for the opening show, they’ve asked him to turn the asshole knob up to 11.

Mostly they were saying ‘She works at a waffle house’ as if they wouldn’t deign to step foot in the shadow of one. All I was thinking was why wouldn’t they let her cook the damn eggs? They obviously couldn’t, so why not have the person with the most likely egg cooking experience make it? Oh, right. Bitches, I forgot.

You’d think. I could quickly and easily toss together a parmesan chicken with risotto and squash for Ramsey… and I’m not trained beyond what I picked up from watching cooking shows, reading cookbooks and home ec. I wouldn’t call it my signature dish though, it’s what I cook when I don’t feel like cooking much. Everyone has a dish like that that they can dress up a little. I think they make the mistake of trying to impress him and experiment when they shouldn’t. Go with what you know and can do well, plate it nice, and you’ll be fine.

Of course I’m not crazy enough to apply for the show either. I’d probably be one of the ones crying or fainting away when he tasted my food.

One thing’s for sure, I’d never serve him scallops as my signature dish. He’s been poisoned by so many of them on his various shows, you can see him cringe at the sight of one.

IIRC, one of the “signature” dishes he actually liked was a dead-simple chunk of beef paired with asparagus. Not much to go wrong there, unless you’re like somone I knew who cooked everything to death.

The winner of the “Wanna-be cook that deserves to be slapped sideways” for this ep is the guy who was carrying on about water vs. vegetable stock for the risotto, and his absurd pantry-cam reasoning of “Stock is mostly wah-tur and vegetables are mostly wah-tur!” Hey fool, vegetables and stock are also full of flay-vur!

Either something got nipped out in editing, or a buyer needs to be slapped - an hour or so into service, and they’re out of chicken and wellington? What happened? Was there so much incompetence that they burned (heh!) through it all, but we never heard about it until they ran out?

I think they ran out because they kept screwing up so much and had to keep throwing stuff away, but the way it was edited it’s hard to be sure.

Not to mention the girls quarrelling about how to cook it. If you’ve ever seen this show before, and you were going to do just one thing to prepare to be on it, it would be, “Get one of Ramsay’s books and learn to cook fucking risotto.”

Yup. That’s why I said go simple, go with what you know and don’t try anything fancy unless you do it as a matter of course. I mostly meant dress up by plate it nice, maybe a little garnish on the side and voila. Signature dish. That’s why I’d do the parmesan chicken. I know it, I cook it all the time (several times a month) but at home I just toss it on the plate. Plate it nice, it would fit in at a fancy restaurant (mine is pretty simple, no sauce or extra slice of cheese on the top like I usually see it served, I can do it on the fly).

Oh yeah. I wanted to smack him upside the head. Add only water you’ve just got… plain rice. Who wants to eat that?

They didn’t show it on the show (or if they did I missed it), but in the extra videos the women sent out several risottos with chicken stock instead of vegetable in the vegetarian risottos. Ramsey called in Jean Phillipe and was just freaking, which I understand. Can you imagine the fuss if someone was a vegetarian and got served it?

Maybe a bit of both? But then, if they were ruining every chicken and wellington they were cooking, I could see them running out since Ramsey tells them to bin anything not up to his standards.

If that was what happened, and I can believe it did, it says the disasterous service was a pretty clear set-up.