Let’s start
right out with an admission. I missed
the first part of the episode, so I have no idea what sage wisdom Ramsay gave
chubby guy, but he didn’t send him home so that has to count for something. Everyone had just been aroused from what was
probably a delightful hoo-ha flapping slumber when they were faced with a
marathon. It wasn’t a true marathon, but
these are chefs, it’s a good bet that they don’t do a whole lot of
running. For this challenge, one of the
chefs from each team had to run the marathon while the others prepared a
healthy lunch for the other, non-contestant, runners. The running chef gets to join their team
after the completion of the marathon, but until then said team will be a man
(or woman) down.
This is
good in theory, but Ramsay seems destined to sabotage the chances of the women
as he chooses one of the bigger girls (squeaky-voiced girl) to run while the
boys lose one of their skinny guys.
True, this may not be a distinct advantage, maybe the skinny guy has
asthma, but nope. Skinny guy coasts
through just fine and is back in the kitchen to help his team, while
squeaky-voiced girl is struggling to get back.
I have to give her a lot of credit, she ran the whole way and came back
ready to work, that takes a lot of guts.
However, she is so winded and worn out when she gets back that she is
not too much help. We then get one of
the token pretty girls talking about how she makes smoothies all the time and
is awesome at making smoothies, and then she is just massacring the dish. The execution is fine but she just slops it
into the serving glass, prompting a predictable outburst from Ramsay.
Just as an aside here, I love when
someone claims their proficiency in something.
That just means for the next three minutes you will see them screw it up
in some way shape or form.
Token
pretty girl didn’t screw things up too badly though, and even being a woman
down and having to come from behind, the women won. The guys suck this year. They really do. But the one that really sunk the ship in this
particular instance was loud black guy.
Not only did he cook of a shit-ton of fish ahead of the service
(basically wasting them because, duh, they don’t just reheat shit in Hell’s Kitchen)
but he actually went back and grabbed one of those fish to actually serve to a
customer, and then had the audacity to lie about it. Really?
You are being watched by cameras constantly and Ramsay himself is
notorious about being a stickler for that kind of stuff, not to mention the
fact that he has assistants that can spot and report that shit as well. To lie about it is ridiculous. The guys were so very close to winning too,
and they were sunk by a dumbass and a piece of salmon.
During the official
announcement of the winning team, two of the guys, one of the skinny ones and
the old guy, make it a point to ask Ramsay to speak slower when he is calling
out the tickets. This could be one of
the most bizarre moments on the show as I don’t think I have ever seen anyone
make that kind of a request of Ramsay before, nor does he honor it in any way
shape or form other than to mock those two at the start of dinner service.
So the
girls win again and this time they get to go to a vineyard. The guys get to go outside and clean up the
race site and prep the kitchens. The
girls in the vineyard leads to squeaky-voiced girl exclaiming that she has
always wanted to squish grapes with her feet when that opportunity is presented
to the winning team. Ummm, okay, if
that’s on your bucket list then ok, but you can easily do that without going to
a vineyard.
Now on to
dinner service! This was a risotto mess
on both ends. First, the guys. All of the good graces that old guy may have
garnered last week may have evaporated as he couldn’t cook a damn risotto,
burning it or undercooking it, to the point where the VIP table (some unknown
guy from the L.A. Clippers – seriously was Chris Paul busy?) was served hard
rice. Risotto can be tricky, but really
all you have to do is check it before you send it up to the pass. I will say that after that, Old Guy rebounded
quite nicely and you didn’t hear from him again the whole episode. (I still like him moving forward, but that’s
at least partially because everyone else is terrible.) One of the girls cooked
the risotto just fine, except she made five portions of it when she needed
one. It’s not like Ramsay is reusing her
risotto either, so there was four wasted portions of risotto.
All of the
appetizers got out though. Entrees were
a major stumbling block for both teams though.
The guys had trouble as being able to correctly cook the lamb was yet
again an issue. It was either underdone
or it was cut horribly. This obviously
screwed up the garnish station as everything had to be done at the same
time. So the meat station guy and the
garnish station guy got into a nice little argument because meat guy wouldn’t
tell garnish guy how long until the lamb was done. This led to garnish guy checking it himself
and meat guy standing next to him so that garnish guy had to basically walk
through him to get back to his station.
At this point we get a “don’t bump me” from meat guy, even though he
instigated it, and they start jawing at eachother like a couple of punks. They both say that they want to beat
eachother’s ass but I’d be surprised if they could put up much of a fight. Ramsay realizes that the emotions in the
kitchen are running hot, pulls them aside and quickly douses that flame.
The girls
have trouble on the meat station as well as girl that always looks sad gave
Ramsay waaaaaay overdone Wellington . This was a purplish brown color, that’s how
overdone it was. Even my roommate, who
is not a foodie at all, commented on the sad coloring on that dish. This was
before Ramsay flipped his lid on her.
Here’s the catch, she had two other Wellingtons on her board, and gave Ramsay the
worst of the three. We also got the
other girl on the meat station sending up raw chicken. Okay, if you send up underdone beef or lamb,
that’s not the worst thing in the world.
It may not be to the customer’s liking but it isn’t necessarily harmful,
especially if the meat is a high quality like what you would assume would be
used here. There is no such thing as
rare chicken. It’s either done, or it’s
not done, and this chicken was not done.
This is one of the most consistent things that sets Ramsay off between
any of the shows that you see him on. He
knows how important it is to not serve raw chicken to someone and flips out
when he sees it.
Despite all
of this, dinner service is completed by both kitchens. The boys win because trying to sneak raw
chicken past the chef is a more grievous error than a bromance feud. Good job guys, you get to keep one of your
increasingly unlikable team members around for at least one more week. So on the chopping block this week we have
girl that always looks sad, and girl that has no idea what one portion of
risotto looks like. Of course, when no
one can give an adequate reason why girl who doesn’t know what one portion of
risotto looks like is up there, she gets sent back in line and is replaced by
undercooked chicken girl. While sending
up undercooked chicken is bad, girl that always looks sad just can’t wrap her
head around how to work in a kitchen of that caliber. She gets sent home, lamenting that she just
needed more time to adjust.
Tonight we
get a blow up by fat black girl and chubby guy, who we didn’t really hear from
last week, gets his own starring role as he puts his head down on the counter
and kind of gives up. His health is
called into question here, so we will see where this goes. Other than that, just another normal day in
Hell’s Kitchen.
See you next week!
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