We got
to cross off another event from the Hell’s Kitchen checklist with this
episode’s “Blind Taste Test” in which the chefs are blindfolded and then have
to guess the food that is put in their mouth while Ramsay ridicules them for
thinking that Brussels Sprouts is Cauliflower (that actually happened, no
joke). Before we get to that though,
Ramsay quizzes the chefs on their senses (kind of as a precursor to the whole
taste-test thing) and he picks guy with no nickname and mixed up Cyndi to test
their sense of touch. This involves the
chefs putting their hands through a box with holes cut into it and into a bowl
of a mystery food. The foods were eggs,
polenta and oysters. I’m impressed by
their tactile ability as I don’t think I would have answered correctly to any
except eggs (to be fair, I’ve never touched an oyster before, so there’s
that). The blue team won with a clean
sweep, three out of three! Their prize…
…nothing.
Yup,
Ramsay pulled the old switcheroo on them.
That was all there as a setup for the blind taste-test. Even when the guys win they can’t win. It is therefore hilarious to see their
reaction when they think they are the victors only to realize that they’ve won
nothing. On to the taste-test, where
Ramsay gives them pretty standard fare in terms of food to taste. The real comedy comes from watching Ramsay
have fun at the expense of the chefs.
He’ll say the name of a food and then give a look to the un-blindfolded
chefs as if to say “I could get this right with my head underwater and a pit
bull (the dog, not the douchey “singer”) clamped on each nipple, and I bet you
these fuckers think it’s something stupid like peas”. Then we also get to people that are force-fed
spoonfuls of food and the process they go through to determine what that food
is. Some people eat it normally, some
(like loud guy) basically immerse his entire mouth in the food, almost like
he’s using it as mouthwash. It’s equal
parts funny and disgusting, like when a baby shits on someone.
You
know what the best part is about the guys winning the not-quite-real
challenge? The fact that they lost the
actual challenge…again! The girls got a
nice little day of relaxation and horseback riding (which makes me wonder if
Ramsay held off on this reward until fat black girl was gone, for the sake of
the horses), while the guys have to prep for the dinner service the following
day as well as unload the truck when it comes.
Of course, the guys unload the ice truck a little too much because guy
with no nickname just signed the purchase order without actually reading it so
Hell’s Kitchen was overrun with unnecessary bags of ice. The guys then had to put back the bags that
were not theirs, making double the work for the beleaguered blue crew. The other two blue chefs were obviously no
longer a fan of guy with no nickname after that.
So we’ve
had the challenge, we’ve had the punishment/reward, now it’s time for dinner
service, right? Not so fast! Ramsay throws everyone a curveball by
offering up a second challenge. This one
is an individual challenge that carries the ultimate prize, immunity from
elimination. The challenge itself is
actually fairly simple; just cook a dish, any dish and present it to Ramsay
(much like their initial “signature dish” challenge from the first week of
competition). This is to judge the chefs’
growth in the competition. Some of the
remaining chefs put up some truly horrendous meals in that first episode, and
Ramsay wants to see who has learned from their time in Hell’s Kitchen. Everyone that has ever been a chef, or even
known a chef, realizes that the profession is a constant learning experience,
whether it be new techniques, new dishes or new foods altogether, so this
challenge will help Ramsay gauge who is open to and able to learn and grow as a
chef. Ramsay judges it “king of the
mountain” style where each subsequent dish has to be good enough to knock the
current champion off the throne. Skinny
black girl goes first and maintains her position on top of the throne for quite
some time until Mr. Mohawk sneaks in with a well cooked fish dish. Mr. Mohawk triumphantly sits on the throne
until mixed up Cyndi comes up with her dish and…
To be continued.
While I
understand cutting it off at that point, this episode sure felt weird and incomplete without a
dinner service in it, hence this week's name. This week makes up
for it though as more celebrity guests show up for dinner, the chefs prove that
they are still having trouble cooking even at this stage of the game, and
Ramsay loses his cool again.
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