New Hell's Kitchen episode tonight

[Blarg]

Woohoo! Love this show so far.

[trying2learn]

i hate that i like this show - i love when patrons go to the back and he tells them to piss off.

[blatz]

Im with you...ever since I started working from home my standards in TV viewing have just plunged, so obviously I love this one.

As anyone who has worked with decent chef will attest, he is not that over the top. If they just tossed in a drunken owner sitting at the bar, and occasionally popping into the kitchen to issue contradictory orders the show would be perfect.

[Jules22]

[ QUOTE ]
Im with you...ever since I started working from home my standards in TV viewing have just plunged, so obviously I love this one.

As anyone who has worked with decent chef will attest, he is not that over the top. If they just tossed in a drunken owner sitting at the bar, and occasionally popping into the kitchen to issue contradictory orders the show would be perfect.

[/ QUOTE ]


hahahaha! potm (post of the minute)

[Blarg]

Plunged from where? If there's been much good t.v. on, I must have been out of the loop for the past few decades on it. There's not much on t.v. worth half a fart.

At first I thought he was totally nuts, but really, the guy has to get product out the door. It's one thing when stuff is less than ideal, but these teams did a lot of screwing up, and sometimes they really deserved being reamed. When they were saying things like, "It's been three hours and blue team has only gotten 12 entrees out the door," I couldn't believe it.

Slapping the plates into their chests was pretty over the top, but some of these guys really deserved a chewing out. It would be one thing if he was their professor and this was a school, but these guys are already supposed to be reasonably good, and helping him out, not driving him nuts. This guy has a business to run and a reputation to leave hopefully relatively un-ruined.

Of course, they set these trial-by-fire conditions when designing the show this way in the first place, so its the chef's own fault. Having a contest about who to let run your next business is stupid -- what if they all suck? But it does make for some good t.v. I'd be thinking that the customers should be eating for free, though. Having to pay for that kind of service is also stupid. As well as getting cussed out by the arsehole chef in the process.

[otctrader]

Hopefully you guys are aware that the "restaurant" never existed for public use (the whole premises is a converted set/studio), and the patrons are extras (actors looking for work) paid $50 and the free meal. While the "customer" drama is not scripted, the producers encouraged the "customers" to spice things up, i.e. bitch and moan. I'll find a link if anyone cares.

This notwithstanding, the drama within the kitchen is real, so the show does have some legit entertainment value. I just wish they would come out and tell the truth up front instead of creating the whole restaurant facade.

[Godfather80]

link it for me. I love reading about "reality" set ups.

[TimTimSalabim]

I figured it was a setup, but it's still funny when he says to them things like "go and get some more plastic surgery".

[Blarg]

The set-up definitely seemed ridiculously weird, but I didn't really know what to think.

I agree that it wouldn't have done a thing to harm the show just to create a more honest situation. The reason to watch it is all in the kitchen, really.

PBS just had a show very much like this, where the winner gets his own restaurant, but was judged by a panel of judges, and there were no customers. It was actually better than this show. The kitchen stuff is more than good enough on its own.

[blatz]

3 contestants left can successfully own a restauant, Elsie, the older cook from New York, and the tattooed cook from LA. Anybody else wins, and it's going down the tubes fast.

The bootcamp mentality does work, though. Dealing with the stress is half the battle. And the teams have improved immensely.

The announcer cracks me up...every commercial, "And you're not going to believe what happens next" I was waiting for someone to attempt toflambe the chef, or cut their own hand off, or something...I kind of believed everything I saw.

On a side note, the most distressing part of the show was the commercial for the new series Kitchen Confidential. The book, by Anthony Bourdain, is amazing for capturing the rhytmn and emotion of a professional kitchen, fun read. Looks like it's going to be massacred as a sitcom. If anybody hasn't read it, and enjoys restaurants, it's really worth getting your hands on.

[Blarg]

A sitcom? WTF?

I read this book like four times. I loved it; one of the most fun books I've read in years. I read his second one too. He had a documentary tied in with his second book, supposedly, but I didn't get a chance to see that.

Kitchen Confidential was incredibly fun and a great read.

I wish I could find more stuff by him to read. Think I'll go check Amazon and see if he's been up to anything new.

[Blarg]

Just saw the commercial.

They didn't show a single thing about his starting off in the New England clam shack, which was very funny and one of the best and most heartfelt parts of the book. That's a disappointment.

It looks fairly yuppied up, too. This doesn't seem a story helped all that much by trying to work some Sex in the City and supermodels into it.

[NoOuts]

[ QUOTE ]

On a side note, the most distressing part of the show was the commercial for the new series Kitchen Confidential. The book, by Anthony Bourdain, is amazing for capturing the rhytmn and emotion of a professional kitchen, fun read. Looks like it's going to be massacred as a sitcom. If anybody hasn't read it, and enjoys restaurants, it's really worth getting your hands on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kitchen Confidential is a great book.
I have a pilot screener of the TV series that I haven't watched yet. I'll let you know what I think of it.