Hell's Kitchen Premiere: Gordon Ramsay is Back!
by Andrew Sousa
Ah yes, it's back! Get ready for the yells, the screams and the fire of Hell's Kitchen.
As the fourth season begins, we meet our enthusiastic 15 chefs chomping at the bit. Right off the bat Chef Ramsay pulls an April Fool's on his chefs by infiltrating the ride over to Hell's Kitchen. He dresses up in prosthetic makeup and sits in the van secretly listening to everything the chefs have to say. He looks a little odd, kind of like Chef Ramsay mixed with Axl Rose.
In the van, cheftestant Bobby describes himself as the "Black Gordan Ramsay." Chef Ramsay doesn't look too happy.
When they arrive at Hells Kitchen John-Phillipe has some of the chefs do their best Ramsay impersonation right in from of Axl/Ramsay. After a few failed attempts, Chef Ramsay pulls off his make up and reveals he has been spying on them the whole time.
Immediately Chef Ramsay calls for his usual request; a sample of everyone's signature dish. Oh let the fun begin.
As the fourth season begins, we meet our enthusiastic 15 chefs chomping at the bit. Right off the bat Chef Ramsay pulls an April Fool's on his chefs by infiltrating the ride over to Hell's Kitchen. He dresses up in prosthetic makeup and sits in the van secretly listening to everything the chefs have to say. He looks a little odd, kind of like Chef Ramsay mixed with Axl Rose.
In the van, cheftestant Bobby describes himself as the "Black Gordan Ramsay." Chef Ramsay doesn't look too happy.
When they arrive at Hells Kitchen John-Phillipe has some of the chefs do their best Ramsay impersonation right in from of Axl/Ramsay. After a few failed attempts, Chef Ramsay pulls off his make up and reveals he has been spying on them the whole time.
Immediately Chef Ramsay calls for his usual request; a sample of everyone's signature dish. Oh let the fun begin.
Craig (all 5-foot-nothing of him) comes up first with his
unusually large hat. Ramsay hates his dish and tells him to lose the
hat. Well, actually he tells him to shove it somewhere sideways, but
this is a classy site, so we won't go there.
Next Ramsay spits out Jen's
undercooked rice and tells her she can't cook. She goes on a rant (in
the privacy of the confessional interview) saying Ramsay doesn't know
who she is and what he is talking about. Clearly Ramsay has nothing on
her....
The next dish up for Ramsay's tasting is Matt's "Exotic Tartar." Basic run down of ingredients: raw venison, caviar, diver scallops, quail egg, olive oil and white chocolate. I have a 2-year-old cousin who I'm pretty sure can put together a better dish. I believe Ramsay has the appropriate response - by throwing up the dish. Needless to say he was not in the top 3.
In the end, after all the bland chickens, terrible salads and hens in pumpkins(?), Vanessa is the only chef who is able to impress Chef Ramsay with her fragrant fish dish.
After the dish presentation Ramsay tells everyone they are up for the grand prize of becoming the executive chef for his new restaurant with a quarter of a million dollar salary. Not too shabby. He also tells the chefs to go back to the dorm and pick a capitan for each team, males and females.
The girls (red kitchen) pick Vanessa as their leader with no deliberation. The men (blue kitchen), on the other hand, don't come to their decision as easily. They fight and feud over who should be the captain. They finally choose Bobby as their leader.
As service starts, not surprisingly the risotto fails. If it's one thing I've noticed about all the years of Hell's Kitchen, nobody knows how to make risotto! Come on, you're chefs! It's embarrassing!
Despite all the risotto and scallop flukes, no one manages to step up and take charge. Ramsay has to start yelling and pulls Sharon and Jason off the risotto station on both sides.
Leadership is clearly lacking for both teams and Ramsay puts Rosann as the leader of the girls' side. She enthusiastically starts yelling and tries to pull together her team. It seems to work as food starts finally going out!
On the male side, nothing seems to get done. Bobby doesn't take any leadership at all and Louross gets
the captain's badge. The chefs finally start getting food out but it's
too late; all the customers are gone. I have to interject here, if I
was going to Hell's Kitchen as it was taping, I would pick a night late in the taping. The odds are better that I would get to eat that night.
The service is inevitably shut down without one main dish going out. That's sad, but not entirely uncommon for Hell's Kitchen. Ramsay picks the men as the losing team and chooses Louross to pick two people to be sent to elimination.
At elimination Louross picks Bobby for lack of leadership and Dominic for not being strong enough on his station.
Not very surprisingly Chef Ramsay chooses Dominic to hang up his jacket and exit the show. Bobby is an executive chef who had poor leadership skills, but Dominic is a stay-at-home dad trying to be a chef. Who would you pick?
Do you think Chef Ramsay made the right choice? Write your thoughts in the comments section!
Then come back next week for the next episode of Hell's Kitchen. Happy Eating!
Next Ramsay spits out Jen's
undercooked rice and tells her she can't cook. She goes on a rant (in
the privacy of the confessional interview) saying Ramsay doesn't know
who she is and what he is talking about. Clearly Ramsay has nothing on
her....The next dish up for Ramsay's tasting is Matt's "Exotic Tartar." Basic run down of ingredients: raw venison, caviar, diver scallops, quail egg, olive oil and white chocolate. I have a 2-year-old cousin who I'm pretty sure can put together a better dish. I believe Ramsay has the appropriate response - by throwing up the dish. Needless to say he was not in the top 3.
In the end, after all the bland chickens, terrible salads and hens in pumpkins(?), Vanessa is the only chef who is able to impress Chef Ramsay with her fragrant fish dish.
After the dish presentation Ramsay tells everyone they are up for the grand prize of becoming the executive chef for his new restaurant with a quarter of a million dollar salary. Not too shabby. He also tells the chefs to go back to the dorm and pick a capitan for each team, males and females.
The girls (red kitchen) pick Vanessa as their leader with no deliberation. The men (blue kitchen), on the other hand, don't come to their decision as easily. They fight and feud over who should be the captain. They finally choose Bobby as their leader.
As service starts, not surprisingly the risotto fails. If it's one thing I've noticed about all the years of Hell's Kitchen, nobody knows how to make risotto! Come on, you're chefs! It's embarrassing!
Despite all the risotto and scallop flukes, no one manages to step up and take charge. Ramsay has to start yelling and pulls Sharon and Jason off the risotto station on both sides.
Leadership is clearly lacking for both teams and Ramsay puts Rosann as the leader of the girls' side. She enthusiastically starts yelling and tries to pull together her team. It seems to work as food starts finally going out!
On the male side, nothing seems to get done. Bobby doesn't take any leadership at all and Louross gets
the captain's badge. The chefs finally start getting food out but it's
too late; all the customers are gone. I have to interject here, if I
was going to Hell's Kitchen as it was taping, I would pick a night late in the taping. The odds are better that I would get to eat that night. The service is inevitably shut down without one main dish going out. That's sad, but not entirely uncommon for Hell's Kitchen. Ramsay picks the men as the losing team and chooses Louross to pick two people to be sent to elimination.
At elimination Louross picks Bobby for lack of leadership and Dominic for not being strong enough on his station.
Not very surprisingly Chef Ramsay chooses Dominic to hang up his jacket and exit the show. Bobby is an executive chef who had poor leadership skills, but Dominic is a stay-at-home dad trying to be a chef. Who would you pick?
Do you think Chef Ramsay made the right choice? Write your thoughts in the comments section!
Then come back next week for the next episode of Hell's Kitchen. Happy Eating!
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Hell's Kitchen Premiere: Gordon Ramsay is Back!.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://tvcocktail.ivillage.com/system/mt-tb.cgi/5918
I feel that the choice Ramsey made last night was the right one between the 2 chefs nominated. But I feel that the nomination was where the problem lies. The 2 worst performances in that kitchen were the leadership skills and participation under pressure by Bobby and the work of Jason plating the appetizers and making the risoto properly.
All in all a poor team prefromance by the men and any of the chefs could have been nominated for elimination last night.
I also noticed that Dominic does have some cooking experience before deciding to stay at home with his children. I just pulled up a website where he has prepared some scallops that sound delicious compared to what we saw last night.