Hotel Hell's Kitchen Nightmare Masterthread Jr. - As Crazy as ABC

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Hotel Hell's Kitchen Nightmare Masterthread Jr. - As Crazy as ABC

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Okay, I just read the entire thread, and I only actually watch Kitchen Nightmares. I can make a gargantuan post after I catch my breath, right? Right.

I only discovered KN after the ABC episode, and I've been marathon-watching it since then. In that format, the formula does become obvious after awhile. I'm not surprised that he decided to pull the plug--maybe a little surprised that Fox didn't try to keep him on until they�d run it completely into the ground, but they have other shows to put him on.

I was pretty let down by this season. The return to ABC was mostly rehash and YouTube memes. The Mangia Mangia episode was a mindfuck, but mostly because I couldn�t believe that Ramsay would actually go there. After the anticlimax of a premiere, it reinforced to me that they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. A faux-Italian restaurant in a former fast-food facility, run entirely by stupid white trash, and it sucks? Who knew? It was mainly interesting because I don�t think Ramsay�s ever been to a restaurant where it seems that not a single person working there has ever enjoyed good food, much less cooked it.

I don�t think the problem was that they could never top ABC, though. ABC was a trainwreck, but it�s pretty obvious that Amy and Samy are trainwrecks in every aspect of their lives, and that this is obvious to anyone who has ever talked to them for more than 30 seconds. The most memorable people on the show are the ones who act normal enough that there�s a bit of mystery to unearthing their crazy problems. With Amy and Samy the only mystery is how they�ve avoided landing in prison again.

pentyne posted:

The biggest problem in every US restaurant on KN is inventory management. Either you get micromanaging owners like Zeke's that demand everything be cooked and portioned in plastic bags, or no one involved cares and the kitchen is a festering mess. One family restaurant where the lazy brother was the chef had 3+ months worth of frozen meat products packed into the freezer and his excuse was "Well I didn't want to run out".

I remember there were two restaurants that made food fresh every day...then froze it to serve a few days later.

pentyne posted:

One of my favorites was Zekes, where the old owner had to sell after Katarina and the new couple that bought it forced the same chefs to use frozen shrimp and other poo poo ingredients to cut costs, in addition to creating their own lovely oyster dish and putting it on the menu. A popular restaurant with the same cooking staff was turned into a shithole because the new owners insisted on everything being done their way.

By far, the worst, most infuriating, most entertaining owners are people who claim that it was their "dream" to own a restaurant...and what they really mean by that is that they were middle-aged people with a wad of cash, and they were so ignorant of the restaurant industry that they thought a restaurant is a magical investment that runs itself, generates money, and provides you with a second home where you can eat and drink for free. Witness the number of owners who are officially the manager, host, or bartender, and they sit at the bar and drink wine all night. I used to think that Amway was a horrible racket that ruins people�s lives, but maybe they�re saving us from being poisoned by awful restaurants.

raditts posted:

IIRC, season 1 douchebag "30 FLAVOR COMBINATIONS" Sebastian of the now-defunct "Sebastian's" claimed he originally auditioned to be a Hell's Kitchen contestant, but they turned him down and offered to put him on Kitchen Nightmares instead. Knowing that fat gently caress, that could very well be total bullshit though.

Sebastian's is one of my favourite episodes, because Sebastian himself is one of the most fake human beings I've ever seen.

"People come here for our concept!" (His concept is mix-and-match canned ingredients on thawed dough.)
"I'm serious, this is my family's livelihood!" (He drinks beer with his friends during dinner service.)
�My restaurant is a young who�s-who of Hollywood!� (Everyone who works there is a struggling wannabe actor.)
�One day my pizzas will be in grocery stores!� (Everything in his pizza came from a grocery store.)

1st AD posted:

I'm catching up on older US Kitchen Nightmares episodes, and holy gently caress the Burger Kitchen episode was depressing. Dad literally stole $250k from the son and is not self-aware enough to realize he is repeating the sins of his father (a man he wrote a loving book about), even after giving the drat book to Gordon.

Pope Corky the IX posted:

Was that the one where the son was losing his hair and his mind because his parents kept asking for money to keep the place open after he had already given them something like $50,000?

Pope Corky the IX posted:

Holy loving poo poo. I didn't remember it being that bad. Didn't they also act like his fiancee was this awful person for trying to tell them to stop ruining their lives?

Burger Kitchen was amazing because the parents weren't really crazy. Just stupid. Very, very stupid. I feel bad for the son not just because his trust fund went kaput, but because it would bother me, psychologically, if my parents were just dumb as a bag of hair. On the other hand, he acted like an incredible wimp. The dead grandfather who left them all their money was a big-time gangster in Australia.

Pope Corky the IX posted:

The Black Pearl in Manhattan was also quite good. The one owner seemed hellbent on the place closing, maybe for an insurance scam or something, the way he was 100% against anything that would actually improve the restaurant. I think it's somewhere in the first season.

pentyne posted:

Black Pearl has one of the best owners, in that the one guy absolutely refused accountability for anything and outright claimed that Canadian and Maine lobsters were identical. He was probably the only owner who after everything still tried to talk down to Ramsay and didn't think any of the changes were good.

The Black Pearl is one of the all-time highest on the "narcissism of owners" scale. Watching that staff meeting where the principal owner was psychologically incapable of not answering a question with a question was astounding. When the restaurant shut down, the owner wrote an open letter blaming Ramsay for everything. He even called him an idiot for thinking that Canadian and Maine lobsters are different species! Yes, he was still trying to win that argument with Ramsay long after he was gone and his restaurant failed.

1st AD posted:

The Mill Street guy was trying to make poo poo like Elk meat Quesasillas

Joe Nagy is the epitome of a guy who watches Iron Chef and thinks that cuisine means weird combinations of ingredients and gimmicks.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 20:44

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

pentyne posted:

As bad as some of the owner/chefs get, nothing tops the lackadaisical owners who just float around their restaurant smiling and laughing like nothing is wrong, not overseeing staff in the slightest as the places hemorrhages money.

The awful manager, whether or not they're the owner, is one of the unsung antiheroes of KN. I don't notice people singling them out as often as delusional owners and bad chefs. They actually go hand-in-hand with bad owners, because while bad owners resist change because of their "regulars," bad managers usually think that their job is just to drift around saying hello to people. That creepy old ouzo-drinking guy from the sports bar is a great example. Really, people come to eat at this restaurant to see you? Enough of them for you to be paid $100k a year to mingle with them? I guarantee you half of that guy's "regulars" just tolerated him.

quote:

Zekes is one of my all time favorites, because it was the exact same staff that had been there for years, and when that new couple bought it and dictated all the changes was when the place turned to garbage. The same cooks who were putting out food that filled the restaurant every night now had to cook frozen, pre-portioned food and the community stopped going to a local favorite.

The owners of Zeke's are exactly the kind of owners I was talking about. Entitled, incompetent, deluded, thought a restaurant was a license to print money in their cool clubhouse.

quote:

Still there were crazier owners. The former waitress who bought the restaurant from the previous owner thinking she could run the place easily after working in it. The flabby belly dancer who would put on belly dancing shows in the evenings. That one rear end in a top hat who treated his step-son like poo poo, and sat out in his car and had the servers bring him his food. The Greek guy who had his 5 children working in the place and they wanted to leave but if they did the place would fail so they stuck around out of guilt.

The belly dancer was mainly just dumb. Like, not knowing that soup-of-the-day means making soup, daily. Sam's Mediterranean Kebab Room was possibly the most psychologically dysfunctional family on the show. Guy cannot get through his head that he doesn't get to decide when his children are grown, and that his children still act like little kids because he treats them that way.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 05:05

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I've only seen a couple episodes of the UK version, and I can already tell it's not the same show at all. With the emphasis on food, and on helping dysfunctional restaurants (as opposed to pretending to repair trainwrecks to functional trains) I think I will enjoy it as a palate cleanser.

Hey Propaganda Machine, what roux recipe do you use for your mac and cheese?

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 15:39

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Watching the Fenwick Arms episode

hoooooly poo poo

# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 22:13

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

So what kind of dish requires a plate with the topography of a wading pool?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 02:17

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I notice that issues with payment get some highlights in Hotel Hell, whereas in Kitchen Nightmares US it sometimes seemed like they were sweeping it under the rug. For example, the episode with Ms. Jean's Southern Cuisine: she seemed like a nice lady, but the woman she fired was working for no more than free food, and I have a feeling that the reason her cooks were irresponsible is because she wasn't paying them any more than they'd get to work entry-level retail or fast food.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 18:33

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I've met plenty of Mormon mothers, and none of them make their funeral potatoes with that much grease.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 15:27

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

pentyne posted:

American cuisine is a bit odd. Along the coasts you get some great regional seafood, the big cities have high class restaurants, New Orleans has a fantastically diverse culinary tradition, certain regions in the south/midwest are known for their phenomenal bbq, but in between you get people who are raised on vegetables cooked to a mush, spam/mayo sandwiches, and extremely heavy casserole dishes.

Hey, Mangia Mangia!'s gotta make money somehow.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 02:48

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Beef Hardcheese posted:

I spent a couple of years living in southwest Georgia. When it was announced that Olive Garden would be building a restaurant, it was literally front-page, above-the-fold news in the local paper. I never drove by close enough to take a look, but I have little doubt that there were people getting dressed up in the exact same way.

This is a genuine pet peeve of mine. I know a dozen people from my old neighbourhood (Augusta/Rockingham counties area of Virginia) who think that the single most important landmark their town could acquire is an Olive Garden.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 16:18

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Random Stranger posted:

You people with your fancy Olive Gardens. My town is highly anticipating the opening of a Subway.

I have nothing against Subway. In some parts of the country, Subway probably is the closest some people get to eating fresh.

LLCoolJD posted:

Staunton, Virginia is a great little town with some wonderful restaurants. I'd imagine Harrisonburg has some decent places, too. It bothers me that people need the known quantity of a franchise like Olive Garden while turning up their noses at much better establishments.

When I return to my old stomping grounds, I usually get dragged to a chain steakhouse--but if not, nostalgia compels me to eat a bacon cheeseburger at Jess's. Or Log Cabin Barbecue which is legit great.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2014 15:16

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

There are a lot of basic dishes I would never cook when I was a bachelor because I just didn't know the trick to getting it to turn out right--stuff you learn by practice, and the idea of throwing out stuff because I screwed it up just seemed too wasteful to contemplate. Like eggs, for instance. I wouldn't do anything with eggs. Which is ridiculous, because eggs are a really cheap way to learn how to manage heat on the stove.

Edit: Speaking of which, I am not a fan of Ramsay's Egg Gravy on Toast.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2014 21:23

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I'm also interested in ancient and medieval history, and that's of particular interest to me. It explains why so many armies actually took their wives and children with them on campaign--before modern industrial food preservation, knowing how to preserve, move, and prepare food was a full-time job; you had to know how to do stuff like wax eggs to keep them fresh.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 01:01

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

On the other hand, the mac and cheese recipe from this thread is pretty good, and I can cook white roux without burning it now.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 18:24

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

They're not "giving it up," someone is blasting them in the head. I eat meat, but the notion of sacrifice that some foodies like to promote is loving weird.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 15:21

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

That show already aired years ago!

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 20:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

Jon Bois, of Breaking Madden fame, wrote an article commemorating the death of Kitchen Nightmares.

According to some of the comments, Joe's dumbass portrayal in the episode is entirely accurate.

Mill Street Bistro is one of my favourite and least favourite episodes, if you get what I mean. I've seen it twice, and I don't want to see it a third time because I might rip off the arms of the chair I'm sitting in.

It also affirms my theory that you can gauge the quality of a restaurant by looking at the cocktail menu.

What about Le Bistro, the French restaurant where Gordon said that the French owner/chef's food was good? I'm surprised it doesn't get more notice, since I think that's the only time on the show that he's complimented anything (that wasn't a dessert made in a different kitchen). That guy sank his restaurant purely by being an unbelievable jerk.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 20:07

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

It's LAW!

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 23:23

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I wouldn't be averse to the series becoming more like the British original, where Ramsay often has sympathy for the owners. Usually because they weren't utter morons, and cared about things like "making money" and "not poisoning people."

# ¿ Nov 8, 2023 16:01

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Dokapon Findom posted:

The episodes where it's like "Ramsay came to fix their restaurant... but what he ended up fixing... was their marriage" are my least favorite.

The family drama is always the worst because it's so fake. Not that the problems are made up, but the idea of a celebrity chef fixing a dysfunctional family in two days. The main thing I hear from people who've been on the show is that Ramsay is pretty much only around when the camera's rolling. And no wonder, he's running a little media empire at this point.

The worst episodes are the ones where the actual solution is "get out of the restaurant business," and of course that doesn't happen. (These are the ones that either have restaurant owners who have never even worked in a restaurant, or a family restaurant where the chef has tunnel vision because they've been burnt out working there since they were a teenager.)

# ¿ Nov 9, 2023 16:19

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I love the people who constantly gripe about how they work so hard, so many long hours, because they spend 14 hours a day hanging out and eating in the restaurant they own.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2023 22:02

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

I like this article about a guy who knows how to cook, but arrogantly hosed up like every other aspect of owning a restaurant.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2023 22:22

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Yeah, that last bit was where I lost all sympathy. Did the absolute legal minimum amount of restaurant work before hanging a shingle.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2023 01:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Maybe people would actually like the show more if it were like some of the more chill episodes in the British series. You're leaving money on the table because you can't organize a lunch service, let's fix that. You're making fresh food and then freezing it, let's fix that. You're trying to earn a Michelin star and your dishes are tryhard, let's fix that.

He could spend more time just fixing the insanely long menu at every American restaurant. Maybe save the big remodel for the restaurants that are actually decrepit. Make a big show of ripping up the nasty carpets and throwing all the dusty wall decorations in a dumpster.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 22:14

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

The Hollywood pizza guy? He was particularly hateable.

Edit: "I've never met anyone I believed in less than you" Gordon obliterated that guy.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Dec 6, 2023

# ¿ Dec 6, 2023 18:25

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

You can't really do great work in the timeframe they have to work with. They don't even have time for, like, grout to dry properly.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2023 20:42

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

The US is the adoptive home of every cuisine and there are still people who think tacos and spaghetti are strange foreign food. The UK must have some of those. Can't ingest anything that hasn't been stuffed into a Yorkshire pudding first.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2023 22:35

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 7 hours!

Does every episode of the new KN have to feature a disgusting walk-in? And I don't mean Gordon!

# ¿ Jan 29, 2024 16:10

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