Hell’s Kitchen – Everyone plays the blame game

First thing’s first — I don’t know why they called this episode of Hell’s Kitchen “8 Chefs Compete,” because there were 9 chefs in the kitchen. No one went home on the previous episode because they hadn’t even gotten to dinner service with all the other shenanigans used to fill out the episode. But, to make up for it, we got an entire hour of dinner service tonight, and despite some minor screw ups, I think it just reinforced my belief that Justin should win. He was the only one to step up and run a kitchen, even when his team was falling apart around him.

Can someone please tell me why Clemenza is still there? Anyone? In the three episodes I’ve watched, he’s screwed up more times than not, is a slob, and doesn’t want to communicate with anyone. Ramsay is yelling orders, Justin is repeating them and making sure Clemenza heard him, and Clemenza just gives attitude back … and usually screws up his food. He couldn’t keep the fish orders straight, and then flat-out lied to Ramsay when he said he had another piece of sea bass coming when there was nothing in the pan. Robyn isn’t much better, blaming Justin for setting her up by not telling her how long to properly cook scallop mousse-filled squash blossoms. You’re a cook! Don’t assume something is going to take exactly five minutes, especially if they’re all different sizes! And then she screwed up so many times that they ran out of scallops! And she had to go into the dining room and explain to the customers why they ran out. And that didn’t get her kicked out? Geez Louise! And poor Brian, the only other really competent cook on the Blue team screwed up two pieces of fish for the last dinner ticket … the LAST ticket … and got the whole team booted from the kitchen?! THAT got them booted? I’m calling foul on this one, Chef Gordo.

The Red team is still as unpleasant as they were during prep. Kimmie, again, was just terrible, taking a couple of tries to get her meats prepared properly and refusing help from anyone who asked … especially Barbie. Then the saga of Tiffany’s raw potatoes continued as plates started coming back to the kitchen (why weren’t these caught at the pass like every other under-cooked piece of food, hmmmm?). Of course she got all indignant and huffy, and couldn’t tell anyone how long it would take to cook the potatoes. The Red team’s sous chef finally told her to leave, and for some reason, no one else could get the potatoes to cook! But they finally did, the Red team finished dinner service and got a big shock. Chef tore up the diners’ comment cards which were supposed to help determine a winner because … the was no winning team. Dinner service was at an historically bad level so both teams had to pick two nominees for elimination.

Fingers were pointing in all directions (Dana seemed to be the only person not in the line of fire), and Clemenza & Robyn were nominated on the Blue team, and Tiffany & Barbie were nominated on Red (although Chef would have preferred Kimmie to Barbie). In the end, it was raw potatoes, a bad attitude and a lack of passion that got Tiffany out the door. Good riddance!

“Justin’s dish is a scallop mousse with chunks of lobster in there, piped in a stupid flower. Who the fuck wants to eat a flower with mousse in it?” — Robyn

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Jul 17, 2012 @ 22:38 EST5EDT