Season 3 Episode 4
Saturday, August 23 2008 | Comments (0)
Gordon tests the teams' palates, and both the winners and the losers experience truly unique dining experiences.
Last week, the ladies chose Julia and Joanna as nominees for elimination. But Jen, with her guilty conscience about taking spaghetti out of the trash in the heat of the competition, stepped forward and announced that she was the other nominee. Julia stayed in the lineup, while Jen and Joanna faced Gordon. In the end, it was Joanna whose mistakes in the kitchen, including serving rancid crab, led her right out the door of Hell's Kitchen.
Back in the dorms, Jen, obviously distraught and feeling horrible about her bad judgment, was berated by smart-mouthed Vinnie. He just kept adding salt to the wound, with a theory that he has to try to weaken his opponents in any way possible. Bonnie defended Jen, saying that they are all going through a lot, and they are running on no sleep. None of them are working under the best circumstances. "It's three A.M." she proclaims, "We're in hell!"
The next morning,
Gordon Ramsay asks Jen if she'll stay away from the bins that evening. She tells him that she understands. And he asks Vinnie if he had any nightmares. "I dreamed of you all night, Chef," he answers. "You, me, and a box of quail eggs?" Chef asks him, referring to the raw quail eggs Vinnie tried to serve the night before.
He tells them that their palates are weak; they’re not pushing themselves to excellence. Their challenge this week is a blindfolded taste test, in which they will have to identify three foods each. The team with the most correct will win the challenge. The team that loses will no doubt have some stinky, strenuous task.
First up are Brad and Julia. The first item is American cheese. The contestants wear sound proof head phones so they can't hear what the other says. Julia immediately knows that it is American cheese. Brad guesses it is cheese, but thinks it's cheddar. Next is fried chicken. They both guess correctly, and get a point, but Julia defines it specifically as fried chicken breast. The last one for them is poached carrots, and they both get it wrong; Brad thinks it's a papaya, and Julia guesses a radish. But Julia got one more correct, winning that round for the women. "You've just been beat by a waffle house chef, Brad," teases Gordon.
Next up is Melissa and Rock. The first food is a hardboiled egg yolk which rock defines right on, but little misses smarty pants, who claimed that Julia wouldn't have a good palate last week, guessed a potato. They both get the second one, but can't guess venison. The score remains three to three.
When Bonnie goes up against Josh, she immediately stops Chef, saying that she can hear. He says something again, and she just says what, very loudly. When he adjusts her phones again and asks if she can hear him, she remains motionless. She misses the first one, as does Josh, but guesses both Bock Choy Stem and the Pear, bringing the score to five to three.
Next up are Vinnie and Jen. The men only need to get one wrong to lose the challenge. And of course, he guesses that the pan seared tuna is pancetta. The blue team loses again, and has to prep both kitchens, educating their palates as they go along. He sends out a plate of tripe, liver, tongue, kidneys for them to taste. The girls are promised a great dining experience. The guys theorize that Bonnie cheated, because at first, she could hear Chef Ramsay. However, if she was planning on cheating, why would she have told Chef that she could hear in the first place? Sounds like the guys are grasping at straws, and unfairly blaming their lack of sophisticated palates on Bonnie.
As the girls are once again whisked away for Q.T with Gordo, the guys are served a plate of spare parts and pieces to try, including two different varieties of tongue, liver, and herring.
The girls get to meet Chef Ramsay for “Dining in the Dark. This is a TRULY UNIQUE DINING EXPERIENCE; they can’t see anything, which makes the experience about the taste of the food. While the girls are getting the utmost taste experience, the guys are getting the worst. The girls were also impressed with Chef Ramsay’s demeanor in the dark.
When Rock gets to the stomach lining, he starts to lose his own stomach. Nearly vomiting, he has to stop tasting, and actually get up and leave. When the girls get back, they settle in for a nap ad relaxation, while the guys move on to prepping both kitchens.
When they meet up with Chef before the dinner service begins, he reminds them that they each have a one in eight chance of winning, and that tonight their fate is in the hands of the customers. They will fill out comment cards about everything.
The guys get off to a bad start when Josh’s risotto is rejected. On the girls’ side, Julia overcooks her first order of scallops, and asks for two more minutes from Melissa who is running the appetizer station. But Melissa gives her a hard time about it. Chef Ramsay catches wind of this, and calls Melissa out on this. He asks Julia what she needs, she says tow more minutes for her scallops. He then gives it to Melissa, telling her that if she is running appetizers, she has to track the timing of everything. If Julia needs more time, she needs more time. Then Melissa retaliates by yelling at Julia that every time she’s slow, Melissa is the one who is getting yelled at. Julia keeps her cool, of course, and thanks Melissa for her comments.
Meanwhile, when Chef returns to the Blue side, he finds that Josh is doing nothing, and get’s Rock to take charge, saying that he should assign josh some things for him to do.
They finally get all of their appetizers out, and when Vinnie is up at the meat station, he slows everything down, needing more time for his Beef Wellingtons, because he overcooked the first batch. Gordon can’t believe that he needs that much more time. He goes over to the red kitchen to find that Bonnie is having trouble. Her chicken is still raw on the inside. He asks her if she just cut the chicken in half to cook the insides, and she doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, and refers to some chicken cut up on the counter. He calls her a stupid Cabbage, and asks her why every time he asks a question, she gives him a “dumb blonde” answer. He asks her again, and she repeatedly gives clueless answers. Finally he tells her that she’s screwing herself because he isn’t thinking and just keeps talking. “I’ve had enough, now! Stop lying to me!” He begs Melissa and Bonnie to work together. Julia encourages the girls, and takes charge.
But, even with their consistent lack of team work, the red kitchen is at least getting meals out. Then, a woman on the blue side of the dining room gets angry about not being served anything yet, and she approaches Chef Ramsay herself. He practically ignores her, but does find out her table number so they can figure out why she hasn’t been served yet. Ten he asks Jean Philippe to take her back to her table, “Take the lady back to the table.” She is shocked by this.
Then Vinnie brings up his tray with two wellingtons, and announces that they are cooked to medium. But when Ramsay looks at them, it is obvious that they are rare. He calls all the blue team “donkeys” forward to feel the meat. Then he brings up another, and it isn’t trimmed properly.
Back in the red kitchen, Bonnie had a small snag with her wellingtons, and Melissa decides to swoop in and help her. But she whips around the already confused bonnie. The Wellingtons are still not cooked to the right temperature, and when Ramsay asks what the status is, neither of them can respond, because they don’t know what the other one had done. They begin to fall behind on their orders as Bonnie has to start over again on some of her wellingtons. But on the blue side, they have two plates set back. The first is a fish that is too salty, the second is his pasta that was supposedly undercooked.
Ramsay calls both kitchens up and tells them that if one more dish gets sent back that he’s once again shut it down. Then, he asks for a chicken and a wellington from Bonnie. She says that she needs more time. Her chicken isn’t done yet.
Chef asks about the wellington.
“The wellington is done, Chef.”
“But the Wellington takes twice as long as the chicken, yes?” confirms Ramsay.
“Yes, Chef.”
The point is, the chicken should be done too, if the Wellington is.
At least she didn't waste six wellingtons, as Vinnie did. When Gordon sees this, he just about loses it.
Then just before he bursts, Jean Philippe appears behind him with another returned. He calls all the chefs up, and asks if “Barbie” needs to do her hair first. Once they are all up there, he tosses the returned plate and tells them to clear down. Bonnie breaks down and cries in the kitchen. She claims that she’s not cut out for this, because her experience is in cooking for a small family, and not a fast paced restaurant.
After the kitchens are clear, Gordon returns with the comment cards. Even though many of the people liked the food, 65% wouldn’t come back, because the food took too long to come out. So, Gordon decides that there is no winning team that night. None of them are strong. He chooses Rock to nominate a blue team chef, and tells him to cut the crap and eliminate the problem.
He tells Melissa that she won’t be nominating, and that she was bad. He mocks Bonnie's confusion in the kitchen. And then tells Jen that she will nominate because she wasn’t the worst. When they return to the dorms, Jen grapples over who she needs to nominate, while Bonnie is convinced that she’s the nominee.
When Gordon asks Rock who he’s nominated, Rock reveals that it is Josh, because he doesn’t think he’s an asset. Jen nominates Melissa. Gordon is upset with both of their decisions. He believes that neither of them has actually chosen the weakest member of their team. So, He overrules their decisions.
He calls Vinnie and Bonnie up. He asks each of them why they weren’t nominated. Vinnie admits that his head was so far up his….his head was elsewhere….during the service that he didn’t know if Josh had done well or not. “Good answer,” Gordon responds. And Bonnie? Miss oblivious herself says that she is not oblivious to her performance that evening. She was also surprised that Jen hadn’t chosen her.
Chef Ramsay asks Vinnie to give him one good reason why he should continue to tolerate him.
“Well, Chef, when you decide to put your name behind somebody’s name for this hotel in Las Vegas, I’m the most qualified chef here.”
Gordon is shocked that he is still so arrogant. “How about some humility to keep your ass in hell’s kitchen.” He tells him that he needs to accept his mistakes and accept that he doesn’t know how to cook.
He turns to Bonnie and tells her she was bad and screwed up in the kitchen that night. “Yes, Chef.” She says. Then she goes on to say that she is a leader during prep, but needs help during service. Hmmm…isn’t that kinda important? If one is to run a major kitchen, shouldn’t one be good at…cooking? And isn’t running a service the critical first component to running a good restaurant? Bonnie can’t even get through a service, let a one run one.
Gordon tells them that this is not an easy decision. Finally, he tells Vinnie to take his jacket off and get out of Hell’s Kitchen. Once she’s left, he turns to the group and tells them that he doesn’t want to hear any more excuses.
Vinnie reveals afterwards that he just doesn’t have the experience that Chef Ramsay is looking for. During the video diary, Bonnie also ponders whether or not she has what it takes. Is she too sensitive, or just not talented enough to stay there?
Josh has once again received the message from Rock: Rock does NOT want him there. But Rock claims that no one is a threat to Rock, except Rock. Hmmmm.
And what are Gordon’s closing words this week? Pretty much that Vinnie is a “crap cook.” Well, from the looks of things, and the fact that this team has YET To complete a service, it looks like Vinnie wasn’t alone in that status in Hell’s Kitchen. But sooner or later one of them has to emerge the caliber chef that Gordon Ramsay can trust in his kitchen.
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