Kitchen Nightmares Recap: Blegh

Recaps

By BlueCanary | Monday, February 4, 2013 | 12:00 pm | 9 Comments
Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in: Kitchen Nightmares, Recaps

Poor Tony looks sicker than anyone, the greenish tint of the mold likely reminding him of the piles of money he wasted on this result. Gordon orders Dino and Tina to get their asses into the dining room and apologize to the guests, but Tina flees, so Dino goes out and tells all ten customers that Gordon has shut down the restaurant for the night. Gordon rips into him for that lie, and Dino just stands there and blinks. Then Gordon strides into the dining room with the vat of moldy sauce and shows everyone exactly what’s up. He says he’s not shutting down, but stopping the owners from serving them poison.

Tony is rightfully pissed, and goes outside so he can have a breakdown in peace without disowning and/or murdering his entire legacy. Gordon joins him and apologizes, but Tony isn’t mad at him—he’s just sick of working his ass off to watch his kids piss away his hard-earned. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly blame him. I’d have backhanded someone right around the time the rotten chicken was discovered. Tony vows to get involved and make sure things change, and Gordon agrees to stay and help out for his sake.

How does your retirement fund smell, Tony?

He sits down with all three of them and tells the kids they’re not living up to expectations and are unappreciative of what they’ve been handed. Tony says if things don’t start looking up, he’s going to pull the plug on the entire endeavor. Tina apologizes and promises she’ll do whatever is needed to turn things around. Dino says essentially the same thing, but this is really one of those situations that proves that people who don’t specifically train for the restaurant business have no business opening a damn restaurant. Dino doesn’t even know what changes need to be made. I’m no expert, but I have a suggestion or two: how about you start by checking the food for penicillin, and maybe taking sand blaster to the damn dining room? Baby steps, folks.

Gordon’s remodel team takes over, turning the place into a vision of American Bistro ambience. I’m pretty sure the place looked like that to begin with, but it was buried under a layer of grease and dirt and dead skin, and whatever the fuck else was coating the walls. He’s also gotten a sponsor to throw in a computer system and Chef Chris. Chris even brought his wife, Jen, along to run the front of house. To top it off, Gordon has outfitted the kitchen with new equipment, so they can fry up that fermented chicken in style. With a kitchen like this, he says, there’s no excuse to serve swill.

Granted, the boss is still sort of a dullard, but whatever.

Gordon’s new menu is devoid of most things Italian, including the Jesus sauce, and hopefully Chris can teach the rest of the kitchen staff how to cook and store the foodstuffs so they don’t end up with a stack of dead customers to add to the grit that will surely reaccumulate in that dining room. Before they open, Tony sits down with his kids and basically warns them that if they fuck up now after all this, he’s pulling his wallet out of the equation.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

BlueCanary is as unorthodox a blend of optimistic and bitter, laid-back and anxious, motivated and straight up lazy tas one is likely to meet outside an unspecified institution. She spent the past decade holding a variety of job titles, including reporter, tech writer, production manager, and administrative assistant (the go-to job in this economy for folks who just HAD to get that English degree). She is currently living under the tiny yet powerful thumb of an awesome, pint-sized little dude, who wets himself and can't form full sentences (read: stay at home mom). Another tyrannical little thumb is gestating in her womb. She is a regular on The Neutral Corner podcast and blogs at www.mamamuzzle.com. 

Blue's as-yet-unpublished YA novel, The Nature of Echoes, is currently a Quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. If you'd like to check it out, a free excerpt is available to download at http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Echoes-ABNA-Entry-ebook/dp/B00B9N3XFQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363378599&sr=1-1&keywords=eva+gibson+abna.

9 Comments

  1. 1
    sagittariuskim sagittariuskim
    Posted February 4, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    I hate episodes like this, where the kids basically crap all over their parents hard work and generosity.

    I don’t see this restaurant lasting. Dino just isn’t all there.

  2. 2
    crankyguy crankyguy
    Posted February 4, 2013 at 1:05 pm

    “. . . people who don’t specifically train for the restaurant business have no business opening a damn restaurant.”

    I like to think that “Mildred Pierce” could be a true story.

  3. 3
    hot cawfee
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 7:09 am

    First off—must just get this out there—I had no idea that tirmisu could get that ………dry. And the olive oil with all those crumbs—dont we all just know that this crew reuses the oil—reuse what the customer doesnt finish—yikes– back to reading

  4. 4
    hot cawfee
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 7:33 am

    And done!!!!—great recap BlueCanary!!!!!!!!!

    I am with you Sagi–poor Tony and his deep pockets. I wonder if he staked Tina in her flower shop???? I think no-there is hella resentment floating around that restaurant with the flies and God knows what else.

    Cranky– Mildred Pierce is Joan so awesome–and would love to see it on Broadway. Did not see the Kate Winslet mini-series in total. I agree –did this clown wake up one morning and say “I want to be a restauranteur” and then voila!!!! Dad ponies up for one. If so I was born into the wrong family—I want to be in my own B’way show and dont see Mr Cawfee or Papa Cawfee funding that.

    I got a chill when Gordon showed the vat of moldy sauce and one server thought the mold was basil (or another herb)——Lordy

    One thing I like to do is speculate on what we dont see and what is unsaid—-I agree that Dino the Clown has had some issues with some substance—-he looks hung-over. Maybe that was why he walked away for a couple of years. I dont remember seeing any bottles stashed about the kitchen—thats something I look for b/c I am nice girl. I also dont see Mom or a wife for Dino.

    Next week looks delightful!!!!!

  5. 5
    featherhead
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 7:49 am

    How does this guy own a resturant for 14 years and not know how to expedite the tickets? I call bs on that too. I felt so bad for the Dad, he should have closed it and walked away from those two clowns. Totally ovy that they don’t appreicate the Father. And what did that clown do when he left for over a year? Work? Learn how to run a resturant? Sat on his fat ass? I vote #3.

  6. 6
    hot cawfee
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 8:24 am

    Feather—maybe when God expedited while giving Dino the sauce recipe?????
    Gotta love God for multi-tasking

  7. 7
    chaosbutterfly
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 8:30 am

    Okay well obviously Dino and Tina are a couple of idiots. And that apology they gave their dad was some bullshit. I wonder what kind of stuff he’s let them get away with over the years to the point where they were perfectly content to wipe their asses with his money and drive his investment straight into the ground. Both of them needed their ass beat. Before anything else, the dad needed to send them outside, tell them to cut some switches, and proceed to thoroughly whup their asses so they could learn something. If that’s how they keep a restaurant, God knows how their houses and kitchens are at home. Filth and mold every damn where….I got a damn attitude just watching it. I can’t imagine if I had been there eating that junk.

    And the owners were one thing, but the line cooks were to be blamed too. The chicken was slimy and smelling! Why were they putting it on the grill?! I know they could smell it and feel it…rotten chicken is very distinct. And the sauce was moldy. They knew that shit was moldy, they saw the mold. What was stopping them from surreptitiously dumping it and putting a fresh batch? Like come on.

    At this point, I really feel like Kitchen Nightmares doesn’t really need to be happening. Like, if your restaurant is failing that badly, it’s definitely one (or all) of these things:
    1. It’s dirty as fuck in that bitch. Clean that shit up NOW before you kill someone or maybe even everyone by cultivating a new superstrain of botulism.
    2. You freeze or improperly store all your food and it’s nasty as fuck. Stop freezing your food and make it fresh.
    3. You or your chef’s recipes/practices suck. Go buy the Joy of Cooking and watch some Food Network, so your asses can learn to cook.
    4. You’re an insufferable, stupid, and/or stubborn twat. Go sit your ass down someplace so people can get shit done correctly.

    That’s pretty much it, problem solved.

  8. 8
    BlueCanary
    Posted February 5, 2013 at 11:44 am

    I don’t care how many improvements Gordon made–I would never, ever eat in a place run by people who let things get so nasty. The staff might have cleaned things up initially, but I doubt that changed the owners’ original slovenly ways. I’d bet money that there’s something festering in Dino’s kitchen AT THIS VERY MINUTE, which he will surreptitiously clear away before Gordon comes back for the follow up.

  9. 9
    kloewent
    Posted February 6, 2013 at 11:35 am

    I actually went to a restaurant in NOLA that Gordan had been to. When I saw it on the show, I was amazed, it was absolutely filthy and gross, and the owners were morons, but when we ate there it was lovely, clean, good food. One of the nicest meals we had in New Orleans. I think it was about 5 months after he had been there. I couldn’t imagine eating at Dinos and then seeing the way they work, make you puke!!!

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Human Verification: In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.