Kitchen Nightmares Recap: Olde Crazy

Gordon hasn’t said a thing during this exchange, just dismisses them and gets to judging the menu. Server Carla is a good one to send over, because she’s been waiting tables at the place for 26 years, long before Tom took over. And you can tell she’s less than comfortable lying to Gordon about the “fresh” lobster ravioli. Which she has to, because Tom makes them lie to all the customers. Carla, you know not whom you serve—you think Gordon Ramsay can’t sniff out a frozen lobster? Her conscience gets the better of her when she brings the dish, because she does tell him the truth, and that goes over as well as you’d expect. Carla brings back the half-chewed ravioli, and Tom says he’s never had a complaint on it before. Well, this is the same guy who lies in the first place, so let’s brush his commentary to the side with some salt until further notice. The cranberry haddock is RAWR and bland, watery, and looks “like a bear shit in the woods.”

I guess local bears would indeed shit fish and berries, so maybe that’s accurate.

Gordon also hates the meatloaf and everything else that comes out. Then Carla has to come out and admit that the meatloaf was not as fresh as she told him, which means not at all. Looks like they make things fresh, then freeze them and tell customers everything was made fresh. It’s that kind of word play that’s known as lying by omission. Tom insists that Gordon Ramsay knows shit about food or running restaurants. Yes, that must be why he’s been such a failure in that arena. He also declares that if someone insults him, they’d better be ready to explain themselves. Not to worry, Tom, you’ve brought in the right, guy!

Gordon rips the kitchen a collective new asshole, and Chef Dan can’t really answer for himself. He’s probably reluctant to throw Tom under the bus, but Tom does a fine job of that himself, by trying to explain the logic behind his actions and insisting that’s what people love. To the tune of -$8k a week, even! Dan admits he’d love to change things, but can’t. The rest of the kitchen agrees, and Gordon tells Tom to get out of his bubble of denial. Then as soon as Gordon leaves, Tom jumps up the butt of the kitchen staff and lambastes them for not openly defying him and changing things without permission. All orchestrated to make him look bad at this very moment, I’m sure.

Dinner service with Gordon goes about as well as you’d think, with Gordon ripping apart all the ingredients and using the meatloaf as maracas. He then dares Tom to take the frozen meatloaf maracas into the dining room, and wondering if he has the balls to do so. Tom informs us that he has balls to spare, thanks for the visual, but he won’t parade the meatloaf around.

So does the meatloaf represent his balls, or is it the other way around?