Kitchen Nightmares: Two Ridiculous Hours, Part One

This week on Kitchen Nightmares, G-Ram stacks two completely independent episodes in a two hour block for no apparent reason. All the obnoxiousness you can eat, after the jump.

What? You don’t see my strongly linked themes of erm…family togeth…umm…strength in advers…oh, fuck it. Let’s just do this bitch.

The first of the two restaurants is called Trobiano’s in Great Neck, New York, and is owned by Anthony Trabiano and his girlfriend Tiffany’s parents, Joe and Pat. Anthony says that he decided he should ask his girlfriend’s parents to subsidize his efforts because he was sick of busting his ass for other people. For some reason, this made Tiffany’s folks think he would be a great future son-in-law.

Yeah, he’s grrreeeeeaaaaaat.

Surprisingly enough, the restaurant isn’t doing too hot, and neither is Tiffany and Anthony’s relationship. Tiffany also feels guilty that she’s put her parents in the position of not being able to retire anytime soon, though if we listen to the latest news from Wall Street, retirement is going the way of the dinosaurs. And chivalry. And, hopefully, tapered jeans. Once. And. For. All. People!

G-Ram arrives at Trobiano’s and immediately thinks it’s for sale because of the huge, tacky early bird dinner special sign in the window. Apparently, that is the only business Trobiano’s does. “Fourteen ninety-five? Fuck me, that’s cheaper than the sub shop.”

HAHA Trobianos < Three Five-Dolla Footlongs

He sits the family down and asks for the details of the situation. He’s appalled that Anthony opened up a restaurant with his girlfriend’s parents’ money at the age of 25 without ever having worked in an Italian restaurant before. The guy hasn’t even slung a pizza, but he was sick of bustin’ his ass for other people. Like in 5th grade, when he had to do fuckin’ homework? That shit was messed up.

Anthony is extremely offended that G-Ram thinks it’s his fault that the restaurant isn’t doing too well. He’s only the co-owner and head chef, after all, how much control could he possibly have over the situation? G-Ram demands to know who’s idea it was to put the tacky sign in the window. Anthony admits that it was his. Love-fifteen, G-Ram.

G-Ram tells them all to think very hard about what they’ve done, and he’ll be back in an hour. Joe thinks that he was high to have even gotten into this mess, and Anthony thinks that at the end of the day, it’s his name on the awning, not G-Ram’s. This of course will not stop G-Ram from carving his name directly into the flesh on Anthony’s left asscheek, however.

Circus music begins to play as 4:30 rolls around and all the little old ladies shuffle in for the early bird special. G-Ram comes in for his initial tasting.

The waiter recommends that G-Ram order the salmon with spaghetti, because he can take the spaghetti home and have it for lunch the next day, or as he prefers, a snack after his nightly doob. G-Ram is especially pleased to find that $14.95 actually gets you a two-for-one. He also notices one of the elderly patrons has fallen asleep into his dinner. If this joint gets any more jumpin’, the NYPD may need to get involved.

G-Ram pushes his appetizer around on his plate, and then notices a table of fine ladies next to his.

How U doin’??

He sidles up to them and asks what they’ve got in their doggie bags. “So you’re not coming back tomorrow, because you can have that for lunch?” he asks. One of the hot mamas tells him she likes his british accent. He says “Thank you. I like your lipstick.” They all flit about and wet their Depends and he thanks them for letting him crash the set of the Golden Girls and asks Bea Arthur for her autograph.

G-Ram returns to his chicken-wrapped shrimp. He calls Joe over to ask why in the name of all things holy a person would wrap a shrimp in chicken. “I don’t know, it’s just one of his creations.” G-Ram says he’s never had such a tough shrimp before, and Joe brings the plate back into the kitchen screaming “ANTHONY! YOUR SHRIMP WAS TOO HARD! ROCK HARD, LIKE A BULLET!!” Hm, I think that happened to my friend once. If it lasts for more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical attention.

G-Ram sends everything back because it’s all terrible, and Anthony has a temper tantrum in the kitchen and knocks over a few plates with his rock-hard shrimp. After the early birders leave, and the restaurant is empty at 7 pm, G-Ram sits everyone down to watch him ass-ream Anthony. He tells them he’ll be back the next day to see if he can turn the place around. After walking about a block, he decides he can’t sleep, and is going to have to take a look at the place right now. The family continues to argue and seems completely unaware that G-Ram and an entire camera crew have looped back around and gone into the kitchen to examine the place, which seems a bit fishy to me. You’d at least hear them banging around back there, or maybe one of the sous-chefs would come out and say something.

G-Ram finds mold, rotten meat, and a few presents left behind from the subleters:

He busts in on the meeting and brings Anthony and Joe into the kitchen to show them how disgusting it is. He asks how often it’s cleaned, and Anthony says “we ask the staff to do it every day.” G-Ram replies, “You’re telling me you’re half a million dollars in debt, and you’re sitting on your ass and don’t even clean yourself?” to which Anthony asks, “Isn’t that why you have staff?” It’s definitely people like Anthony that make me detest middle-management.

G-Ram gets so annoyed with Anthony that he turns to them, tells them they have no chance, and fuck it, he’s leaving. He gets about halfway down the street, and Anthony follows him, begging for him to come back and he promises to never do it again. This kind of reminds me of when you’re little and you threaten to run away from home and your parents totally let you because they know you’ll get about halfway down the street before you realize in about an hour it’s time for dinner plus it’s a new episode of Kids Incorporated. So you drag your suitcase back home and sneak in the porch door and your mom pretends the whole thing never happened.

The whole family gives the kitchen a good scrubdown before bed. G-Ram has them meet him at a farm the next day. He asks what comes from cows, and gets a variety of interesting answers.

“Churches! Churches!!” “Erm…very small rocks?”

Finally Anthony figures out that G-Ram was looking for “what is fresh mozzarella.” They all milk cows together so they can use the fresh milk to make fresh cheese and build a new cheese house for Joe and Pat so that when they get foreclosed, they will have someplace nice to live that ages well. G-Ram tells Pat he wants to see her milking skills. Oh G-Ram, you dirty man, you.

Milking skills my ass.

Anthony kind of sucks at milking and G-Ram tells him that teats are not his strong point.

You’re tellin’ me!

They bring the fresh milk back to be pasteurized and become their very first (and probably last) batch of fresh mozz.

G-Ram invents three specials for them using the fresh mozz, and they start a real dinner service with no early birders in sight. Only paid actors. People are ordering the specials, but Anthony is refusing to taste the food before it goes out, so it’s all coming back as “dry,” “overdone,” and “just okay.” G-Ram keeps telling him to taste the food, but he has some kind of mental block. My guess is Manorexia. G-Ram leaves the kitchen to go out back and talk shit about Anthony with the cameraman, but then locks himself out and starts kicking the door and yelling British profanities. He finds his way back in just in time to see Anthony spill potatoes all over the floor they just scrubbed to high heaven. Something starts burning and the kitchen smokes up completely, setting off the fire alarm with a dining room full of patrons. And even as the ship sinks, the string quartet pull out their instruments and solemnly play a farewell dirge as the icy water begins to creep its way higher and higher in the ill-fated vessel…

Seriously?

Er, sorry. That was a different three hours of my life that I wanted back.

Anthony turns off the fire alarm and they all try to regroup and finish the dinner service. After dinner, everyone is pretty miserable and pissed off and Anthony says that if the restaurant fails, he thinks that he and Tiffany will probably be over, too. On the bright side, he can always go back to his career in oracular prophecy.

G-Ram busts Anthony’s balls again for not tasting anything, and everyone else gives him the stinkeye. G-Ram tells them all to get a good night’s sleep, and everyone kind of files out without making eye contact or conversation with Anthony. Ten bucks says that when they got home, Anthony had to take care of his own rock-hard shrimp.

The next day, G-Ram shows them the remodeled restaurant, which honestly looks exactly the same, just everything is in a weird shade of mauve instead of beige. They seem pretty happy about it though. G-Ram also shows them the new menu. Everyone looks thrilled and for some reason, they’re all wearing puffy black Northface.

Alright…who called whom??

They relaunch with new food and a new fresh mozzarella bar. Everyone is liking the food, and that’s partially due to the fact that Anthony has decided to taste it before it goes out so he can tell if it needs seasoning, but also partially due to the fact that they are G-Ram’s recipes and paid actors eating them. Pat is also wearing a really slutty dress in case any of the dirty old men come by looking for their early bird special.

They find out that there’s a food critic from Bon Appetit magazine coming to the restaurant, and everyone shits themselves a little bit. When she finally shows up, she kind of looks and sounds like my Jewish “aunt” from Brookline; very posh and artsy-fartsy at the same time, but with her voice pretty much dripping with money that you’d never know she had. I say “aunt” because she’s my mom’s best friend, one of those never-married, never-mothered types who will babysit you while you’re fun but drop you off the minute you scream. Wouldn’t necessarily mind being one of those one day. Pretty sure that’s the category our food critic falls under.

She also makes a pretty awesome o-face when she eats.

The critic and her entourage love the food (she brings about sixteen people because, hey, free meal) and everything is a success. But G-Ram isn’t finished with torturing Anthony or his rock-hard shrimp.

He brings Anthony out back and gives him a ring which looks just like a plain band of what could possibly be pewter or else really dirty silver and tells him to propose. All I can say is, if it isn’t a rock, don’t bother to knock.

Anthony looks like pee is trickling down the side of his leg, but he agrees, and G-Ram introduces him as the “chef-patron” of the restaurant. He thanks everyone as though he’s received an academy award, and then says there’s only one thing in his life that isn’t official. He gets on one knee and asks Tiffany to marry him, and she cries and says yes but the whole thing seems pretty contrived and more than a little lame in my opinion. And let me just say that anyone who proposes to me because someone else gave him a ring and told him that he ought to do it is someone I don’t particularly want to marry.

G-Ram tells them he has another surprise–he’s arranged to have them married right then and there!! HAHAHAHAHAhaaaaaaa guess who doesn’t trust Anthony to make good on this deal, either???? There’s a wedding dress, miraculously suited to Tiffany’s exact proportions, hanging in the back, and all their family and friends just happened to be there.

Dude! It seemed totally legit to me!!!

Come to think of it, nobody seemed totally surprised, and suddenly Pat’s slutty evening gown makes perfect sense…on behalf of all of us out there, I would like to announce that we are NOT falling for it. Not one little bit. Not even for you, Ramsay.

Stay tuned for Part 2, coming to you shortly!!!