bluepiano

I know most people don't like the empanada truck, but I think they got royally screwed this week. They lost to the waffle truck by about $80, even with having to start selling an hour later. Plus, the waffle truck got the $500 "customer service bonus." So, in reality the empanada truck far outsold them. The number of challenges on each show this season has been ridiculous. Sales hardly even matter anymore. In fact, this week Tyler just gave the totals including the challenges, so we have no idea of actual sales. There were so many challenges this week I couldn't even keep track of them. The past winners from the Nola truck basically got to pick the semifinalist, because they awarded a total of $1,000 in challenge money. That is, if you believe they weren't told who to pick by the judges. The huge amount of challenge money essentially enables the producers to manipulate the standings. From the very first show this season I've felt they wanted Bao Bei and Wally's Waffles in the final, and they've used the challenges as a way to ensure that result. This show used to be fun. Now it feels like a rigged game show.

It's like the producers know this show has become snoozeville and are desperate to generate any excitement. Tyler actually thanked the teams for heeding his warning from last episode and providing better value for the money. But the prices still seemed crazy high. The empanada truck patted themselves on the back for throwing a side order of mac and cheese next to two empanadas and saying that made it a full meal worth $25. I've eaten at a lot of food trucks, and have never and would never pay $25.

That's an interesting point. Obviously, the cost of ingredients is going to vary depending on the type of food each truck is cooking. And yes, in the real world, it's not about your gross sales revenue, it's about your profit margin. The only real rationale for inflating your prices is to cover higher food costs, not because it's a TV show and people will pay whatever ridiculous price you arbitrarily come up. As others have noted, in the early seasons of this show we did see the teams shopping, and there was often discussion about pricing based on cost. But now it's become largely a game show. The thing I'm still trying to figure out why the sudden out of the blue focus on price gouging, including Tyler's idiotic demand for apologies for something the competing food trucks have done for years.

Exactly. The prices on this show have always been crazy high, and people only pay them because they want to be part of a TV show. The trucks charge high prices because standings are determined by total sales, not number of units sold. And until now the show has let them get away with that. For whatever reason, the producers decided to make it a point this week to call out the ridiculously low value to price ratio. And to encourage the customers to complain about that. It will be interesting to see if pricing gets brought up in the next show, with the truck owners talking about pricing more reasonably after Tyler's diatribe. My guess is that won't happen. This was just a one-time thing and it will be business as usual going forward.

When he started with, "if you had said that to me" I expected him to finish with "I'd have punched your lights out." But I guess that's not Tyler's style. Everyone seems to be casting the Turkish dude as this seasons' villain, but I gained a lot of respect for him for not being intimidated by Tyler into making an apology he didn't feel. I think pretty much every contest they've ever had on this show would have done that. I'm actually starting to like the guy. I agree as well. If there was an event with multiple food trucks they might have a waffle trip so that after their main meal people could get desert. But I can only see a waffle truck as being successful in that situation.

This has been going on for a long time on this show. The exact ingredients needed for a challenge magically appear. I'm also wondering about the taco truck running out of meat. How did that happen? Since they eliminated the shopping aspect of the show we have no idea what's going on in terms of supplies. And lots of scraggly, unkempt beards that I wouldn't want to see on someone cooking for me. Well, the guy on CWP, one of the worst offenders, is gone, but several others remain. Is it going to another waffle truck winning? I think they have a big advantage because they have an item that immediately distinguishes them from all the other trucks, who are cooking savory dishes. So in a sense they have no real competition, which is why the waffle trucks do so well. As in every season, the trucks are mostly making overly complicated dishes that would take too much in the real world of food trucks. And in the real world, I've never seen a food truck specializing in fish, because of how quickly fish can spoil and become unsafe to eat. As well as not be especially appetizing in terms of smell to eat outdoors on a hot day. Shrimp tacos, yes, but not plated fish entrees.

I'm not against trying something different but in this case, it just created mass confusion. I couldn't remember who was on which team, and there was just a lot of running around and chaos. Maybe the idea was to stir up drama, because with contestants going into other contestants' trucks there was bound to be some hard feelings. As indeed happened. I guess the Turkish guy on the seafood truck is this season's designated "big personality" who will be pissing everyone off. I've wondered about that too. One of the reasons I prefer the seasons with actual professional food trucks. I do like that the trucks will be on the road again, and the Gulf coast is a great part of the country, with distinctive cuisines in different areas. I hope they will make use of that. I'm happy they're in Galveston next week, a very cool city. I hope they show more of it than they showed of Houston.

If this show is really about hiring a Head Chef, then cooking skill shouldn't even be the primary qualification. It's about leadership and the ability to make executive decisions. Jonathan's ridiculous immature snit about the sack of xxxx comment should've made him the person to go home ahead of Dahmere. The personal feud he started with Jason also showed him not able to be a leader. Sometimes in the real world you have to work with jerks, and you need to be able to put your ego aside and get along with them. I was puzzled by some of the contestants chosen for this season. Several were so young, especially on the women's side, that even if they were talented cooks. there's no way they're ready for a high pressure Head Chef job with GR. There was no way a 25-year old or someone with one year of professional culinary experience was going to win this. (Not sexism. I'd say the same thing about a guy with one year in the industry). Ryan has seemed like an obvious choice all year, even more so after Dahmere, the other chef with skill and leardership qualities, got sent home. Plus, he best fit the "American Dream" theme. (Which always seemed silly to me, anyway). Finally, did you know Jonathan has a daughter? And that her name is Saxon? And that winning Hell's Kitchen was her American dream? (Because all little kids have an American dream). Contestants who constantly invoke the name of their kid, as if makes them better than everyone else or more deserving of winning, are so annoying. Jonathan was one of the worst in that regard. Saxon this and Saxon that, all season. Give it a rest.

I liked Sandra too. She was funny and I thought she was the only Red team member with the maturity to be a head chef. Her putting herself up for elimination could just as easily been spun as a positive. As you said, accountability, and holding herself to a high standard. That's a better quality in a head chef/manager than finger pointing and blaming your mistakes on someone else, which is the norm on HK. I hate this thing that GR has started doing of putting people on the spot by asking who the weakest chef is. I thought Sandra showed class by not naming Donya after Donya had named her. An "influencer" who looked like he was about 17 and two actresses from shows I'd never heard of. We are really scraping the bottom of the "celebrity" barrel. Especially considering that "once again, Hell's Kitchen is the hottest reservation in town."

I think there are some good chefs on the women's team, but I don't see any of them having the combination of experience, skill, and leadership qualities to be a Head Chef for GR. Sandra comes the closest, but I don't think she has the right temperament and flies off the handle too easily. On the men's side, I think that both Dahmere and Ryan clearly have what it takes, and maybe Jonathan too. I don't remember a season where one team had such an edge in terms of qualified Head Chef candidates. (Of course, watch now, one of the women will win). Echoing what others have said, some of the prizes for the winning team in the challenge have been pretty lame. Tomahawk throwing? Really? As for Currygate, I've always thought that "curry" was a generic term that encompassed multiple Indian dishes, so Ryan slides by on a technicality.

Yeah, it's been really disappointing. As someone previously posted, GR seems checked out and only going through the motions. Why even bother bringing this show back? It's not like GR is lacking for TV shows. Or money. Just once I'd like to see an episode that deviates from the tired old formula. Where the food is actually good, but the restaurant is failing because of other issues, like mismanagement or poor marketing. But then Gordon would have to get into the actual business of running a restaurant, instead of screaming about how the kitchen is disgusting and they're going to kill someone. Clearly GR and his producers think that's why people are watching. In the real restaurant world, one of the biggest issues that restaurants have is theft by staff, but that's something this show has never touched on either. A few years ago the Food Network had a show about that called Mystery Diners.

No, I don't still live in New York, and as I said, I grew up eating in diners, but that was admittedly many (many) years ago. So I'm sure you're right about diners being a dying thing. One of the diners in my old Queens neighborhood is still there, and seemingly going strong, but they may be an exception. The neighborhood delis in NY are all pretty much gone too. We didn't have the enormous number of chain restaurants and fast food places in the "old days," and that's surely a factor. The restaurant business is strange. In times of economic uncertainty, it seems that many high-end restaurants thrive and the fast food places are packed, but the middle ground restaurants (like family owned diners and delis) struggle to survive.

Gordon may be a world-famous Michelin starred chef, but he knows squat about east coast diners. I grew up eating in diners in Queens and Long Island, and they all had gigantic, multi-page menus. And the astonishing thing was, whatever you ordered, it was good. That's why people go to diners, especially with families, because there's something for everyone. And 20 cooks is not crazy, because diners are typically large, with multiple rooms, and have to quickly turn out a huge volume of food. For this episode, he must've found the worst diner in New York, because they could barely cook toast. Or else the food wasn't really that bad, and it was producer shenanigans. I suspect that was the case with the filthy gross food storage area. Because restaurants get regular visits from health inspectors. How would that diner not have already been shut down for multiple health code violations? I'm not surprised they went back to the large menu, because if I walked into a diner and saw a one-page menu I'd be shocked. Gordon contradicted himself, because he said "it's a diner, not fine dining," and then he gave them the kind of very limited menu you see in high end restaurants. As for Kitchen Nightmares, I'm glad it's back, but I wish in all that time away they'd retooled the concept, because this episode was like a hundred others I've seen. Does every failing restaurant have a filthy, disgusting kitchen? Does every KN episode need to include GR yelling, "you're going to kill someone" and "shut it down."

It always cracks me up when the announcer says that Hell's Kitchen is the hottest reservation in town and then as evidence they introduce some unknown C list celebrity. I've always felt that Jason is a plant for the sake of drama. You know, the veteran chef pro chef gets shown up by the newbies. No way he could have that background and be so clueless in the kitchen. On TV cooking shows I aways see people ladling tons of butter onto their steaks. You're adding lots of fat, and a good piece of meat should have a distinctive flavor of its own. Butter makes everything taste like butter. But I don't doubt that many restaurants use this method. It's why restaurant food tastes richer than home cooking. A relative of mine who worked in some very high-end New York kitchens told me that patrons would be shocked at much duck fat they cooked with.