S22.E03: Citizens of Hell's Kitchen

[jewel21]

Quote

The contestants serve an All-American brunch to new American citizens. Disaster strikes when raw chicken and cold steak are served but one team reigns supreme and is rewarded with a swanky Hollywood rooftop pool party while the losing team will pick-up pieces of confetti one by one. Both teams feel the pressure serving celebrities like Victor Cruz, Bobby Berk, Alaska, and Liam Pace and one team is not able to turn it around.

Airdate: 10/12/2023

[mlp]

6 hours ago, jewel21 said:

Both teams feel the pressure serving celebrities like Victor Cruz, Bobby Berk, Alaska, and Liam Pace

I've never heard of any of those "celebrities."  I am old.  :)

[nitrofishblue]

On 10/9/2023 at 3:42 PM, mlp said:

I've never heard of any of those "celebrities."  I am old.  :)

I totally agree with you. The only Cruz I know is the NHRA funny car driver Cruz Pedregon.

[AZChristian]

Reminds me of the yearly reveal of the "celebrities" on "Dancing with the Who????"

[oliviabenson]

Exactly: who are the celebrities?

[Chicago Redshirt]

I was surprised when the woman who put up two blue steaks back to back was not nominated for a boot.

I wasn't paying attention close enough and am too lazy to rewatch. What was the tape/confetti controversy about?

Melissa trying to spin the "I'm not going to use the Punishment Pass because I want to stick with my team" -- BS. This was an annoying punishment, but it wasn't physically demanding, gross, or otherwise problematic. Indeed, I think it may have been the easiest one in recent memory.

I nearly did a spit take when the HK announcer talked about the horny chef "tossing his salad" since "tossing someone's salad" is slang for a sex act. Well done, narrator/producers.

[chicagofan]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I wasn't paying attention close enough and am too lazy to rewatch. What was the tape/confetti controversy about?

As punishment for losing the team challenge, the red team had to thoroughly clean the dining room so that it was spotless for the dinner service. That meant clearing the tables and cleaning up all the confetti by hand. Christina said that for every piece of confetti she found once they were done she would dump out one of the bags of confetti that they had collected. While Christina was doing her inspection some of the ladies were making sure that all the confetti was gone. One of them - I think it was Melissa - found a piece, and when Christina asked her what she picked up she said that it was just a piece of tape. Christina challenged her and when she/they 'fessed up Christina dumped one of the bags of confetti they had gathered and said something to the effect that they were lucky she didn't dump out all of them.

Feel free to correct me if I got something wrong.

Edited October 13, 2023 by chicagofan

[cameron]

Another manufactured drama for this show.  There were hotel pans of already fried chicken on those counters when the camera started panning the whole kitchen at the beginning of the show.  And the fried chicken from the women's team that Gordon lauded was clearly over fried and burned in some parts.

[seacliffsal]

Carmen really bothers me as she over talks everyone on her team.  BUT, she knows how to rile up her team and they are allowing her to manipulate them.  On the blue team, if someone wanted to show leadership they would have come up with a task that would keep Brad busy and out of everyone's way.

So glad Claudia is gone.  I know it was probably her excitement that led her to be smiling and giggly when Gordon was reprimanding them, but she didn't seem to have any leadership qualities and was not that good of a chef.  

I think Jonathon is showing some leadership qualities as he did try to help Mattias by coaching him rather than taking over.

[KeithJ]

I think Christina let Melissa off very easy for lying to her.  If it was me, I would have dumped every single bag instead of just one.  But then Melissa says she was taking one for the team because she didn't use her punishment pass?  Has lying ever gone uncaught in Hell's Kitchen?

Gordon obviously doesn't watch any American football.  Victor Cruz is an "NFL Legend"?  Gordon needs to go punch the writers for making him say that.

[milkyaqua]

I was fine with Claudia the grinning chef going though I could have seen them putting up Raneisha for the blue steaks.  However, Claudia had been snapped at by Ramsey for the grinning/giggling a few times.  Raneisha OTOH needs to chill out.  I get she's one of the older contestants and that Carmen is a pill but she didn't make herself look good either yelling at her like a banshee.

Mattias is fortunate that Ramsey had had it with Claudia or it's all a plan to eliminate evenly across the two teams, who knows?

As for the celebrities, the only one I knew was Alaska so yeah, loose definition of celebrity being used here.

I see Jason was pretty quiet this week but of course no way that lasts long.

[LakeGal]

I thought Raneisha should have been nommed too.  She was sure yelling at everyone else when she was part of the problem.  

[Sir RaiderDuck OMS]

8 hours ago, KeithJ said:

Gordon obviously doesn't watch any American football.  Victor Cruz is an "NFL Legend"?  Gordon needs to go punch the writers for making him say that.

Ramsay always talks up the "celebrities" who appear on HK. I've been a football fan for most of my life and while the name "Victor Cruz" was familiar, I'd forgotten what position he played until I looked it up.

 

5 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

I was fine with Claudia the grinning chef going though I could have seen them putting up Raneisha for the blue steaks.

Mattias is fortunate that Ramsey had had it with Claudia or it's all a plan to eliminate evenly across the two teams, who knows?

Mattias was a total screwup but he's at least taking everything seriously. Claudia appeared to be treating this as a lark, which is a guaranteed way to get on Ramsay's bad side.

 

2 hours ago, LakeGal said:

I thought Raneisha should have been nommed too.  She was sure yelling at everyone else when she was part of the problem.  

Raneisha was trying to play the Scolding Mom character, but a little bit of that goes a long way when you're dealing with twentysomethings who aren't related to you.

As for the blue steaks, it's simple: YOUR GRILL TEMP IS TOO DAMN HIGH. After you've seared the outside, you need to turn the heat down. Continued cooking at high temps will give you what we saw: an outside that's well-done (or even slightly burned) with a near-cold interior. To get a more even heat distribution, you turn down the heat and cook it longer. That's why a lot of chefs will sear the steaks on the grill and finish them in the oven. It takes a little longer, but you get a great steak that way. Taking shortcuts when cooking thick steaks just doesn't work.

On a slightly unrelated note: My wife and I recently bought some of the Hexclad pans they use on the show and GR relentlessly touts on social media. They're really, REALLY good pans, by far the best we've ever owned. They heat super-evenly, have a non-stick finish you can scrub if necessary without ruining it (the instructions say you can clean them with everything up to and including Comet and steel wool without ruining the finish), and they're dishwasher-safe and induction-compatible. Seriously: They're the bomb. (And no, I'm not getting any $$$ for posting this, but if the Hexclad people want to send us a free pan to expand our collection, we wouldn't turn it down.)

[xcrayon2215x]

Mattias was quite lucky but Claudia was not the most serious. Jason came across a lot better this episode, Johnathon looks solid in the kitchen.

 

Carmen continues to be irritating. U understood Raneisha not liking her but the diners being able to hear was not great.

[Chyromaniac]

Aubrey Plaza seems like possibly the only competent chef on the Red Team.  Beardy Jonathan and Irish Ryan on Blue seem solid too.  The rest seem to be on the wrong Ramsey show- this is American Dream, not Kitchen Nightmares….

 I thought Christina handled Confetti-gate well- it felt like she was holding them accountable without being a huge jerk about it.  It’s probably because she’s been there- she’s like the sorority sister who always gets stuck doing BS rush activities for the pledges, but remembers what it’s like to get put through all this nonsense.

The “tossing his salad” line was epic- and, while pink hair girl might not be a bona fide “HK level celebrity,” I’ll give her the episode MVP for decimating his clumsy flirting attempts.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Chyromaniac

[Yeah No]

On 10/13/2023 at 5:41 PM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

Raneisha was trying to play the Scolding Mom character, but a little bit of that goes a long way when you're dealing with twentysomethings who aren't related to you.

I still don't get why she wasn't nominated.  Not even a peep out of Ramsay either.

On 10/13/2023 at 5:41 PM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

As for the blue steaks, it's simple: YOUR GRILL TEMP IS TOO DAMN HIGH. After you've seared the outside, you need to turn the heat down. Continued cooking at high temps will give you what we saw: an outside that's well-done (or even slightly burned) with a near-cold interior. To get a more even heat distribution, you turn down the heat and cook it longer. That's why a lot of chefs will sear the steaks on the grill and finish them in the oven. It takes a little longer, but you get a great steak that way. Taking shortcuts when cooking thick steaks just doesn't work.

True, high heat is the way to make them "black and blue".  I have a friend that likes their steak that way.  Was it Raneisha that said she'd have the steak done from raw in 3 minutes?  That would not be long enough to get the inside cooked to mid rare at any heat.  I'm not even a professional chef but I know that.  And although I do have a few decades on these people in the kitchen I knew that a long time ago.

On 10/13/2023 at 5:41 PM, Sir RaiderDuck OMS said:

On a slightly unrelated note: My wife and I recently bought some of the Hexclad pans they use on the show and GR relentlessly touts on social media. They're really, REALLY good pans, by far the best we've ever owned. 

Thanks for that.  I haven't checked into them yet but I think my hesitation is because I'm assuming they're pretty expensive.

 

 

[bluepiano]

On 10/9/2023 at 12:42 PM, mlp said:

I've never heard of any of those "celebrities."  I am old.  :)

But don't you know that "Hell's Kitchen is the hottest ticket in town." So these folks must be big deals to get in. (Said with voice dripping in sarcasm).

TV has totally redefined the meaning of the word "celebrity" to include anyone who has ever appeared on a reality show or had a small part on some TV series. 

On 10/13/2023 at 12:01 PM, LakeGal said:

I thought Raneisha should have been nominated too.  She was sure yelling at everyone else when she was part of the problem.  

Unfortunately, her being loud and obnoxious might mean she'll be around for a while, as the producers like to have at least one over-the-top character around for the drama.

[NJRadioGuy]

On 10/13/2023 at 9:00 AM, KeithJ said:

Victor Cruz is an "NFL Legend"?  Gordon needs to go punch the writers for making him say that.

From undrafted free agent to a Superb Owl champion, yeah maybe "legend" is a bit much, but in the New York market he is. One of those guys you can never hate, and his famous "salsa dance" move in the end zone made him a favourite. He basically just disappeared after retiring, though, which was a bit surprising.

[NJRadioGuy]

I think Claudia was the right choice to go bye-bye at this point. She's just too young and unprepared, and no amount of culinary skill or good palate will make her fit to run a professional kitchen and control a brigade in a few months. Who knows, maybe in five years? But not now. Mattias is at least  marginally competent on the line, and maybe he just had a crap night. I suspect he'll be gone sooner rather than later, though.

[seacliffsal]

16 minutes ago, NJRadioGuy said:

I think Claudia was the right choice to go bye-bye at this point. She's just too young and unprepared, and no amount of culinary skill or good palate will make her fit to run a professional kitchen and control a brigade in a few months. Who knows, maybe in five years? But not now. Mattias is at least  marginally competent on the line, and maybe he just had a crap night. I suspect he'll be gone sooner rather than later, though.

Claudia is 41, so not a young chef, but probably not experienced either.  She just seemed immature.  And, when Gordon tells someone to stop giggling, don't deny it-just apologize and move on.