S16.E05: Restaurant Wars Part 2

[sATL]

15 minutes ago, GoGamecox said:

As soon as they showed Nini telling the servers to start polishing the silverware as their most important opening task, the writing was on the wall. 

Yeah.. which brings me to my next burning question that happens during RW.. which I missed during the episode (I too was multitasking).. Do furniture delivery people just come and drop everything at the door - for one (ie the FOH chef)  to move to where they want ?

I know someone has to pick out tables/chairs/gobblets/flatware/decor for a new space and do all of the required physical labor, I guess I just like it better when RW is done in existing space, so the contestants can focus on the cook and running the service. 

[MerBearHou]

I like Kelsey ok but it seems like she's one who feels the need to insert herself everywhere.  When she spoke up to support Nini TWICE at judge's table, I wanted to scream because Nini needed to be her own advocate, not Kelsey.  Nini was flat-out awful in that FOH role and her dessert was a very poor choice so she 100% deserved to go.  Agree totally with the poster above who said that Pablo is way too stubborn and his steak looked like it was as tough as an old boot.  Loved that Brian won -- he has battled back from so much -- very cool.  Adrienne is great too and I'm thrilled their team won the surprise big bucks.  Sara looked terrible in her role as FOH.  Sorry, but her sloppy appearance looked 1 step away from being in her bathrobe with messy hair and no makeup.  I can't totally warm up to Sara and I'm not sure why.  She was good with the inexperienced waitstaff and I liked her comments about treating them with respect.  The "Banging Hot" comment was hilarious and quite accurate -- good Lord, only Padma could carry off that tuxedo and slick hairstyle.  I didn't mind Justin's frustrated behavior, but his bisque looked really bad.  I liked Padma teasing Eddie about being happy -- nice to see him smile after the bad budget experience. 

[MVFrostsMyPie]

Everything Nini did/does just seems too slow for me personally. Her way of talking, her walking, etc. Speed it up just a little, chop chop! She'd be that slow walker on the sidewalk who I'd have to try to maneuver around as I'm a fast walker and a fast talker. 

[laprin]

11 hours ago, zibnchy said:

After roughly 178 seasons of TC and Restaurant Wars I have one question. Why on earth would anyone volunteer to be FOH? FOH people tend to get screwed every which way. Other chefs f up the FOH chef's dishes, servers are service challenged (as in just hired off the street), and FOH gets blamed for everything. Next season I want to see everyone just straight up refuse to do FOH.

Yeah, the only way I would get sucked into it is if the team decided at the start that whoever lost whatever bet we had going would do it. They could also decide that whoever had won at least one challenge would be excluded and the rest could battle it out over a card game.  In any event, you should never volunteer for FOH unless you have a ton of experience at it. I don't know the stats, but it would seem that about 75% of the time the person doing FOH is booted.  

[joanne3482]

41 minutes ago, sATL said:

Yeah.. which brings me to my next burning question that happens during RW.. which I missed during the episode (I too was multitasking).. Do furniture delivery people just come and drop everything at the door - for one (ie the FOH chef)  to move to where they want ?

It seems like that's changed from year to year.  I do remember in past years when the chefs did EVERYTHING (including picking out the linens and the chairs and whatnot), they also set everything up.  Since they keep bringing in these design consultants, it seems like the consultants who are doing all the picking and designing should be the ones to do the set up too since it is their design vision and not the chefs'. I wonder if they just didn't have enough labor to do all the set up at once, although I feel like I've heard that in the past they make it seem like RW is going on the same night it is actually filmed across multiple nights. 

[biakbiak]

3 minutes ago, laprin said:

don't know the stats, but it would seem that about 75% of the time the person doing FOH is booted.  

Here you go. Top Chef Stats through season 15.

Exexutive Chef eliminated the same amount as FOH, with line cooks one behind (though it’s a safer position because there are multiple of them) and winners are evenly divided between the three positions. 

[seltzer3]

Yeah I feel like more FOH people are getting eliminated, because as the seasons progress the # of responsibilities and tasks seem  to grow as well.  Also I've noticed the service staff becomes more and more inept as each season.

Fatima last season I remember asked her wait staff, who had experience...and no one raised their hands.

One thing Nini could have done to save her dish was to pour the mixture onto sheet trays and freeze them (And do the thai roll up ice creams).  They may come out icy, but it wouldn't be a puddle mess.

[tvfanatic13]

Just me, or did Brian’s sleeves bother anyone else. It looked like he was wearing a kids sut with adult arms. Agree with the boots though. 

[Jodithgrace]

I don't understand why the table numbering was so confusing to everybody. Why did they have a table 35, or 105 for example? There are like 10 tables at the most in these restaurants. Why can't they number them from 1-10 and then put a discreet sign on the corner of each each table with the number? They just seem to make everything unnecessarily complicated. These are not regular established restaurants. Who would care if there were numbers written on the tables? I think the customers would rather get their food and have a less stressed out wait staff and I can't see the judges objecting if that is the result. 

For some reason I find Restaurant Wars extremely stressful. I can't stand seeing people waiting for food or seeing a chaotic kitchen. 

Nini deserved to go, but she is such a good chef, I think she will be the one who returns. 

[catrice2]

I have a sneaking suspicion that we are going to see restaurant Wars again this season.

[mlp]

I realize this is a personal pet peeve but..................... I think every one of the FOH people referred to the judges' party as "you guys" when they were greeting and seating.  If one is an employee/manager of a supposedly classy establishment, "you guys" doesn't exactly set the right tone.  I don't even like it at Denny's but at least it doesn't clash with the ambiance.

[catrice2]

2 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

I like Kelsey ok but it seems like she's one who feels the need to insert herself everywhere.  When she spoke up to support Nini TWICE at judge's table, I wanted to scream because Nini needed to be her own advocate, not Kelsey.  Nini was flat-out awful in that FOH role and her dessert was a very poor choice so she 100% deserved to go.  Agree totally with the poster above who said that Pablo is way too stubborn and his steak looked like it was as tough as an old boot.  Loved that Brian won -- he has battled back from so much -- very cool.  Adrienne is great too and I'm thrilled their team won the surprise big bucks.  Sara looked terrible in her role as FOH.  Sorry, but her sloppy appearance looked 1 step away from being in her bathrobe with messy hair and no makeup.  I can't totally warm up to Sara and I'm not sure why.  She was good with the inexperienced waitstaff and I liked her comments about treating them with respect.  The "Banging Hot" comment was hilarious and quite accurate -- good Lord, only Padma could carry off that tuxedo and slick hairstyle.  I didn't mind Justin's frustrated behavior, but his bisque looked really bad.  I liked Padma teasing Eddie about being happy -- nice to see him smile after the bad budget experience. 

Thank you. I don't know how it goes with what they are told to bring for clothing or what they have access to, so when I saw her I couldn't believe she was front of the house but  then Nini was out there in a mumu so there's that...

[spiderpig]

OK, so some of my online friends will know it's me, but I HATE HATE HATE it when servers who are supposed to be seating diners for a high-end  meal call the patrons "you guys".  It's one thing if you're bumming around at your local pub but another if you go for table seating and expecting first class service.  While we all know it's fake and scripted, RW should know how to greet guests.

From Sean Connery in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Untouchables)..."Here endeth the lesson".

[MerBearHou]

28 minutes ago, catrice2 said:

Nini was out there in a mumu so there's that...

This made me LOL in my office!

 

1 hour ago, tvfanatic13 said:

Did Brian’s sleeves bother anyone else. It looked like he was wearing a kids suit with adult arms.

Yes!  It's like he had a teenager growth spurt since he arrived on Top Chef but had to wear the suit anyway.

[dleighg]

45 minutes ago, catrice2 said:

Nini was out there in a mumu so there's that...

it wasn't terribly flattering, but it was *not* a mumu. Sara on the other hand looked like she came to the job directly from cleaning the garage.

[Jodithgrace]

I kept thinking that Sara was one of the servers. Reminded me of the time my father bought a red dinner jacket and wore it to a restaurant where all of the waiters were wearing the same thing. 

[jackjill89]

I didn't even recognize Nini during RW. She seemed so competent in the other challenges and she was useless during this challenge. She also looked about 12 in the ugly dress and her hair pulled back. At least she wore a dress. Sara looked like she was making a 7 am trip to Walmart. 

I feel like all around service was problematic this year. I think they should take that out of the equation. The decor/ambiance too -- unless they want to give them more input into how it looks (like when they had to buy it all themselves, choose flatware, dishes etc.). I think they should be viewed on a concept, food and service -- given at least halfway experienced people to ensure they aren't working with a bunch of complete idiots. 

[Empress1]

1 hour ago, catrice2 said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that we are going to see restaurant Wars again this season.

I was wondering about that too, if we'd see it again when we got down to 8 chefs. T

1 hour ago, mlp said:

I realize this is a personal pet peeve but..................... I think every one of the FOH people referred to the judges' party as "you guys" when they were greeting and seating.  If one is an employee/manager of a supposedly classy establishment, "you guys" doesn't exactly set the right tone.  I don't even like it at Denny's but at least it doesn't clash with the ambiance.

I agree, it's too casual. You don't have to refer to them as ladies and gentlemen or anything overly formal; just drop "guys." "How are you tonight?" vs. "How are you guys doing tonight?"

[DavidJSnyder]

2 hours ago, Jodithgrace said:

I don't understand why the table numbering was so confusing to everybody. Why did they have a table 35, or 105 for example? There are like 10 tables at the most in these restaurants. Why can't they number them from 1-10 and then put a discreet sign on the corner of each each table with the number?

I don't know if there's an issue with physically numbering the tables (besides the Judge potentially not liking the look of it), but my theory on why the tables got numbers like 105 was so there was no way you could possibly mix it up with any of the order numbers on the ticket.

[ratgirlagogo]

16 hours ago, The Solution said:

First I gotta say, why all the drama with the professional design team? Each one of those three restaurants looked like a church basement and the lack of good execution by that design team negatively impacted each restaurant.

Yes, very cheesy looking in all three restaurants.  And we saw them PAINTING the walls two hours before service.  That doesn't smell?   And not having the tables set up earlier was ridiculous.

8 hours ago, Ellee said:

Question.  Did Eddie ‘sacrifice’ his crudo somewhat to make sure the chicken dish for Brian was perfect? Or just an error?

That was my impression too.  Eddie is the one who actually cooked that chicken ballotine and Brian got all the credit.

Agree with everyone who said that getting inexperienced servers for Restaurant Wars is nonsense and doesn't enhance my viewing experience.

[biakbiak]

3 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

That was my impression too.  Eddie is the one who actually cooked that chicken ballotine and Brian got all the credit.

 

Welcome to the world of a line cook. But most of the skill required for the ballotine is in preparing it not the final cook which is pretty straightforward.

I didn’t get the impression that Eddie sacrificed his dish. They didn’t hate it, they just found it underwhelming and given that it was a Crudo that is most likely in issue of how it was conceived not execution.

Edited January 5, 2019 by biakbiak

[ratgirlagogo]

4 hours ago, GoGamecox said:

As soon as they showed Nini telling the servers to start polishing the silverware as their most important opening task, the writing was on the wall. 

As soon as they showed that I said to Mr Rat, she must never have watched Top Chef before.  She didn't even ask any of the mactors if they'd ever waited tables before.  I think she just assumed that they had.   Kelsey was the one who went out and talked to them and realized they needed  basic instruction on how to write up a ticket - which Nini could have explained to them (the way Sara did) even before the tables were in place.

[albarino]

I'm not sure why food kept coming back to the kitchen for the Third Coast.  RW menus are limited.  If you take entrees to the wrong table, won't some of them be served?  Or, if not, wouldn't a server apologize with a "Sorry, wrong table" and keep moving?  Go to the next table and say I have a plate of the beef and a plate of the fish, etc.   Feed them!

I agree it is ideal to serve the table at the same time but if guests are waiting 90 minutes to eat, all bets are off.  Forget the tickets, just start walking around with  plates and stopping at tables with the two choices for each course.

[sATL]

21 minutes ago, DavidJSnyder said:

I don't know if there's an issue with physically numbering the tables (besides the Judge potentially not liking the look of it), but my theory on why the tables got numbers like 105 was so there was no way you could possibly mix it up with any of the order numbers on the ticket.

I've somewhere and remember seeing nbrs on the side of the table (very small - the width of the table). Anther place had something on the table (like a red rose with a glass vase vs. a candle vs. xxxx) that could "mark" a table.

Is that too hard for the chefs to do ?

[Fukui San]

I recognize that people don't like chefs going home for service, but imagine a scenario in which each team is assigned a front of house manager. Or the teams choose them. The front of house manager in one or two teams are much worse than the others. That decides which team wins. Are we happier with this result?

If I were on the show, my one front of house innovation would be to print order sheets where all the options were enumerated. Like:
 

Quote

 

Table ____   Time_______

Seat 1  Soup___  Salad___  Fish___  Lamb____ Panna Cotta____  Cake___ Note: ________

Seat 2  Soup___  Salad___  Fish___  Lamb____ Panna Cotta____  Cake___ Note: ________

Seat 3  Soup___  Salad___  Fish___  Lamb____ Panna Cotta____  Cake___ Note:________

Seat 4  Soup___  Salad___  Fish___  Lamb____ Panna Cotta____  Cake___ Note:________

 

Etc. Just make 100 copies of that. There are only 6 options, so you could do that. If this were a restaurant with 40 items that wouldn't work as well, but Restaurant Wars isn't like that. As far as I know, the Patrons don't have to pay for the food (right?), so you don't need to have space for calculating prices.

Waaay back in Season 1, the winning team made the decision to have patrons eat family style, one large portion of each dish instead of plating a dish for each person. We haven't seen this since, but I thought that was pretty smart. I wonder if that move has been outlawed?

Nini's team planned to shuck and grill oysters on demand and churn ice cream on demand. They deserved to lose on those dumb decisions alone.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Fukui San

[albarino]

3 minutes ago, ratgirlagogo said:

As soon as they showed Nini telling the servers to start polishing the silverware as their most important opening task, the writing was on the wall.

It has been 10,000 years since i put my way through school at a 5-star resort hotel (Broadmoor in Colorado Springs) but I seem to recall polishing silverware after it has come out of a dishwasher as a health code violation.  Perhaps it is stemware.

[Bastet]

2 minutes ago, Fukui San said:

Nini's team planned to shuck and grill oysters on demand and churn ice cream on demand.

They hadn't planned to shuck oysters on demand, they wound up having to because they ran out of time and didn't get the 90 (something like that) shucked in advance like they'd planned (but probably should have known wasn't going to happen).  But, yes, serving a dessert that needed too much last-minute work was their plan from the beginning. 

[FormerMod-a1]

On the dessert, I remember Nini saying in last week's ep that since she was using liquid nitrogen to make the ice cream it shouldn't be made too much ahead of time.  But then, when FOH staff started milling about and Justin (?  I think) asked something about it she asked back "did you want me to make it now?" (paraphrase) and then she just made it.  Before service even began.   I knew that wouldn't turn out well.  So when she was then surprised that it wasn't holding up well, I was surprised.  And given that the liquid nitro makes for a unique texture anything they did to save it was going to modify it.

[dleighg]

5 minutes ago, Bastet said:

But, yes, serving a dessert that needed too much last-minute work was their plan from the beginning. 

I think the last minute churning was also something they didn't plan on. Nini said the freezer wasn't cold enough to hold already-churned ice cream. (But how crappy a freezer did they give them?)

[biakbiak]

7 minutes ago, Bastet said:

But, yes, serving a dessert that needed too much last-minute work was their plan from the beginning. 

I thought on last week’s episode something happened that forced Nini to do it on demand and that was not the initial plan.

[FormerMod-a1]

6 minutes ago, dleighg said:

I think the last minute churning was also something they didn't plan on. Nini said the freezer wasn't cold enough to hold already-churned ice cream. (But how crappy a freezer did they give them?)

Oh right.  The freezer.  I remember that now.  So it was a change of plans, but she still made it too early, even it wasn't the original plan.

[HunterHunted]

8 hours ago, BusyOctober said:

I feel like Top Chef has slipped into Food Network territory with the manufactured drah-ma.  The unfinished restaurant space, the untrained staff foisted upon them and the short turnaround time is akin to the antics the Food Network idiots pull on those fill in the blank holiday baking championship shows.

Unfinished restaurant spaces and untrained staff have been staples of Restaurant Wars almost from the beginning, especially in the old days when they gave the teams a design budget and they'd have to schlep to furniture stores, Pier 1, and flower markets to create their restaurants. You indicated that you liked it better when the chefs had to personally shop and set up the decor. I HATED that. It wasted a ton of screen time on areas that weren't logically in a chef's purview while skimping on things that we would reasonably expect a chef to have some experience with like cooking, menu planning, training wait staff and servers, expediting, and learning how to turn over tables. Most restaurants, if they can afford it, hire designers.

The contrived things are things like insisting they do Restaurant Wars this early in the competition when the cheftestants don't have the greatest understanding of each other's skills and deficits. Another contrivance was when they had to do lunch and dinner service. But by doing Restaurant Wars so early in the season, we don't really get a true exploration of the drama that results when you have 2 chef/owners on a team like Sara and Michelle were and Sara colossally screws things up in the front of the house. It's doubly embarrassing because of how confident she was. But Nini runs a cooking school; she had no fucking business being front of house or executive chef/expediter. Her team didn't really know each other well enough for Nini to pushback and insist that one of the two executive chefs of actual restaurants (David and Justin) handle the front of house and executive chefing.

[etexlady]

Disappointed that Nini was eliminated.  Of course, Tom wants to get rid of as many of the female chefs as possible so no surprise (my opinion).  Hope she will be back via LCK.  Should have been Justin who is an egotistical jerk, IMO.  I'm glad Eddy continues to feel badly about his spending fiasco.  He should have gone for that since his action affected the rest of the team's ability to produce the dishes they planned.  

[sATL]

52 minutes ago, dleighg said:

I think the last minute churning was also something they didn't plan on. Nini said the freezer wasn't cold enough to hold already-churned ice cream. (But how crappy a freezer did they give them?)

I didn;t get that either - a commercial freezer that could keep ice cream frozen, when they have commercial showing off all of the fancy (I forgot the brand name)  kitchen appliances. Does make me wonder about the quality of the refrigerator. I was thinking I guess it is gone from Top Chef the days they would go to restaurant depot (or someplace) so one could add a  ice cream freezer.

[dleighg]

6 minutes ago, etexlady said:

Of course, Tom wants to get rid of as many of the female chefs as possible

But somehow both Kristin and Brooke came out of LCK to win, judged only by Tom. Huh.

[ratgirlagogo]

17 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

Unfinished restaurant spaces and untrained staff have been staples of Restaurant Wars almost from the beginning, especially in the old days when they gave the teams a design budget and they'd have to schlep to furniture stores, Pier 1, and flower markets to create their restaurants

Yes, very true.  Who could forget the vanilla-scented table candles?  And the clueless waitstaff, yes, also an established thing - which is why I was surprised that Nini seemed to not understand this.   I do feel that this cheesy design team they've had the last couple of years throws a new kind of wrench into the works, though.

Edited January 4, 2019 by ratgirlagogo

[tvfanatic13]

2 hours ago, Empress1 said:

I was wondering about that too, if we'd see it again when we got down to 8 chefs. T

I agree, it's too casual. You don't have to refer to them as ladies and gentlemen or anything overly formal; just drop "guys." "How are you tonight?" vs. "How are you guys doing tonight?"

I lost my chain of replies, but... yes all 3 FOH said you guys and it about killed me. That is just wrong!! And I too believe we will have another RW at 8 cheftestants. 

[Destiny74]

I guess I am the only one who thought Padma's shoulder pads looked ridiculous.  The suit was very nice until you got to the Star Trek/ Dynasty shoulders.  Please do not let this be a new fashion thing.

 

1 hour ago, dleighg said:

I think the last minute churning was also something they didn't plan on. Nini said the freezer wasn't cold enough to hold already-churned ice cream. (But how crappy a freezer did they give them?)

I wondered to.  Ever cooking show now has blast freezers, are they not good enough?  I guess production didn't think they needed them.

Nini signed her own death certificate.  They were in the weeds to start.  She should've taken a few minutes when she realized the staff were screwing up so bad and taken them back to the kitchen, dressed them down, did a quick reteach and let them try again.  She had to know how bad FOH was running but did nothing about it, other than try to wait and clean all the tables herself.   I'd have been livid because their bad waiting was costing ME the TC title.

Brian's suit was horrible.  Too small and the lapels looked odd.  He is also a "sweaty" guy.  He needed some of those blotting papers.  However, good on him for winning.

Adrienne impressed me. Flat out not taking any crap and telling Brian and the cooks to not talk to each other, that's what the expiditor (spelling?) needs to do.  They are in charge and I am glad she didn't take it.  (Not that I think they meant disrespect to her...just trying to get things done their own way)

Michelle didn't need to take full responsibility for the dishes not tasting right.  Sure, she should have tasted everything together but, by that time, wouldn't it have been too late to fix it?  As EC I guess she's responsible (in a normal restaurant) but in RW I think the originator of the dish is responsible for the overall taste and harmony of the dish.

[dleighg]

2 minutes ago, Destiny74 said:

Brian's suit was horrible.  Too small

my son is 22 and a bit of a fashionista. His pants are "short" to my eye but I think that's the fashion (cold ankles). Maybe the short sleeves are another trendy thing to show off the cuffs? I don't think it was an accident.

[biakbiak]

5 minutes ago, Destiny74 said:

Michelle didn't need to take full responsibility for the dishes not tasting right.  Sure, she should have tasted everything together but, by that time, wouldn't it have been too late to fix it? 

Depends if the isssue is conception or execution. From the dish they criticized it was salty as fuck pork so that should have been able to be remedied when they tasted it. Ideally they would be able to taste a complete dish before they started service and tweak any seasoning/cooking issues then. 

[HunterHunted]

15 minutes ago, sATL said:

I didn;t get that either - a commercial freezer that could keep ice cream frozen, when they have commercial showing off all of the fancy (I forgot the brand name)  kitchen appliances. Does make me wonder about the quality of the refrigerator. I was thinking I guess it is gone from Top Chef the days they would go to restaurant depot (or someplace) so one could add a  ice cream freezer.

But the product placed kitchen appliances are all in the Top Chef kitchen and the cast house. That's why we always see beauty shots of those appliances.

https://www.monogram.com/top-chef/

When they are on location, the show rents portable commercial equipment. We rarely see equipment makers names or labels for those appliances. If there is a comp, it's probably for "Bob's Restaurant Supply and Equipment Rental" and the acknowledgement is in the end credits.

26 minutes ago, ratgirlagogo said:

Yes, very true.  Who could forget the vanilla-scented table candles?  And the clueless waitstaff, yes, also an established thing - which is why I was surprised that Nini seemed to not understand this.   I do feel that this cheesy design team they've had the last couple of years throws a new kind of wrench into the works, though.

Bravo loves product placement. I know they are still on their Modsy kick because it's been showing up on Carson and Thom's show.

[biakbiak]

Someone who was at restaurant wars and talked to the server and someone who knows the manager of the event space that they went to both stated on a FB group that the servers were all hired by producers through a regular temp staffing agency so not one that specialized in service people or event staffing.

[Kaiju Ballet]

5 hours ago, Totale said:

I thought Padma looked like a bangin' weird insect from Star Trek when she first appeared.

I had a different ST reference. I thought she was serving up some Romulan Realness! Padma really *was* banging hot in that episode. It was the first time I wanted her outfit, including those glasses.

I agree with the poster about not quite knowing who everyone is yet, which takes away some of the fun of watching Restaurant Wars. Not to mention too many chefs and dishes to keep track of. The chron appears and vanishes too quickly, and I'm about as willing to keep rewinding as I am to hear someone going over the menu in minute detail, boring me to tears. (She did handle Padma's question about that at Judge's Table well, I'll give her that, but she's not someone I'm rooting for.)

I also liked the comment that past Top Chef guest who's not Nina made about whenever the Harbison cheese being used as a peace offering from her partner. It's the second (?) or third time Harbison cheese has been referenced, which makes me curious about it. Anyone here have experience with it?

Did Kristen Kish lose Restaurant Wars as FOH, only to battle it back into the competition in LCK (and ultimately win)?

[pamster]

47 minutes ago, Destiny74 said:

I guess I am the only one who thought Padma's shoulder pads looked ridiculous.  The suit was very nice until you got to the Star Trek/ Dynasty shoulders.  Please do not let this be a new fashion thing.

So distracting! All I could think of was that yellow suit in “The Mask” cartoon series.

[Nordly Beaumont]

Just like the cheftestants should know to bring a dessert recipe, they should also know that the servers won't be trained. If not they haven't been paying attention. Surely the night before RW someone in the house said, "you know they don't get professional staff for this, right?"

[meep.meep]

One problem that I had was the judges going all together to each of the restaurants in turn.  In the past, they've split up:  Tom and Gail went to one, while Padma and Guest Judge went to the other.  Then the pairs switched to the other restaurant.  But this time, they went all together to the first restaurant, then to the second, then to the third.  Which meant that the third restaurant was never going to come off as well as the first two.  And, surprise surprise, it didn't.  Because as it gets later and later, any mistakes that you make at the beginning get magnified.

If they'd gone back to Northeast for a "nightcap" - they might have seen people standing around waiting for a table.  I'm pretty sure that the people waiting for the table at Third Coast just wanted to get on TV and knew that was more likely if they stayed where the judges were.

Pablo and Nini were good choice to send home.

[WendyM]

8 hours ago, Totale said:

I thought Padma looked like a bangin' weird insect from Star Trek when she first appeared.

I had only seen chicken ballotine on Pepin's show, where it was the whole chicken deboned and stuffed.  Brian's looked like a stuffed breast.

Forget asking the SAG cardholders if they'd ever served at a restaurant.  Ask them if they've ever been to one.

I felt bad for Nini getting the boot for FOH.  I remember thinking the same years ago when another chef who had been doing well was booted the same way (I forget her name, of Indian extraction I think).  It's Top Chef, not Top Server.

My DVR cut off early, where are they next week?

Yeah, I said this last week (the bit about Top Server). If they're making FOH just as important as executive chef, they should provide experienced servers, not PAs and actors (or people who've at least been to a restaurant with tables and silverware and soup spoons). Or if they insist on doing that to make it "interesting" (to someone, not me), then give the kitchen staff some inexperienced line cooks or sous. Make it a level playing field.

6 hours ago, catrice2 said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that we are going to see restaurant Wars again this season.

I thought I read that somewhere--that they were planning to do it twice. But that could just be my (nightmare) fantasy.

[Nordly Beaumont]

31 minutes ago, WendyM said:

I thought I read that somewhere--that they were planning to do it twice. But that could just be my (nightmare) fantasy.

Just a possibility:

Spoiler

They did a mini RW in LCK - maybe that was it?

Weird exchange between Nini and a server, apparently Nini told her to take a customers knife and fork? And the server asked how she would eat if the knife and fork were removed. Nini said something like "She's eating a soup? So she'll eat it with a spoon." Seemed weird that they would take silverware just because a diner wasn't using it. Which made me wonder - do we ever see the tables get bussed? I don't think I've ever noticed that. Would the servers/FOH be doing that too?

[biakbiak]

10 minutes ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

Seemed weird that they would take silverware just because a diner wasn't using it.

That’s extremely common in high end service where your silverware is switched out with each course but probably to high a level of service for these inexperienced servers.

[bobbobbob199]

Inasmuch as Nini was unfairly eliminated, as everybody has been complaining (and I'm sure Tom realized), its clear that the convenient LCK return happening the very next week is skewed towards her return.