Sunday, July 22, 2007

Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America

We saw Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. He's hostile and foul-mouthed, but it's only to get his point across. Sometimes it seems extreme, but eh...it's TV.

The premise is simple: put Gordon Ramsey, a Michelin starred chef, in a failing restaurant, and have him turn it around before it's completely extinguished.

In this episode, the owner's of the Fenwich Arms, a small British pub in Lancashire, England, are struggling to stay afloat. Elaine runs the front of the house while her husband, Brian, runs the kitchen. Brian has had 5 heart attacks, 1 quadruple bipass, and is working 120 hours per week at the age of 63. Ramsay comes in, and you might think he would have been nicer to the couple, but like I said...it's TV. He works to turn the fussy menu into proper pub food, despite the hesitant (or was it cantankerous) owners. It kinda worked...and it kinda didn't. The turnover increased like 30%, but the owner/chef Brian was back in the kitchen messing with the menu again on the follow-up visit at the end of the episode. Hmmm....stubborn is as stubborn does.

Cute website though: Campaign for Real Gravy

That was all fine and dandy, but what I found even more entertaining was the bit of information that preceded the episode. On a screen that you might see a warning of elements on the following program, was this text...read by Eric Idle:

"The following program contains English accents. To find out what on Earth anyone is talking about, please use the closed captioning."

Tee hee...cute.

0 comments: