Hell's Kitchen, Schmell's Kitchen

In previous seasons I caught glimpses of Hell's Kitchen here and there, and determined that the next go around I would watch the show the whole way through. It's been a fairly numbing experience. The chefs have been largely stuck in the kitchen with Chef Ramsey and he likes to call them donkeys.

The short challenges have been the most interesting, and this week's was no exception with a blind taste test. Once again the women creamed the men, identifying such exotic foods as chicken and pear and cold potato. Their reward was eating a meal with Chef Ramsey in the dark. We have no idea what this meal was like, because the cameras shifted to the men's team prepping for two kitchens that evening. Many of the men yawned, and so did I.

Once again we see the two teams cooking and racing around the kitchen and bungling the orders. Another group of suckers (customers) amble into the restaurant and we watch them wait for an excruciatingly long time for their meals. In this episode their comments will determine the winning and losing team.

During the cooking phase, we hardly see a peep of Julia, Jen, or Rock, so we know these folks will be safe. Once again the chefs cook the same boring dishes which we really don't get to see them making. We do see a lot of good food wasted. Is any of it donated to a shelter somewhere? If not, a lot of animals died for no good reason.

Neither team won. It turns out that 69% of the customers would not return for a meal because the kitchen took too long to prepare it; however, most who were served thought the meals tasted ok.

Chef Ramsey chose Rock and Jen as being the least worst of the remaining eight chefs, and asked them to put up one person for elimination. Rock chose Josh (no surprise), and Jen chose Melissa (big surprise, but the move made sense because Melissa is Jen's biggest competition.) But when these two chefs stepped forward for elimination, Chef Ramsey overrode the decisions and picked Vinnie and Bonnie instead.

Now, I suspect Vinnie is an ok chef. He just has a hard time thinking straight and cooking well when he's being cussed at. And out of all of the chefs, Vinnie had the hardest time taking the abuse.
Bonnie is a nanny and a private chef to four people. S'cuse me? How do these credentials qualify her to run a major kitchen? During the competition she kept calling herself an idiot and at one point she tearfully said, "I want to go home." It's obvious that she, along with Julia, are having the proverbial golden carrot dangled in front of them. The only question is: When will it be snatched away?

Not to anyone's surprise, as Chef Ramsey seemed to have it in for Vinnie from the start, he told Vinnie to take off his chef's uniform and go.

Next week the chefs will create food for a wedding reception. If the episode is like anything we've seen in the past few weeks, there will be no surprises. My prediction is that Josh, Jen, and Melissa will make it to the final four. Unless he miss steps big time, Rock will definitely be in the finals.