Hey kids,

First I wanted to apologize for not posting about last week’s episode, I know I promised, but I had some family things to take care of. But no worries, cause I’m back now and really excited about last nights episode. BTW, you may have noticed that TCB is no longer on NBC on wednesday nights at 8. But you can still find new episodes at the same time on NBC.com/chopping-block or a few days later on Hulu.

The episode from 2 weeks ago wasn’t all that, I know because I watched it day before yesterday but don’t remember a thing about it. Sorry but its true, without me there’s just no comic relief! From what little I could remember it was just another day at Black Team’s space Soul, Angie was fighting with everyone, cursing like a drunken sailor, The brothers were arguing back, and poor Dean and Sherri are just crying about their kids and saying things like “Alls I knows” and “I pooored mah haat and soul inta this place! (sic, I poured my heart and soul into this place). I love those wacky Boston accents. They sound like cabbies and newspaper boys from the roaring 20’s. Meanwhile, over at Crimson, Vanessa is hanging up decorative things while Lisa and Kelsey cook and Lisa as usual is suprised by Kelsey’s inexperience. Now I love Kels to death, but some of the things she says seriously make my head turn like a confused dog. The service was a mad rush as always, black team lost and after yet another round of the “Angie VS Everyone else” hour, Marco sends Zan and Than home. Thank goodness I watched it with a cup of dunkin donuts coffee otherwise I might have passed out from boredom. Sorry guys…but I just wasn’t that into it.

Last nights episode was fun though, Marco sends the kids to the Italian district and they have to work together to cook a simple Italian inspired dish in 10 minutes. Kels takes it home with scallops but its not enough, and Black Team wins. Their prize is a fancy pants espresso machine and a barista for their next service. Marco explains that they will do a lunch service, or as I like to call it “Guido Happy Hour”. Don’t hate me for saying that! My grandmother is fresh off the boat from Sicily so I got rights! (BTW I’m also part Mexican, so you might hear the occasional comment about my ability to run really fast across state lines) Marco brings in his friend Mario Batali to enjoy lunch at the 2 restaurants. Mario’s first comment when he walks into Crimson is “Wow! I love what you’ve done with the place!” Hey Mario!!! Thanks! That was my work! I know, I know Panya told you she invented red, but I swear the design was mine! (Props to Van and Anapol though, it looked like they added a few touches)

Lunch goes okay, people wait a long time as usual, but Vinnie from The Soprano’s loves it so much he goes back into the kitchen to tell the girls. (Personally I thought it was presumptuous and rude of him to step foot into another persons kitchen, but I guess he does it all the time at the Olive Garden.) Over at Soul, Marco and Mario arrive, and are greeted by another Soprano’s actor, who looked like an out of work Express model, and was visibly pissed off that his lunch was taking too long. Now look, I totally understand how that can fuck up your day. I recently had the worst dinner of my life, I waited an hour and a half for my food, I ordered Chicken Piccata and when I finally got it, it better resembled a chicken abortion in a pint of lemon broth. So I totally understand how waiting for food can ruin your night. But give these people a break! There are only 2 of them cooking for 40 people all at the same time! You try doing that! The only major mistake was that there were families waiting for tables and the kids we getting hungry. I don’t understand why both Sam and Sherri are watching these poor kids gnawing at the metal railing of the bar, and not thinking “Hey let’s get them some food!” Its Hospitality 101!!! If you make kids happy, the parents will be happy and come back and support your business! I also don’t understand, if there were no open tables, why they didn’t just serve them at the bar!? On the second service, when people started getting sat, there were still people waiting, so I told them to have a seat at the bar and got them drinks and snacky things like bread and olives. When I realized no one was getting up, I got them menus and told them if they wanted they could order their food at the bar. It was a potentially bad situation, very easily turned around into something positive. Why Sam or Sherri didn’t think of this I don’t know. Also I thought doing Carbonara was a bad idea, as they should know by now the pressure of service and that dish has to be made to order, a la minute. Why…please someone tell me why you would do an a la minute dish for a service of that many people with only 2 cooks in the kitchen!?!?!?!

The critic was some guy from Gourmet magazine, I’m sure he’s got a very sophisticated palate but again, do the guests of these restaurants not realize that they are on a reality show. They obviously seem to forget that there are only 4 people per restaurant, they only have mere hours to prepare and a limited amount of resources for product! The critic blasted Lisa for “floury” store bought ravioli (what was she supposed to do, hand make 500 ravioli by herself with only a few hours!?) and overcooked veal, which is a more understandable complaint. Red team wins by default and of course, Angie goes on with her annoying and overdone rants and pointing fingers. Dean and Sherri compose themselves with humility and class while Sam rolls her eyes like a stuck up beauty queen. Hats off to D&S for taking responsiblity for their mistakes, and being honorable enough to respect Marco. Marco has obviously had enough and sends Angie and Sam home. Sam then has the audacity to say that red team only won because Vanessa was flirting or something. Sam needs to get the F over herself. She goes on about how she’s “cuter than Vanessa” I love how she said “I’m not even going to get into who’s cuter me, or Vanessa” but then goes on for another minute about the subject. Sam might have been Miss Pennslyvania, but she’s a hatchet-face on the inside. Vanessa is nothing but friendly, polite and respectful. Granted the red team did kind of win by default, but it had nothing to do with anyone’s looks.

I do kind of pity the remaining teams, cause it seems like every challenge just sets them up to fail. They are given impossible tasks with no prep time and no extra help. From experience, I can tell you the challenges are hard, but can still be fun, but barely resemble the real world situations I’ve faced in the restaurant industry. I’ve worked in a kitchen with only 2 people for real, and its hard, but you don’t have the same restrictions the show places on you. All in all, I think TCB was an interesting experiment, but fails to showcase the reality of opening and running a restaurant.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.