Archives for the 'gordon ramsay' tag
‘Kitchen Nightmares’: The Game
Gordon Ramsay is busy. And when you have 53,000 things going on, this is bound to be your life: lots of crazy highs mixed in with lowly lows.
As his cooks scatter, he forges ahead on strange ventures with even stranger people. As he looks aghast trying to breathe life into the kitchen of yet another crappy Long Island eatery, Fox re-ups him.
Just out: a new Kitchen Nightmares video game. From the product description:
Hell’s Kitchen is a TV phenomenon featuring world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsay putting aspiring chefs through rigorous culinary tests. The game recreates the show’s pressure-cooker atmosphere as players complete a series of kitchen and dining room challenges to find out if they have what it takes to be a “Five-Star” chef. Fulfilling an order requires three important phases - preparation, cooking and service, all of which players must master to progress. Prepare ingredients, cook them to the correct quality and get food out of the kitchen on time. Each complete meal is scored by Chef Gordon Ramsay to make the kitchen boot camp experience come alive.
More here at the game’s official website. The game, which apparently features trademark Ramsay tirades, is rated T for Teen in the States but earns a mere PG in Australia, where one writer wonders WTF is up with that?
The game markets at about $40. Buy for Wii and other formats here.
This Week in Bacon
Marco Pierre White’s revelation of the secret behind his renowned bacon sandwiches has caused a backlash worthy of Carla Bruni’s new album. White, the eminent restaurateur and chef who has had a hand in the careers of chefs like Gordon Ramsay and is revered by guys like Batali and Bourdain, says the key to a great bacon butty is… the microwave.
He demonstrates his technique in the latest episode of his ITV1 show, Marco’s Great British Feast.
Not only does it taste good, but it saves on washing up, according to White, who claims to have employed the technique for the past 15 years.
“Why do I want to wash a grill tray? Why do I want to make a mess? When I cook my bacon I have only one plate to wash up. It tastes better and it’s practical. Every household needs one,” he proclaims in the show.
Food writer Tim Hawyard takes White to task at the Guardian’s Word of Mouth.
As I watched last night’s edition of Marco’s Great British Feast, with hot, salty tears in my eyes, Marco Pierre White sat in a cabman’s hut and ordered his bacon microwaved.
[...]
Why would it be necessary for a man with MPW’s towering talent and stunning technical ability to go so insanely off-piste? Microwaving bacon, if my interpretation of McGee is correct, would sort of steam it from within. There’s no crispiness, no caremelisation, just a hot floppy cured product.
I must come to White’s defense (defence?) here. I know from crispy. I appreciate microwaved bacon, not surprisingly, for its crispiness, and also for its lack of mess. But too often microwaved bacon is burnt, and (like most microwaved food) is unevenly cooked. And, frankly, there’s still usually a grease splatter and a hot-ass plate to deal with as well. So it’s not perfect. But it’s hardly deplorable, right?
How about you, dear reader. How do you prefer your bacon?
Note: I found the foreign bacon controversy more interesting than the domestic one.
Oasis Frontman Slags Gordon Ramsay’s Cooking–On Ramsay’s Show
Liam Gallagher, the Oasis frontman, appeared on a recent episode of The F Word, one of Gordon Ramsay’s ubiquitous (and usually very good) British TV shows.
Ramsay, as you know, can curse with the best of them. And Liam, frankly, is the best of them–a randy Mancunian who’s about as salt of the fookin’ earth as they come.
The basic premise of The F Word, for those not blessed with BBC America, is that it has too many premises. You have Ramsay challenging a few everyday Joe guest cooks (i.e., firemen) to make dinners for Ramsay diners; a celebrity cook whose engages in (usually) a dessert challenge against Ramsay (who always loses); a celebrity diner, who keeps things lively; and a guest expert (usually the bawdy Janet Street Porter) who teaches viewers about some Ramsay-fetish food issue like sustainable fish or home pig farming.
It’s totally disjointed, hectic, and, while not as good as the often-awesome Kitchen Nightmares by half, it’s certainly better than his abominable old show Beyond Boiling Point.
Anyways, back to Liam, who played the part of celebrity diner while his wife–All Saints “singer” Nicole Appleton–engaged in a cookoff against Ramsay.
What did Liam think about his chow? He didn’t think much of Ramsay’s dishes, and wasn’t afraid to say so. From NME:
“Me missus is a better effing cook than you!”
Gallagher then later told Ramsay: “Your cooking is bobbins.”
According to the Daily Star the word “bobbins” is slang for lousy.
Appleton took on Ramsay with a starter of pasta and clams, a main course of spiced pork chops and sweet potatoes and a desert of apple tart.
After tucking into his wife’s meal Gallagher told Ramsay: “Me missus does a better sweet potato than you do.”
The F Word site here. Various show clips here. “Celebrity food thoughts” from Girls Aloud lasses here.
Thanks to my friend Dude for the tip.
Gordon Ramsay’s ‘La Noisette’ Abruptly Closes
Gordon Ramsay quietly closed his second restaurant in six months over the weekend. Problems at La Noisette seemed to center more on the space than the food. With the closing, he also loses one of his dozen Michelins, and further shifts the focus of his empire to a more mid-market clientele.
The closing of La Noisette also comes just weeks before Ramsay is set to open 180-seater Plane Food at the British Airways terminal at Heathrow Airport.
The shutdown was abrupt, and as of 2pm EDT, La Noisette — though most of their website was shuttered to all but the Google cache — was still accepting reservations. (I reserved online for today, and received immediate confirmation that “a member of our team will contact you shortly.”)
Adding insult to injury, Mario Batali recently served Ramsay some light snarks, calling him a staid showman.
Ramsay’s dealt with restaurant closings and much, much more in life, as he recounts in his excellent and aptly titled autobiography, Humble Pie, to let Batali or a business failure have much of an impact on his future. He’ll be fine.
