It's great to see all the comments starting to appear on this thread.
HK8, ep. 3
The reprise of the prior episode was a sushi challenge involving Mitsohiro Morimoto. The Men won, led by Boris. Nona, Emily and Melissa had major problems during dinner service in the Red kitchen. Raj alienated all the rest of the Blue team. The women won dinner service. The men nominated Boris and Raj, but Ramsay had his own ideas and eliminated Curtis.
All was noisy in the HK dorm at 218am, but by 507am the arrival of numerous paramedics forced all HK chefs to rise quickly and get to the kitchen. Ramsay introduced their next challenge, which was to cook breakfast for these personnel ASAP. The standard meal was 2 links sausage and either French toast or an omelet or scrambled eggs on individual plates plus fresh fruit in a bowl served before any plates could be and glasses of orange juice. This looked like a substantial and hearty meal most would be pleased to eat. Raj was eating the food intended for the teams, so he was severely criticized by Ramsay for that, with the word “donkey” prominent in the verbiage. The Red team won this challenge by finishing before the Blue team had served a single table. That’s domination! Their reward was a pool-side lunch in a luxury hotel but there is a secret additional one, a trip to the Santa Monica Pier to take trapeze lessons at the Trapeze School there, followed by a nice lunch with Ramsay. The punishment for the Blue team was to clean all the glassware in HK, an exacting job under the supervision of Maitre d’ James, plus clean both kitchens. Ramsay made a plea for all chefs who smoke (about half) to stop it in order to improve their palette over the next 48 hours, at which time it will obviously be needed for another challenge. The prep work started for both teams and Sabrina considered it beneath her since she is a prep chef and has been there and done that. This won her the enmity of her teammates, who do not want a prima donna putting herself above the rest of them. Ramsay told the men that they had just had 2 of the worst dinner services ever on HK, so Ramsay was looking for them to have a comeback night. . Ramsay stated that special cocktails will be offered to all diners and he selected Trev ( a part-time bartender) and Sabrina to prepare and serve them on the newly-minted Mixologist station. It was now time to open HK.
Boris criticized Raj for being useless and incompetent. Vinny was on the Appetizers station and Raj on the Fish station. Raj cooked his scallops too soon and had to refire them. Jillian and Emily were on Appetizers for the Red team and Emily was pretty hapless and hopeless there by grossly oversalting her dishes. Raj had grilled a salmon and added his own touch, sauce where one was called for. That drew Ramsay’s ire. Nona asked Emily if she could help out by cooking some grains, but when they were actually needed there is no polenta. Raj was acting the prima donna in the kitchen and in the Confessional. He had this incredibly high and unwarranted view of his own skill level whereas in reality he just had no talent whatsoever and was a huge blowhard. His teammates were unto him and Ramsay was too. Trev decided to confront Raj and they had a bitter verbal battle and almost came to physical blows. Melissa’s Dover sole was grossly overcooked, so she had to start over. Ramsay commented about Raj: What a ? loser. At 90 minutes into dinner service, Raj was caught eating returned items, which he thought were delicious. Ramsay told him to “shut your fat face and cook.” Boris’ first attempt at a Beef Wellington turned out raw, which messed up an entire table’s order. Gail was having problems cooking beef and allowing her pan to go on fire. Ramsay’s
response: Your pan’s too hot. She looked like she was ready to quit. Ramsay accused her of losing the will to compete, but she responded that it was still alive. Her next one was OK. Raj ruined 3 consecutive Dover soles, then told Ramsay that there was no more sole for the Dover sole special. Raj now understood the degree of emnity that Ramsay and his teammates have toward him. He stated that “he needed to figure something out quickly.” I hoped and expected that Ramsay would eliminate him in the kitchen, but that did not happen.
The determination of which team won dinner service was left up to the feedback from diner comment cards. The Blue team was rated 54% positive while the Red Team got 54%. Blue won and got to not be picking two for elimination. Red considered who was the worst and, after changing their minds about Gail, nominated Emily and Sabrina. Sabrina stated boldly that she had more balls than anyone else on the Red team and deserved that she had the biggest target on her back but she could hold her own. She wanted Melissa to be on the chopping block in her place in spite of the fact that Melissa had given her crucial help and guidance during the dinner service. Ramsay asked Sabrina and Emily to come forward and state why they should stay. Neither gave a very good answer in my opinion. However, as usual it did not matter because Ramsay had his own ideas of justice. He eliminated Raj due to overt reason of eating customer food during dinner service, but also because Raj had shown no qualifications whatsoever.
HK8, ep. 4
The prior episode Raj was in conflict. EMTs arrived with friends for breakfast. The women won the Breakfast challenge. Raj screwed up by overcooking scallops and undercooking scallops but the men won anyway. The women nominated Sabrina and Melissa but Raj was the chef eliminated.
Ramsay started this episode by demonstrating how to make ravioli properly. The steps are:
1. Roll out fresh dough, made form flour, egg, water and salt.
2. Press the roll of fresh pasta through a pasta machine to thin to a uniform thickness
3. Place fillings and seasoning inside a ravioli shape
4. Close up that shape and seal, then drop gently into boiling water
5. Time or otherwise monitor the cooking of ravioli so that it isn’t too soft or firm
The challenge was, surprise, to make fresh ravioli out of a huge variety of interesting possibilities for fillings. They had 30 minutes to do it. Each of the 7 team members would be rank ordered by the team as a whole and would face-off against their counterpart from the other team. The results of this were these ravioli:
1. Melissa (chicken, pancetta, walnut cream cause)vs. Vinny (swiss chard, bacon,
mushrooms, fontina cream)
1 0 although quite good
2. Jillian (eggplant, spinach, garlic, ricotta in shells) vs. Rob (curry shrimp mousse, lemon zest and chives)
1 1
3. Nona (prosciutto, quail eggs) vs. Russell (ricotta, chile)
0 1
4. Emily (duck confit) vs. Louis (salmon mousse pine nuts)
1 0
5. Sabrina (shrimp, oregano) vs. Boris (feta, spinach)
0 1
6. Gail (shot ribs with sunripe tomato paste) vs. Trev (duck, arugula , mozzarella)
0 (lost due only to overseasoning) 1
The Blue team won, 4 to 3. Red was blaming Sabrina and Gail for losing their chances. And overlooking the fact the Nona had also lost.
Ramsay stated that there would be Italian Night the next evening. Red team had to prep both kitchens by making an ample supply of fresh pasta white the Blue team went on helicopters to Palos Verde, a southwestern elite suburb of Los Angeles for some golf practice, closest to the pin tournament and team-building with togetherness. Sabrina again put herself above the prep, which infuriated the rest of the Red team. Trev was also feeling persecuted, as his ravioli had been ranked last by his teammates yet he had won the crucial point for victory. Both teams were hungry to score in the dinner service. The Red team had had to fulfill Ramsay’s requirement that fresh mozzarella be served on Italian Night by having an extra-fresh supply of milk, by milking multiple cows that were placed outside Hell’s Kitchen to provide that milk. I think it was Lewis who termed the coming Blue team effort as “fast and furious; stay tuned.” The special menu included rock shrimp pizza, veal scallopini, grilled pork chop and Vinny’s ravioli item from the challenge. Melissa and Russell were assigned to the Appetizer stations.
HK was opened. Lewis had a stone-cold salmon appetizer to start off. Ramsay noted that Melissa’s first appetizer attempt was inadequate. Louis and Emily were on the Grill station, handling a combination of Fish and the pork chops. Lewis is on the Pasta station. Sabrina on the Meat station did not know how to cook this or that and had to ask her teammates until Melissa gave her special instructions on what to do. Sabrina admitted that she was a verifiable bitch and would try to disrupt her teammates. Ramsay accused Gail of having too-crunchy pasta. Rob had a burned pizza and was sent out of HK to eat it at the bar before he could return (that’s punishment?). Louis tried to do a roast pork dish, but failed due to it coming out raw. He took it in his hand to Sous Chef Scott for guidance. Scott lambasted him for lack of cleanliness. Boris for no apparent reason decided in the heat of battle to wash pans. Ramsay was incredibly pissed by this and banned him from the kitchen to wash post and pans in the back. Louis was also banned from the Blue kitchen. Vinny was put on the Meat station. The Red team finished up and was invited to help in the Blue kitchen, but with 7 orders left Ramsay had had enough. He sent both teams out of the kitchen and he, Andi and Scott finished dinner service. A couple was there for the purpose of the male proposing to the female and this happened without disruption.
You would think that the Blue team was the clear loser, but Ramsay indicated both teams failed to live up to his expectations. Both teams had to nominate 2. Nona nominated for Red Melissa and Sabrina (although she screwed up and said Gail by mistake first). The Blue team nominated Louis and Boris. I believe that Sabrina’s bitchiness and controversial behavior was so over the top that FOX and Arthur Smith intervened and prevented her from being eliminated as deserved. Ramsay decided that Louis was eliminated and the other 3 sent back into their lines. He stated “Louis dreamed of greatness, but the only thing I would trust him to do was toast marshmallows back at camp.” Nona could not believe that Sabrina had survived again, asking where the justice was in that?