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Ramsay's Best Restaurant

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apskip:
The final first-round competition is Spanish food, between Fino of central London (originator of tapas in the U.K.) and El Pirata Detapas in Notting Hill. The managers of Fino are the Hart brothers, the head chef is female Nieves and sous chef is Alicia. They serve on average about 700 tapas plates every evening and Nieves tastes and seasons each one of them. The manager of El Pirata is Roberto , his 26 year old head chef (trained under Ferran Adria) is Omar, known for his molecular techniques and avant garde cooking, and the sous chef is Adriana. One minor quarrel that Ramsay had was the service of plates as soon as ready without attempting to coordinate arrival of all dishes for a table simultaneously, which is a bit harder to accomplish.

The visit by Ramsay's 30 diners simultaneously to Fino involves a menu of special appetizers (one seafood) and choice of two entrees, roast suckling pig and turbot. Ramsay's diners rate the food and service as both excellent. Ramsay calls Nieves brilliant, a "culinary Picasso."

The same diners on another day visited El Pirata Detapas and were pig trotters Wellington, gazpacho, lentil stew and risotto with unusual coxcombs (free but seldom used by any U.K. chefs). Ramsay's diners again rated the food as brilliant. However, the wait staff missed one diner who did not receive his risotto until after all the other 3 at his table had finished. 

The secret diners did their thing. Sarah Durdin-Robertson was her usual difficult self at Fino (putting her own hair into a salad to see how the staff reacted; they got her another one rapidly even though stating that the hair color did not match any of the dark hair people in the kitchen), but the female waitress handled it with aplomb and also demonstrated great knowledge of Spanish wines. The food and service were both rated excellent.  Simon Davis went into El Pirata and ordered a bottle of wine. 7 minutes later there was no sign of it, but the camera had caught the waiter playing on a PC. he had apparently forgotten that order and had to be reminded. The food was excellent.

going into the cookoff, I see Fino with a huge Front of the House edge despite the superb cooking of Omar. I don't see how Nieves is going to give him enough room to make up the deficit. The cookoff is based on pork. Nieves creates a dish of pork cutlet with cauliflower puree and broad beans, very simple yet executed perfectly. Omar does a much more complex dish, his Wellington pig trotters combined with miscellaneous waste pork parts cooked in an unbelievable sauce. Both have again done brilliantly, but the victory was preordained for Fino based on the original service deficits at el Pirata. Omar is congratulated by Ramsay for brilliant cooking but Fino is moving on to the semi-finals.

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SEMI-FINALS part 1

I expected that the competition would have another face off between the four pairs of restaurants who won the preliminary rounds for their type of cuisine. However, Ramsay surprised me with a different format. For the semi-finals, he was using prior information plus a new round of undercover diners to eliminate 2 of 4 restaurants in the first part and then the two remaining face off in what Ramsay referred to as "sudden death." In the next episode, the same ting will happen.

This episode's restaurant are Casa Mia (Italian), Yu and You (Chinese), Namh Jim (Thai) and Fino (Italian). Based on what I remember, I would give the edge to Casa Mia and Fino and call it even between those two. Let's see how Ramsay decided. The problems he focused in on in the first round were:

Casa Mia - the brother chefs went too far ahead of customer tastes with avant garde dishes designed to please other chefs; their parents were unwilling to rein them in
Yu and You - overstaffing cause lack of continuity in who a customer sees at their table
Namh Jim - service problems caused food to wait on a hot plate and get cold
Fino - atmosphere noisy (I note that's difficult to fix without moving the restaurant) and too much salt put in by the chef Nieves

Ramsay sent in Simon Davis, Sarah Durdin-Robertson (not shown but you could hear her), rob Allison and an unidentified female as his secret diner for one of those four. They reported back and little had changed for any of the restaurants as best I understood the reports. On that basis, Ramsay picked the best two restaurants from the preliminary round, Casa Mia and Fino, for the face off.

This first involved an on-site unannounced visit by Ramsay, Angela Hartnett (a world-class chef  mentored by Ramsay) and Simon Davis. However, there was also a secret diner, Ramsay's personal assistant Jennifer with her companion, to see if the average diner was getting the same food and attention as Ramsay's entourage did.

Casa Mia went with an avant garge version of a 4 course feast:
Salmon sous vide , Cauliflower Puree and Lemon Emulsion
Risotto with Barley substituted for rice and yogurt for parmesan cheese
Lamb Sous Vide
Tiramisu

The results for the 3 celebrities were that the first and last dish were fine but the risotto was weird and the lamb came across as a boiled lamb  stew. However, the personal assistant found all her food and service exceptional. Ramsay's verdict on this experience was that the brothers were aiming their dishes toward what celebrity chefs would enjoy and not what a typical punter wanted to eat. They needed to tone down their menu. Also, the parents needed to exert some authority, demonstrating their willingness to direct their sons.

The same entourage turned up unannounced at Fino for lunch with the mandate that it be completed in one hour. The menu ordered included:
Chipriones - baby squid fried and coated with salt
Pork Belly

The problems identified by Ramsay were one of the pork bellies was cold, the chipriones were overseasoned and the service was marginal. The personal assistant thought that the welcome by the waiter should have been better, the courgettes (zucchini) were very good, but the overall service was not. Ramsay was not able to place a dessert order because the main course had not arrived until 40 minutes into the hour.

Based on that feedback, I have to say that it will be difficult for Casa Mia to lose. The final test happens when Ramsay invites the staff of both restaurants to North Islington, London where a vacant space awaits. he gives them 12 hours to create a pop-up restaurant with any menu (telling them to not be bound by what they do in their restaurant). Each team has 2000 pounds for food and decor. The FOH staff goes to buy plates, silverware, tables, chairs, tablecloths etc. while the chefs go with Ramsay to a local market. At the butcher, the brothers considered fine beef but ended up with pork belly and pork loin while Nieves chose pork bellies. At the fish monger, Nieves picks mackerel and wild sea bass while the brother pick wild sea bass. So the ingredients will be somewhat similar for each team but how will they do with them?

The 12 hour mandate (from 7am to 7pm when the restaurant opens for 3 hours only) keeps the FOH teams hopping, but they are pros and both come up with a decent setting in time. Ramsay acts like it is going to be decided in the kitchen when I believe that the verdict is already in unless Casa Mia has a huge quality drop.

50 hungry diners arrived at 7pm. I wondered if they included any of the 30 earlier diners but it is impossible to tell. I don't spot duplications. The menu for Casa Mia is:
Fresh Tomato jam salad w/ mozzarella and parmesan dusting
Carrot Mushroom Soup
Pork belly with prime cut pork filet and Italian garnishes
Sea bass with cannelloni beans
Cake with Apple Crumble and cheese custard

The menu for Fino is:
Mackerel with garlic and apple salad
Pork Belly with red wine sauce
Sea Bass
Santiago tart with cheese

The food from both kitchens is extraordinary as expected despite the extreme challenges involved. Both chefs and FOH staff stretched to make their pop-up restaurants work. Ramsay found that the brothers had reined in their avant garde tastes and listened to his feedback to develop a menu with broader appeal. also, their mother had been tough with them when necessary to convey the needs of diners. Nieves had responded with speed to a difficult special request to add potatoes to one meal.
'
with what I will call a tie in the final challenge, the decision reverted to the prior status where I felt Casa Mia had a substantial edge. The win went to Casa Mia, who move on the the finale in 2 episodes while next episode will be the other semifinal.

apskip:
It's time for the second semifinal showdown between Prashad, a very small Indian restaurant with husband (FOH), wife (head chef) and mother/owner (sous chef) competing against the Milestone, a larger British restaurant owned and managed by Matt and Mark as Front of House with head chef Simon and sous chef James . That occured because in a sudden death decision by Ramsay, he eliminated the North African restaurant Azou and the French restaurant Wittingham Fields due to feedback from a secret diner (Simon Davis, Rob Allison, or Michelle Fowler) sent in to specifically check on whether each of the 4 restaurants had implemented his recommendations from the preliminary round. Azou and Wittingham fields were eliminated as a result. However, Prashad suffered in reputation because its service excellence built on Bobby's presence was undercut by his absence during the visit of the secret diner.

The entourage of Ramsay, Simon Davis and Angela Hartnett dropped in unannounced but obviously expected at Prashad. However, the key would be whether the secret diners (Angela's mother and a companion) would get the same treatment as the celebrity chefs and critic. The short answer is that they did. Angela's mother rated both the food and the service as exceptional. Ramsay's own reflections were that the food was phenomenal and that this visit was "about redemption."

The same entourage went to the Milestone and dined on a menu featuring mackerel, Black Pudding, Consomme with pea shoots and mushrooms wrapped in pork as appetizers and barbetto beef with red wine jus and vegetable cannelloni as entrees plus 2 desserts and a cheese table.
Ramsay's feedback was "I've tasted the greatness" but it wasn't fully present at this meal. The secret diners were Angela's sister and companion and they liked neither the bread nor the too-heavy black pudding. Ramsay stated "tonight it was a big disappointment." I must say that it looked like nothing was going to stop Prashad from being the winner of this semifinal at that point.

Both restaurants were invited to North London where they each inherited for 12 hours the upper or lower floor of empty space to turn into a pop-up restaurant which would operate for one night only starting at 7pm. Both restaurants had decor issues unpleasing to Ramsay. He considered them both to be second-rate and uninspired, so Ramsay asked Booby's mother to leave the kitchen and help finish the decor in time. Bobby prevented that from happening but did get his restaurant ready to open until less-than-ideal conditions. The decor for the Milestone pop-up was deemed by Ramsay to also be less than adequate. This would be decided by the kitchen staffs redeeming the performance of the FOHs. The chefs had bought "the highest quality vegetables" (Prashad) or meat at the butcher plus some veggies (Milestone).

Prashad's menu included:
Paneer curry between two rounds of yams
Baked yams and potatoes with toasted peanut filling
Baby aubergines

Milestone's menu included:
Silver Mullet w/ shrimp and skate scampi
Braised Oxtail
Mushrooms
Pork cooked 3 ways

One of the issues was whether each kitchen could fill orders quick enough to allow each table to be turned once, making space of 25 diners able to handle 50 total with the second seating. Prashad got off to an excellent start by taking orders quickly while Milestone screwed around and did not have them flowing to the kitchen for 25 minutes. However, it was Bobby who had problems in getting the second seating in. He just barely got all of them served before Ramsay ended the competition.

So it was time for Ramsay to announce his verdict on what was a major stretch for the staff of both restaurants. He cited FOH and kitchen issues for both restaurants. Prashad had served undercooked yams on both sides of the paneer. It looked like about equal performance on the pop-up to me, which meant that Prashad would win the semifinal. that was an accurate prediction and Prashad moved on to face Casamia in the finale next episode.

scuzneck:

--- Quote from: apskip on January 20, 2011, 10:19:18 AM ---TexasLady,

I know where these videos can be found, but unfortunately they are not accessible by anyone in the United States. This is the same sort of discrimination our brethren in Asia suffer on Elimination Station and similar CBS Amazing Race-related restrictions.

--- End quote ---

If you plug in the show's name on youtube, it looks as though all of the episodes (in parts) show up. The uploader is kitchennightmaresus.

I find youtube is pretty good at finding shows from the British Isles.

IloveJesus:
I loved Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen. I don't think Ramsay could make a bad show. I have not heard about this show. I live in the States and don't have BBC America. I definitely go check this out on youtube. I have been wanting to see a show where he wasn't trying to fix people or restaurants but actually appreciates the good restaurants and food out there. I know a buckhead restaurant that he shoudl come try. Thank you for the find!

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