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Hell's Kitchen 9
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I am watching the Monday Night Football Game, so I am replaying bits and pieces of my Hell's Kitchen finale tape from tonight, although I will not be completed until tomorrow morning. I will report the outcome for those anxious to know. After a series of tests, including the Taste It, Now Make It test (won by Paul) the first 2 eliminated were as expected, Tommy and Elise. Then in the finale I thought it was a shocker when Paul upset Will for the title, position and big money.
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HK9, finale part 1
This episode opened with a review of what happened during the season, then a focus on the 4 remaining chef. The relatives of each one were brought out as motivation ($25,000 isn’t enough according to this theory):
Paul’s brother
Elise’s husband, son and mother
Will’s wife
Tommy’s mother and 19 year old girlfriend
Ramsay then used his most difficult challenge, Taste It and then Make It. That requires the chefs to make a dish with no knowledge of ingredients or recipe to use their 5 senses and figure out what ingredients were involved and how to cook it in 35 minutes. The approaches taken were:
Elise – halibut, prosciutto, mushrooms, kale, cream
Will – monkfish, prosciutto, mushrooms, kale, cream
Paul – cod, prosciutto, mushrooms, kale, cream
Tommy - monkfish, Serrano ham, mushrooms, kale, cream
Tommy was eliminated because Serrano ham was not right. Elise and Will were eliminated because it cod was correct and not monkfish. Paul won the opportunity with his brother to visit Dodger’s Stadium, including meeting legendary manager Tommy Lasorda, current manager Don Mattingly and a few players. Paul and his brother got great seats and watched as rookie Dodger pitcher Gordon Ramsay took a post-soccer turn at a new athletic career. He side-armed a pitch with excellent velocity and reached the catcher. Then he bought hot dogs and beer for Paul, his brother and himself. A good time was had by all.
Then it’s back to business at dinner service with the chefs taking a turn running the pass with the usual sabotaging going on. Paul was given his turn first and he had nothing but lack of communication and poor performance out of Tommy. Paul maintained persistent pressure on Tommy to get his act together and it did not impact the flow of dishes leaving the kitchen. Paulo was sabotaged by Scott and he did not taste the shrimp in pasta that Scott sent him instead of lobster. Tommy was next at the pass and he was sabotaged by Maitre D’ James into calling out a nonsensical order, which he failed. Tommy showed uneven leadership of his kitchen. Next was Elise and she passed the sabotage test by catching Scott substituting parsnip puree for potato mash, but failed to notice a squeeze bottle with an incorrect sauce. She was very peremptory in her demands on her kitchen staff. Last was Will, who caught Scott’s attempt to give him some version of lamb that was not correct. Then Elise devised a number of unofficial tests in her attempt to undermine Will. She put pasta in spinach and black peppercorns in sweet potato. Will did not do an exemplary job of running the kitchen, as his staff was not communicating with him in silent protest of his leadership style.
It was time for Ramsay to make and announce his decisions on who were going on and who were not. He first eliminated Tommy because “he was not ready to run BLT Steak.” Then he eliminated Elise, who was teary and upset. Ramsay told her to take her chef’s jacket, which is high praise indeed because he almost never does that. Montages of the Hell’s Kitchen career of Tommy and Elise were shown.
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HK9 finale, part 2
So that leaves Will versus Paul. Their first task is to create a menu for the next evening’s dinner service. The next morning they review those menus with Andi (Will) and Scott (Paul). Then Ramsay offers to take them out for a casual, easy meal. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, as Ramsay is known to put finalists on the spot instantly. The families of Paul and Will go with them to “a new Ristorante, Blanco” in limos and Ramsay met them there. He opened the doors to the kitchen and there was a throng of hundreds cheering wildly. This is the typical challenge to determine who gets first pick of their staff. Paul and Will have one hour to cook 5 different dishes to be judged as follows by BLK Steaks executive chefs around the U.S. and the company president:
Seafood Appetizer Washington DC Victor Albisu
Salad Los Angeles Brian Moyers
Seafood Entrée Honolulu Johan Svensson
Ribeye Steak New York City Cliff Crooks
Beef Filet President of BLT Steaks Keith Trayball
These are the dishes and results:
App.Paul - mussels Will- seared P0, W1
Salad Paul – beets w/champagne vinaigrette Will – mixed greens medley potatoes P1, W0
Seafood App.Paul – bronzini Will – dover sole P1, W0
Ribeye Will – pan-roasted ribeye w/ puree Will – grilled ribeye P0, W1
Beef Filet Will – w/truffle sauce Will – grilled filet w/buttered Brussels Sprouts P0, W1
That resulted in a final score of Will 3 and Paul 2, with Paul winning the challenge. That gave him the crucial 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th picks of staff. The resulting picks were:
Will – Tommy, Natalie, Jennifer, Krupa
Paul – Elise, Elizabeth, Jonathon, Carrie
The drama of this process was in Paul stepping up to take the controversial Elise and Will taking Krupa to put last pick Carrie on the same team as Elise. We will see how these decisions turn out.
Paul made the decision to start Elise, by far his most reliable performer, on appetizers and then swing her to replace non-performers. You never know how motivate Elise would be, but it appeared that she intelligently decided to shine as part of the team, something she had not succeeded in doing in any prior episode. She failed on her first batch of shrimp, but then got all her apps out rapidly. It looked like there were no returns for her dishes. Natalie also did a good job on appetizers for Will’s team. Will jumped the gun in giving out orders for entrees before the real orders were in. Ramsay called him out on that. Elizabeth’s scallops were undercooked. Krupa made her first mistake of sending raw fish from the fish station and then continued to make them. It looked like she failed to produce a single good fish dish all evening. Will eventually got tired of her failure because it was killing his chances of winning, so he put Natalie in there and switched Krupa to desserts. Jonathon had a raw steak and then a group of raw steaks. Paul quickly substituted Elise for him and got perfect performance from her for the rest of the evening.
Dinner service ended. It looked to me like a victory for Paul. Ramsay took the customer comment cards and analyzed them, then he called the chefs to his office for the ritual opening of the winning chef’s door. The throng below cheered as Paul went through. In the final closing shot, Ramsay and others were talking to Elise. Ramsay stated his unequivocal advice to Elise: “Just stop being a bitch.” Indeed.
SuperTux:
According to the latest news, no Chinese subtitle group is gonna keep translating Gordon Ramsay's series in future. HK S9 is the final series that is translated into Chinese. This means Gordon's series have lost the market among Chinese reality show fans.
Vigate:
I love Chef Ramsay! And thanks for all these great recaps!
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