I used to work in a restaurant. It was a family-run Italian place in Brantford, Ont. I started when I was 16, and moved my way up through the ranks from lowly dishwasher to pizza cook and pasta maker. I prepped all of the fresh fruit and vegetables, made meatballs, cooked pasta, slathered garlic butter on loaves of bread.
Cleanliness was always the No. 1 most important thing at Pizza Chief, which is why I am always so shocked to see the amount of spoilage that occurs at the eateries that Chef Ramsay visits. Last night’s episode of Kitchen Nightmares, which Global ended up airing as a special episode out of sequence with Fox, showed perhaps the most disgusting example of rotten food on the doc series.
The walk-in fridge in California’s Casa Mama boasted ribs that were three months old and riddled with mould. Unmarked slabs of meat dribbled pink goo into bowls set under them. Liquid seeped out of tar-coloured avocados and into Ramsay’s hands. Ham halves were so rancid that they stuck to the chef’s hand when he slapped his palm on them. He gagged. Hell, I gagged.
As is the norm with Nightmares, the core of the problem with Casa Mama was two-fold. The owners — a mother and two sons — have no experience in the restaurant business, so they lack the knowledge to run one. Secondly, they employed a head chef who didn’t care that he was churning out frozen food, unpalatable food, under-seasoned food, just plain crappy food. When Ramsay confronted him with the evidence — watery stuffed mushrooms, a greasy cheese sandwich that literally dripped oil and a raw-dough pizza — he chalked it up to “a bad day.”
Things went from bad to worse during dinner, when the guy all but gave up when he was presented with a measly eight tables to cook for.
He was quickly fired, and Ramsay stepped in, anointing the sous chef the new boss in the kitchen. Ramsay’s magic elves arrived and turned the dowdy restaurant interior (which had an unsettling amount of filth ground into its carpets and spattered onto its bathroom walls and ceiling) into a tiled-floor, checkered-tablecloth oasis.
Everything worked out in the end, and I can honestly say that for the first half-hour, I wasn’t so sure. And those ribs haunted me in my dreams.
Kitchen Nightmares airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, Global; Thursdays, 9 p.m. ET/PT, Fox.
Thoughts? greg@tvguide.ca or comment below.
Follow Greg on Twitter
Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook!