Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dis-missed!
By Monty Ashley | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 06.10.2008
When the first dish is finished, Bobby is called over to clean up the plates. Jen slips over and tastes the food, which she justifies as "You gotta do what you gotta do to win." Really? Is stealing food from someone else's plate going to help you win?
Christina interviews that she will exploit her reward to its greatest advantage, but I'm not sure how that will work. Maybe one of the chefs gave her really helpful advice like "Don't undercook the food" or "Try not to set yourself on fire."
During prep, Jen and Corey are annoyed by Christina asking questions like "Do we have enough food prepped?" That question seems fine, but she does go on to talk about how her new best friend Mark Peel told her that it's safe to blah blah blah.
Before the dinner service, the chefs are gathered to receive the ominous news that there will be a twelve-top. Really? We have so little confidence in these people that "a table of twelve people" is so tough it might destroy them? I realize it's more difficult, but wouldn't it be nice if the top five chefs were all so good they just shrugged it off?
We're told that Hell's Kitchen is booked to capacity, which makes it exactly like every other night. Chef Ramsay walks through the kitchen and prods the various chefs, encouraging Jen to move around a little more and not stand flat-footed. Before we can see if that generates anything interesting in the way of outraged responses, Jean-Philippe walks face-first into the kitchen door. It's a clear door, but it's still funny to see.
On the first dish, Christina is a little smug that being on hot appetizers means that she's making the lobster spaghetti, which means she's the "special station". After missing one order (she made one spaghetti instead of two), she seems to get in the groove, and she and Corey serve appetizers with no difficulty. Next, Bobby is on meat, Jen's on fish, and Petrozza is on vegetables, and it's time for entrees. Bobby's first dish is cut wrong, and he interviews that that means Chef Ramsay will be on him all night. Well, maybe, but we just saw Christina get her first thing wrong and proceed to shake it off. Bobby, however, gets more things wrong and gets stuff rejected left and right.
Next up, Jen is caught trying to deliver raw John Dory. Jean-Philippe hears her being yelled at (because he is A: in the same state as her, and B: not deaf) and instructs the servers to "push the meat". Can you say that at work without Human Resources getting involved? It looks like he's right, though, because the fish that Jen brings to replace the raw portions? It's overcooked. JP is very firm on the meat.