Gordon Ramsay's Bleep-O-Fucking-Meter: 20
Best Food Insult: "Holy cow -- looks like a bison's tongue!"
After the pre-show previews, I was really excited about this episode. Everyone shown seemed vacuous, "like-minded," and potentially sleeping with each other, and then there was going to be a fabulously quotable comment from Ramsay where he sneered, "I feel like I'm in the middle of a rehearsal for Friends." Sadly, however, that comment never made it to the show-cut version.
Campania is located in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. However, the only way to orient ourselves, apparently, is to be told how far it is from New York City. Fair Lawn has a NYC ETA pedigree of "about 20 minutes." Joe Something-that-sounds-like-Sniglet has been the owner for 18 months and is already in serious debt. Joe didn't go to culinary school. Joe doesn't use recipes or measuring spoons. Joe is, in his own words, "the best." At losing money. And potentially not knowing the difference between pine nuts and pecans. The kitchen staff -- cooks and servers together -- have a grand old time, whooping it up, calling each other names, and locking a worker in the walk-in on a regular basis. Hey, it IS like Friends! Except that it's not the head chef being locked in the walk-in and having her hat set on fire by her staff; it's the hapless, underpaid, non-English-speaking line cook! Josette -- a whiskey-voiced waitress -- describes the kitchen as a "big romper room." Head Chef Gene is proud that he's "still a kid" who "still has" a tongue ring and a tattoo. Too bad this kid doesn't "still have" most of his hair. Also, pierced tongue tasting my food: yummy.
Aside from the cool clique in the kitchen, Campania has other problems. Their oven is broken and being used as a linen closet, and one of the walk-ins doesn't feel like closing properly to keep all the food-saving cold-airiness inside. Josette thinks "the men" should be able to fix all that stuff, but I guess they're too busy doing keg stands to care. We get some shots of Joe being authoritative, but when he asks for "planchetta," I have this image of Suzanne Pleshette wrapped in pork fat. Joe's mother -- who thinks she's Jersey's answer to Sharon Osbourne -- is worried about her son, her daughter-in-law, and the grandkids. Joe is worried about his debt and being unable to pay his purveyors.
Ramsay arrives like a really big, really profane Mighty Mouse and finds Campania in a strip mall. He sits down and is blandly unimpressed by his first meeting with Joe, who points too much for Ramsay's taste. Eschewing the seafood this time around, Ramsay orders tortellini en brodo, ravioli, and the pistachio-and-cranberry-crusted chicken breast. In the dining room, Ramsay waits over twenty minutes for his food, but has the riotous behavior in the kitchen to keep his ears company. He is not amused. We hear and see two of the waitresses tell each other four times over, with lots of swearing and lots of shrieking surprise, that their menstrual cycles or something are so in sync, how hungry they both are. Ramsay's also hungry, and finally his food arrives. The tortellini en brodo is bland and tasteless, the ravioli has way too much garlic, and the chicken is overdone and overly sweet.
Back in the kitchen, in addition to ticking Joe off about his food's shortcomings, Ramsay tells everyone how pissed off he got listening to them screaming and laughing while he was waiting for his food. Upon inspecting the kitchen, Ramsay doesn't find rotting food -- although he does find opened and therefore dead mussels -- but he finds too much stocked food for a restaurant with such a small turnover. Ramsay explains all this to Gene and Joe, and Joe finally sees his walk-in in a brand new light. Dinner service boots up, and Ramsay watches. Another waitress, Ariana, is the spitting image of Phoebe's flaky twin, Ursula, and she tells us grinningly, "Campania's like high school, cuz it's, like, a really close-knit social environment so everybody, like, really gets along." And then they start playing bamp-chicka music, which made me think we were going to see some Bourdain-touted sex in the walk-in. But we don't. We don't even see Ramsay's naked chest, which has now been conspicuously absent for many, many episodes. In the middle of the bamp-chicka music, Jessica (another waitress) admits proudly to being the biggest flirt there.
Ramsay eyeballs another area of waste: too many staff members. He gets Joe to excuse (for the night) a waitress and a shaggy-haired line cook, at whose retreating back he calls, "Get yourself a haircut!" Outside, the waitress is pissed because she, like, totally cancelled her dinner plans with HER FRIENDS to come in to be on television -- I mean, "to work" -- and, like, Joe totally needs her when his ass is on the line, but when she has the chance to, like, make it Hollywood-style, he disses her. Presumably, since dinner service hasn't quite started, Crabby Waitress could still catch up with her dining friends, so, like, chill.
Dinner service gets underway and things fall apart. The diners wait forever for food, and Josette rasps to us, smiling, "That's what Campania's known for -- waiting forever for your food." Well, hey, get me a reservation there! Some diner stages a phone call to a pizza place to order a pizza. (We never see it delivered or consumed.) Some food gets to diners, but it's gross and overcooked and -- in one sad case of cod -- grey. Ramsay boggles over Campania's portion size and, truly, some lady is eating a Flintstonian veal shank. Most customers are sent home with doggie bags, which they probably dump as soon as they get out of the restaurant.
To teach Joe a lesson, Ramsay sits him down at a table with a bunch of food Ramsay ordered. Joe is taken aback by the amount and even asks, "Did you want all this food now? Do you have friends with you?" Ramsay's M.O. here is for Joe to see the amount of food that gets served to just two people. It's a lot but hey, much less than Cheesecake Factory. Or so I've heard. Ramsay explains how Joe has no friggin' idea how to manage a restaurant. Joe listens, and then Ramsay goes off on him for not being able to make even bruschetta properly. The shot we see makes the bread look more burned than grilled. Joe starts to pout and gets angry and announces, "All right, you know what? Why don't we make it a fucking public issue now? There's customers here, there's customers here -- I'd rather have this conversation downstairs!" Honestly? The customers didn't seem to notice them until Joe himself raised his voice and started waving his hands around. Ramsay asks if he's scared. "Am I scared? You're embarrassing me in front of my customers!" Joe whines. Joe, meet Kitchen Nightmares -- it's a show where you get embarrassed. Kitchen Nightmares, meet Joe -- he's a dumb-ass.
Ramsay pays a visit to Joe's wife at their nice and large and very white home. Ramsay jogs upstairs to meet one of Joe's three boys, Evan. "Nice to meet you -- girlfriend's name?" Ramsay teases. Aw. Back downstairs, Ramsay gently tells Melissa how much her husband sucks as a businessman. Melissa tears up and cries, and Ramsay says in a complete monotone, "Please don't get upset. I don't want you to get upset. Please." Maybe in a bathroom now, where Melissa has access to Kleenex or toilet paper or something to stanch the snot, Ramsay continues to talk to her about how in debt they are and how it can be turned around. The camera peers in through a cracked door to make us think we're illicitly listening in on a conversation on a reality show. Ramsay slaps Melissa a few times on the knee and promises to help them.
Ramsay is back at the restaurant and ready to straighten everything out. He tackles the restaurant's food presentation and cooking techniques, and grants them a signature dish: the meatball. I searched for Ramsay's meatball recipe, but wonder if he hasn't gone off them lately. You know, because of the brûléed balls. However, I did find a recipe for a meatball I know and snarf down at A16 in San Francisco. There's not a lot I love about A16 (except their new sister restaurant, SPQR) but they do know how to make one fine ball o' meat.
Ramsay wants Campania to become famous for their meatballs, and even has the staff out working the streets. He gets them a new van, emblazoned with "Campania: New Jersey's Best Meatballs" (Seriously? Who underscores anymore?), and the same on tee-shirts, which should prove interesting for the ladies, and has them handing out free meatballs to all passersby.
Finally, Ramsay sits down with Joe (again, some more) and gives him some hard facts about his restaurant's finances. He even says that if Joe doesn't shape up, his business will "fucking swim down the Hudson." , he tells Joe to "stand strong" and not take it personally.
The day is the relaunch and the restaurant's redesign. It has brand new signage with curly-cues and fleurchons and stuff around the name (it matches the signage design on the van), all of which you can see blooming on the restaurant's website. The sidewalk in front of the restaurant's entrance is covered with a carpet that has large red squares surrounded by light brown borders -- very Scando-chic -- and there are also topiaries and black benches. It's very stylish and attractive for a strip mall. The staff squees and cries and jumps around. The squeeing continues inside when they all discover…candles? Again, it's hard to tell from the before-and-after shots we get what really changed. Ramsay also gave the restaurant a brand new stove and smaller plates to go with the smaller portions, but there's no word about the walk-in with the flapping door. Ramsay sits down with Gene and Joe and presents them with a new simpler and more concise menu. Regarding the almost-famous meatball, Joe has decided, "If people start bitchin', the meatball's going to come out of the kitchen [do you see what he did there?], and hopefully that will appease them." One last thing -- Ramsay decides to motivate the waitstaff with a contest. He wants every item on the new menu sold, and the first server to sell one of each wins $100. Oh, and they shout, "BINGO!" when they do it. Because they are all named Agnes and Ethel and Dot.
Everyone's pumped as dinner service starts. I wish I could say that this episode sheared away from the usual planned rise and fall of the night, but I can't. Some guests love the food, but one Joisey matron goes on about how terrible the food is. Her dining companions seem to agree. The server tells Joe what's going on, and Joe tells us, "It was almost too bad to be true." Like this entire show? News of the customer's complaints reaches Ramsay. He determines that nothing is wrong with the food and that the woman's complaints don't hold water, so instead of dealing with it in a professional way, apologizing and getting rid of the woman, Ramsay takes a Hell's Kitchen approach and insults the woman. It's awesome. He tells her, aggressively, "Why don't you just take a seat? Just sit down and try to enjoy a cup of coffee?" The woman can't enjoy it because her husband is starving because they couldn't eat the food, and she lists all the things that were wrong with her food. Ramsay says, "Okay, good, now madam, unfortunately you are talking out of your rear." The matron tells Ramsay to watch his mouth; Ramsay tells her to stop walking around and causing trouble. Matron tells Ramsay to grow up and walks away…to stand to the host's station? Ramsay loudly greets a new contingent of diners and says, "So sorry about the old bag." Old Bag, of course, is standing right there and just looks around. Okay, so we haven't seen that before on this show, but Ramsay's behavior seemed to pave the way for the second customer incident of the night.
The pressure takes its toll on Joe, so, stressed out, he leaves the kitchen to take a breather and walk around the restaurant and greet his guests. Meanwhile, with Joe gone, it seems stuff goes wrong in the kitchen. Ramsay starts asking, "Where is Joe?" But Joe is glad-handing his customers and friends. Gene admits, "He's like Houdini -- he not around and you have to pick up the slack." Well, you are head chef, dude. However, with Joe not in the kitchen, cooking grinds to a halt and diners are back to waiting too long for their food. One table has been waiting for two hours for their food, and are loud about it. I'd say they have reason to complain. They're even more pissed because no one has even come over to explain or acknowledge the ridiculously long-ass wait. Joe finally makes it over to this table and asks what's going on. I guess Joe made good on his whole "if people start bitchin', the meatball's going to come out of the kitchen," because the later-than-Jesus table has some meatballs, but now the complaint is that they are burned. If the shot we're given is anything to go by, it's true. The meatballs are burned. Just like Ramsay's. Joe laughingly tells them that he doesn't know what to tell them. Well, that's inspiring. I'm not sure if they finally got their food or not, but when Joe apologizes, the loudest woman -- who now has her coat on -- tells him sorry isn't good enough. Joe backs away, saying he's gotta run back to the kitchen now. Angry Customer says, "Yeah, you gotta run back." Joe says he really does. "Yeah, I guess you really do," Angry Customer says.
shot, Angry Customer is standing near the door, still (rightfully, in my opinion) complaining. However, she's also doing it in front of Joe's mom, and Mr. Voice-Over's tone suggests how unseemly that is. Like, the woman works at her son's restaurant, and unless people are making personal attacks, which this woman isn't, you're going to have to deal with complaints. Grow a pair of meatballs, lady. Angry Customer complains to some other patron, "I felt like I was eating ragu." Well, if she were eating ragù, I don't think she'd be complaining but I assume she meant "Ragú." Joe's mom now directs someone to the Angry Customer, saying, "She's out there moping." Dude, I'd be moping (and then some!) if I had to wait two hours for burned meatballs. ["I'd have been gone an hour ago, but that's me." -- Sars] On the subject of a fish dish, Angry Customer says, "Well, somebody else had the fish and it tasted like pond water." Joe's mom says to a server, "I'm listening to this witch, I wanna go strangle her." That's a great slogan: "Campania: If you don't love our food, we'll strangle you." Finally, this all comes to a head when a "less-than-sober, but satisfied" customer walks outside to where Angry Customer now is and starts (drunkenly) shouting her down. She (drunkenly) defends Campania, saying, "If it was that bad, then why did you keep eating if it was that bad?" When you've waited two hours for food and you're hungry, well, you might keep eating in the hopes it gets better. Meanwhile, (drunken) Campania-defender's boyfriend seems to be protecting Angry Customer from his (drunken) girlfriend. There's more of this screaming and swearing, and Angry Customer says, "Oh, my god in heaven, you people are mental." (Drunken) girlfriend screams that Angry Customer just got all this food for free -- comped because it sucked, or comped because it always is on this show? -- so she should have nothing bad to say. Ah, yes, that's always a great argument. Think of public schools: "You got your education for free, why are you complaining that the teacher molested your kid?" Hysterically, (drunken) girlfriend yells at (fairly sober) Angry Customer, "Go have another bottle of wine, you fucking alcoholic." There are so many black pots and kettles raining down that Ramsay could open a little teashop right there in the strip mall's parking lot. Meanwhile, (drunken) girlfriend keeps screaming as she climbs into her SUV and then a squad car "on neighborhood patrol extinguishes the fiery argument." And that's all we get. Whatev.
Back in the restaurant, Ramsay tells Joe that when he's dealing with an angry customer like Angry Customer, he needs to just get over it and move on and not bother with bargaining. He also tells him to make his glad-handing rounds faster. Joe is back in the kitchen, getting serious, and things go well again. He dispenses good advice like, "Every steak that comes in now, write 'skirt,' so we can tell the difference." Everyone is all inspired and stuff. Raspy Josette wins the $100 in menu Bingo and Ramsay hugs her. That's worth more than the $100.
Everything's good; Ramsay delivers his pep talk and compliments to the entire restaurant and there's happiness and commitment and pride and crap. In the days that followed, Campania continued to do well and make profits and Joe grew up to be a man. One last thing, however, needed to be done. Ramsay starts throwing all the "stupid, big, steering wheels" of plates on the floor. Everyone joins in except, probably, the one busboy, who's like, "Dammit -- I gotta clean that up and this isn't even a Greek restaurant!" Hugs all around, and Ramsay leaves.
Dammit, now I want a meatball.