Zen of Tofu

Back on the tele is one of my favourite shows, Hell’s Kitchen, featuring Gordon Ramsay and a bunch of aspiring chefs. The first episode of the season, Gordon made a disguised and great entrance. After blowing his cover, he made all the contestants cook their signature “crap” according to Ramsay. One dish even made him hurl! Oh the drama!

After criticizing all the signature dishes, what followed was one of the worst services ever for the show. These contestants are all over the place, and so far no one has really shined. Some may argue Louross did well, but he just seems weird to me. Just because he can spoke up, it doesn’t mean he can cook.

I find it hard to believe Gordon can hire one of the contestants to become an executive chef of some big restaurant. Just a couple challenges on this show cannot makeup for the years of essential experience needed to run a major restaurant. Inspiration is only 1% of the way to seriously earning such a high position. I can understand if these contestants were required to have formal training, but because the directors & producers of the show are the ones choosing the contestants, they are only looking for the ones who can spice up the show — not earn the position.

We’ll see how things go this season, but I’ll surely enjoy the bollocking these contestants will receive from Ramsay. I hope he gets to show some more of his personality this series, because he can be quite funny as shown when he was on the Jonathon Ross show.

Some other British notables that I love to watch are: Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr, Sean Lock, Vic Reeves, Stephen Fry, and Jamie Oliver.

written by tofu \\ tags: Food, TV

Last night I was just flipping through the channels on the tube and was pleasantly surprised to see Gordon Ramsay’s latest TV show airing — Kitchen Nightmares. It was a mediocre episode with enough drama and cursing to make it a Gordon Ramsay show, but it still had a bit of the feel of the UK Kitchen Nightmares series. It lacked some of the structure due to the drama, but I think things will return to a more traditional feel once the season continues.

So far I’ve stayed away from the new seasons of the popular TV shows like Lost or Prison Break, and it seems like I’ll mostly just be looking forward to Kitchen Nightmares. If I start watching all these shows, my grades will definitely suffer. These shows just cover too much of my free time (AKA prime time), and all that free time I should be using towards reading, coding, and calculating. When will the math applications end?! Computer science isn’t the same without the math so I better get used to it!

written by tofu

The Hell’s Kitchen finale was on last night, and I’m pleased to exclaim that Rock won! After the first few episodes I really wanted to see this father of two win the big prize. Both finalists were well qualified for the job but it was apparent that Rock had more experience than Bonnie. At first, things didn’t seem so bright for Rock because his service was held back by one of his mates, but after moving him to a different station, food started flying out of Rock’s kitchen and his customer’s were being fed without any “send-backs.”

Overall, it was a pretty good season except for the Asian cowboy chef who broke down during every episode. I look forward to watching next season’s episodes and I’m still waiting to see how FOX’s version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares turns out. At least the Food network seems to be still airing episodes of the original Kitchen Nightmares. (Last night’s was the huge turnaround for a restaurant known as La Parra.)

written by tofu

Recently I noticed a commercial for the new season of Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay’s wrath at the helm. I’m quite excited to see the new contestants get battered, insulted, and broken while they try to use the last bits of determination and inspiration to pass Ramsay’s expectations.

Today when I watched the beginning of the F1 race in Monaco, they showed Gordon with his wife who came to watch the race. He seemed so much nicer than the way the media depicts him. Not one swear word came out of his mouth! Now how’s that for the critics?

So I’ll be looking forward to Monday nights starting June 4th! I hope the contestants are at least half-decent for their own sakes!

written by tofu

I heard two great quotes last night while watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on the Food Network.

“The name is not critical, the change is crucial.”
“Safe means we’re in the sh**!”
- Gordon Ramsay

The first quote is concerning a restauranteur’s reluctance to change his restaurant’s name and make the necessary changes to start fresh. It struck me as enlightening because we often find it hard to make changes in our lives even though they are for the better. When we live in the past, we are hesitant to change our ways and not willing to start from scratch, not realizing that we have more experience and talent than when we started from scratch before. Especially as times change, we need to keep ourselves up to date and conscious of our present day situation, despite the hardships and fears accumulated from the past.

The second quote emphasizes on the first and is just plain hilarious when heard in context. It arises from the restauranteur doubting that a name change will bring him more business, and believing that if he stayed where he was, he would be safe (but also neck deep in debt). I tend to agree with this quote although it may seem reckless at first. Playing it safe doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll end up in the deep-end, but playing safe definitely doesn’t leave any room for fun or spontaneity, and if you like an exciting lifestyle then playing safe would not get you anywhere.

So that’s just my two cents on some intellectually inspiring quotes. I don’t usually pay attention to famous quotes, let alone try to identify them and write them down, but these two definitely seemed unique and ~nutritional~.

written by tofu