"Kitchen Nightmares" - September 25, 2008 episode

This visit was to Great Neck, New York, to an Italian restaurant called Trobiano's. The restaurant is co-owned by Anthony and the parents (Joe and Pat) of Anthony's girlfriend Tiffany. Anthony is also the executive chef and Tiffany is a waitress in the restaurant. The business isn't doing all that well, but Anthony has implemented an early bird special which practically fills the restaurant at 4:30 with old people, but by the normal dinner rush of 7pm, the restaurant is empty. The portions are also so big that many people have enough leftovers to take with them to be a meal for the next day. Gordon comes in and sees the limited business that the restaurant has as well as the wastefully large servings, and on top of that, he hates the food. When he berates Anthony for his seeming lack of care, and Anthony is unresponsive, Gordon leaves, but Anthony goes after him, and after a sidewalk chat, Gordon is convinced to come back and try again.

The first thing Gordon does is to take all four of them to a farm and have them each milk a cow. They then bring the milk back to the restaurant where Gordon teaches them to make homemade and fresh mozzarella cheese, which will be the new signature dish/ingredient in the restaurant. He also introduces a new menu with new dishes which are more properly proportioned.

One problem that persists, though, is that Anthony is not tasting the dishes he sends out, so many get sent back because they're not done correctly or don't taste good. It's an obstacle Anthony manages to hurdle just in time for the arrival of Bon Appetit's editor-in-chief. Luckily, she and others at her table seem to like their food. Gordon takes Anthony aside and says there's only one thing missing, and that's his long-put-off proposal to Tiffany. Gordon presents Anthony with a ring to give to her, and after Gordon presents executive chef Anthony to the restaurant, he calls Tiffany to him, gets down on one knee and proposes, which she accepts. Gordon then says that he's arranged for them to get married that very night, which does happen. I thought the whole proposal thing was pretty cute, but the wedding thing was a bit much for me. Being that rushed and not being able to enjoy it wouldn't have been my choice. All I can think is that Gordon talked to both Anthony and Tiffany about it, and they each had expressed a desire to get married soon. I'm also not sure about the wisdom of Joe and Pat putting their home and whole life savings at stake for the sake of a mere boyfriend of their daughter's.



In the second part of this double episode, we go to the heart of New York City, to Black Pearl, which has three owners that end up creating chaos for the staff. One of the owners (David) is so controlling that he doesn't even allow the head chef to season his own dishes, which Gordon finds appalling. Gordon then later gets into a heated disagreement with David about the difference between Maine lobsters, which is what the menu advertises serving, and Canadian lobsters, which is what the restaurant actually serves. (From doing a search on the net, there seems to be a lot of dispute about whether or not there is actually a difference between the two. Fascinating.)

The consensus is that the restaurant has no direction or leadership, so it's decided that one of the three managers needs to be the general manager so that there's really one voice making the decisions. Gordon sends home one of the managers, who seems to have almost no real interest in the restaurant, and the remaining two managers, David and Greg, take turns running the restaurant's dining room and being the expediter. David is condescending and arrogant as an expediter and downright rude, including to guests, as manager of the dining room. Greg is better running the dining room, and though he initially struggles as the expediter, he manages to finish the task. A poll of the restaurant staff determines that the overwhelming majority would rather have Greg as the General Manager, so that is implemented. To help promote the new place, Gordon introduces a lobster claw machine in the restaurant, like the kind where you normally get stuffed animals, but in this case, they are live lobsters in a water tank - if you pay the money and can fish one out, they'll cook it and feed it to you for free. To help promote the new restaurant, Gordon also arranges for a walkaround lobster - "Louis" - to be with them as they pass out flyers in Times Square. I thought the lobster claw machine was actually pretty funny, but I also thought that, as well as Louis, were a bit odd and a bit of a departure from what Gordon normally does.

The third partner seemed to agree that he really shouldn't be in the restaurant business, but David was in total denial and blind about the harm he was doing the restaurant and the staff with his attitude and behaviour. Gordon says that the restaurant has a chance of surviving if the other two get out and Greg is left as the sole owner of the restaurant. It will be interesting to see if they revisit this place to see if it survives.


One problem I still have with this show is that they seem to run short on content and expend inordinant amounts of time showing you what you're about to see in the next segment. It's like watching a trailer for a movie that shows you all the plot points of the movie. What's the point of that? They must take hours and hours of footage for each show, and they can't cobble together 48 minutes or so of actual show from that?