I admit that most food shows on TV get on my nerves, especially those where people have to compete and please the taste buds of some alleged experts. But I really like Jamie Oliver for all his great efforts to educate people about healthy nutrition and how to create wholesome and creative meals in 30 minutes. I also enjoy the very dedicated and outspoken chef Ramsey and his kitchen nightmares. How about you?
Jamie Oliver really is pretty decent, as he's teaching you how to make your own meals at home, whereas Ramsey is a totally different affair. Ramsey is less about the food, so much as he is about entertainment by showing how bad the restaurants are and his shouting. Not so much about the food really.
I enjoy Kitchen Nightmares overall, even though they over dramatize the American version of the show too much, and also after reading from several of the past participants that the producers stage some of the situations, such as planting spoiled food in the freezers, asking the staff to go along with it for the sake of the story line. I really wish they would just stick with reality, and allow some places to not be so bad, and some restaurant owners to be more humble and in need of help. It seems they are always looking for some big standoff between Gordon and the owners - and they will try to provoke one if the owner is being too nice. What's rather frustrating is that many of the restaurants he tries to help end up shutting down anyhow within a few months after filming. Granted these places are on their last leg by the time he actually gets there, and it's up to the owners to keep the standards high after he leaves, which they don't always do - but you would think more of them would rebound after getting his help. Sadly they don't. I'm curious what the success rates are between Kitchen Nightmares and Restaurant Impossible. I'm starting to get the impression RI is having more luck for some reason, as I've seen them revisit quite a few places that were still going strong. I think with both of these shows, they definitely need to spend at the very least, a week with them - not this mad rush of three days, which is probably more like one full day and a little bit of the first day and a little bit of the last day. There is no way they can go over all their financials, and fix all sorts of other equipment, plumbing and other cleaning issues that quickly. I would hate to discover that they were doing a shoddy job remodeling the place just to make something that looks nice on camera but looks cheap and flimsy in person.
