"Hell's Kitchen" is Still Trashy, and Still Awesome

I have seen this donkey make a better risotto than the "Hell's Kitchen" chefs

I watch a lot of cooking shows. I've blogged about some, Ina Garten's and "Top Chef" to name a few. But, my wife and I have recently been watching the trashiest, sleaziest and downright most hilarious cooking competition show I think has ever been created. We have been watching "Hell's Kitchen" on demand.

We have caught up on all our regular shows, so when we eat dinner we like to watch something light. We found "Hell's Kitchen" on Fox on demand, and we have fallen back in love with the show. We used to watch it when it was first on TV, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, but we didn't enjoy or understand the campiness of it back then. Now, we cannot get enough of the camp. Gordon Ramsey, who is a world renowned chef and restaurant owner has to be in on the joke that this show is. I love Gordon Ramsey. He is a very loud and boisterous guy, but even he has to know how ridiculous "Hell's Kitchen" truly is. I've ragged on "Top Chef" before, and I don't usually care for cooking competition shows, but at least most of the chefs on other shows are James Beard winners or nominees, or they have their own restaurants, or they're executive chefs, basically, they are well established.

What makes "Hell's Kitchen" so great is the contestants are competing to become a head chef at one of Ramsey's throw away restaurants in Las Vegas. They don't win money or a spread in a cooking magazine, they just get to go work long, tedious hours at a new, fancier restaurant than they worked at before, and it's in Las Vegas. That's so hilarious to me. What puts "Hell's Kitchen" over the top is the contestants. They are the most ignorant, grossest, shady, back stabbing, ugly in personality people that the executives at Fox could find. They are all line cooks for the most part. Now, I'm not denigrating line cooks, I tried it and I failed tremendously, but line cook is just one step above dishwasher in the restaurant industry. I know "Top Chef" is pompous and pretentious, but they wouldn't take a line cook if that was the last chef available. Hell, most cooking competition shows on the Food Network or the Cooking Channel would never take a line cook. They all want well established chefs that know what in the hell they are doing and chefs that can create new, exciting dishes.

That's another thing that I think is funny about "Hell's Kitchen", they still have the exact same menu as when my wife and I first watched it almost a decade ago. We turned it on the other night and I said, "I wonder if they are still making beef wellington", and wouldn't you know it, Chef Ramsey was yelling at someone for under cooking a beef wellington! I was cracking up! This caused my wife to say, "well, I bet they don't do snapper or risotto anymore, I'm sure they've gotten better fish and newer appetizers". Nope. The chefs are still under cooking risotto and burning the skin on snapper. The only thing they have really mixed up or done differently is the challenges. Sometimes, with the newer challenges, the chefs get to be a tad creative, but these chefs are so green, they never stray to far, and they end up doing something safe and easy.

The "chefs" are the absolute best. As I stated before, they are gross, both inside and out, but mainly on the inside. Even the "nice" people are total assholes. There is one nice guy, I think his name is Jarrad, and he just totally screwed over his only friend in the competition recently. The things these people say, on national television mind you, is appalling. They are constantly cursing each other out, constantly back stabbing one another, constantly blaming one another and never taking blame when they are clearly at fault. It's a whole show of people saying, "I did this because so and so was screwing up on something else, so I only messed up because this other person messed up. It's not my fault Chef Ramsey". A bunch of spineless competitors. The men on this show are the worst representation of meat heads that I've seen on TV. There was one guy in this particular season, his name is Frank, who always bad mouthed and talked down to any female competitor. He said, on way more than one occasion, "this is why you can't have women in the kitchen. They're terrible listeners and impossible to work with". I mean, how crazy and how sexist is that?! And Fox put in on the air! WTF! The women are not much better though, They talk behind each others backs. I've seen two girls get into a fist fight on the show. I've seen girls spit into another girls face. It's just all around gross, from both the men and the women.

This show is entertaining as hell. You know why it's entertaining? It's not the chefs and it's not the competition and it's not the back stabbing and double crossing, it's Chef Ramsey. He is so god damn good on the show. He knows that these chefs are the bottom of the barrel and he treats them that way. But, he also gives the winners of the challenges, and the whole thing, some very great gifts. Stuff I would love to have, he hands over with a smile. But, he also yells and berates and screams and calls people failures and tells them he's ready for them to quit at the drop of the hat. You under cook a wellington, Chef Ramsey will call you a donkey. You don't have his veggies ready in time, he calls you an imbecile. You burn his fish, he will curse you out. He has no patience for slacking chefs, yet he takes on a dozen of them each season of this show. I don't know that any winner of "Hell's Kitchen" has gone on to be a famous chef or restaurant owner. I haven't dug that deep. But, I know Chef Ramsey will keep doing this show because it's easy money for him.

I'm glad my wife and I rediscovered this ridiculous cooking show. It's fun to watch and make fun of and I don't have to take it seriously. Go watch "Hell's Kitchen" if you like trashy reality show, because it's one of the best.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He never heard of Beef Weelington until "Hell's Kitchen". Ty is not interested in food that fance people ate 100 years ago. Ty is on twitter, go follow him @tykulik.

Being a reality show moron does not make a person a better cook

The proper way to serve oysters

I watch a lot of cooking shows.  I've written about my love for Ina Garten and "Barefoot Contessa". My wife and I watch "Chopped", "Cutthroat Kitchen", "Pioneer Woman", basically any type of show that makesfood the star. We love them. It's an escape and it's nice to have some noise on in the background while doing stuff around the house.

I've become to grow wary of the competition cooking shows though. These shows take themselves WAY too seriously. The way the chefs and the judges act is downright laughable. You hear the chefs talking about stupid shit like doing food "farm to table" or "cooking saved my life" or "I'm the type of chef that will smile in your face, then cut your throat out to get what I want". It's all ridiculous. Sure, I do believe, for a very small few, that cooking may have saved someone's life, but ease up. I'm sure there's other things that helped to save your life. Maybe rehab or loved ones or growing up. All those are more important than cooking, in my opinion. This whole "farm to table" started out as a nice idea, but it's been beaten to death. I'm so tired of hearing these young chefs, most born after 1995, talking about the good old days of cooking. You're 20 years old, the good old days were 1990 to you. Just stop with the whole "farm to table", unless you're a farmer. And this new breed of chef, the asshole chef I'll call them, they're insufferable. These chefs act like cooking is a sport. No offense to the elderly, but my grandma cooked until the day she died at the age of 84, and she was a much better chef than these punks that think it's a sport. Get over yourself, you're a chef, not a professional athlete.

Like I said, I'm growing very wary of the competition shows and the worst offender is "Top Chef". "Top Chef" is laughably bad now. These chefs are the worst of the new asshole chefs. They're all young, douchebag chefs. On "Top Chef", the "cheftestants" take themselves so seriously, you'd think they were saving lives with their food. Calm down, all your doing is making food. Your job isn't that important. Almost anyone can cook. And before you say I don't know what I'm talking about, my brother is a great chef. He's made that his career, but he's not an asshole. He doesn't take himself seriously at all. He knows what he does is universal. He's a great, special person that I love, he's an awesome bigger brother, but his cooking skills aren't what makes him great, it's his love he shows for me and our family. But, I digress, back to "Top Chef" bull shit. These contestants are much too passionate about a job that any 15 year old child can get. I hate the waythey present their food like its a god damn gift to the person eating it. Screw you, it's not that good. I hate how hipster and not self aware these young chefs are. They couldn't be any more ridiculous.

On a recent episode of "Top Chef", one of the contestants served oysters on a hot rock. What the hell! Is he some kind of idiot? He claimed, "I like to use the elements outside to present my food". Screw you you asshole. You suck. Don't serve something that's supposed to be ice cold on a burning hot rock. Gross. This same contestant goes on later in the episode talking about him and his wife serving food at Coachella, because of course he went to Coachella to serve food. Could this guy be anymore of a douchebag? Ugh, I hate this guy. He's chef Phillip on the current season if you're curious and want to watch a supreme dick head on TV.

Which brings me to the judges. They talk about this food like they're going to send the losing chef to jail for making sub par food. They say stupid things like, "the bass needed 4 or 5 grains of salt to really put it over the top", or "this is good, but there's a whole piece of star anise in there and if I ate that, my palette would be completely blown out". I HATE these judges. You guys are judging food! Your job is less important than the chefs! You guys suck too. I hate that they get so mad at chefs for leaving out little things on all these free meals they're getting. Ugh, you are the worst. The absolute worst judges are Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio. They take their jobs MUCH too seriously. They get legitimately mad at these chefs sometimes for the smallest things. Lakshmi, at one point, said she's "never had to wait for a table before and I'm not going to start now". Ugh, screw you. Sorry we aren't all as privileged as you. And Tom Colicchio, stop with the act that you're these chefs friends. You're just as bad as any other judge on any other cooking competition show. And don't act like you're more important because your show is on Bravo. You know what else is in Bravo, any style of "Real Housewives" crap.

"Top Chef" is just as trashy as any other reality show. You guys aren't more important than any other garbage cooking competition show. You're worse. I'm sick and tired of how serious these shows have become. I'm done watching them and I'll stick with my "Barefoot Contessa". Ina cooks for the love, not the competition. She will forever be a better chef than any douche on "Chopped", "Cutthroat Kitchen" and most importantly, the god awful "Top Chef".

Screw these shows forever.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Not only does he think Ina could outcook any cheftestant, he would take her in a straight up fist fight with any of those idiots. Join Ty's anger by following him on twitter @tykulik.