By Scott Buckner
Welcome every single one of you 150 or so trendy Los Angeles people to the TV-set restaurant featured on Hell’s Kitchen. This evening, I will be your fake-accent maitre d’ and the bloke who rings that funny round vibrating plastic blinky-light thingamajig they give you on weekends at Outback Steakhouse and Applebee’s that tells you your table’s ready. They’re very expensive thingamajigs, so please don’t go kill time next door at Bed, Bath & Beyond and leave them stashed in the towels.
In the meantime, feel welcome to have a seat at our bar for unlimited complimentary drinks. Hopefully soon, food will be the furthest thing from your mind.
Now, before you get all a-quiver, head chef Gordon Ramsay has personally assured me that some of you might get fed after running out of small talk after two-and-a-half hours trying to impress your blind dates and wives with whom you’ve nothing left to talk about anymore anyway. But alas and alack, most of you probably won’t get fed.
What? No, I’m sorry, sir. They’re not available. If I recall correctly, Chef Ramsay’s exact words were, “Fuck breadsticks and any pissant who dares ask for them.”
Anyway, as I was saying, least one of you – we don’t know who right now, so perhaps some of you might want to shake the dice at the bar for two dollars just to be safe – might die from eating rancid crab because one of our cheftestants isn’t able to identify the incredibly noxious odor of rotten seafood any better than Stevie Wonder is able to see. And some of you – oh my God, this is sooooooo exciting my own heart is racing – some of you might even end up eating pasta rescued STRAIGHT OUT OF THE KITCHEN GARBAGE BIN and then put back in the pot of boiling water with the other pasta by cheftestant Jen! So when you entree is served, please just flick out any little bits of anything that doesn’t look like it naturally belongs there because if you send it back, it’ll just take two more hours to bring out another dish.
Is this fucking exciting OR WHAT???
As for the rest of you, please, please be assured that if you actually get served, your meal will be perfectly fine because cheftestant Joanna has licked the tongs herself to give whatever the hell might be in your meal her personal taste of approval. And Chef Ramsay himself will be ensuring TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT by personally tasting the food RIGHT OFF YOUR PLATE just seconds before it goes out!!!! Especially you people ordering risotto – because, well, it’s been at least two weeks now and nobody in the back seems to know the first fucking thing about cooking risotto. Sigh. What’s with you people anyway? Just order the fucking spaghetti. We have it in a can. Are you people here to eat or just show up on TV?
For those of you here last week, not to worry a bit: Our big sweaty Asian cheftestant Aaron won’t be anywhere near your food tonight. He fainted in the kitchen today and was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a dreadful illness of some sort. He won’t be back. Ever. So carry on and bon appetit, but keep in mind that we have your signed waivers on file. So don’t get any funny ideas.
Okay now everyone, a last little bit of instruction: When everyone who hasn’t been fed in two hours gets up as if exactly on cue and leaves all at once like a big line of war refugees, Chef Ramsay himself will be standing outside the main door to sign autographs, hand out complimentary coupons for hamburgers and Coneys good at any Sonic Drive-In in California, and yell “piss off” to each and every one of you. Because that’s the least we can do to make your Hell’s Kitchen restaurant dining experience one you’ll certainly cherish forever.
If not, just piss off until next week. Because that’s just the way Chef Ramsay would want it.
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Posted on June 20, 2007