Last Restaurant Standing

Has anyone been watching Ramsay's show, Kitchen Nightmares (the British version not the waaaaaay over the top American one)? I caught it last night. He was on top form calling the 'chefs' " muppets" and "handicapped". That's good tv. They were a complete shower of mis-fits so it was damn entertaining. You should check it out if you haven't on the BBC/BBC America. Anyway not my point for the blog. There was a new show on afterwards, Last Restaurant Standing. Anyone who might have any inclination about opening a restaurant should have a gander at this. It'll definately give you an insight into how you SHOULDN'T do it.

The show's fronted by Raymond Blanc. If you know anything about food I bet you've heard of this guy. He has a very famous restaurant in England called 'Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons'. I said that in my best French accent which obviously sounds nothing like it's supposed to so let's move on. Set in England, there are 9 couples who are all given a restaurant and have 7 days to get it up and running. Some of the locations are in town centers, others are in the sticks. You should have seen the state of some of these places when the couples moved in. This was no easy task. Fortunately for me, and probably more importantly my missus, I've no intention of going near a restaurant apart from grabbing a bite. But a bar...maybe...

The contestants had to design the decor (although they had help), come up with a name, create a menu and obviously get customers. Remember this was all in 7 days. No way Jose! Talk about stress. One of the couples were newlyweds (not Nick and Jessica but not far off it). He was a jazz musician who was more interested in setting up his drum kit than actually cooking anything. She was highly annoying. They called their place 'Ostrich'. The reason? She's an actress who once played the backend of, guess what? Ya, an ostrich. She said she became one with it. No shit. You can't get much more into a part than by being actually in the thing!

The format is pretty much the same as everything else on the box right now. The three restaurants that do the worst are given a challenge and the losers are sent packing. Obvious really. I like the fact that none of the cooks are trained so it definately makes it more interesting and I want to see what menues they come up with. Apart from Animal and the ostrich (anyone get that?) no one was really that interesting yet but it was only the first episode. I'll watch it again and let you know.