The Plonker Club

It seems that the News of the World has a hard-on for Gordon Ramsay – and at every opportunity the are trying to F#$k him with it.

The latest shameless attempt was to cherry pick quotes from restaurant owners featured on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares to make it look like Gordon Ramsay himself was the failure! Even some chefs that have had mostly good things to say about Gordon Ramsay and the show were only credited with negative comments – including Alan Love of what became Love’s Fish Restaurant and Momma Cherri of Soul Food Shack fame.

The one-eyed article can be found at http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/240947/Two-thirds-of-the-restaurants-saved-by-TVrsquos-Ramsayrsquos-Kitchen-Nightmares-amp-chef-Gordon-Ramsay-shut-or-sold.html

Luckily the public at large have disagreed with the article and rightly pointed out many of the flaws in the story – as shown by the comments associated with the original article.

Some of the biggest losers that appeared on the show were Gordon’s friend Francesco from the Walnut Tree Inn and that knob from the Granary (who is suspected of burning down his own restaurant). These clowns were never going to succeed with their attitudes and were looking for a scapegoat from day one. Other just had poor businesses and couldn’t follow instructions as evidenced in the revisits.

I’m still amazed by the number of restaurant owners who bagged Gordon Ramsay for upsetting their existing customer base – didn’t they called him in because they were going broke?? Scott from The Priory (the big church restaurant) was a prime example – as are most of the US episodes!

While some of the criticsms of editing may be warranted (especially in the US version) other problems within the business are highlighted upon Gordon’s return (hey, they let him back, they couldn’t have hated him too much!). There is another problem with the US version of Kitchen Nightmares(besides being vastly inferior and focussing on makeover and conflicts) – namely that the episodes aired so long after the shooting (inlcuding one episode we didn’t see in the most recent series), they couldn’t benefit from the publicity (which is no doubt part of the lure of applying).

Hey, Gordon Ramsay isn’t perfect and maybe some of his ideas across all of these restaurants may not have been winners, but for someone with no vested interest in their success, he certainly appeared to be the most passionate person on almost every episode!

News Of The World have once again demonstrated what piss-poor and shockingly biased reporting can look like – I’m sure they’ll never learn as long as people keep buying their special version of crap!

Chief Plonker
The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite

The Telegraph in the UK is reporting that at the newly award winning York and Albany Restaurant in Camden Town, North London will charge ‘no-showers’ a discretionary £30 for a table of five booking.

I’m not sure why this is news. When I reserved a table for two at Gordon Ramsay at The London NYC in October last year , I was told that cancelling less than two weeks before the booking date could result in me being charged for one person (which at the time was $135 American – about $4 million dollars Australian since it was at the Aussie dollar’s weakest day in recent history).

£6 per head or less seems very reasonsable to me!

Regardless, in related news Anglea Harnett was awarded three AA rosettes for both the York and Albany as well as Murano, which according to the reports rewards one for serving food deserving of recognition well beyond the area.

I’m not a foodie (or from the UK/Europe) so the only time I have heard to an AA rosette was in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, in the Rococo/Maggie’s episode. According to wikipedia – it is a food award offered by a company (The Automobile Association) who provide insurance and breakdown assistance.

And how’s this for coming full circle. I was looking at the AA website and came across 2008-9 Restaurants of The Year – and one winner was the Walnut Tree Inn. Yes, the same restauarnt that was featured on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (the one run by his arrogant Italian friend who wouldn’t reduce his prices!). It was sold in 2007 and now has this amongst its accolades.

Stranger things have happened in the world of Gordon Ramsay!

Anyway, back to the York and Albany – it also has recently opened Nonna’s, which is a deli attached to the restaurant, offering a range of seasonal fresh produce (I bet it’s rustic and all of the other Ramsayisms!!) which can be found at http://www.gordonramsay.com/nonnasdeli/

David Driscoll
Chief Plonker at The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite

www.theplonkerclub.com