Songbirds are not dumb

[austin_dern]

I hate to make it sound like everything interesting happened while I stayed inside all weekend coughing, but it did kind of work out like that. It was getting near dinnertime Saturday when my mother got a call from my brother and his wife; she'd been expecting them because they were going out to dinner somewhere new. (I wasn't explicitly invited or not invited, but given how I felt I wasn't going to go, something I'm sure every patron who could hear me would appreciate if only they knew.) After a short chat she handed the phone to me explaining something about the (something). My brother was on the phone, mentioning that he was at the (something), so do I have a jacket? I mean to pay attention to things like this, but without some setup it's hard to parse the meaning. What he was getting at was he was at the outlet for (something), who apparently make jackets, and there were fantastic discounts, so did I have a winter coat? Yes, a very fine one: he and his wife gave me one last Christmas, and it's very comfortable. This took much longer to sort out than it could possibly make sense for it to.

Anyway, they all went off to dinner at this new place they could vaguely locate which turns out to be not far from my barber's, and I enjoyed a couple hours of quiet and trying to watch the rest of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD that I got two months ago. It's hard finding uninterrupted time that I can put exclusively to watching. A fair while later, my parents came back and reported that the appetizers were quite good, the place quite busy, the owner pleasant, and they had absolutely no idea what the entrees were like.

It seems they had a wait of about an hour and a half for their orders, at the end of which there was no sign that they were ever going to come through. My parents suspected the orders were sent to someone else's table by mistake, on the grounds that they were offered the wrong set of entrees a half-dozen times, and if they were tempted to just grab whatever was at hand then someone else would almost certainly have taken the chance. The owner was quite apologetic and the meal what they had of it was put on the house, and my parents came away in good enough spirits that they'll try the place again perhaps on a night not quite so busy.

Still, boy, an hour and a half waiting, wrong orders a half-dozen times, right order nowhere to be found ... that's the sort of thing you normally see on Chef Gordon Ramsay Yells At Idiots For Six Weeks. I guess the appetizers showed a great deal of promise.

Trivia: Before 1337 the only Duke in England was the King of England himself, in his title of Duke of Aquitaine. Source: Shakespeare's Kings, John Julius Norwich.

Currently Reading: The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy, Allen Eyles. It's a late-60s book advancing the cause that every word every Marx brother ever implied was multilayered fascinating elemental comedy genius, so I'm guessing he won't talk much about The Big Store.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Chef Gordon Ramsay Yells At Idiots For Six Weeks

Which is better in the British version, but $13 a month cable does not supply me with BBC America. So I get by with Fox's version.

[orv.livejournal.com]

His show should be retitled How Not To Manage People. Bosses should be told to imagine what Gordon Ramsay would do, then do the opposite.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

How can there possibly be any flaws in how he manages people? After all, don't all his afflicted restaurants efficiently get down to serving two menu items with 95 percent accuracy after only a month of practice?

[orv.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. As I recall, when they interviewed him on Top Gear they introduced him as a "chef and swearing enthusiast."

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's a good characterization of him. Not that there aren't going to be interesting characterizations to make of the Top Gear crew either.

[orv.livejournal.com]

bluerain says Jeremy Clarkson is the Simon Cowell of cars. I think that's a pretty good description.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I think she's got it.

[orv.livejournal.com]

Simon Cowell actually appeared on the show for an interview. Jeremy's plans to cruelly savage his driving style failed when he set the track record. After they got the new car and started the lap board over again, Simon came on the show again and once again set the fastest time.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

"Reduce the Menu", as much as he does it EVERY time, is how new chefs at a restaurant generally approach things. Then about six months to a year later, the specials which are more popular make it to the menu, and it starts building, in a "Why don't we offer a Grilled Chicken Caesar if we're selling Caesar?" way. Menus build thusly until after about two to three years, it's time to Reduce The Menu again.

The British version is drastically better, I've found. There's less emphasis on decor revamps and front of the house, and much more on the kitchen. That is Gordon helping a restaurant out and devising new menus with them, helping them make modest but beneficial changes.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You know, now I'm wondering what the Singapore franchise of the Gordon Ramsay franchise would look like. Presumably they'd do it with local talent, the way local versions of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The Weakest Link and Deal or No Deal were, but with the natural Singaporean desire to be rather nice and positive you'd lose the whole ``screaming at people'' side of things. On the other hand, you'd see much more of the developments of successful processes going on.