Weinr Loves Food!

So, last week’s Dinner Impossible was all about a movie preview and after party. Irvine found himself in a makeshift kitchen - probably one of the worst setups he’s used - along with some help from one of the George’s along with this new guy we’ve seen in the last two episodes - another sous chef. I think his name is Barry or something. Anyway, this new Sous Chef has a long way to go to actually help Irvine - he got his ass reamed throughout the entire episode. Actually, it seemed quite excessive, really. Barry, who was sent to the local fish monger, picked up a few pounds of shrimp with the head on - and throughout the entire episode, Irvine was reaming him for wasting time with having to clean those. In the end though, they had a few assistants from the theater throwing the afterparty that helped Barry get the shrimp all squared away.

Other than that, Irvine was tasked with creating Hors D’oeuvres for 350 people, including one guy who was a vegetarian; This meant Irvine had to come up with at least three different Hors D’oeuvres for this guy - and in addition, he also had to make a drink for him, and the only thing the guy drank, according to him, was Vodka. So, he had to create a drink for this guy.

Anyway, there were tremendous odds, and now having seen in the past that Irvine can in fact, fail, he succeeded in this extremely difficult series of events. It was an entertaining episode, but only so much can go wrong before you actually want to throw your hands up in frustration. I mean, he burned the sushi rice twice, Barry screwed up, they were running behind, and I don’t think he got everything he wanted to done. Entertainment, but man, I would be pissed if I were Irvine

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Chef Irvine, how?! That totally wasn’t fair! Dinner: Impossible’s Chef Irvine failed at the Cullinary Institute of America. His challenge? Present 14 dishes to chef’s specializing in their field of cuisine, with 6 student chef’s at the CIA giving him a hand.

Now, in all reality, this was probably a *very* tough challenge. 7 chefs at CIA created 7 dishes that Irvine got to taste, and then had to recreate based on taste alone. I know I wouldn’t be able to do that. Irvine, on the other hand, has years of experience that I don’t have with food So, putting him against me would be a totally unfair advantage.

In addition to those seven dishes, Irvine had to create 7 new unique dishes of his own. This wasn’t nearly as tough, I don’t think, but with the help that he got from the student chefs, he didn’t meet his objective :-\

This episode of Dinner Impossible was okay - Chef Irvine certainly has the personality, the knowhow, and the presence to pull off even a slow episode of Dinner Impossible. The major thing that frustrated me was the apparent lack of caring about some of the dishes that the students had. One student named Alex did an incredible job at helping Irvine - the other students? Either they didn’t do squat by comparison (which would probably be the reason Irvine failed to get it all done) or the production of the show cast a dim light on their hard work. One of the students took 7 hours to make meatballs. Seven hours. They better taste damn good for that amount of time! Now, before I get flak about how they’re students and learning and so that’s okay to spend that much time on something, let me say this: Irvine repeatedly asked (many many times) how the chef’s were doing with their part of the meal. They All, always said they were doing fine. He even said on the show that if they weren’t going to make it, to let him know. And, at the end, things weren’t done. I don’t know about you, but why would you talk out your ass to someone like Irvine? I know I wouldn’t. The man needs to get things done!

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So, Robert Irvine was at it again in last week’s Dinner:Impossible. This time, he’s on an island in the Bahamas, serving up dinner to 20 VIP guests. His team? Two guest sous chefs. And Smiling Pat - a Bohemian woman with an enormous set of teeth - hence the name Smiling Pat ;-)Robert is dropped off on the island with a pack of matches. That’s it. What’s he have to cook? Well, he’s got a few crates that were given to him - filled with goat meat, plantains and other random fruit. And fishing line.

This is where we should go back to the guest Sous Chefs. They’re both survivor winners. I don’t watch Survivor, so I could care less about either of them. One was the winner of Survivor Africa - some guy named Ethan. The other Survior was some girl, who really didn’t have a brain or a reason to be on the show at all. I don’t think she actually *did* anything aside from drink Pat’s “fire in the hole” drink and talk nonstop, making the dumbest statements about anything that came to her mind. But, she must know something because she won survivor and I haven’t, right? ;-p

Anyway, Lack of help aside, Irvine was up against a real challenge: Make dinner for twenty VIP guests with only two pots, some fruit, goat meat, Smiling Pat and two formr Survivors. Luckily, the male Survivor spent a few hours fishing, but came up with little for Irvine to cook. In the end, Ethan had some Conks, and managed a handful of Lobsters to cook for dinner. How Irvine managed to get dinner for those people completed is still somewhat of a mystery to me, but he did it He kept mentioning how he thought that was the one that was going to fail. That, coupled with the shots of Irvine falling on the sandy beaches of some remote island also made me think that this was the one that he wasn’t going to pull off. But, he did. It was entertaining

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I would like to title this something to the effect of “Snakes! on a plane”, but “Dinner on a Train” will just have to suffice.

Anyway, here’s Robert Irvine’s latest setup: Two trains, three kitchens (all amazingly cramped) and just one George. Oh and sassy annoying head chef and her Igore-like sous chef. It all makes for a hot time, and a challenge with getting anything done. Irvine should have ditched Igore and Frau Blücher (notice the horse neighing in the background?) and gone with the two Georges instead. Anyway, back to the story: one Irvine, one George, a horse and Igor have to prep food in the box car, then transfer it from there to one of two kitchens on the main train, separated by 300 feet of dining cars. Then, they have to serve food up to 150 people while the train is moving. Oh, and did I mention that the train conductor is trying to crawl right up Irvine’s ass the entire time? If I had guns like Irvine, I would have used him on that guy

Entertainment ensued, as it always does. Irvine beats all odds, telling the horse off, dealing with the conductor, and even getting some work out of Igor. Which now makes my wife wonder: “Does this guy ever Fail?” - because we haven’t seen him fail yet.

And, at the end of the day, I’m still hooked on Irvine’s performance. It’s totally entertaining, and a lot of fun to watch. I only have one gripe: this episode had a little bit of that sort of American Chopper fake yelling drama that I hate. There was more of it in this episode though than I’ve ever seen. So, if Marc Summers is reading this: please (please!) keep the urgency, but lose the yelling
- it makes for bad TV in general. Thanks

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So, last night’s new episode of Dinner: Impossible served up a bunch of food I wouldn’t be able to stomach. And no, it’s not because it looked unappetizing - it was because it’s all seafood. And I’m allergic to seafood. Bummer ;p

I’m happy to say that this show is still entertaining. It’s only in it’s second week, but I suspect that it will always have the format that they’ve decided to use for the show - it starts out intense, immediately explaining what the mission is (interestingly, Irvine doesn’t have a chance to not accept it?) and other pertinent information about what he’s going to be doing. Then, they jump right into him arriving on the scene, scoping the situation, and going to town with his sous chef’s. In this case, they were on a small island, with very limited resources, cooking for 200 or more people. eight hours to prepare food, and almost no supplies. The money raised would go toward the local Fireman’s charity. The island had a small general store, along with a very cramped kitchen, with only one working oven. Suck! Chef Irvine made it all work, though - and in the end they were rewarded with double the proceeds that they had previously been able to attain. Or maybe the doubled the money that Chef Irvine spent on food? It’s not really explained

Anyway, I’m still reasonably entertained by the show. It’s good stuff - it’s a little on the masculine side, but that’s good.

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