“He doesn’t get off his skinny ass.” – Lisa
It seems almost, nay, literally insane to me that the restaurant owners subjected to Chef Gordan Ramsay’s Ramsay Wrath week after week and season after season could be so foolhardy as to serve the man things like cold miso soup and a gray hair to go along with his “green tower.” But such as was the case with our friends at Sushi Ko, the latest Kitchen Nightmare for which Ramsay was sent to sprinkle his Tough Love-brand of pixie dust for which to set ship shape.
Sushi Ko is a rather attractive restaurant in Thousand Oaks, California, owned by married couple Akira and Lisa, who apparently live and work together but are barely on speaking terms when our good chef arrives. Lisa’s only too happy to talk smack about Akira’s recommendation that Ramsay try the sushi pizza, however (which, granted, doesn’t sound all that awesome). “That is an insult to pizza, and Japanese people,” Ramsay ends up remarking.
Unlike last week on “Flanders,” where it seemed like the main issue was that the food was bland and outdated (as was the sense of conflict), there’s a real kitchen nightmare at work here. A refrigerator in the back is set to 50 degrees because they don’t have the money to fix it. That’s really bad. They also rinse off used chopsticks and reuse them. That’s just horrifying.
The episode got rather good in the section in which Ramsay went to work trying to put this “broken” man in Akira back together and his family and restaurant with it. Kitchen Nightmares is at its most enjoyable when Ramsay’s “shticks” move aside and he can deal with restaurant owners and their families (and I really did feel for children Hana and Sammy in this case) who are desperately trying to make it, and simply need some guidance on how to get there. It did seem as though Akira’s installation back in the kitchen cooking where he belongs – as opposed to busing tables or wandering around aimlessly – was a smart move and gave him and Sushi Ko some small chance of surviving.
Unfortunately for the Sushi Ko crew, however, looks like things didn’t turn out so well after all: “Sushi Ko from television show Kitchen Nightmares closed last summer after moving from Bel Air to The Lakes shopping center in Thousand Oaks, not even famous chef and host Gordon Ramsay could save the restaurant.”
More thoughts on this week’s nightmare:
- “I’m so embarrassed she dance in front of Chef Ramsay.” – Akira, on wife Lisa
- Ashleigh, a server, says that it’s a “running joke” that when things go wrong, Akira disappears. That does not sound like a path to victory.
- “He doesn’t get off his skinny ass.” – Lisa, on Akira
- “You’re like a block of ice. He’s not your head chef, he’s your husband.” – Chef Ramsay to Lisa
- “I agree I’m a b—- to Akira.” – Lisa
From Around the Web: Kitchen Nightmares, “Sushi Ko”
- Reality TV Magazine: Despite both Lisa and server’s attempts to get Chef Ramsay to steer clear of Akira’s Sushi Pizza, he decides to try it anyway and ends up spitting it out, calling it rancid. None of the other dishes strike him as any good, and he eventually finds out that the “fresh” sushi is actually frozen fish, yuck!
🍽 Want more? Check out Pop Thruster’s Kitchen Nightmares episode reviews (there’s a lot).
Some stats and info about Kitchen Nightmares – “Sushi Ko”
TV SHOW – Kitchen Nightmares
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 12
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Reality TV, Food TV Shows, Trashtastic TV
STARS – Gordon Ramsay
This review was originally published on TV Geek Army.