Big Chef Takes on Little Chef - Planet Green

[Holly Moore]

Thanks to NY Times "What's On" I discovered that DirecTV offers Planet Green (286). On Planet Green tonight (Wed Jan 6) two shows of interest:

Big Chef Takes on Little Chef: The Fat Duck's Heston Blumenthal tries to revive Little Chef and tradition British cuisine. Apparently Little Chef is a chain of roadside cafes in financial distress.

Conviction Kitchen: Chef Marc Thuet and his wife Bianna Zorich attempt to open a restaurant in three weeks using a staff of ex-cons with no kitchen experience.

[Lisa Shock]

I saw both of those, good thing they are re-running episodes at various times!

Big Chef Takes on Little Chef was interesting. The corporate talking heads seem to want some sort of circus sideshow made out of food, and Chef Blumenthal is more concerned about heritage foods and tricky flavor combinations.

I'll admit, I have never been to Britain, so, I have no idea about Little Chef except what the show conveys. That said, I am wondering why they are trying so hard with sous vide and such instead of trying to just make fresh honest eggs, pancakes, waffles, etc. They keep pointing to the flattop griddle as an issue, but, lots of people cook eggs on a griddle in diners all over the place.

Maybe the kitchens are too small for their own good. I suspect that fresh-baked bread (even if the dough comes from a commissary) would help them a lot with every meal. But, I don't know that they have an oven that can handle it.

Anyway, IMO, someone needs to sort through what they are getting and divide up the things that are better made from scratch on-premises, things that can be made up at a commissary and delivered uncooked, and, the things that could be made completely at the commissary. I suspect that almost everything right now comes in pre-made.

I also suspect that pleasing the directors will involve stunt-type food like that ginormous breakfast sandwich from Burger King a few years back, not the odor of oranges around a single scoop of chocolate ice cream.

On Chef Blumethal's part, I was surprised that he gave up on the soup. The show gave the impression that he ditched it because he couldn't precisely duplicate the flavor of a buttered baked potato. IMO, this reflects one problem that I have with modern fine dining. I don't need something to taste precisely like another thing. If I wanted that, I'd just eat the other thing and skip the hassle. If it was a delicious potato soup, that's good enough.

***

Conviction Kitchen was a bit of a train wreck. I am not convinced that the front of the house will be up to shape in time. Overall, I suspect that attitude will be the deciding factor in people winning or losing.

[Tri2Cook]

I had just the opposite opinion of Big Chef/Little Chef. I'm a huge Heston Blumenthal fan. I find his relentless pursuit of getting something exactly as he wants it or just canning the idea altogether inspiring. I also really enjoy how he's not afraid to include fun as part of the dining equation. I've watched every show I've found of his (Kitchen Chemistry, the two seasons of In Search of Perfection, Heston's Feasts) However, I found this particular show boring. I just never really got into the concept. It's kinda like having Grant Achatz revamp the KFC menu... he could definitely make it better but the average KFC customer wouldn't be too happy about it and the company would reject 99.7% of what he wanted to do.

[Lisa Shock]

Well, I guess I should say that I'd probably like the ice cream -if it's really good real chocolate ice cream, you don't need 14 scoops and a ton of toppings and sparklers stuck in it. But, that's exactly what one US ice cream store chain used to sell as its special, and lots of people got used to that sort of thing being normal on a menu.

I think that in some people's minds, 'wow factor' is still related to portion size to a certain degree. I mean, Little Caesar's just released a 6-meat pizza to 'top' the competition's 'meat lovers' pizza that 'only' has 5 meats on it.

That being said, it's pretty clear that the Little Chef needs to up the quality of its offerings.

[Holly Moore]

I did get into Big Chef Little Chef - maybe because I have a background (way back) in restaurant corporation new product development. The irrational initial concept of bringing in a super chef - the inability to explain expectations - I can think of a dozen similar corporate executives in my past. This CEO - not even willing to share food and labor cost goals - extremely not getting it.

Blumennthal's not understanding customer expectations (guilty, I've been there). Restaurant staff resentment to change - in my experience totally dependent on the restaurant manager's lead. Unanticipated operational issues - often the case.

I want to see if Blumenthal comes to understand his target customers - if the corporate CEO figures out how to provide Blumenthal with useful direction. Unlike just about every other reality show, these are real world issues. The US answer has been to turn rest stops into franchise row food courts. I'm really hoping Blumenthal does come up with a better answer for Little Chef.

Interesting question by Tri2Cook. Could a Grant Achatz go into an Iron Skillet truck stop operations and implement improvements that would find acceptance at the customer, staff and corporate level? It would probably be a struggle, but I'm betting he and his staff could (and should).

I may be totally gullible here, but this strikes me as the most honest, unscripted reality show (except Cops) that I have come across.

Incidentally, Ray Kroc turned to the executive chef of one of the Chicago Hilton's to develop the recipe for McDonald's tartar sauce for the Filet-O-Fish. He came up with a recipe that required the sauce to be prepared fresh each day, with any leftover sauce discarded at the end of the day. A totally new concept for McDonald's that met with tremendous resistance by some franchisee's and restaurant managers, and succeeded - though that may have changed with McDonald's diminished commitment to fresh quality over the past two decades.