"The Restaurant" Reality Show Season 1

[bloviatrix]

I'm trying to understand the editing of the show. One two prior episodes they've shown Ripert eating at the restaurant. On this, the third time, they show him with Bourdain. Just how many times has Ripert eaten at this place? And if it's only once, why show the footage every week. I'm so confused!!

[WHT]

Did anyone else wonder if perhaps they had intentionally not paid the staff just so they could "suddenly" come up with the brilliant idea of using the American Express Small Business Card?  

could very well be. and what was rocco saying about not setting up anything with a payroll company? i mean, when you open a business with 50 employees, or whatever it is, you'd think you give ol' ADP a call in within the first week or 2.

More like as you plan to even start the place.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Aside from the Bourdain/Ripert My Dinner with André routine, the show really came to a grinding bore of rehashed material. It wasn't funny, it wasn't sad and it wasn't insulting. It was boring.

Actually, I think this was a more watchable show tonight ... with the exception of that piece on stand up comedians, which was really tedious, I found this episode less histrionic, less hyperbolic, less annoying than the previous three episodes. Fewer folks seemed angry and no one was hyperventilating .. and not even one Vespa in sight!

Rocco's dealing with the three lying employees gave it a bit more credence ...

the interplay between the exhausted grill cook and the female server who liked him .. also more real than the phony stuff on episodes 1-3 ...

maybe I am just getting more mellow since it is coming to an end next week .. or maybe I have read enough on this thread to make these "characters" more lifelike, possibly even more sympathetic... I still miss Topher Goodman, however ... and the blackout at Rocco's? Heaven knows how that went ... maybe just the night off was needed by all, especially the mama! .... and the cameras ...

[tommy]

and the blackout at Rocco's? Heaven knows how that went ... maybe just the night off was needed by all, especially the mama! .... and the cameras ...

i heard it was the hottest the food had been served since the place opened.

actually, they're done filming.

[Holly Moore]

Did anyone else wonder if perhaps they had intentionally not paid the staff just so they could "suddenly" come up with the brilliant idea of using the American Express Small Business Card?  

could very well be. and what was rocco saying about not setting up anything with a payroll company? i mean, when you open a business with 50 employees, or whatever it is, you'd think you give ol' ADP a call in within the first week or 2.

My guess is that ADP didn't sign on for product placement.

[Gifted Gourmet]

they've shown Ripert eating at the restaurant.  On this, the third time, they show him with Bourdain.  Just how many times has Ripert eaten at this place?  And if it's only once, why show the footage every week.

Possibly because it gives the restaurant some cachet, some panache .... or just that the presence of these two reknowned chefs not "trashing" the food, lends Rocco's a certain touch of class (at least for those of us who respect their work) ... I know that they shook me out of my torpor and I really tried to focus on their conversation ... which was difficult with all the editing ....

I think Eric Ripert should ask for royalties if the footage continues to exploit his appearances .... or maybe an extra Coors, which, come to think of it, was noticeably absent from their table ....

[Jaymes]

the interplay between the exhausted grill cook and the female server who liked him .. also more real than the phony stuff on episodes 1-3 ...

Except that, call me a cynic, I see additional possibilities here for product placement....

Condoms, anyone?

[Blondie]

the interplay between the exhausted grill cook and the female server who liked him .. also more real than the phony stuff on episodes 1-3 ...

Except that, call me a cynic, I see additional possibilities here for product placement....

Condoms, anyone?

Rocco was on Conan a week or two ago and they were talking about product placement. Rocco said Trojan had contacted them and been turned down. Conan made a joke along the lines of "Is that calamari...or a Trojan condom?"

[Mark Sommelier]

This is such a BLEEPING painful show to watch. Rocco hit new lows tongiht as an idiot chef. "We should have a captain system". Well , DUH , Rocco, since the BLEEPING kitchen is the BLEEPING basement. The only way the silverware is gonna get replaced is with front waiters and back waiters. Rocco's pathetic stint on the floor. The bogus scene with the mutinous cooks. This was a terrible show and Rocco came off again like a BLEEPING BLEEPING idiot. Duh, captain system!! Did Rocco invent that? This is painful TV to watch, especially for those of us in the business. Given what has happened on eGullet in the last few weeks with half the employees registering and commenting, maybe Rocco himself will register and tell it like it is for the last show. Word to Rocco:

Your mommy is old. Let her rest. Letting mommy do all the hard work makes you look like a wimp. Oh wait! Maybe eGullet is in kahoots with Amex, Coors and Mitsubishi!!! Mon dieu!! Quel horreur!! Jason?

[madziast]

Aside from the Bourdain/Ripert My Dinner with André routine, the show really came to a grinding bore of rehashed material. It wasn't funny, it wasn't sad and it wasn't insulting. It was boring.

yawn yawn, you're completely right. get an amex loan to pay the staff, .

the staff interaction seemed more real and engaging, esp. when it was about them relating to each other and about something else than the restaurant (waitress and cook romance; the kitchen staff having to cover for the 3 who didn't show up) than them relating to and about rocco. perhaps it would have been a lot better and more interesting show without rocco and product placement but then you'd be taking the show's raison d'etre away...

my favorite part though must be rocco sitting down with the guests, forgetting to put orders in, kissing girls and sporting lipstick as he "waited on tables" and "trailed" the new best waiter in the house

[Jaymes]

the interplay between the exhausted grill cook and the female server who liked him .. also more real than the phony stuff on episodes 1-3 ...

Except that, call me a cynic, I see additional possibilities here for product placement....

Condoms, anyone?

Rocco was on Conan a week or two ago and they were talking about product placement. Rocco said Trojan had contacted them and been turned down. Conan made a joke along the lines of "Is that calamari...or a Trojan condom?"

I did notice Bourdain looking askance at some dish or another and saying, "that blows."

Maybe it was the Trojan Calamari.

[Gifted Gourmet]

my favorite part though must be rocco sitting down with the guests, forgetting to put orders in, kissing girls and sporting lipstick as he "waited on tables" and  "trailed" the new best waiter in the house

I guess this must be Rocco's "reality ".. and, to emphasize the point here, these chicks do love him (witness the one who joked about "renting" him to work for her! ) Wonder if Ruth Reichl would feel similar vibes about him? about the food?

Very honestly though, wouldn't it be even cooler to have Tony Bourdain covered with lipstick kisses? Like he'd even let THAT happen!

[Gifted Gourmet]

I did notice Bourdain looking askance at some dish or another and saying, "that blows." 

Maybe it was the Trojan Calamari.

I actually do recall that "Moment of Zen", as John Stewart would say ....

Would have liked to get a better view of the dish in question ... looked mushroomish ... but under red sauce, even Trojans look dubious ...

[bourdain]

Television is a treacherous, capricious and hungry bitch-goddess--and I understand well Rocco's interest. He's a chef of significant accomplishment and experience, hitting the age where another 15 years behind the stove offers minimal attraction. A mechanism that offers the possibility of someday kicking back, cranking out cookbooks, running branded operations by remote control is a seductive one. And in Rocco's case, I think, well deserved. Yeah, of course many would prefer to see Rocco chained to his stove at Union Pacific (or their bedposts), but this is naive--even elitist thinking--that insists chefs are "artists" who exist--and should exist--only to feed us and our over-romantic assumptions about "integrity". It ignores the true history and nature of the business since Roman times.

That being said, I think ROCCO'S and the show--THE RESTAURANT was a tactical misstep. Anyone who goes on televsion should KNOW--as an absolute truth--that sooner or later, we ALL of us--will find ourselves, making that final, inevitable Winkler-esque approach to the shark-tank. There is rarely a Pinky Toscadero waiting on the other side. One must ask oneself, " Once the beast has been jumped--what will be left?" In my case, I have the luxury of not giving a fuck. I was a turn-and-burn utility guy before--and when it all goes hideously sour, I will no doubt be one again. Making television, in my case, is fun . It's a means to an end, an enabling of my travel lust. I had no reputation really to lose. Rocco, on the other hand, had real credibility as a chef. Three stars. The world on a string. Television has its own imperative--to be entertaining enough to get you to sit through the commercials--and then hang around to watch yet more. Rarely does that imperative require that its on camera participants look good, or be portayed fully and honestly--or that at end of the day, when the cameras move on to the next car wreck, that the players be left with a reputation or a career. I root for working class kids made good who after years standing on their feet, working with their hands, put down a big score.

But I'm uncomfortable with the Rocco's "theme"; post-ironic red-sauce-Italian.. And putting Mom in the kitchen of the ugliest, least homey restaurant in Manhattan seems crass--akin to making your wife bus tables at Carmine's. Rocco did really good work in his time at Tuscan. The guy can cook. He KNOWS how to make good Italian.The calculated dumbing down of Italian food at Rocco's doesn't wear well in a town where the Batali/Bastianich Posse are serving higher quality--yet still unpretentious--chow only a few blocks away (sans irony). "Irony"--as someone once said--"smells bad." I dearly hope that in the final episode, that we see Rocco look straight at the camera, give everybody the middle finger--and say, "This was a terrible mistake."

[claire797]

So has anybody made "Mama's Meatballs" yet? I think the recipe is in an Amex ad.

[KateW]

Just watched the Restaurant show for the first time all the way through last night. What was the deal with the stand up? Did he actually think that "shout out" joke was funny? I was embarrassed for him.

I thought some of the romance stuff was sort of staged, but hey at least he didn't turn her down...I thought he was gonna totally forget to read the note though, with all that crap that was going down back there...

That cook is wicked cute though.

My fiance said "Now watch this, this is what you say you want to do." (During the cooking scenes) I said, I don't want to base my opinion on a "reality" show. But he said "Well they can't really fake much about the cooking." I guess that's kind of true...

[Blondie]

I dearly hope that in the final episode, that we see Rocco look straight at the camera, give everybody the middle finger--and say, "This was a terrible mistake."

Sorry to disappoint you, Tony, but Rocco just said on the Today show he'd consider doing it *again*

[Jinmyo]

That's ghastly.

Nice summing up by Tony. Thanks.

[theminx]

Wonder if Ruth Reichl would feel similar vibes about him? about the food?   

I've read somewhere that Rocco's food at Union Pacific made Ruth Reichl "moan" -- not sure what Rocco the man would do for Ms. Reichl.

I did notice Bourdain looking askance at some dish or another and saying, "that blows."

I thought they panned to the octopus after that comment. Monsieur Bourdain, do you recall what blew?

[zilla369]

Anyone who goes on televsion should KNOW--as an absolute truth--that sooner or later, we ALL of us--will find ourselves, making that final,  inevitable Winkler-esque approach to the shark-tank. There is rarely a Pinky Toscadero waiting on the other side. One must ask oneself, " Once the beast has been jumped--what will be left?"

Lock this thread now, please - I don't wanna have to search through it for this passage again.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Thanks, Chef.

[I. Reilly]

What happened on The Restaurant to me is indicative of the whole shebang amigos. Hasn't every one worked with some of these mongoloid/superstar/egg on face archtypes. I mean come on, squishing your ugly faces up to your 27 inch so you can feel Rocco's shame is kin to the American pasttime of catcalling the lardassios who break dance for money. "Hey Santa Claus, Denny Terrio you ain't, now hand me the double dipper you simple dreamer." The fact that Rocco sold his mom into slave labor was only a delicious byproduct of the need for televisionians to slaughter their own. It was a rubberneckers paradise, "He did what?" "Ohh that pretty boy dick. I'm not gonna watch that crap anymore." Meanwhile this infantile complainee is off masturbating to kiddy porn. I think the show was Falstaffian in its message and although momma's meatballs kicked Rocco's foie gras/what the fuck is that green stuff image down a notch I like the fact that the guy stepped into his own poop and showed it around.

[tootallfortoques]

Last night Rocco received a visit from "the big boys", Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert.

While I was glad to see they weren't edited into a fawn-fest ("That blows"), with the insidious product placement that runs throughout the show, I wonder how this visit came about.

[i had originally posted this as a separate topic, and hadn't read all of the Restaurant traffic from last night and today, including Bourdain's post. I'm still interested to know why he and Eric went to that overpriced Olive Garden]

Edited August 18, 2003 by tootallfortoques (log)

[speidec]

I dearly hope that in the final episode, that we see Rocco look straight at the camera, give everybody the middle finger--and say, "This was a terrible mistake."

Very well said.

I cannot continue to watch this horrific train wreck.

[Christopher]

Did anyone else catch what looked like a case of Blue Nun being delivered!?

[Jinmyo]

Did anyone else catch what looked like a case of Blue Nun being delivered!?

No, I missed that.

But, sadly, I'm not surprised.