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The second episode of Season 8 of Hell’s Kitchen aired on FOX, on September 22, 2010, airing as a double feature alongside the first episode. On that episode, sushi was the main item, one chef got in trouble when they tried to manipulate the diner’s orders, and one chef’s poor performance got their team frustrated with them.

Intro[]

While going back to the dorms, Raj sarcastically thanked Louis for his comments, but Louis said he only told the truth. Russell did not want the men to implode and wanted to give Raj a fighting chance. On the women, Sabrina knew her teammates did not like her, but she did not care as she was out for herself. Emily was not happy Sabrina threw Nona under the bus during elimination, but Nona did not care as Sabrina showed her immaturity, and called her an infant.

Team challenge[]

The next morning, at 4:32 am, the chefs were asleep in their beds, when a group of Japanese taiko drummers sneaked into the dorms and woke everybody up. Sous Chef Scott appeared and told everyone to head downstairs to meet Ramsay, who said that the opening service was memorable for all the wrong reasons. But, before he could go any further, he got distracted with Raj's heavy breathing, which Sabrina, Jillian, and Vinny decided to mock in their confessions. After getting Raj to slow down, Ramsay revealed that he made a phone call to one of his old friends, and introduced the chefs to Masaharu Morimoto. Ramsay explained that Masaharu was very well known for his sushi dishes, and for the Sushi Challenge, the chefs would recreate Masaharu’s signature salmon and cucumber roll and tuna nigari dish, much to the concern of Jillian, as she never worked with “Chinese food” before. Then, Masaharu gave the chefs a demonstration on how each of the sushi pieces were to be made, while the chefs were paying close attention. To make sure there were no mistakes, Masaharu brought over his trademark Morimoto knives for the chefs to use during the challenge, and Ramsay said that the team who won the challenge got to keep their knives. After Masaharu left, Ramsay revealed that the challenge would be done in pairs, and the person next to the chefs would be their partners for that challenge.

Ramsay gave the chefs 10 minutes to make their sushi. While making them, Melissa expressed hope in doing well because she had Gail as her partner, and that she should know how to make sushi because of her Asian background. However, both Gail and Melissa were struggling. The pair of Curtis and Trev were not doing well either as Curtis was struggling with rolling his sushi up, and compared it to a dookie roll. After time was up, Ramsay told the men to sit out one pair to even up the numbers, and they all immediately went with the pair of Curtis and Trev. Ramsay agreed with their decision and called Curtis and Trev's attempt embarrassing.

The women went up first, and the pair of Melissa and Gail was not only missing a salmon roll, but in addition, the rolls were cut poorly and the tuna was improperly sliced. Because of that, they scored no points. The pair of Jillian and Nona were up next and managed to score 8 points. Emily and Sabrina were the final pair and managed to score 7 points. The women finished with 15 points.

The men were up next, and the pair of Rob and Louis only managed to get 4 points as they failed to put wasabi in all of their tuna nigiri pieces. Russell and Raj were up next, and they also scored 4 points due to Raj failing to put wasabi in three of his tuna nigiri pieces. The final pair was Vinny and Boris and they managed to score 8 points, giving the men the win 16-15.

Scoring[]

Red Team Blue Team
Chef Score Total Chef Score Total
Melissa and Gail 0 0 Rob and Louis 4 4
Jillian and Nona 8 8 Russell and Raj 4 8
Emily and Sabrina 7 15 Vinny and Boris 8 16
Results 16-15

Reward[]

In addition to keeping their Morimoto knives, the men went to Cellar 360 in San Francisco with Ramsay. During the flight, Ramsay jokingly refused to sit next to Raj. When they arrived at Cellar 360, they were greeted by Matt Lane of the Rosemount Estates, who gave them the first wine tasting, while revealing the winner of that season would also become the spokesperson for Rosemount Estates in addition to the head chef position at LA Market. During the tasting, Raj gulped most of his wine, which caused Ramsay to jokingly tell him to sip it. Eventually, Ramsay said he had to get back to Hell’s Kitchen, but informed the men that he arranged a sunset dinner at the Water Bar restaurant for them. While eating dinner, Curtis and Trev thanked the men for winning despite their poor performance, and Trev felt their reward was a bonding experience. Later that night, the men returned to Hell’s Kitchen, with Raj doing karate moves when he entered, and went to sleep.

Punishment[]

The women had to prep sushi for the next dinner service. Gail was upset about letting the women down with her poor performance, and while Jillian calmed her down, Sabrina blamed Gail and Melissa for costing them the challenge. During the punishment, Nona and Sabrina got into an argument over the latter’s lack of help, and Sous Chef Andi asked both of them to help take in deliveries of rice. Nona proved to be out of breath and slow during the delivery, much to Sabrina's annoyance. For dinner, Sous Chef Andi revealed that Ramsay has provided them with squid to eat. While the rest of the women were disgusted by their dinner with Sabrina repeatedly throwing up in the process, Gail happily ate the squid as she was used to eating food like that. Once they finished their dinner, Sous Chef Andi dismissed the women for the night and suggested that they get a good night’s sleep for the next service.

Before service[]

The next day, both teams were ready for service and began prepping. During prep, Raj was struggling on getting his station ready when he was picking parsley, so Vinny came by to help him out despite having zero belief that Raj would do well. Once prep was finished, Ramsay had both teams lined up and said that he wanted that service to be a fresh start after their awful opening service. Since both teams made James’ first night as maître d’ a total misery, Ramsay picked Jillian and Vinny as assistant maître d’s for that service. Once everyone was at their stations, Ramsay told James to open Hell’s Kitchen.

Dinner Service[]

Sabrina and Curtis were in charge of a salmon sushi roll appetizer, which was added to the menu that night. Jillian brought her first ticket to Ramsay, but Ramsay noticed that the ticket had three dessert orders on a table of two. Jillian admitted she miswrote the ticket due to being nervous, but Ramsay urged her to fight back. Meanwhile, the men were waiting on Vinny's first ticket who was struggling to remember what tables he was waiting on, and Ramsay asked James to find him.

30 minutes into dinner service, Vinny managed to deliver his first ticket. Ramsay asked Vinny if he was trying to sabotage the men, but Vinny denied doing so. Ramsay called out the men's first ticket, and everyone but Raj acknowledged the order, despite Raj being right next to Ramsay. Then, Ramsay pulled Raj aside and asked him to call back what he said, but Raj admitted he was not paying attention, much to Ramsay’s dismay. Louis even said it was a god damn miracle that Raj was not dead or in an insane asylum. In the red kitchen, Gail, Nona, and Sabrina brought up their dishes, and Ramsay sent them out to the dining room. Curtis brought up his sushi rolls, but Ramsay saw he made three fat fucks and a minuscule piece, and that his plate was not properly clean. Due to Curtis’ poor performance, Ramsay was forced to send out one incomplete table of appetizers to the dining room. Meanwhile, the women were moving onto entrées, but Emily's first order of steak came out rare, forcing Ramsay to trash Nona's perfectly cooked fish and start the order again.

An hour and a half into dinner service, and Vinny's performance as a maître d’ was slowing down the blue kitchen. Hoping to speed things up, Vinny recommended to one table to not order sides because he had no faith in Raj's performance. However, James soon came to the table and found out what Vinny did, and Ramsay was confused why one of Vinny's tickets had no side orders. James brought Vinny over to the pass and told Ramsay about what Vinny did. Then, Ramsay brought Vinny back in the blue kitchen, and Vinny explained that he told the table that while the sides were delicious, it would take a long time for them to leave the kitchen. Because of that, Ramsay confronted Raj if he told Vinny to say that, but Raj argued he did not and showed that he had all the sides ready to go. That led Vinny to reveal he only told the table that because he had no faith in Raj, and a furious Ramsay kicked Vinny out of service as he had no authority to decide what would go out. On his way back to the dorms, Vinny still thought he was helping the customers. In the red kitchen, Emily was still struggling on the meat station, and Nona was getting frustrated. Also, Gail told Emily to turn the convection oven up, but Nona got angry when Emily revealed she did not know how to cook meat, and Ramsay chewed Emily out for sinking her team while urging her to bounce back. In the blue kitchen, Boris took control of Trev's fish station and sent up the scallops, but they came out raw.

Two hours into dinner service, the men had not been able to send out appetizers, while the women served nearly half of their entrées. Melissa sent up her mashed potatoes, but not only were they cold and runny, Ramsay said that they were not even needed. Melissa got confused on the ticket orders and Ramsay decided to swap Melissa out for Jillian in the dining room. As Melissa settled into her new role as assistant maître d’, Jillian took over the garnish station and called out for times, allowing the women to get back on track. Meanwhile, in the blue kitchen, Curtis’ problems continued as he sent up poorly cut sushi pieces without any wasabi to the pass, which caused an impatient Ramsay to kick Curtis out of the kitchen. Then, Ramsay found that Raj was stacking up the garnishes, cluttering his station, and he kicked Raj out as well. Once Raj was back in the dorms, he decided to put his head in the freezer to get his mind straightened. In the kitchen, Louis sent up his Caesar salads, but he did not plate an equal amount of walnuts on either plate. Finally fed up, Ramsay brought the rest of the men to the back hallway and ejected them from service.

Back in the dorms, Louis vented how the men were looking like idiots after failing the first two services and that they would do it again unless they focused. When Raj told everyone to calm down, calling his teammates kids, Louis yelled at him for his condescending remark. The rest of the men joined in, throwing things at Raj, Vinny berating Raj for failing to prep parsley during prep, and Boris called Raj a waste of life. However, Raj called his team a bunch of snakes. In the red kitchen, the women managed to get all of their tables finished, and while Ramsay said it was not worth a massive celebration, he praised them for a good job, and the women were extremely happy about their victory.

Post-mortem[]

When both teams were lined up, Ramsay told the men that they were the obvious losers, while angrily berating Vinny for telling the customers not to order sides as he was not in position to do so. Then, Ramsay asked Curtis why the sushi station was difficult for him, and Curtis said that he had no excuse for his poor performance. Ramsay asked the men to nominate two people for elimination.

Back in the dorms, the men easily agreed on Raj being the first nominee, but Raj argued that Vinny should be up for elimination due to him telling the customers not to order sides. Trev, Russell, and Vinny agreed that Curtis should be the second nominee, but Curtis argued Boris should be up instead as he muscled Trev off the fish station and sent up raw scallops, which caused Trev to reconsider his choice.

Elimination[]

Boris announced that Raj was the first nominee, but when Raj tried to argue against it, Vinny reminded him it was a unanimous decision. After that, Trev announced that Boris was the second nominee, which Boris was surprised about. While Ramsay agreed with those nominees, he decided to call down Vinny as well, as he was still upset Vinny tried to convince some customers not to order sides. After listening to their pleas, Ramsay decided to spare the nominees and eliminate Curtis as his poor performance on sushi was the reason the men fell apart. A tearful Curtis left the restaurant stating the experience meant a lot to him and his family and he swore to make it up to them someday.

Ramsay's comment: "Curtis might have been a good ol' boy, but unfortunately, he wasn't good at cooking."

Trivia[]

  • This marks the first time a team was forced to compete with a two person disadvantage against the opposing team.
  • This episode marks the first time since Episode 607 - 10 Chefs Compete where the red team won service over the blue team.
  • Beginning with this episode, the winning team sits in chairs off to the side during the elimination ceremony as opposed to sitting at a table like the previous seven seasons.
  • This is the first time a team won the rights to keep the equipment they used in a challenge.
Hell's Kitchen Season 8 Episodes
16 Chefs Compete14 Chefs Compete13 Chefs Compete12 Chefs Compete11 Chefs Compete10 Chefs Compete9 Chefs Compete Part 19 Chefs Compete Part 28 Chefs Compete7 Chefs Compete6 Chefs Compete5 Chefs Compete4 Chefs Compete4 Chefs Compete Again2 Chefs Compete
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