8 Steps To Make a Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare Episode

Let me start with this: I love Gordon Ramsay. He's a talented chef in the kitchen and he's very entreprenurial as well; you can see it from the many restaurants he has and several different tv shows that you watch on TV.

I've watched Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare for several seasons now. I realized after the first season that almost every single episode follows the same formula/story line, which gets boring after a while. In fact, you can probably make your own episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare. Here's the step by step process:

1. Tell a bit of the restaurant background+meeting restaurant owner(s)
The narrator will tell you a bit of the restaurant background and why the owner thinks they need help. Chef Ramsay walks in to the restaurant to meet the owner(s) during lunch time.

2. Order lunch from the restaurant & insult the food
After meeting the owner of the restaurant, he usually meets the head server to order lunch. Sometimes he ask for recommendation of the restaurant's specialty, sometimes he would just order from the menu. Often, one of the restaurant's biggest mistake is by having such an extensive menu that makes it hard to remember all the menu and make the food not fresh.
After trying the food for the first time, Ramsay would insult the food for being too hard or too mushy because it's over cooked. Other times he would say it taste frozen/not fresh and ask the server if it's fresh or not. Ramsay often Spit out the food, and tell them to bring the next meal. Sometimes he'd ask his server to taste the food before sending it back to the kitchen (not the one he spat on already).
The owner(s)/chef would think he's a jerk for insulting their food.

3. Watch the restaurant do a dinner service
From the first dinner service, they would show how most of these people don't know how to run a kitchen. They falls behind, takes forever to prepare such simple foods. Once the food are out of the kitchen, they're often get sent back because the food is either raw (Ramsay would say: "It's colder than a sushi bar") or burnt.

4. Show how dirty their kitchen and freezer are
There are very few restaurants in the show that have a clean kitchen; Not only their kitchen is dirty, their freezer is disgusting too. Some of the food found in the freezer are really old, and a lot of them are already mouldy. It makes me wonder how clean and fresh are the food that are being served to me at a restaurant.
Depending how dirty it is, Ramsay would stop serving food to the customer for the rest of the night if the freezer is disgusting. He'd make the staff clean the kitchen that night.

5. Having a serious meeting with the owner(s)
Ramsay would identify what the restaurant's problems are and sometimes he would point out some strength the restaurant has.

(optional step): run the restaurant again on the second night, the chef could possibly walk out of the kitchen if s/he can't handle the heat. Sometimes they would come back to the kitchen, sometimes they have to be replaced by a new chef that Ramsay's brought in.


6. Remodel the restaurant+introduce new menu+announce a relaunch of the restaurant
Chef Ramsay brings in his interior crew to renovate the restaurant overnight and supply them with quality kitchen wares. In the morning when the owner(s) and staff comes in, they would say something like this: "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is really happening. This is much better than anything I could imagine! Thank you so much Chef Ramsay, you're not a jerk afterall!"
After that, they'd proceed to the kitchen and introduce them a new menu that is fresh. There are no longer any frozen food in the menu.
Often, they would go to the city and serve some finger foods to let the city know their restaurant is having a relaunch that night.

7. Relaunch/final dinner service
During the relaunch of the restaurant, the kitchen usually off to a strong start, but then their old habit would kick back in the middle of the service. Chef Ramsay would say some words or two to motivate them. In the end, the kitchen staff make a come back and every one's happy.

8. Goodbyes
After the relaunch service, Ramsay says his goodbyes to the restaurant crew. Tell them to never give up and tell them that he'd come back one day and wanna see them still in business and serving fresh food.


So yea...this is pretty much how every episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare goes. If you haven't noticed it before, after reading this, you'd agree with me the next time you watch an episode.

5 Things Twitter Can Improve On

Twitter is cool and all, and if you're reading this chances are you're addicted to Twitter just like me. I usually use Tweetdeck to do all my twitter business, because it organize my Twitter feed in so many wonderful ways. I still go to the Twitter website every now and then to follow new people, searching for old tweets, check out trending topics, etc. However it can get very frustrating navigating the main website. So here's the five things Twitter can improve on.

1. 160 character limits instead of 140
Sometimes when you're out somewhere doing exciting activities and you want to share your experience with your followers. However this activity is too exciting for you to go on the mobile web to access Twitter or access your Tweetdeck, because if you do you'll end up reading your Twitter feed. So you just update your twitter via text message. The standard text message limit is 160 characters instead of the Twitter 140 character limit. Your tweet will get cut off if you're not aware you pass the 140 character limit.


2. Wall-to-wall feature like Facebook
Sometimes you have to dig deep into your friend's twitter page just to find his/her @reply to you. I know you can just type in @(yourownusername) in the search box, but that only shows recent @replies.



3. Mutual followers/followees
This is mostly to eliminate unecessary Follow Friday, especially if they have the same people every week.


4. Search functions to find followers/followees instead of having to go through the whole list of follower/followees
It's very inconvenient to go through the whole list of people you follow just to find one person. Yes, you can type in twitter.com/theirusername in your browser, but that's inconvenient. What if you forgot how to spell their username?


5. Auto-complete for @replies
This is important so people don’t have to memorize how to type their followers’ twitter name. Especially if their twitter handles include alphabets, numeric characters, and underscores.

Henry's Thought on Paralympics

Henry is either 6 or 7 years old and he is very smart; He's Kelly Oxford's son. I enjoy reading Kelly's blog here. It's very witty and insightful. Here's a conversation between Kelly and her son about the paralympics:

Henry: Why can't I find the Paralympics on TV?
Kelly: I don't know.
Henry: They're on right?
Kelly: Yes. I mean, I think so.
Henry: Don't these people know that watching a guy with one leg ski is WAY cooler than watching a guy with two legs ski? This world is stupid.

Originally posted here.

Jerseys Wish List

I have quite many jerseys; basketball, baseball, football, hockey, you name it. I want some new jerseys, so here's the list in case you wanna buy me some:

1. Deron Williams- Utah Jazz
2. Stephen Curry- Golden State Warriors
3. Adam Lind- Toronto Blue Jays
4. Demarcus Cousins- Kentucky Wild Cats
5. Omri Casspi- Sacramento Kings
6. Rodrigue Beaubois- Dallas Mavericks

Exaggeration

People exaggerate too much when they're trying to describe something

Example 1: "I'm having a HUGGGGGEEEEE party for my birthday, you should come. It's gonna be fun and lots of people" So we went there to check it out, there were six other people showed up...how is this "HUGGGGGEEEEE"? Regardless...we all still had fun..kinda.

Example 2: Overheard
Person 1: Dude! You missed out an EPIC Saturday night with us last night!
Person 2: Oh yea? What did you guys do?
Person 1: We stayed in, played Call of Duty, then we got bored, went to a corner store to get some beef jerky, their beef jerky were on sale. We also bought some other munchies. On our way there we found $10. Made a detour to grab some...Went back to our place and watched The Cove.
Person 1: Where's the Epic part?
Person 2: We found 10 bucks on our way to the convenient store!

Example 3: Cookies
Person 1: Hey, person 2 just baked us the most amazing cookies I've ever eaten in my life. EVER.
Me: (after I chowed down the cookie) This is pretty good, person 2. How did you make it?
Person 2: Pillsbury. I just put it on a cookie sheet and bake it.


These are just a little examples of exaggeration I get to hear every day. Because of these people, there are a lot of skeptics out there who would questions if a certain fact really is true as described. Yes, I'm one of them. Whenever I hear people describe something to be great, I have to see it myself to believe it. Sometimes you just have to know who you talk to when they describe something to believe them and then adjust your expectation accordingly. This sucks if you just met that person or if you don't know them that well. You can't really expect whether the said things were true or not.

With all the exaggerations people mention, people who don't exaggerate are always frustrated when other people don't believe them because they think they're exaggerating. I don't exaggerate (barely ever); that's why I find it very frustrating when I describe something really awesome and people don't believe me because they think I exaggerate it.
Example 1: One time I met this girl who has MASSIVE boobs that are probably as big as watermelons. I then told a friend about her and he didn't believe me. He thought ok, maybe they're big, but not that big. Until one day he met her himself and he finally believed me and said "I thought you were exaggerating".

Example 2: Summer Concert years ago
Friend: Man, how was the concert last night?
Me: It was super awesome man, I was at the very front, against the barricade from start to finish. Got squished...It was amazing to be that close to the band. Crappy thing was I gotta worked hard to stayed up front from people trying to get to the front and take ove my spot. At the end of the night my clothes got so soaked like someone pushed me into a pool (gross, I know) and my t-shirt got ripped too
Friend: I don't believe you, you can't be that wet
Me: Find, come over to my house and see my clothes from last night if you don't believe me. I still haven't washed it yet.
My friend checked the clothes out himself and finally believe how soaked it was.


So yea...people need to stop exaggerating stuff. It's so annoying when I tell some really cool stuff and they don't believe me because they thought I exaggerate and it's annoying when I don't know you well enough to guess whether you exaggerate stuff or not.

Random Thoughts About Food

If you're living in Toronto and have a little kid, please train them to eat anything and everything from many different ethnic food. Toronto is very rich in terms of ethno-cultural diversity; because of this Toronto has all sorts of delicious ethnic food available for you and your kids to try.

I'm the type of person who love to go out for a nice meal at least once a week. I just have this craving of different ethnic foods every week; sometimes it's Indian, sometimes it's Italian, Chinese, Greek, Carribean, Soul food, etc.

Nothing worse than when you go out with a group of friends and a couple of you wanna eat some tasty jambalaya with blackened cat fish and some sweet potato fries, but there's one person in the group who've never tried these and don't feel advanturous enough to try. So you and your group of friends end up going to Jack Astor's and this person ended up ordering Caesar Salad with grilled chicken while you and your friends get burgers and fries or something like that. Not that there's anything wrong with caesar salad with grilled chicken, but you could make caesar salad with grilled chicken in 15 minutes max at home and how often do you make soul food at home?

So yea, you don't want your kid to be that person who always order chicken caesar salad or chicken fingers and fries at a restaurant. We call them caesar salad or chicken fingers behind their back...or blatantly to their face. HAH!

Raptors Red Party Recap- March 3rd 2010 @MUZIK

The Raptors Red Party is an event hosted by the Raptors and the MLSE Team Up Foundation to raise money for the kids in need. This was my first time going to the Red Party so I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking a sit down dinner, some sort of speech from Brian Colangelo or Coach Triano and Team Up Foundation ED. Nope..I was wrong, none of this happened. It was a mingling party. No dinner, lots of snacks and best of all... FREE BOOZE (didn't expect this either). You read it right, no real dinner and free booze. Can you say messy night? Keep reading to find out my friend.

When my friend Adam and I got there, it was busy, but wasn't too packed yet and there was no music yet. Felt a little bit awkward, we went to the bar for some champagne. I then asked how much is it for a bottle of MGD and whiskey and coke; she told me it's free! Bomb...

We first met Adnan Virk and asked if we could get a picture. He replied: "Yes, of course...hold on, let me get some girls to be in the pictures with us too". How can you not love this guy?



Then I met Eric Smith. I told him that I really appreciate how he try to respond to everyone on Twitter.



and Jack Armstrong. We talked about the ideal playoffs spot for the Raptors for a quite a bit.


We walked around, get some snacks and more drinks, and spotted Nav Bhatia a.k.a. The Raptors Superfan. I asked him if I could get a picture with him. He said yes

As soon as this picture was snapped, I saw Brian Colangelo came out of nowhere RAN towards us and told Adam to get in the picture with Nav as well...


So yea, this pic was taken by Brian Colangelo, The Raptors GM. We then asked BC to be in the picture with us



BC was one of the happiest guy I've seen last night. He walked around talking to people with huge smiles on his face. It's a totally different BC than the one you see on TV.


Then all the players started head towards the dance floor and people start taking pictures with them. I don't remember the exact order of who did I take picture with, so I'm just gonna post the rest of it here.

Amir Johnson



Antoine Wright



Coach Triano said it doesn't matter where The Raptors finish as long as they're in the Playoffs. He didn't really want to comment the ideal spot for the Raptors in the Playoffs.



Jose said his elbow is getting better



Marco Belinelli with no Andrea Bargnani, because he was sick.



I told POB we should go curling sometimes.



I accidentally touched Rasho's butt while trying to get in position, he doesn't looked impressed here lol. Then I told him that I have his jersey, he said "nice, I like that. Thank you"



Talked to Sherm about how nice it is to see him on Court Surfing on Tuesday nights.



Took a picture with Akil before we shot Raptorspace



Took a picture with Kat after we shot Raptorspace.



AND THEN.....Out of nowhere DRAKE came on stage to perform.

I actually got this pic from from Facebook somewhere.




Video of Drake peforming, via Akil. Much better than the cell-phone version I got.



Finally before my night ended, I got to meet Stackmack who updates you with players' quotes after practice & injury updates and Nat77 from Twitter.



On our way out we got some free swags that consists of a bottle of olive oil, a bag of harvest cheddar Sun Chips, and a coupon for a 12 pack of Coke. This is a totally random mix of swags. The funny thing was I ran out of olive oil two days ago and was supposed to buy one. I don't have to anymore now.


Overall, it was a great experience and I'm quite surprised with all the free booze and the lack of food I got, it didn't turn into a messy night. I've met quite a few new people there as well as the Raptors celebrities. The greatest thing that happened was jamming to Drake with the Raptors players. How often do you get to do that?



Random notes:
-I didn't take a picture with Chris Bosh, because he was swarmed by tonnes of people. He looked exhausted midway through. So I didn't even bother asking him for a picture. I asked him about his ankle and he said it's getting better. Whether he would play on Friday vs. the Knicks, he said he doubt it.
-I didn't see Andrea Bargnani because I think he was sick yesterday and didn't attend practice.
-Hedo was busy entertaining the VIP tables at the back. He looked like he had fun.
-Reggie seemed like he had a great night. Not too many people asked him for his autograph, maybe because he looked quite intimidating. He "box" out even when he's not on the court. Nah...he was nice.
-Hadi's world was a bit of a snob.

Random Gas Pump Encounter

Me: Pump number 1... I need to get a carwash as well please.
Gas station attendant: It's close for the night, come back tomorrow, you can buy the coupon now though, so it's cheaper because it's combined with your gas.
Me: Ya, sure...Gimme the basic(said this kinda silently)
GSA: Which one you want? The best one?
Me: No, give me the cheapest one.
GSA: I'll give you the best one for only $10
Me: (thinking in my head...That's how much it cost usually) No, give me the cheapest one.


I don't see how paying $3 more is gonna get my car cleaner + stay shiny longer in the winter. I can get one Labatt Blue tall boy and still have $1 extra.