Jun 17 2008
La Parra De Burriana – Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
La Parra De Burriana 17/06/2008
Well this week we find Gordon on the Costa del Sol in sunny Spain, what an amazingly beautiful place, sun, sand and bountiful seas to provide the best food and experience for any foodie.
Well that was before we had been introduced to the local fresh prawns with chocolate sauce???? And the infamous hanging Kebab or Donkey dick as Gordon describes it.
Gordon got the chef/owner Laurence to cook his signature starter: prawns in chocolate and to follow a steak kebab and a dorada. Gordons response was as colorful as we normally expect “The prawns were cooked excellently yet I ruined them with a fu@#ing stupid sauce!” and “The steak kebab was all different sized pieces so how could it be cooked any other way than a mixture of rare, medium and crispy.” swinging in the air like a great big donkey dick. And the fish is burnt. Well once you have ha d a meal like this a simple Crème Brulee should be easy, but from the clouds of smoke emanating from the kitchen, Gordon asks his waitress is that normal, to which she replies that always happens when they burn the top of the deserts. Burn, and yes the crème Brulee had a blackened solid top, but as they had placed so much heat with their electric element it turned the centre to mush. Looked more like 2 day old baby food.
Not off to a great start but Gordon persevered and went into the kitchen and promised to be back that night to see a full service, and was that going to be an interesting time. Well the restaurant is booked fairly well and the kitchen is struggling with a menu of 90 plus options, Chinese, Italian, British and of course Spanish. This is a recipe for failure, too many dishes for 1 person to handle, while the chef is inside the souse chef is working on the medieval BBQ cooking kebabs and chicken that by sundown has become a scene from a B grade horror movie. Food that is not cooked and chicken kebabs that have been prepared and cooked even before someone has ordered them, they have been poached and the souse chef said not to worry because they will fry up ok and what he doesn’t use tonight he will reserve for tomorrow. My god that’s a recipe for Salmonella, “you will kill someone with that”. Gordon as I was speechless, well perhaps he wasn’t. But this got worse, they needed a wind up torch to cook as it got darker and the souse chef had lost the plot.
Time for a reality check, Gordon dressed all the team down and stated that tomorrow they would get this on track.
The next day Gordon arrived to find the restaurant filthy dirty there was even dog pooh on the floor. This is the worst Gordon has seen and that’s saying something. Now its time to clean and its amazing how much dirt you see coming off the floor, if the restaurant is that filthy then the kitchen must be a dump. And sure enough there is grease ¼ inch thick and the deep fryer has 2 inches of black sludge on the bottom. Gordon gets the team to action and the kitchen starts to resemble a clean environment. Gordon is battling to get the owner to drop his menu and stop using the plunge cooker (hotplate) to bastardise all the meals, fish, steak and vegetables are all cooked together no wonder they all taste the same.
Gordon needs to get the staff and chef using a simple menu with the outstanding fresh produce, but the cocky owner thinks he knows better, he is just playing with his dads money and cocking up a great business opportunity. Gordon takes it upon himself to cook the so called signature dishes of “prawn and chocolate sauce and chicken and banana” he then blended them into a smoothie and got the owner and his manager to do a blindfold taste test. The result was that neither could identify the ingredients and they both agreed that the concoctions where crap. Gordon’s answer is the tried and true one simple quick fresh food, Gordon comes up with 2 salads, a gazpacho’s soup, grilled chicken fillet and salad, but the owner Laurence still insists on running with his menu.
This as you come to expect fails, and Laurence waits far to long to call off his normal menu and in Gordons easy quick food. Another failed night, the next day Gordon attempts team building Ramsay style. This is with a twist, Gordon want the owner Laurence to learn a simple rule about accepting and listening to advise from someone who knows, this could be dangerous as Gordon has arranged Bull-Fighting lessons for Laurence. At first Laurence follows his pattern and almost gets hurt, but with the required cajoling from Gordon questioning Laurence’s cojones it all starts to click, Laurence starts to listen and finally wins 1 fight. (bull 10 Lawrence 1). This seemed to put the light on and there is now an understanding that Gordon is there to help and Laurence needs to accept the advice. (funny side story, Gordon apparently told Lawrence that he himself had learnt to fight the bull earlier that day. We have it on good authority that this was a little bull itself)
With a few changes all starts to gel and the locals have agreed to give it another try, which fortunately works, but the restaurant manager gets greedy and double books many of the tables. This makes what was a great night into a shambles, no communication with the kitchen that the tables needed their food as a priority to turn them around and unhappy customers.
As Gordons time is coming to an end they try again, this time success, but that is short lived as the restaurant got robbed over night, what a setback.
Gordon left them running OK service wasn’t that great but at least the food was good and customers happy.
6 months on:
Gordon returns to find the restaurant busy, but the menu has turned to Italian & British food not one Spanish dish. He gives the pasta and the recommended bread and butter pudding a go, what a mistake, the pasta is overcooked oily and tasteless. The recommended pudding does not do any favors either, the base is burn its “Crap”.
Gordon gets in the kitchen but Laurence has fallen back into this stupid I know best mode and wont even agree with Gordon that the pudding is burn, this is not grate perhaps Gordon needs to bring back the bull. After much discussion Gordon relies that the restaurant has lost all its lunch trade and the dinner trade is falling away, it’s time to get back to basics. Gordon does a quick poll among the people at the beach’s and street, what the tourist want is Spanish food when in Spain. Gordon challenges Laurence to a coo off at the local beach, Gordon will make a simple Paella with local ingredients up against Laurence’s pasta dish. Well you should have guessed the outcome crowds flock to the enticing aroma of the paella cooking and the crowd favorite by a landslide is that. With a little guerilla marketing Gordon lets the gathered crown know that it’s a short 200 meter stroll to the La Parra and there are some table free for lunch. This is the life saver and hopefully Laurence is back on track to at least getting this business right before aspiring to open 5 more.
Quotes:
“Taking on
the Spanish at their own game is a recipe for disaster.”
“The prawns were cooked excellently yet I ruined them with a fu@#ing stupid chocolate sauce!” “The steak kebab was swinging in the air like a great big donkey dick.”
Restaurant:
http://www.laparrarestaurant.com
Bookings: info@laparrarestaurant.com
Laurence Davey, chef and owner: laurance@laparrarestaurant.com