Thursday, April 10, 2008

'There's a fly in my soup!'

Week 3- The task this week was to convert a pub, which had never served food before, into a restaurant. This was a task which required proper planning, and 'facts, facts, facts,' as Simon said. Sir Alan chose Sara to project manage Alpha and Ian to lead Renaissance. There was a reversal of the situation this week as the girls did their homework whereas the boys plucked prices out of thin air.
The girls chose a Bollywood theme and Sara led the team well, despite some needless arguments from Claire. Although they missed lunch because the korma did not pass the taste test, selling tickets for £5 helped to bring in the cash. They also had an 'authentic' Bollywood dancer, although Nick did not look too impressed with his talents.
The boys went for an Italian theme and things went from bad to worse. Kevin was appointed Head Chef, for the sole reason that he had eaten in Italian restaurants before. Though he was a bank manager he failed to correctly calculate the number of tomatoes needed for 15 bowls of soup. He even struggled to minus 4 from 15. His carbonara contained ham, bacon and chicken, with potatoes, mushrooms...and basically anything else in the kitchen. He seemed to dominate over Ian and yelled at Alex, simply because 'that's what chefs do'.
Their lack of organisation resulted in a huge amount of overspending- and three trips to the supermarket. Tempers were fraying as the marketing group were sent to buy black bags and tin openers. The entire situation was summed up thus: 'I, Lee McQueen, am concerned.' Other failures included tasteless bolognese, not being able to spell 'accent', half pizzas and Michael's singing- another story altogether.
Unsurprisingly, the boys lost. Although they managed to bring in more money, their overspend let them down. And so, the end of the episode found Ian, Kevin and Simon in the firing line. Simon fought hard to prove that he was more than just 'chopper Smith', whilst Kevin and Ian couldn't decide whether there had been a pep-talk or not! Simon was let off the hook, but will have to tread carefully especially after forgetting the 'sir' in front of 'Sir Alan'! Eventually, Ian had to go. He was a weak manager and although Kevin had his faults, ultimately Ian was to blame. If we were in Sir Alan's position, we would probably have fired both of them.

2 comments:

Leo_Africanus said...

I'm assuming exams are precluding you from giving us a cyber-tafsir of the apprentice's ins and outs. We're looking forward to your overall summary!

Oh, and good luck with exams!

Random Madhouse said...

You've guessed right...currently I can't think outside the holy trinity of biology, RS and chemistry! Actually, I lie- I have faithfully watched the apprentice every week, and will dutifully post a summary soon!