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The Weekly Eater Nadine Kam |
NBC
Rocco DiSpirito and his mother, Niccolina, work side by side in "The Restaurant."
Spicy conflicts
add flavor to
reality TV’s
‘Restaurant’FOR MANY older adults, MTV, at 22 years old as of Friday, might be considered a relatively new phenomenon in the world of television history. For kids it's another story. Music television is something they took for granted from the time they were born.
Someday the same may be true of Food Television. Born in 1993, the concept didn't really take off until just before its fifth anniversary in 1998, but without it we would have missed such mega-forces as "Iron Chef" and "Emeril." And who can forget the "Two Fat Ladies"?
Our culinary world is much broader thanks to cable, and while Hawaii has a history of taking food on air, through such pioneers as Nino J. Martin, Titus Chan, Hari Kojima and Muriel Miura, it's only now, with the reality series "The Restaurant," that one of the big networks has caught on to the revolution.
Prolific reality-show producer Mark Burnett seemed to think viewers would be as interested in what goes on behind the scenes as what's on their plates, and I figured I'd tune in to see just how tantalizing a restaurant could be when we can look but not taste.
Tuning into the second episode, it's obvious that television sets up a couple of unrealistic situations. Telegenic chef Rocco DiSpirito, who dropped in for the Big Island's "Cuisines of the Sun" in 2000, is given only seven weeks from receipt of investor funding to opening day, and while he's flustered by the deadline, I couldn't help but think that in a pinch the network would provide a safety net. I mean, no restaurant, no series, right?
On the day of the soft opening, the dining room and kitchen are still being constructed. As guests file in, there are still ladders and other evidence of construction work in the foyer. More important, there is no evidence of any pre-prep in the kitchen, and most of the wait help don't know how to set a table.
Less than 10 minutes into the episode, I feel stressed! It's a far cry from the Bravo hit "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which is a relaxing hoot-fest all the way, watching some hapless dude get picked apart and transformed into date-, career- or marriage-worthy material.
Five more minutes into "The Restaurant," my heart is racing faster than it has at any of summer's so called "adrenaline-rush" films. The food's not coming out of the kitchen! The kitchen's on fire! Guests are restless! The New York Times food writer left! The clams! Where are the clams? These are real dilemmas.
One customer gets his clams ... but he ordered shrimp. Throughout, the food didn't look appealing to me, slopped onto plates as it was. You can check out Rocco's menu yourself at www.roccosrestaurant.com.
With the series being shot in New York, and some staff and customers seeming to ratchet their bad behavior up a notch for the cameras, insults fly. Considering the invitees to a soft opening are friends and family, the customers seem nastier and more impatient than they should be. I started siding with the staff, many in disbelief, who complained diners "were not very forgiving" considering they were dining for free!
Suddenly the wine stops flowing and a customer gives a waiter his credit card to go out and buy some. (A big "yeah, right.") The waiter returns empty-handed, but with the card, only to find there is wine in the house after all, which by this time is being served in plastic cups. Apparently, no one had been assigned to wash dishes, so there were no clean glasses.
To cap the evening, customers' cars are towed, and so is Rocco's.
THE MORNING AFTER brings Rocco's "secret weapon" into the kitchen, his mom, Niccolina. She is the calm after the storm as she works quickly and efficiently, making her sauces and special meatballs, kneading pounds of hamburger by hand, "her exercise."
Meanwhile, Rocco has personnel issues to take care of and learns he's being sued because the name Rocco's Restaurant is too close to that of a Greenwich Village restaurant, Rocco Ristorante, which has been in business since 1922.
Later that night, with people having to pay for their meals, traffic is slower and more manageable. One customer complains loudly about the meatballs, but when Niccolina appears at the end of the meal, he does an about face and can't stop raving to her face -- she makes the best meatballs!
The stress of the earlier half felt too much like work for me to enjoy. But by the end of the episode, the film crew had set up a conflict between employees; Rocco himself, whom waiters accuse of being more focused on celebrity than cooking; and an autocratic manager who believes the employee is always wrong.
Well, we all love a good story, and it looks like they've got one that will, for a while, have viewers rooting for the waiters and waiting for "the French guy's" downfall, before likely turning the tables. The series also reaffirmed my lack of desire to ever work in a restaurant, where it's just too hot for comfort. I just like to watch and, when I can, eat.
See some past restaurant reviews in the
Columnists section.
Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:
To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com
excellent; very good, exceeds expectations; average; below average.
