The Apprentice Series 4 - Episode 3


Shazia

Animatronic SAS (not relevant but funny!)

Good food served all day!

The Task: The teams have to choose a theme for pub catering for a day, prepare all the food and of course return a huge profit. This time SAS picks the project managers, Sara Dhada for the girls and Ian Stringer for the boys.
Boy's Team (Renaissance): The boys are given Hampstead's Duke Of Hamilton to set up in and despite the pink tie proliferation chose an Italian theme with fake accents and false moustaches thrown in for good measure. Kevin is elected head chef as he eats in a lot of Italian restaurants and is a “culinary adventurer”. Kevin then proceeds to talk an absolute bunch of rubbish about chicken carbonara. There is much squabbling again and I remember the feeling of “get me out of here”. I now have more respect for Raef as it clearly isn’t easy keeping these boys in line. Kevin proves he can’t do simple tomato maths (although I can talk) and much procrastination ensues. Michael reckons you have to reduce the price of soup to £2.95, which is clearly far too cheap in Hampstead where people are loaded: how about some local research boys? ‘Lee Mcqueen’, who has inexplicably started referring to himself in the third person (usually a sign of psychopathic tendencies) is rightfully concerned about margins. The boys are so far behind they end up shopping in a supermarket more than twice and even in a deli. Supplies still run out so Ian suggests serving half pizzas. Some think the food is “disgusting and bland” but there is clearly a good atmosphere and the customers are having fun.
Girl's Team (Alpha): Over in Islington at The King's Head, the girls argue but eventually seem to be bullied into a Bollywood theme by Sara. They make some good decisions such as copying food ideas from a local Indian restaurant, buying cheap local meat, and selling VIP tickets for £5 (complete genius!). They did however, overlook the fact that none of them actually know how to cook Indian food and have forgotten to buy the right spices. Consequently the girls are five hours late creating the Chicken Korma and miss out on the lunch sales, but they are ready for Bollywood night and the food actually looks edible, as do the girls and they have even dressed the tables.
The evening ends with the Bollywood dancer (or is he just a waiter) and Nick Hewer’s reaction is precious but not as precious as Jenny’s (maybe she has a sense of humour after all!).
Boardroom: The girls win as they “haemorrhaged” less money and are sent to an (apparently) world-famous country manor cookery school. Impressively, the girls actually made a profit before they had cooked anything with their £5 leaflet idea and the fact that they didn’t even pay for the printing. Sara graciously accepts full responsibility for their failure to serve lunch.
Boardroom II: Ian chooses to take Kevin, for total general incompetence and Simon, because…. well I can only assume it is a personal vendetta, into the boardroom. Then Ian attacks Kevin for menu planning and pricing problems and Simon for being an interference, Kevin blames Simon, Simon blames Ian etc. etc. Then Ian signs his own death warrant by saying he can’t even spell the word “loser” and continuously talks over SAS.
SAS says there were fatal errors and understandably fires Ian. However, I am still pretty shocked that Kevin doesn’t get the axe as well, he is clearly useless.
Ian Stringer To be honest we have seen so little of him it is hard to comment, although he was quite funny on “You’re Fired”.
Simon Smith Still loving Simon, hoorah! I suspect he is rapidly losing interest though, probably due to the exceptionally high levels of childishness. My fave Simon quotes this week; “we need to deal in facts”, “err… we need to cook!”.
Kevin Shaw Is a goner surely! The Matt Lucas-alike just seems to talk a lot of rubbish and then tells the camera how he ‘isn’t worried’. I will eat all my hats if he wins (to be fair, I have far fewer than Lucinda).
Lindi Mngaza Looks like she should be on the X–Factor. Her only contribution this week was to be over familiar with the punters, which would give me the runs even before I’d had the curry!
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