Anonymous Cable TV show

Little did I know having a completely inept, and incompetent Fed-Ex delivery professional could lead me to such exciting possibilities. Yesterday, in what only could have been a stroke of destiny, I found myself in the middle of a filming for a cable TV show in which people were competing for my approval.   After a lengthy battle with Fed Ex’s ‘head office’ in Texas,who told me that there had been three attempts to deliver a package, despite me insisting I had never heard the buzzer – which I would have, considering I never leave my apartment –  I made the 4 stop trek on the L train to their sorting facility in Brooklyn. The building was nondescript, and had no signs. Luckily before leaving my apartment I had written the address on the back of the piece of the paper bearing the tracking number, and therefore was in the right area, when a man exited an unmarked door. The door as it turns out held the entrance to the facility. I entered the small foyer, passed through an unmanned metal detector, and collected my package from a disgruntled woman who seemed angered by my very existence.

I left the sorting facility, with little on my mind, outside of a quick return to my safe-haven; the island of Manhattan, when I stumbled upon an acquaintance.  After a brief exchange, he told me that he was just coming from a taping of a food related show (the title will remain anonymous due to papers I signed, that I neglected read). “I haven’t had lunch yet, I wonder if they’ll take walk-ins?” I said.

“Might as well try.” He replied. He gave me directions, and then said “don’t eat at the restaurant on the right, it was terrible.” He then went into detail of what he had, “this meatball flat-bread, it was awful. Tasted like Chef-Boyardee. Then this Shephard’s Pie. Better but still not good. The dessert had this pretzel stick in it, like it was out of a package or something.”

A few minutes later I was sitting in an ante-room waiting to be called to enter one of the restaurants. They were in fact taking walk-ins, but I would have to leave my package outside. After signing several releases, the woman announced “first eight,” and we were directed into the choosing area. “Everyone has to go to the one on the right.” A man said, we were denied our choice of restaurants.

As I entered the hostess greeted us, “Hey guys.”

“I’m alone,” I countered. She led me to a table, and they brought me a menu. The diners had been giving drink tickets, but they didn’t seem to apply as they refilled my wine repeatedly throughout the meal. A few moments later a stalky woman, who was clearly one of the contestants accosted me “How do you feel about dining with someone else?” Before I could reply she said “A little awkward, right?” She was so thrilled with herself, “But,  you’ll meet a new friend.” I wanted to stab her.

She sat a gentleman with me, who later revealed, when she suggested the idea to him, that he though it “kind of creepy.” When he arrived so did the cameras, and I froze up. “So what do you do he asked?”

“I’m unemployed” I threw back. Then the cameras left as quickly as they had come. I told him how I ended up at the restaurant, and revealed that I was told not to order the meatball flat-bread or the Shepherd’s pie. After mulling over the menu we realized there was very little else to order. He ended up ordering the Shepherd’s pie, and a caesar. I too ordered the caesar and the fish. “We just ran out of the fish.” The server told me.

“Fuck, I really wanted the fish.” I don’t think that will make it into the final show. “Okay I’ll have the chicken.” We waited and they brought me more wine. I pointed out to my dining companion that they had misspelled White Cheddar on the menu. It read “whit cheddar.” He then deemed it appropriate to tell the hostess, waitress, and the front of house manager. He wanted to be on TV. When the cameras returned I likened the menu error to that of a cheap chinese restaurant, where you get your food served to you through bullet-proof glass. I spent six horrible weeks in Detroit in 2008.

The Caesars appeared. “What are these?” I poked at these green little balls. “Are they capers?” I gasped. The waitress confirmed it. “I hate to do this, but I don’t eat capers.” Which is true. It’s just about the only thing I won’t eat.

“Why don’t you pick them out?” Asked my companion.

“I mean, I could-”

“We’ll bring you something else, or just the salad without capers.” The waitress offered.

“That would be great; the salad without capers.” When the waitress left I leaned across the table and whispered, “I can’t believe I’m one of those people in a show sending food back. I never send food back in real life, of course, unless it has capers in it.”

“Why do you hate capers so much?”

“I just don’t like them – I had a bad experience once – truth be told, I don’t even like sitting at a table with someone eating capers.” All of this is true. I would eat shrimp before I ate capers, and I hate shrimp… I’d probably eat dung before I’d eat capers, although that might not be a fair comparison because I have a favorable opinion of dung; at least in comparison to capers.

The waitress returned, “There are capers in the dressing, blended up.”

“I’ll just have the flat-bread then.” I waited while my companion ate his salad. It looked awful, all covered in capers. The table next to us got served their main courses. “Did you get the fish?” I exclaimed.

“Yes.” The woman next to me replied.

“They ran out of fish, I wanted it. It was the only thing that I wanted. How is it?”  I asked.

“It’s completely edible.” She said. “Want to try some?” She offered me her plate.

How could I refuse? In a real restaurant you would never eat of a complete stranger’s plate, but for some reason this seemed okay. We were all in this together. The fish was overcooked. Relatively bland.

"When you can have pizza on a bagel, you can have pizza anytime!"

My Flatbread arrived. It wasn’t terrible. The sauce was serviceable, the dough was a little too chewy for my taste, but that is a matter of preference. Now, I’m no Gordon Ramsey but if those meatballs weren’t frozen then they were an affront to the very essence of the brilliant meat that cows so generously supply us with. They were about the size of rabbit turds, and lacked any flavor value at all. They simply offered variation in the texture of an otherwise boring dish. I could have gone to the market and microwaved some Bagel Bites and I would have been just as happy. Which is to say, not happy at all.

The appetizers were removed, and our entrees were brought out. My chicken was flavorless. Cooked well though, thankfully. His pot pie was far too hot, and burnt my tongue. It was again flavorless. When the hostess brought us our comment cards we debated whether or not to be honest. “This is how I look at it,” I argued, “maybe the people in the other restaurant had a really good meal. Maybe they did really well. If we lie, and suggest that this was good, couldn’t we be hurting their chances of winning? There are two teams here. We have to be honest for the sake of this team’s opponents.”

My dining companion mulled this over. I was honest. I wrote that I would come back to the restaurant if the meal cost under $15, that I would never suggest it to a friend, and the only thing that didn’t need salt was the dessert. Afterward I was quite proud of myself. I had done the world a service. Besides this place would never survive in New York. I was also doing the contestants a favor.

It took another 45 minutes for my dining companion to fill out his card. I began to hate him. No one is gonna read this any of this anyway, I thought, maybe some intern will battle through 10 of them to get something snarky that a judge can read the contestants, but other than that it’s all nonsense. We left. Unfortunately my dining companion also inhabits my lovely island, and so we ended up on the train together. We ran into the couple who had been sitting next to us on the platform, and I tried to engage them in conversation but they didn’t want to bail me out of the dull conversation I was saddled with. My companion then said something about getting my e-mail address because he does these things a lot. He did a Kitchen Nightmares and various other programs. I pretended I didn’t hear him.

When all was said and done, I was happy that I had a free meal. I wasn’t pleased with the meal itself, or my company, but I was satiated. When I got home it was about 5:30, drunk on too many glasses of boxed wine, I laid down on my bed and dozed off. As I slumbered I dreamt of a world bereft of bland, and tasteless cooks, you know the kind, the ones who put capers on a Caesar.

UPDATE:

The show has now just aired. The series is called 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, the restaurant was called taps. I watched the entire episode, despite the poor craftsmanship of the show. The show lacked any reason for me to care, and not only was there a possibility of me being in it, but I could watch Unwrapped —  a show about packaging tootsie-roll pops — for 6 hours straight, because I love food so much. In the end Tapps won the $10,000 prize, which just goes to show what a sham the show is. In an attempt to be totally fair to the quality of Tapps I’ll say this, I’ve been served better food by the L.A. Unified School District.

You might recognize me in this photo