Image Courtesy BBC

Another season of Raymond Blanc’s The Restaurant on BBC Two has drawn to a close. In a shock decision, the great chef has decided to open a restaurant with creepy JJ and James. And their concept? ‘Picnic’ food on proper plates. Yes you heard that right. For 8 weeks, the culinary challenged JJ, an awardwinning bartended apparently, served kebabs and scotch eggs to the mugs in Bristol, many of whom could be heard weeping later.

Every week, one was guaranteed a shot of JJ weilding his weapon of choice, the cocktail mixer. Shake, shake, shake, he’ll go and pour a brightly coloured concoction onto glasses and glide on to the next week on the alcoholic fumes.

In the final task, the bloke disregarded the hostess’ explicit request to use the kitchen garden vegetables and ordered his stuff via telephone; made wallpaper paste in place of risotto; and made an absolute balls-up of a souffle. While the other half of the table enjoyed a perfect chocolate souffle made by the other finalist Chris, the hostess Lady Arran and her half looked on. Until James schmoozed and JJ shake, shaked yet another cocktail. And became the winners.

Poor Chris and Nathan, the losing finalists. I would gladly eat in your restaurant any day guys – at least I know whilst Nathan might insult me by being insolent, Chris can at least cook. Which is more than I can say for JJ.

In these tough, recessive times, Raymond Blanc and his partners have decided to put their money on a pair of blaggers with minimal cooking ability. Makes you wonder what was going in their minds.

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