Review of Guerrilla Gourmet (Ep 02)
Posted on January 29, 2008, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cooking, Entertainment.
After the first travesty of an episode I swore I’d never watch another but the lure of Denis Cotter in Bandon was too much. This is Gimmicky Garbage TV with a half decent programme buried somewhere far far underneath.
In the first episode they send Kevin Dundon to cook a gourmet meal in a boxing club in poor area of Waterford. If you thought that was crass, in this one Denis Cotter set up a vegetarian restaurant in the middle of cattle pens in Bandon Mart!
What drives me insane about the programme is that Denis is interesting, his food is interesting, his walkabout with a botanist eating wild greens was interesting (albeit very Hugh FW) and getting average people to try vegetarian food is interesting. Setting it in a cattle mart is retarded. Whatever “right-on” TV exec came up with this whiz-bang idea should have a pile of cow scutter dumped on his desk because that’s what this whole series is.
Take all those great chefs, get them to cook from the heart, find out what motivates them, explain their influences and where they trained and you could have a legendary TV series instead of this steaming pile of crap.
Next week Kevin Thornton cooks pork in a Mosque. Or something.
7 Replies to "Review of Guerrilla Gourmet (Ep 02)"
conor on January 31, 2008
If RTE was doing tons of food programmes then I wouldn’t mind this at all. But it is probably the only thing they’ll do this year. They seem to think everything needs a gimmick rather than just making great TV.
You are missing out on a treat with Cafe Paradiso. The food is fabulous. The service is sadly atrocious. I don’t know if the waiting staff are all UCC students or something but every time we go, it just gets worse and worse. But ignore that and enjoy the food. I love bringing confirmed carnivores to it and watch them enjoy themselves.
to denis' defence on February 3, 2008
Conor .. you are a Class A idiot. Or in your own words, retarded.
If in fact, as you claim , you are a fan of Denis and Paradiso, then you should be delighted to see RTE give 30 minutes of prime time tv to one of Irish food’s great unsung heroes. Or would you rather sit and learn how to boil eggs with rachel allen?
As for the ‘gimmick’, you really should get out more. I was intrigued by the whole guerrilla restaurant thing and a bit of googling ‘guerrilla restaurant’ threw at me articles about in everything from TIME to the Observer to the Wall Street Journal about the real life phenomenon. This is a real movement - not just a gimmicky tv idea. If you’re out of the loop, that’s fine .. but your ignorance should at least be pointed out to you and your reader(s)..
Also, I’ve checked on Denis’ own blog and he says he came up with the idea of the mart himself so if that’s what you call a gimmick, so be it.
As for:
“Take all those great chefs, get them to cook from the heart, find out what motivates them, explain their influences and where they trained and you could have a legendary TV ”
I personally learnt lots that I didnt previously know from this show .. about Denis’ motivations and food philosophy - what he described himself as his “ethical make up” - and the way in which he builds a relationship with his gardener buddy that is core to what he does. If you listened more carefully you’d have heard him say that he didn’t train anywhere - he is self taught. And I could be wrong, but the show I saw absolutely showed Denis cooking from the heart - in fact it showed him falling in love again with cooking as it took him out of the grind of cooking week in and week out for ignorant eejits like you that would rather he stayed in his kitchen rather than spreading his gospel.
I for one am glad to see RTE finally shun their fascination with mediocrity and do a show that features the very best Irish chefs - Kevin Tornton is on next week it would seem and Dylan Mc Grath the week after. I don’t think people of that calibre would align themselves to something that was as you so eloquently put it “a steaming pile of crap.” I haven’t seen them on he afternoon show recently.
So next time you start articulating your own particular “steaming pile of crap”, get a coherent argument together - or else figure out whether you are actually on the side of heroes like Denis, or not.
haydn on February 3, 2008
Is Denis still chefing at Cafe Paradiso?
conor on February 3, 2008
Anonymous, thanks for stopping by. Just a few points.
Google “Guerrilla Gourmet”: Guided by word-of-mouth, diners flock to unlicensed restaurants for excellent food in secret settings
RTE’s “Guerrilla Gourmet”: TV crew films famous chef handing out flyers on Bandon’s Main Street and pitching to the IFA
If Denis came up with the idea of the mart then my respect for him is diminished.
It smacked of “let’s show these poor clueless gobshites that veggies can taste nice too”. If it was an episode of the Riordan’s from 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have minded so much. “Ah jaysus Maggie, has Benjy really given up ateing mate?”
I love seeing great Irish Chefs on TV but not making crass rubbish like this. If RTE want to make a series on Denis, vegetarian cooking and vegetarianism/veganism in general, they could have something very special on their hands and I’d gladly watch it.
You clearly take the attitude of “something on the telly about these guys is better than nothing”. That attitude is the reason RTE has gotten away with making rubbish for so long. Unless we (who pay their wages) jump up and down, it’ll always be more “Leave it to Mrs O’Brien” and less “Fr Ted”.
I genuinely hope the series starting Monday on the guy who runs Mint will be of better quality. Let’s see.
Dark on February 9, 2008
Conor, you may think you know it all but indeed you are an idiot as quoted.
Why not leave the last word to Cotter himself rather then blathering on in a vacuum?
conor on February 9, 2008
Surely a vacuum would mean no-one was listening/reading? You are.
denise on January 31, 2008
have to say i enjoy the programme in general. just a bit of fun spin on the fish -out-of-water and here’s-a-challenge-for-you theme. i liked the denis cotter one. i live and work in bandon and was raging that i didn’t happen to be walking down the street when he was giving out invites! it was cool to see him get the standing ovation from the crowd who would think that being vegetarian (no meat on the plate!) meant you would never ‘feel full’ after a meal. that seemed to be a general comment amongst them.
what *i’m* appalled at is that i have never been to cotter’s restaurant, and am going to make a point of it now. it sounds devine.
d