THE RESTAURANT: FLAGS OF OUR FAILURES

In a highly amusing episode, Raymond sends each restaurant a flag of a country and tells them to incorporate the food of that nation into their menu in whatever way they think best (cue lots of shots of people reading “Foreign food” type entries on Wikipedia!). To see how the evening goes, Raymond will not only send his inspectors, but also a party of diners from the country in question.

Team Sino-Cymru get Spain. They are not sure how to shoehorn Spain into their stupid Chinese-Welsh menu, so Mrs Welsh decides to ditch all that bollocks and have an entirely Spanish evening. Mr Chinese looks a bit grumpy but, in what will be a theme of the episode, folds like a cheap suit. Luckily, one of their chefs is married to a Portuguese woman, so they pick his brains for the menu (even though Spain and Portugal are DIFFERENT COUNTRIES DUH!!). The rest of the evening is spent with the aggressive sous chef bossing everyone around while chinese bloke stands around and meekly chops the odd onion. He is told off by Raymond for not running his own kitchen and they get put into the challenge.

Team Brood get Thailand. Mrs Brood sniffily says that she hates Thai food (though later it is implied that she’s never had it before!!) and can’t be bothered to mess around with her menu just because the person judging the competition told her to. They make a few vague concessions to Thailand, but the Thai diners think that spaghetti with sweet chilli sauce (mmm!!) is not very authentic, and the inspector also says the food is rubbish. Amazingly they escape the challenge, but Raymond tells them off for not being flexible.

Team Sourcing Shambles have a bit of a rubbish week. Mrs SS misses her children and cries a lot (which I’m sure is v upsetting, but seriously, why come on the show then???) and Mr SS has gut rot, which means he is too diseased to handle food. They say they’re going to quit, but then they don’t, so WHATEVER. They are allocated Japan, and add some basic Japanese dishes to their existing menu. The Japanese diners are all togged up with kimonos and say that it is not super authentic, but still tasty and with v fresh ingredients. Afterwards they set up karaoke and Mr and Mrs SS have a sing-song, so at least they cheered up a bit. Raymond puts them in the challenge for not being 100% committed, which is a travesty really as their evening went well and at least they made the effort with their menu.

Team Twee get Sweden and cleverly decide to give their existing menu a Swedish twist (ie turning a warm chicken salad to a warm reindeer salad. Ohs Noes, they ate Rudolph!!) The inspector says it is lush, but otherwise they don’t feature heavily – which is always a good sign on this show. They get restaurant of the week, and I am starting to think that they might win the whole thing.

Team LOL are given France (which is a bit harsh, as it is Raymond’s home cuisine) and live up to their name yet again. Intense one decides to make coq au vin and reads a bit from his recipe book about how it is the most common but most shittily done classic French dish. This will be important for later. They decide to write their menus in French, even though clearly none of them speak it even slightly (‘What is French for vegetables?’ ‘Vegetables!’ (pronounced with a slightly French accent)). The French diners absolutely piss themselves reading the menu and then complain that the coq au vin is made with white wine and tomatoes, instead of red wine. Doh. Raymond really rips the piss re the franglais menu (which, it turns out, is illiterate in English as well as French - ‘poached pairs’ are on offer!) and says that it is bollocks – he actually says bollocks pre watershed too. Uh oh. They still escape the challenge though, so I assume the food was all right.

Team Engerland get Mexico and are all like ‘Ee by gum, I don’t like the sound of this foreign muck’. It turns out that their oven has conked out (not the hobs, mind you, just the oven), so they decide to do a cold buffet and basically do a bit of salad and open a few bags of Doritos. Micky-from-League-of-Gentelmen also wears a ‘hilarious’ sombrero and poncho. He flogs margaritas to waiting customers (though he doesn’t really know how to make them), and while getting everyone totally lashed might be a good way to take their minds off the food, all the tequila in the world couldn’t make you think that a carrot and green bean wrap is a delicious Mexican snack. The Mexican diners think it is rubbish and refuse to pay, while Mickey grumbles in the kitchen that they are all ingrates. What a surprise, they are in the challenge.

For the challenge they have to prepare a three course meal and pitch it to first class air passengers. The chefs have to cook it in the scary enormo factory place then the front of house staff have to dish it up in the tiny airline kitchen and serve it in the proper 1st class type manner. Team Sino-Cymru make a Chinese menu but use frozen prawns, serve soggy noodles and horrid rice and also the service is not very good as Mrs Welsh wanders round with a face like a slapped arse throughout. Team Engerland make a Lancashire hot pot, but with a disgusting fake rosti of grilled raw potato instead of the trad slices of potato. Team LOL are helping them and there is a hilarious scene of the mild mannered one flapping around in the airplane galley for about five minutes looking for towel or something. Team Sourcing Shambles cook a yum looking lamb dish but spend so long buying the lamb that they barely have enough time to prepare it. Everyone forgets to serve Inspector Sarah. The airline like the lamb dish so much that they decide to add it to their menu, so Sourcing Shambles win.

Team Sino-Cymru and Team Engerland both get stick re the horribleness of their food, but clearly Team Engerland must get the chop after their dreadful Mexican debacle. Mickey jokes that he can’t believe he went out over a Chinese man who couldn’t cook rice – yes mate, that’s how shit you really were.