The Fox TV show Kitchen Nightmares features the host Gordon Ramsay, a world-class chef, who steps into restaurants that are—you guessed it—living nightmares. The restaurants are typically on the verge of closing and in desperate need of help. What's interesting is that sometimes the restaurants look appealing from the outside. Often, large amounts of time and money have been spent finding the right location and creating a welcoming atmosphere. But in every episode, the real problem is the same: the food is nasty.

One of the painfully entertaining parts of every show is how Gordon Ramsay tries over and over to get the restaurant workers to realize they are in an "Oh no! situation." The owners have typically already had a sudden awakening, because the business is in trouble, but what they need is some brutal honesty. And Chef Ramsay is brutal. He'll usually order about a half-dozen items off the menu and with great passion and clarity explain how horrible each one tastes. The restaurant owners are in denial about the quality of their food because they are distracted by everything else going on. They're managing food orders, overseeing wait staff, stepping out of the kitchen to shake hands with customers—basically anything but actually making good food. The show is half over before any of them get honest about reality.