The Corporate Dads are back, this time armed with Led Zeppelin t-shirts and an assured promise to “smash it out of the park” in their second instant restaurant. They begrudgingly rocked up to the supermarket in their Audi. Aaron maintained they didn’t deserve to be there, still blaming it all on stupid old Nana and her stupid old crumble recipe. In Countdown they threw some flour around a la the Sporty Mums leek toss. Could this be foreshadowing a potential corporate/sports hook-up? Critics (me) have voted in droves, and the answer is a resounding yes.
Back in boardroom of Two Fat Cats: The Return, the Dads went about confusedly setting the table with about 40 forks per person. There were so many pieces of cutlery that they had to turn to Google to lay it out correctly. Knife facing out? Knife facing in? Let’s break for lunch and meet back in ten shall we? They took a break to return to the kitchen and get that lengthy fridge algorithm started. “Let’s get into it” Aaron said, frantically scribbling hieroglyphics on the fridge with what was almost definitely a Vivid pen. Josh was rocking back and forth, worried about blowing their crème brulée dessert. If they mess it up they might as well “get on the bus and go home”. Guys, you are already home. And as if you’d ever catch a bus when you’ve got a perfectly good Audi right there. Get it together.
Their unco-operative rich person oven was being unco-operative again, and contributed to a tense brulee start, along with the slow-mo tidal wave of boiling water that Josh tipped on himself. Their stocks were taking a huge hit. Aaron was erratically shouting TIME CHECK and still scribbling integers all over the fridge. To make matters worse, their video doorbell rang – signalling the arrival of the guests. Rich people like to use small video screens to look at their guests instead of oh, I don’t know, looking through the GIANT WINDOWS on either side of the front door. The Gatecrashers were impressed with the Wall St menus (don’t be, they recycled their jokes), and the Anna Kournikova skirt on the wall.
The starter of scallops on the menu impressed the guests, particularly Steve, who immediately quipped that it was only ten days into the scallop season. Ol’ Glasses McGee bringing the spreadsheet facts again. Tracey was far too focussed on the alcohol to care about the scallops: “tonight is my drinking night!” she said, slamming back an Asahi. The entrée had mixed reviews, it was too raw for Neil, and only seared on one side for Maura. She knows what she’s talking about when it comes to shellfish, look how many oysters gave their lives to make that opulent pearl necklace. Next on the menu was the rib-eye steak main, and people were excited. Particularly Tracey, “I do like a piece of meat” she slurred.
The Flintstone-sized bits of beef caused quite a smoke show in the kitchen…just like Sporty Mums and their pastry… The matching grocery toss, the matching smoking ovens- they are so compatible it makes my heart soar. As the smoke billowed out of the oven Josh yelled, “the self-cleaning function won’t be having any of that”. Okay, we get it. You are rich. You probably have a Roomba. For each room. We get it. They took out the giant bits of steak with a nodule of their signature ‘butter with chunks of stuff in it’ to their patient guests. Tracey was off her rocker at this stage: “Steve looks like a squashed Ken doll”.
The meat was comedy-big. It was too big the plate, too big for the accompanying vegetables – too big for the well-chosen cutlery. Steve went primal and got in there with his hands, when was the last time you saw Ken do that? Tracey couldn’t believe any of it. Rather than on a stairway to heaven, the proportions were shot to hell. Dessert had to save them, “let’s kick the dessert out of the park” said Aaron. Well, don’t do that, nobody can enjoy it like that. You should have kicked your crumble out of the park, though.
The crème brulée went down a storm, despite Josh attempting to flambé it with what looked like a cremation-level industrial torch. Dai hoovered up hers as usual, and Dal didn’t like hers, as usual. Who doesn’t like crème brulée? Is Dal a robot? Ben Bayly left them hanging delivering his final verdict, “your crème brulée was borderline… borderline IMMACULATE”. The Corporate Dads came away with a whopping score of 73. I would hold on to those shares for now because, as they smugly said themselves, “the Two Fat Cats are back baby”.
Buzzword of the ep: “Flintstone” used 4+ times to describe the meat
Prop of the ep: Enormous crème brulee torch
Screengrab of the ep: Neil vs Meat watched closely by Tracey
