August 15, 2012 | Posted in REALITY TV | By sockii
Restaurant Takeover
The MasterChef Ultimate Cookbook, featuring recipes from the television series. Get it today at Amazon.
The MasterChef contestants are back, after a break for the Olympics in London, England. The final six contestants are first assembled in Hatfield’s a supposedly hot and “in” restaurant in Los Angeles at the moment. They will be taking over the kitchen at Hatfield’s for evening dinner service, but first must chose teams. Becky and Frank were the winners last time, so they get to choose their teams. It ends up being guys versus girls as Becky’s Red Team consists of Christine and Monti, and Frank’s Blue Team is Josh and David.
Their challenge: to each prepare two of the restaurant’s signature appetizers and entrees for 22 guests each. The guests will fill out comment cards, Gordon will be expediting in the kitchen, and the restaurant’s owners will also sample each team’s dishes. Gordon, Graham and Joe will use the feedback from each of the diners – as well as watching the teams in the kitchen – to determine which team is victorious.
The teams are given demonstrations of each of the dishes they must prepare, and all seem quickly overwhelmed by the complexity of ingredients and preparation involved. For the appetizers, they must make agnolotti pasta and Croque Madame. The entrees are venison and branzino. At first things seem confused on Becky’s team. Joe questions Becky’s first pick of Christine, thinking there’s no way she’s going to be able to function in a high pressure restaurant kitchen with her blindness. Monti also has a hearing problem which could be trouble for their side as well, and Gordon gives her a talking-to as she is making a mess of preparing the pasta. Frank’s team seems well organized at first, but as the orders start coming in they’re having major trouble getting appetizers out. Josh isn’t getting the bread fried properly for the croques, and David is having trouble with his Buerre Blanc. Indeed, the Red Team starts getting orders out while an hour passes before Frank’s first plates go out.
The restaurant owners get their plates and it seems a rather split decision – they like Red Team on some dishes, Blue Team better on other ones. Other diners comments shown are equally mixed. But the next day, the judges make their decision and victory goes to Becky, Monti and Christine on the Blue Team. They are safe from elimination this week.
Frank, as team captain, is asked if he had to choose who does he think should be safe after the best performance on his team, and he says Josh. Gordon then tells him he can in fact give immunity to someone on his team, including himself. So who will he choose? Frank makes (in my opinion) the right choice at this late stage in the competition and decides to save himself. Josh is mad, but with only si people left, I’d say you have to do whatever it takes to save your own skin!
The Pressure Test challenge is then revealed to be cooking three filet mignon steaks (I won’t give any more cheese publicity to the shore they came from; the judges had to shill for them enough in this episode!) They must prepare each steak to a perfect rare, medium rare, and well done in 30 minutes. They will be judged not just on how correct they get the temperature but also on the seasoning and flavor of each.
Josh and David get to work, but taking their own approaches to preparing the steaks. When the time is up, Joe first wants to see both of their rare steaks. When he cuts into David’s it’s more to the medium-rare side of doneness and the seasoning might be too assertive. Josh’s steak in comparison is a near perfect rare, so he’s clearly won this first round. Next up are the medium rare steaks. Graham takes the lead in judging and first comments that David’s does not have a good sear and is rather uneven inside, more to the medium-well side of things than medium-rare. However, it has good flavor, he thinks. Josh’s steak has a great sear but he also overcooked his more to the medium side, and on the seasoning front David’s is superior. So it seems like a tie going in to the well done steaks, which Gordon first judges by touch. And he can tell neither is cooked to well done. Sure enough, cutting into both they still have pink inside and all he can go by is the seasoning and sear as they both missed the temperature.
The judges debate and it seems like a difficult decision for them to make. Josh is first called forward, it seems to be sent home – but then he is told he is safe. David will be going home tonight, but Graham first tells David that he is impressed enough by David that there is a job waiting for him back in Chicago at whichever of his restaurants he would like to work at. David seems blown away and very happy by this offer, so even though he is going home it seems like a “happy ending” for the episode after all.
So there are only five left for next week when MasterChef returns for a new episode. Who will get sent home next? This should be an even more intense battle than ever!
For more on Season Three of MasterChef US including polls and background information on all contestants, check out my full season hub!
MasterChef US 2012: Season 3
MasterChef has been a hit television sensation all around the world. Learn about the contestants from Season Three, which aired in the summer/fall of 2013 on the FOX Network.
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sockii
sockii is just your typical Jane-of-All-Trades who never has enough time in her day for all of her projects. She has written for many websites online including Squidoo, Zujava, Yahoo! Contributors Network, HubPages and Wizzley. She has been attending and vending at science fiction and media conventions for over 15 years, and for several years ran an art gallery and jewelry store in Philadelphia. Today she is happy to be living in South Jersey with her partner David and their 6 cats. Sockii is a member of several affiliate sales programs including Amazon Associates and Viglink. Products from these services may be advertised on her posts and pages to generate sales commissions.
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