So already this week, we have had a Korean themed invention test, a resigning contestant and an immunity challenge that Matt Preston spoilt, but then didn’t, but then confused the hell out of everyone. How can this show keep this strange week chugging along at an interesting pace?
Tonight is an intense looking team challenge whereby a preview shows Gary absolutely shun a contestants cooking. Sounds very appetising!
A quick look at the house see the contestants try to entertain themselves under the pressure of dwindling numbers. What follows is really corny; Matt just happens to find a note from the judges while sitting reading a recipe book in the garden. The contestants all come out wondering what the note says, but Ellie’s ‘acting’ gives it away that really; they know exactly what the note says.
They are off to the local Westfield food court and at the top of the escalators, George hands out red and blue aprons at random to the people coming up.
With this, the teams are picked as follows:
Blue: Kumar, Billy, Sun, Ellie, Danielle & Kate
Red: Alana, Dani, Mat, Peter, Michael & Craig
Hayden is sitting out.
At the food court are judges Gary, Matt Moran & George. Gary refers to the food court as a ‘colosseum’. There are six counters; the same number of people also constitute each group. One person from each team will be standing behind each counter gladiator style. Out of each pair, the judges will pick who has made the best dish and they will be scored out of six with the best team going on a reward lunch.
The losing team gets to go to Singapore and chase butterflies and pixies and make lovely buttercups…before waking up and going to another elimination round!
Matt Moran reveals there will be a pizza stand, a Mexican Stand, a burger stand, a patisserie stand, fish & Chips & rotisserie.
The tricky part; each counter has its own allergen envelope containing the intolerances they all must take into consideration when making some of the dishes.
With the toss of a coin, the blue team gets to come up and choose first. They nominate Billy to go up first and he picks pastry with Michael calling him a ‘dessert queen’, haha. Billy reveals his intolerances to avoid are Egg & Sugar! Wow, not a good combination for desserts. He chooses Michael to battle with as he can hardly cook sweet dishes.
Up next is Mat who chooses Rotisserie with the dietary requirements being ‘Diabetic & Vegan’. What? How does a rotisserie person do that with quality? He chooses to cook against Danielle.
Ellie is next to pick for the blue team and chooses Fish & Chips with a low fat & salt requirement. She picks Craig to cook against. Craig says that he’s overweight because he can cook fish & chips. Lol.
Alana is next from the red team and picks Pizza that must be lactose free and low carbs. She battles against Kumar. After saying Kumar struggled with the last pizza, Kumar gets his game face on!
Sun is next and picks Mexican with the requirements being gluten free & vegan and will cook against Peter.
Dani & Kate remain and grab the low salt & low carb burger option which Dani just gawks over.
With all teams picked, George tells them all that they have 60 minutes to cook up their best dishes. Their sixty minutes begin and they are off and racing.
Dani is at work to make a wagyu beef & veggie burger. Kate is worried as Dani has done well to make an authentic and diverse burger in the past.
Kate is working with flour which she didn’t know had high carbs despite being a different type! She only found out because Dani blurted it out! Argh, Dani, why did you do that?!
Kate goes to tell Kumar to make sure he gets the message and cooks his pizza accordingly. Kumar will be making two Pizza’s using savoury flavours and a goat’s cheese pizza. Alana is hoping he has a stuff up.
Alana will be making similar pizzas with similar ingredients while talking us through some of the things that could go wrong.
Meanwhile, Billy & Michael begin on their desserts and Michael is concerned about going against Billy.
Peter is making a Burrito wrap against Sun in the Mexican restaurant. He has his chilli on as we speak. Sun works on a Burrito as well.
At the fish & Chips counter, Craig is very confident with his dish and has some steamed fish in the works and some sweet potato fries. This confidence drives Ellie to work harder.
At the rotisserie, Danielle is making a rotisserie cooked capsicum and has a good feeling she can win this challenge over Mat. He tries to throw her off by offering her eggs and meat. He is not comfortable without his salt and fat. He will be making a ratatouille.
At the burger shop with 30 minutes to go, Kate will be making her burger low carb unlike Dani who will be going no carb! The tension is on.
At the Mexican restaurant, Sun & Peter realise finally that their dishes are EXACTLY the same (I saw this coming) and Gary wonders why one person is copying the other. Sun tells us that the judges want a head to head battle, they’ll get one!
Craig decides to steam his fish En Papillote while Ellie works on her sweet potato fries before starting on her salmon filling. She is worried about the slippery time she has to work with.
Kumar has made a really good base and Alana is wondering whether or not to make a really good tasting pizza or two pizza’s like Kumar?!
With 10 minutes to go, Billy’s dessert is in the cooler as Craig takes out his ‘undercooked’ fish. He pops it back in, concerned it may dry up, but Ellie has worse problems; burnt chips.
Craig rubs it in as she tries to put on some more chips. Meanwhile, Kate is trying to grill her bindless meat patties but they just fall apart.
With 5 minutes to go, Billy is having trouble as his mousse falls apart on his jaffa cake. It is just melting.
Dani has a hundred things to do as time clicks down. Peter is having problem with his tortilla but he finally plates up a crispy one he can be proud of. Sun isn’t having the same luck so she just copies Peter’s idea.
Karma comes back around as she burns herself and has to heal her wounds, wasting more precious time.
As Danielle plates up, she is nervous she hasn’t used the rotisserie properly and I think to myself, the blue team are in a spot of trouble here!
Michael is having no troubles plating up but with 10 seconds to go, Billy’s two mousses have collapse and he just battles to put stuff on a plate. It looks dirty and the plate is very mucky.
Time is up and judging begins straight away. The Mexican team of Peter & Sun are up first as the three judge’s taste. The two have produced two vegan burritos with Peter asking George not to try the hot chillis; it will blow his head off.
The judge’s taste Sun’s first and Gary loves the flavours and chillies. Gary doesn’t like the tortilla on the other hand.
Peter’s dish is next and Matt can feel the burning spices. George doesn’t even taste most the dish. The judges love the presentation and the burrito but Matt calls the filling bland and the chillies, overpowering.
Next up are the burgers with Dani & Kate. Dani has made a Wagyu beef burger as opposed to Kate’s Classic Beef Burger. Kate reveals she put a bit of salt on her low salt dish; the judges don’t like the idea.
Gary scorns the amount of salt and carbs but the judges may forgive it due to the flavour. Time for Dani’s burger and the judge’s call the burger messy. They taste and Gary is happy with the lack of carbs and salt but it is bland. Personally, since the task was to cook within the dietary guidelines, Dani should win regardless.
Next up are the fish & Chips with Craig & Ellie. Ellie’s dish is Salmon Roulade with salad, Craig has a Steamed Flathead. They taste Ellie’s dish first and Matt doesn’t look too impressed. But as George reveals, the dish was packed full of flavour and definitely a ‘wow’. Ellie is surprised that she cooked a dish from the ’70s as she wasn’t born then! Haha, lovely Ellie.
They taste Craig’s dish next and Gary loves the salad but calls the fish dry, saying it tastes like cardboard!
Gary thanks the two contestants before they head off and the judge’s call in rotisserie team with Danielle & Mat. Danielle is still worried about her dish.
Danielle introduces her stuffed capsicum before Mat presents his Ratatouille. George decides to taste Danielle’s dish first and George feels he is eating a healthy dish with Gary complimenting the flavours and telling her she has fulfilled the requirements, but maybe not the rotisserie element.
To Mat’s dish and George struggles to cut the eggplant. Gary is proud that he put his veggies on the rotisserie but doesn’t like the egg plant.
To team pizza now with Kumar & Alana with Kumar introduces his two pizzas. When Kumar announces that he has goats cheese pizza, the judges tell him that goats cheese still has lactose in it, but it’s low.
Alana has put goat’s cheese on her Mediterranean pizza as well but has it on her entire pizza. As Kumar has made two pizzas, they taste the side without the goat’s cheese! Nice accidental work there Kumar!
Gary loves the flavours of the topping with George complimenting the base. To Alana now and the judges call it a thoughtful pizza but condemn her high carb, thick based pizza with goat’s cheese.
The final dish comes out; the desserts of Billy (who tries to put on a smiling face) and Michael (who is very smug and confident).
They try Billy’s dish first; loving the mousse but not liking the cake, saying it is the worst they’ve seen him cook.
To Michael’s dish and Matt loves the pastry on the bottom with George making Michael the new pastry king!
All tasting is over and it is now time for the summary and results. George reminds them all that the winning team is the team with the most votes. Hey, couldn’t there potentially be a hung vote? They begin with the dessert with Billy & Michael. They cast a vote to Michael and therefore the red team. One vote red team, no votes blue team!
Time for team Mexico with Sun & Peter. The vote here goes to Sun and her blue team. Now for the pizza team with Kumar representing blue and Alana representing red. It’s good news for the blue team with Kumar plating up the second goat cheese free pizza. Matt reveals that the blue team have two votes to red’s one.
For the fish & Chips, Ellie scores the third blue team vote over Craig’s red team. They only need one more vote to win. Still no mention of a hung vote scenario.
Now for the burger team of Dani & Kate with Dani nailing the second vote for the red team.
With one vote to go, George calls forth Danielle & Mat from the rotisserie team and reveals that the winner is Danielle and therefore the blue team.
This means Sun, Danielle, Kumar, Kate, Ellie & Billy are immune from elimination and will be going to a reward dinner. For the red team, Craig, Alana, Mat and point winners Dani & Michael, this means elimination.
So overall, another quality episode, and I’m sorry if this blog is a bit confusing at times, I was a little sidetracked while completing it. The only bad things about this episode would be the corny house scene at the beginning where Mat just happened to come across a note to the contestants while sitting down reading. It looked fake and uneventful.
Also, I think it is necessary for judges to explain to viewers what would happen in the event of a tie. Not only does this make things clearer for us, but it also builds a sense of wonder for the viewers. I found that after the blue’s won their third vote, they would win considering I don’t think the judges would have taken the game to a tiebreaker round. This just makes the show seem fixed.
Overall though, loved the fact that their weren’t four or five contestants repeating what is up for stake all the time nor were there constant reminders of what the rules are for the challenge; it makes the episode run much smoother!
Courtney’s Verdict: 8.5/10
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