Quickfire Challenge: Rick Moonen judges as the cheftestants have to create a dish based on a food idiom. Rick doesn't love Kelly's combination of Brussels sprouts and grapes, and he thinks Amanda's macaroni and cheese is too heavy. His top choices are Kevin's bacon three ways and Ed's potato gnocchi. The ultimate winner is Ed, possibly because his dish could actually be frozen and Kevin's kind of couldn't.
Elimination Challenge: Create fine dining versions of baseball park food. They have to work as a team, but create six dishes, so why are they a team again? Oh, to cause drama. They realize the night before the ball game that they're going to be serving at a concession stand, so they will need to take orders. Angelo offers to fill that role, but then when they get to the site, he realizes that if he's taking orders, he can't create his own dish, and he doesn't trust anyone to do it for him. He tries to back out, and Kevin yells at him. No one will take over his role, so he's forced back into it while Ed preps his food for him. When the guests arrive, they all want Tiffany and Kelly's food, so does that mean their dishes are the best?
Here are the dishes:
Kelly: Open-faced crab cake BLT with sweet potato fries. The judges like the flavor, but think the crab cake is a little too salty.
Tiffany: Italian meatball sub with fennel, basil pesto, and fresh mozzarella. The judges think it tastes great, but it's a little messy.
Amanda: Yellowfin tuna tartare with fennel, Meyer lemon and fava bean puree. Amanda preps the tuna too early and it turns gray, and the judges notice. Also, what kind of baseball park food is tuna?
Angelo: sweet glazed pork on a lobster roll with sweet sesame pickles. He claims it's a lobster roll but it's really a hot dog roll, and the judges think that the bread overwhelms the pork.
Kevin: chicken kebab with Romesco sauce, shoestring fries, and smoked paprika aoli. The guests and judges seem to have more to say about the lame presentation than the flavors.
Ed: shrimp and corn risotto fritters with jalapeno aoli. The judges have only good things to say about the flavors and textures.
The entire group gets called in for Judges' Table. Angelo tries to gloss over the kerfuffle over the order-taking, but Tiffany doesn't let him get away with that. The judges don't seem to care. They single out Ed and Tiffany's dishes as the best, and the winner is Ed! Damn, this season really keeps mixing it up. Just when you think you can count someone out because they haven't won any challenges in a while, they make a comeback.
The remaining four are the bottom. The judges take Amanda to task for her gray tuna, and they think it was awkward to eat Kevin's skewers. There are compliments for Kelly's food, but the judges had some suggestions for making the texture better. And they think Angelo had way too much bread, and his dish was too sweet. It's really obvious that Amanda's going to be eliminated since her dish kind of sucked all around, from conception to execution, while everyone else just had minor problems. And Amanda is, in fact, eliminated. Finally.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
For no apparent reason, Ed is wearing Tiffany's dress and just wandering around the condo. I think they are all losing it. It's a very nice yellow dress and other than his lack of bosoms, he looks pretty good in it. Everyone is just dying laughing and Ed plays it totally deadpan like, "Yes, I am wearing a dress. WHAT OF IT?" Ed just won some points in my book. Amanda suggests that Ed might be wearing Tiffany's underwear as well.
And, it's time for Kelly to take another potshot at Amanda. Kelly REALLY hates her. I think it's personal. I think there might be some jealousy involved. Anyway, Kelly is like, "No one knows why Amanda is still here and she sucks." Angelo details how much he's having a nervous breakdown by telling us about a room he had as a kid where he put up photos of all the four-star chefs. Come on. What kid does that? When he says "kid," does he mean twenty-year-old? Amanda has a good giggle in an interview about how Angelo reads Tony Robbins books and recites mantras to himself like, "You're gonna win!" That little interview actually made me like Amanda for a second. Because we could bond over how much of a tool Angelo is.
The cheftestants enter the kitchen to find Padma waiting there with Rick Moonen. So they all think the challenge is going to be something to do with seafood, since that's his shtick. Padma reminds them that there are only six people left. Then she starts spouting out various idioms like "big cheese" and "flash in the pan," and the cheftestants all look at her like, "Did Padma burst a blood vessel? Why is she talking like that?"
Padma introduces the Elimination Challenge, which is to create a dish based on a food idiom. Kelly interviews that some of the idioms are "a little risqué" like "Hide the salami." Heh. I bet Alex would have chosen that one. Padma explains that the winning dish will go onto the menu at Schwan's, a frozen food provider. I remember all of our neighbors used to get visits from the Schwan's truck, and we never did. Probably because my mom didn't think we needed any overpriced frozen crap. But at the time, I felt very deprived that we didn't have any French bread pizzas in the freezer.
The cheftestants choose their idioms. Kevin goes first, and picks, "Bring home the bacon." Amanda takes "the big cheese." Kelly selects "sour grapes," and Ed takes "hot potato." Tiffany takes her time and finally picks "spill the beans" and Angelo takes "bigger fish to fry." And then time starts and they have an hour to cook.
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