The top 6 are in Society today – Martin Benn’s super fancy restaurant in Melbourne.
This is a service challenge – the contestants will be running
this restaurants first ever service. So no pressure. All of them will cook one
course each and have a staggered start. On top of that Martin has assigned a
feature ingredient for every course and they will not reveal till the cook
enters the kitchen for their respective courses. And there is one more little surprise,
today is an elimination. Way to spring it on everyone. But then this is finals
week – so every cook will be an elimination.
The order of the courses is Pete, Elise, Justin, Kishwar,
Sabina and Linda – first 4 savoury and last 2 sweet. Looks bad for Sabina and
Linda. Don’t see both of them making it through today.
Pete starts cooking – this ingredient is nori. He hasn’t
cooked with it before, but since this is super fine dining, I think he will ace
this challenge. He thinks it can work with celeriac. He plans to make a
croissant type shape of the celeriac and fill it with nori & celeriac
puree. But to make the croissants, he has to make 250 odd slices. This is
insane even by Pete standards.
Elise starts now. Her ingredient is yuzu. She likes the
ingredient as she is familiar with it – knows the flavour profile. Martin says
keep it simple and use just for its freshness. She is making pearl barley
risotto with shitake mushrooms and substituting yuzu instead of lemon in the usual
sauce she would make.
Justin next up – his ingredient is tarragon. This is nice
ingredient – can go easily with any white meat. He is going for the lobsters
and tokyo turnips. He plans to butter poach the lobsters and make a tarragon
oil as well.
Pete now realizes exactly how insane his idea is. He thinks
he will not have enough time for this and is planning to bail on this idea.
Since he is already an hour down, Jock is shitting bricks as no doubt Martin
will rip him a new one if they fuck up the first course. So Jock, unlike his
usual self, tells Pete that he’s on top of it and he’s got this. Now Pete is pushing
forward, but he is really really stressed. You can tell by the fact that he has
no time to bro out with Justin.
Andy thinks this is a great time to come over, just after
Jock and Martin have given encouragement, to give super helpful pointers like “this
is not going fast enough”.
Kishwar has pink peppercorns. She is going to make quail
with pink peppercorn and blackberry. She plans to use only the legs. Jock and Martin
are like there is nothing on the legs, this is the main course, of course she should
go for the breast. So now she is super stressed and starting to prepare the
quail breasts.
Sabina is starting now. Her ingredient is macadamia nuts.
She seems thrown by this and does not look happy with this at all. She has decided
on making a Macadamia milk sorbet with lemon curd with segments of mandarin and
finger limes. She is not toasting her macadamias and using the raw ones as she
wants a clean flavour after Kishwar’s peppercorn dish.
Pete’s croissants are coming out really well – they are
looking good. He is sending out his
dishes.
Tasting for Pete: Jock is super happy – says this is the way
to start a menu. He loved the purity of flavours. Martin also says he’s managed
to build great layers. So he is probably safe.
Linda starting now –
saikyo miso is her ingredient. Rich super umami, super sweet flavour. She is
making a misco ice cream and wants the miso to be subtle there.
Elise has now sent out her plates. Andy says that Elise’s
dish is a cracker. Martin says yuzu and mushroom is a classic combnation. She
also seems safe.
Kishwar takes one of the flat pieces of quail and cuts into it
– it is grey. As any normal, mature person would do in a professional kitchen
in this situation, she has started crying. Jock comes over and cuts one of the
breasts – which is blushing pink – so there was no need to worry.
Justin says he is very bad at counting lol. He has added
caviar because it is there and this is Martin’s restaurant, why not go full
luxe. Jock says the dish was unbelievable – the lobster was perfectly butter poached.
Martin goes as far as to say you would find that in a Michelin star restaurant.
Andy who is out of his depth here and needs to add some value to this conversation
says “THREE MICHELIN STARS!”.
Kishwar is sending out her plates. Its all well cooked. Mel
says she is overwhelmed with the flavours. Martin also says peppercorns brought
it all together. She seems to survive this one.
Linda is using liquid nitrogen for her ice cream – but it is
really runny ice cream, it not working like she anticipated. This is revealed
to be another case of desperate drama being inserted, she just needed to
increase the speed of her mixer.
Jock is concerned that Sabina didn’t toast the macadamias.
But she has tasted everything and is happy with it. Mel says some beautiful
elements – like curd or meringue shards.
Jock says he doesn’t like the ice cream – he wanted them toasted. Andy
says he’s left searching for macadamias – which seems like a forced criticism.
She’s in trouble.
Linda up next – her ice cream is softer than she wants it to
be, but has no choice but to serve this now. Martin says the flavours are perfectly
balanced and the miso is certainly there. Andy points out that the ice cream
was soft and all four bowls were different. Martin is like this is an idiotic
criticism, lets excuse that because the flavour is good – but Mel says she is
worried for Linda because how dare she serve a delicious ice cream that is
slightly soft.
This is all drama for sure. They are desperate to save this
season with some TRPs after making terrible judging decisions throughout.
Andy says the raw macadamia was an “unpleasant flavour” which
is surely a change of tune – earlier the problem was that it didn’t have enough
macadamias. Oh well, Sabina going home.
None of these eliminations should surprise us as most of
these guys didn’t deserve to make it this far anyway.
Inshallah we are still on for a Pete vs Elise final – which is
the best case scenario I will accept now that Pindo is not here.
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