Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Nineteen: And then there were…two…kind of

                For the past few weeks, my choice for the final two has been Mr. Mohawk and mixed up Cyndi.  They both seem like the most ready, the best fits for Ramsay’s restaurant at this time.  Was I correct in that assumption?  We’ll see, but first we have to get through the individual challenge.  This one started out with a puzzle, an actual puzzle that the contestants had to put together.  The team of Mr. Mohawk and squeaky voice completed the puzzle ahead of the other team of skinny black girl and mixed up Cyndi pretty easily and wins…nothing. Of course.  The real challenge is the now infamous “Taste it Now Make it” challenge in which Ramsay brings out a fairly simple dish with multiple components that each of the contestants need to get right.  The dish this year looked a little busy in terms of plating, but I’m sure it was delicious.  The three components of the dish that the chefs need to correctly guess is the protein, the puree and the vegetable.  Everyone thinks that the puree is butternut squash, which is incorrect as it is carrot puree.  So no one gets eliminated there.  The protein is what usually trips up the chefs in these competitions and this one is no different as Mr. Mohawk and squeaky voice are both eliminated because they didn’t choose venison as their protein.  Mixed up Cyndi chose venison and buffalo but only plated the venison so she lucked out.  It all came down to the vegetable.  Mixed up Cyndi had turnip while skinny black girl had parsnip I believe.  Mixed up Cyndi wins!

                For her reward she gets a $1000.00 shopping spree at a kitchen supply store in which she purchases a stand mixer for her mother, among other things.  She also gets a one on one lunch with Ramsay at his new restaurant “Fat Cow”.  The other contestants have to not only clean the dorms, but actually move stuff out, all the beds and everything and then set up for dinner service that night.  There aren’t too many surprises in the cleanup, except someone left their thong laying in the corner somewhere.  They didn’t say anything about it being able to tie a boat to shore so I’m assuming it wasn’t fat black girl’s but I could be mistaken.

                Mixed up Cyndi returns to the kitchen and dinner service begins.  This is the night that each chef gets to run the pass, expediting and plating food while being the “last line of defense” as Ramsay likes to say.  First up is mixed up Cyndi, who does an ok job of running things.  She does miss the fairly obvious blemish of crab substituted for lobster in the risotto, but she does keep food moving at a steady pace.

Mr. Mohawk on the other hand gets his ass handed to him.  He misses the white fish substituted for the scallops in the appetizer.  That is ridiculous though as I don’t know how anyone could really tell without tasting the dish, or squeezing the “scallops” and having them fall apart in your fingers.  He also was thrown a curveball by Jean Phillipe as a diner requested that the prosciutto not be included in the Beef Wellington.  That’s all well and good, except the Wellingtons are all pre-wrapped, so there’s no way that’s going to happen without them tearing apart a Wellington (which isn’t going to happen).  I think Mr. Mohawk got screwed here, is what I’m trying to say, and if he went home after this service I would be disappointed, but not surprised.   

Skinny black girl is up next and does a decent job of running things.  There’s not much to say because I think she caught the mistake by Chef Andy and ran a pretty tight ship.  The same can be said for squeaky voice as she caught a big screw up where the Chef Andy sent up a Veal Wellington instead of a Beef one.  She also caught many of the smaller mistakes presented by the other contestants, something that Mr. Mohawk was unable to do in his time at the pass.  That voice of hers served her well in this instance as she was able to be heard among the din of the kitchen and her orders were carried out correctly, probably to shut her up but I’m sure that was okay for her. 

Elimination time came next, and the first person to make it into the finals was squeaky voice!  She wasn’t my first choice but she did show that she could run the pass and improved every single service for the most part.  I’m okay with that choice.  Of course this meant that at least one of my frontrunners wouldn’t be going through to the final round.  We are treated to the revelation next as Ramsay sends home mixed up Cyndi.  This was a surprise to everyone as I was sure that not only was she going through to the finals, but that she would win the whole thing.  Ramsay mentioned her lack of assertiveness to be her downfall, which makes sense, it’s just kind of sad to see her go after she has done such a good job up to this point.

That leaves one spot open for two people.  Who’s going to face squeaky voice in the finals?  No one knows, at least not until next week when we get the whole finals experience.  The trip to Vegas, the choosing of new teams, the final reveal (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they expanded the finale to two weeks).  We’ll see!


See you next week!

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