- Can the chefs cut it...with speed? It?s a culinary relay race in this week's quickfire challenge that requires expert shucking, chopping and whipping ? putting the chefs' knife skills to the ultimate test.
- There will be no more didgeridoo-ing after Kiwi Mark went home last week.
Andrew and Spike start the episode consoling each other in a manly way.
Antonia notes that this the first time four women have made it this far.
Quickfire Challenge.
They get to the kitchen and Tom is there. Padma tells them the Quickfire winner will no longer have immunity. They're bringing back some all-time favorite challenges.
The teams are: Antonia, Andrew, Stephanie and Richard. Nikki, Spike, Dale and Lisa.
They'll be doing a relay race. First, they have to peel and supreme five oranges. Then plate and turn two artichokes. Then they have to clean a monk fish into two filets then make one quart of mayonnaise.
They divvy up tasks. Nobody on Dale's team wants to make the mayonnaise without a food processor.
They start. Antonia and Lisa start on the oranges. Lisa's hands are shaking, but she has a big lead and wins.
Spike takes over on the artichokes following Lisa. Andrew starts on his 'chokes after Antonia, using a peeler. Spike breaks one and has to start over. The teams are tied.
Richard starts on the quivering, nasty-looking monkfish, as does Dale. Lisa thinks Dale's filets don't look pretty.
They finish. Nikki and Stephanie start even on their mayo.
Beating a mixture never looked so entertaining. Dale's trying to rev Nikki up but Stephanie beats her.
You've never seen so much hugging over the completion of a condiment. Dale doesn't take it well, swearing and punching a locker. As Antonia puts it: "He punched a locker and then had to have his diaper changed."
The winning team will be getting an important advantage.
Padma tells them they won't be doing "restaurant wars" this year. The team's are bummed, at least until a couple come in.
The couple are getting married tomorrow. "Restaurant wars" will be "wedding wars."
The chefs are not psyched.
They'll be dividing the guests into two groups, one team cooking for the groom's taste, the other cooking per the bride. By the way, Padma says, the couple owns a restaurant.
The winning team gets to pick which half of the couple. They select bride, which Spike notes is nuts.
Their budget is $5,000 and they're shopping at Whole Foods and a restaurant supply store. When Andrew hears they're working through the night, he says he has a "culinary boner."
The groom wants Italian food, bruschetta, assorted crostini. He likes Chilean sea bass. Spike is excited that Nikki, the Italian, is on his team.
The bride wants Southern food, meat and potatoes. She likes steak, blue cheese, mushrooms. She and Richard bond because she's from the area around Atlanta where he lives.
The groom likes German Chocolate cake. The bride wants the cake to look interesting.
The teams brainstorm. Andrew suggests crispy chicken, which Antonia thinks - but doesn't say - is a terrible idea because it never stays crispy. Nikki and Dale don't get along. She says "he's just the one you know is gonna point fingers." Hello, foreshadowing.
Dale says "no one really likes each other on this team...I don't think most of the people on this team are that strong of a cook."
Spike resolves to protect Nikki, the de facto leader, from Dale.
Richard tries to buy flowers.
It's 9 p.m. and they're back at the kitchen.
They have 14 hours to cook for their 125 people. The groom's team is making the appetizers he requested. Then a buffet including: Tortellini, mixed vegetables and cheeses, filet mignon, Chilean sea bass and orechhiette with ragu. Lisa starts early on the groom's cake.
The bride's team's appetizers are: two kinds of pizza, pulled pork sandwich, short ribs with blue cheese wrapped in filo. For the buffet line: crispy chicken, braised brisket, filet mignon, creamed spinach and potatoes gratin. The cake is chocolate with lemon.
Stephanie makes the cake. Richard is making the meat, sauces and braises.
On the groom's team, they keep looking to Nikki to make decisions and she keeps declining. Dale tries to ignore them.
At 2 a.m. Andrew says he's got five hours of spinach to cream, but has never made it before. Richard pipes up about Andrew's dish, which Andrew doesn't appreciate.
Lisa thinks Dale is doing a "half-assed job." Spike decides he should claim a dish, he grabs sea bass.
At 4:17 a.m., Nikki is making pasta, trying to check in on Dale. She says Dale's not a team player. They're already deciding what they're going to say to defend themselves to the judges.
At 5:33 a.m., they're still cooking, chugging Red Bull.
Richard notes that Andrew had stopped talking. Lisa tells Antonia that her facial expression has not changed for the last seven hours. It still doesn't.
At 7:33 a.m. Tom comes in to check on everything. Three and a half hours to go.
Tom's report is that they're tired. He thinks the groom's side has an easier task because people like Italian. He thinks the groom's cake looks like a "battleship."
Stephanie plans to bring the bride's cake in pieces. Lisa puts the groom's in a box.
Wedding time. It's outdoors. The bride looks gorgeous.
In the kitchen, everyone is on edge. Stephanie is racing to finish the cake.
Padma comes in asking for their attention to introduce the judges: Tom, Gail and Gale Gand, a pastry chef in Chicago.
They get the bride's cake out 15 minutes before service starts.
Tom mingles among the guests. The waiters start bringing out the food. The bride likes her pizzas. Spike starts to put out the crostinis, but the bread is super crispy and tough. Crunches are audible.
Dinner time.
The chefs describe and serve their food. Andrew stays in the kitchen, per design.
They're pretty dead on their feet.
Dale is cooking all the hot food by himself.
Richard stays just as polished, even sleep-deprived.
The judges eat the bride's food. They like the brisket and filet. They don't like the crispy chicken. Time for the groom's food. The judges don't rave.
Both teams hear good things from the guests.
It's cake-cutting time. The bride and groom seem to like both.
The evening winds down, but neither team knows how they did.
It's time to go back and cat nap against the Glad products.
At Judges' Table. The judges wonder why the challenge-winning team went with the bride. In the back, Spike gives props to both Stephanie and Lisa for making the cakes.
Padma calls out the bride's team. Tom starts quizzing, asking who went with the bride's team. Richard says he did. Tom calls Andrew out for making the same chicken he did before, and Padma didn't like the creamed spinach. Richard takes credit for the weird taste, the star anise. They're the winning team. Stephanie gets praised for the cake, as does Antonia for the pizza. The brisket was "perfect." Gale the pastry chef announces the winner: Richard. He tries to give it to Stephanie. She gets a $2,000 gift certificate to Crate & Barrel and suggests they split it.
They send out the groom's team. Lisa, Dale, Spike and Nikki look grumpy, angry, sleepy and, again, grumpy. They claim ownership of dishes: Lisa made the cake, Dale made the meat, roasted the potatoes and made the ragu sauce, Nikki made the pesto, the pasta, Spike made the fish and the squash. They ask who was in charge. Nikki says, "Definitely not me."
Lisa talks about the cake, saying the groom wanted something simple that wouldn't outshine his wife's cake. Tom asked who decided on the antipasto bar, they said the groom. Tom thought the tortellini was dry, the pizza crust was dry, the meat was over-cooked, the horseradish sauce was flavorless. Gale asks who toasted the bread for the bruschetta. Dale says he did it, then can't leave well enough alone and add: "That's another thing I did." Spike, sensing he's about to blow, says: "Get it all out man." He does, saying he hustled. Spike tries to get Dale to say he did everything, and then argues with him, saying that his prep load was harder than Spike's. Nikki stays out of it and Lisa keeps her mouth shut. Food & Wine Gail asks Spike if he wants to hear how the sea bass was. She says everyone really liked it. Dale chimes: "They should like it, it took him three hours to make it."
They dismiss the group.
Spike goes straight for the wine in the dungeon.
At Judges' Table they consider Spike's contribution. Gail said there was a major ego war going on. They said Dale should have cut back on stuff if he thought it was too much. Tom says Nikki was a major disappointment because her Italian experience meant she should have stepped up.
Back in the room, Dale tries to curry favor. Nikki tells him you can't point fingers at judges' table because you become "that guy," and they won't look at you any better.
At Judges' Table, it's decision time. Tom said the menu overall was too big and they didn't focus on individual flavors. Tom tells Dale that even if he did the most of the work, they didn't care for most of it.
Nikki is out. She hugs Spike. Dale and Spike hug.
"I'm extremely proud of how I did. This is one of those life-changing experiences where you test yourself and I'm happy I got this far. I have a restaurant to go home to...I think that you walk away from anything like this and you're a better person, you're a stronger person. The next move for me is probably another venture, so it's full speed ahead."
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