MARCEL’S QUANTUM KITCHEN “The Heat Is On” Episode 5 – Marcel and his team find that “The Heat Is On” this week in MARCEL’S QUANTUM KITCEN when they are hired for an event honoring volunteer firefighters. Marcel, Jarrid and Devon start off the show with a meal at the firehouse made up of real manly food which, no doubt explains the absence of Robyn. While there they have a chance to chat with the men. The president is initially impressed when Marcel and his team seem to communicate well with the firefighters.
The sparks start flying as soon as Marcel meets the party planner Sasha. Even though she has a fire table (which excited Marcel no end) and a real kitchen—a first for the team and the parties they have done—there is an issue. A biggie. And guess what the issue is…. Wait for it… Hold your breath… Can you guess? Did you say plates? If you did, get yourself a supercooled, gelled sphere of something and settle in for the rest of the show.
Marcel and his team decide on typical firehouse fare for the menu—with that Marcel flare, of course. Chili, ribs, shrimp cocktail and carrot cake. Once they get that settled, they start bringing the vision to reality in Marcel’s magic kitchen. The carrot cake is a wonder of nine components meant to look like a camp fire. The baby back ribs will be cooked, then the bones removed and replaced with gelled apple juice in the form of rib bones, injected back into the rib! The chili will be a deconstructed wonder. I am left wondering why there is always one dish that must be deconstructed? Does that make it better some how?
The tasting goes remarkably well, even though there is a breathless moment when Sasha almost refuses to eat it, but thankfully she does and she loves it. The plate order can be made. A cheer sounds; the plate order is made. Overjoyed, Marcel and his team pop down to the venue to check it out once the plates get there and… oh no! A plate debacle! Yes, you read that right, a debacle! Round plates are square, smoke won’t billow and Robyn is not going to take the fall. For Marcel, it is just too much.
Marcel does not let the plates stand in his way for long, and the team manages to pull off the first two courses without a hitch. The third course—the one requiring the special plates—is very nearly a disaster when the host, uncaring of the timing of his dish, lets his speech go on too long. Luckily for Marcel, the food still worked perfectly, the guests raved and all is simply awesome at the end.
Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen is definitely loosing its appeal. Like a cake gone flat in the oven, or a magnificent gelled sphere that is too chalky, there is something that is becoming overdone—overcooked?—in this show. The premise, while workable for one or two shows, simply becomes wearing after three, let alone five. If something new would happen, anything, it would help. But it is the same old story over and over. Wars with party planners, battles over plates, gelling things that aren’t meant to be gelled and deconstructing food. Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen is an interesting idea that has very likely run its course.
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