MASTERCHEF “Top 16 Revealed” Season 2, Episode 5 – I had some serious appliance envy tonight as we finally got into the MasterChef kitchen with the contestants. I’d love a tour of their massive pantry that was stocked with gorgeous cookware, perfect produce, and an array of meats and dry goods. It was clear that no expense was spared in the creation of their stunning MasterChef set and from the look of it, it was worth it.
The first competition of the night was the Mystery Box Challenge where contestants had one hour to cook a dish using only the ingredients contained in the Mystery Box. Many of the home cooks fell into the trap of trying to use every component of the Mystery Box in their dish, however, Christian and Suzy did so very deliberately and with great success. I’m glad Christian won the Mystery Box Challenge with his pistachio crusted salmon since it looked the most appealing to me on TV but also because Suzy needed to be knocked down a peg.
Chef Elliot hit the nail on the head when he said Suzy reminded him of “that girl” in high school who would remind the teacher if the class had not been assigned homework. I appreciate Suzy’s efforts to be polite and friendly during the competition, but her drive to become the teacher’s pet makes her seem insincere as she accepts criticism from the Chefs. Her comment about being “disappointed with the judging” made me laugh out loud in disbelief, but it simply highlights exactly what irritates me about her. It’s funny that Max and Suzy are being played up as being the most critical of one another because they’re a variation on the same egotistic theme. Max has a pretentious chip on his shoulder and Suzy masks her arrogance with sweet smiles and sugar coated words. They’re both genuinely talented, so as long as their performance can live up to all their big talk, I’m willing to deal with it.
Because Christian had won the Mystery Box challenge, he had immunity during the elimination round and the advantage of picking the theme of the cuisine for his MasterChef competition to prepare. Angel and Mark went home in a double elimination for basic mistakes in their dishes, but they both handled it really well. Derek ended up taking the win for the Cuisine of Europe Elimination round and I especially enjoyed watching him react when he saw that his dish turned out as perfectly as he had planned. Christian and Derek have both been pretty consistent with the success of the dishes they’ve presented. They are both completely focused on food and have a natural ability in the kitchen, but they seem pretty modest and almost timid as they bring their plates up for the chefs to critique. It’s that attitude that makes it even more exciting when they get a positive reaction from the judges.
That annoying overproduced feel was back in tonight’s MasterChef. The editing was way off and there were poorly timed cuts right before commercial breaks that were intended to make things super dramatic but just felt awkward instead. I would have liked to see all 18 of the home chef’s dishes instead of just the highs and the lows of the main Elimination Test. If they spent less time hyping up pauses for unnaturally long periods of time with ridiculous over dramatic music and cut out about half of the unnecessary recap narration, there would be plenty of time to see how the judges reacted to all the contestants so we could get a better feel for what dishes were like in the middle ground.
I’m really impressed with what these home cooks have produced on MasterChef. There were a lot of successful pastry dishes that (if other cooking competition shows are any indication) are often a challenge for quite a few professional chefs. Many of the dishes appeared to be of a professional caliber and I think I am as excited as Chef Ramsay, Chef Elliot and Chef Bastianich to see what else is in store for this competition.
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