Though the MasterChef contestants are amateurs when they arrive on the show, they’ll have an extensive resume of professional cooking experience by the end of the season. Tonight’s episode finds the prospective MasterChefs working three separate food trucks in Venice Beach, California. The three teams are divided into regional cuisines and compete to make the most money.
As last week’s winner, Stacey is allowed to choose her teammates: she selects Tali, Frank and Becky to join her on the red team — that’s one person she’s pretty sure she can beat and two that she thinks can help — and together they’re assigned Mexican food. She is also allowed to form the other teams, combining Monti, David Martinez, Anna and Tanya into a yellow team serving American food. That leaves Josh, Christine, Mike and Felix to serve Indian food on the blue team.
The yellow team elects to serve Texas barbeque burgers. They don’t start service until they’re 15 minutes in, and even then they have issues with undercooked burgers. The red team enjoys far more successful business serving steak tacos, as Stacey takes initiative and promotes their stand to beach-goers herself. The blue team’s Chicken Tikka Masala performs steadily as well, and is frequently cited as the tastiest entree.
When the totals come in, red and blue are revealed to be the first and second highest moneymakers, respectively. That leaves the yellow team in the pressure test, tackling the technically demanding dish of Tortellini.
Anna is first to present, offering up a disappointing platter of raw pasta. Monti fares a little better with her entree, but is upstaged by David’s perfectly crafted submission — though almost everyone initially dismisses him on the basis of his “fat fingers,” his Tortellini is structurally gorgeous. Tanya struggles with the challenge, and ends up with lumpy and deformed shapes. Ultimately, the fully cooked trumps the well-formed: Anna is sent home.
Though Anna certainly seems nice enough, she’s really just sort of blended in since her “Married Cooks” identity conceit was eliminated with her husband. The remaining chefs combine strong talent with strong personalities, ensuring that the onset drama between the more belligerent contestants will only escalate from here.
Ted Kindig
Contributing Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)
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Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
