Rocco's Dinner Party, Episode 7 Recap

This week on Rocco's Dinner Party, we had self-trained chefs Janet, Kevin, and Chris duke it out in the Signature Dish challenge. Kevin made a rather corporate shrimp and grits that Rocco nevertheless enjoyed. Janet produced a crepe filled with delicious pork belly, presented with a few bits of upsettingly textureless, Barbie doll-sized, kimchi. But the real sin was Chris' beurre blanc sauce, which broke and got the rather cocky lad sent home.

The party theme this week was "gastropub," basically elevated British-style pub food. Janet is an Anglophile so she might have the advantage with decorating, but what Kevin lacked in decor imagination, he more than made up for with his six-course menu of pubbish favorites like fish and chips.

The guests for this week's dinner are foodie Amanda Hesser, actor Christopher McDonald, chef Ken Oringer, So You Think You Can Dance presenter Cat Deeley, Frank Carfaro of home furnishings company DESIRON, and actress Raven Symoné.

Raven doesn't eat red meat, so she throws a monkey wrench in the chefs plans. They recover well and manage to make various interesting substitutions for the pork, beef, and liver dishes on their menus.

Because both chefs offer so many courses, this episode doesn't have the level of nit-picking that some others have had. For the most part, all dishes are successful apart from the desserts, and Kevin's pot pie which suffers from too much saffron. Both parties also seemed to be fun, so the decision must have been fairly hard for Rocco to make.

In the end, the champagne gets handed to Kevin, who prepared a more successful meal overall.

What did you think about this episode? Please leave a comment.

Posted on AllTopChef.com