Chris picked France, so he goes with Beef Wellington. Johnny has to wonder why he has chosen a British dish, but it obviously has roots in France so fine. (Puff pastry and duxelles? What's not French about that?) Orlando chose Spain and works on a faux paella. Matthew wisely chose Italian, which allows him the relative ease of mocking up a pasta dish like manicotti. And finally, Sally is stuck with her choice of Cuba, which gives her a hard time. Eventually she decides to play with a Cuban sandwich.
The judges for this contest are random: former Top Chef Masters competitors Michael Cimarusti and John Sedlar, restaurateur Sang Yoon, Suzanne Goin, Hubert Keller, and special guest chef Cat Cora. Orlando loooooves Cat Cora for some reason and pees his pants a little at the thought of her judging his food.
So they present their disguised desserts and lots of nice things are said at the table. But at Judges' Table, Chris gets dinged for not making his own puff pastry, Matt for not using tomatoes like he said he would, Orlando for his fluffy, broken, rice-cooker-cooked rice, and Sally's squishy white mousse. However, Sally's dish was pretty convincing otherwise, and her side dish of "potato salad" was a smash hit, so she got the win. And Orlando gets to go home.
Why he didn't make the very logical rice pudding for paella, we'll never know.
What did you think? Are you happy with the final three? Please leave a comment!
Posted on AllTopChef.com
1 comment:
Thought it was an inspired challenge. (And no obvious sponsor :)
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