Recap Hell's Kitchen 5 Episode 5
We start with the summary of what happened in the prior episode. The women win their first challenge. Robert and Danny do not well, but Seth was worse and eliminated. Colleen can't count Beef Wellington. Lacey is sent to the Men's team.
This episode starts with several of the Red team laughing because the Men now had to deal with Lacey and they didn't. That sort of catty behavior the women exhibited has been known in past seasons to come back and bite them. I look forward to seeing that, as I think they gave Lacey a rougher time than she deserved. The Blue team started off by giving Lacey the freeze-out, particularly Ben. Watch what happens as they say on BRAVO.
The challenge is to go to the Asian market and select $100 of ingredients in 25 minutes suitable for 1 seafood, 1 poultry and 1 meat dish, then cook it in one hour when back at Hell's Kitchen. The chefs were teamed up in pairs, with a faceoff of 3 pairs from Red against 3 pairs from Blue. The dishes selected were to be Asian fusion meaning bring a novel element to Asian cuisine according to Ramsay:
Carol/Coi - chicken
vs. Robert/Danny - Pad Thai barbecue chicken
Paula/LA - Ahi tuna tempura with aioli
vs. Ben/Lacey - pan-seared Scallops with sea urchin caviar
Andrea/Colleen - Kobe beef sashimi with spicy Korean sauce
vs. Giovanni/J - beef pizzaioli w rice (pizzaoli is Asian fusion when paired with rice? Huh?)
Judging was by Ramsay and
www.epicurious.com editor-in-chief Tanya Steel (who will have a retrospective of the challenge in her blog later today). They rated Robert/Danny, Paula/LA and Andrea/Colleen the winners. That means the women have won again. They get to go on a special Asian trip. It is to a martial arts venue and they watch two Sumo wrestlers(Gordon Ramsay and Jean-Philippe in massive fat suits) go at it, then the women get into the ring with the wrestlers themselves. Next they drink a lot of sake (there is a reference to Coi imbibing 9 glasses). I would expect the Red team dinner service to be a disaster if most of them are still drunk.
The Blue team gets to do a nasty task first, making individual homemade fortune cookies. Ben gives Lacey a pep talk to keep her from withdrawing; she recognizes that it's BS but likes the underlying sentiment. Next the Blue team must make origami decorations for the dining room. I have tried origami and it's tricky stuff. That's what the Men found out, but they do have one expert on their team. It is Lacey, she teaches all of them how to do it and now she is part of the team and they owe her.
Ramsay announces that Paula's ahi tuna dish will be on the evening's menu. He also announces that they will have some special guests dining. The service starts with both Giovanni and LA excelling on the Appetizer Stations, with the risotto going out being quite special. The special guests show up. They are several real sumo wrestlers and they order "everything on the menu" (really). However, they appreciate really good food and appear to be knowledgeable about what they are eating. The "everything" order is split evenly between the 2 kitchens. Lacey is doing a really good job on the Garnish station and appears to even be organizing the efforts of the whole Blue team. There is no way she is going to be leaving Hell's Kitchen tonight.
Andrea is having a difficult time (too much sake?). She burns 4 consecutive Beef Wellingtons. J is on the Meat Station and has to deliver beef Wellingtons but he screws them up by leaving them too rare. Ramsay tells Colleen she left the oven doors open; she is not sure if she did but accepts that she might have. Ramsay catches up to Andrea's mistakes as she hid the 4 burned beef under the counter. She exposes this with his usual ranting and raving. Robert is on the Men's Fish Station and Ramsay discovers a jar of wasted food. He is incensed and continually refers to Robert as "Bobbie", a name which Robert hates. They have a private meeting and get it sorted out.
Ramsay calls out Andrea for not being a team player. J's chicken was raw in the middle, a major faux pas. Next J forgot a lamb order. He's in big trouble. Andrea was told she was absolutely clueless this evening. Colleen sends out a dessert frozen.
Ramsay indicates that neither team wins tonight's service as he shuts down Hell's Kitchen. Giovanni will pick one elimination nominee from the Blue team and LA will do the same for the Red team. Giovanni correctly picks J and LA correctly picks Andrea for her communications and cooking errors. Ramsay appears to ponder this deeply and then tells them to come forward after he makes a swipe at Robert for almost being bad enough to compete on that with J. After the usual "why I should stay" sentences he tells J to remain where he is and for Andrea to get back in line. Then he astounds everyone by making his own elimination pick, which is Colleen for not having overcome mistakes after 5 weeks. Andrea was definitely much worse than Colleen tonight, but Ramsay used the entirety of the 5 episodes to make that decision. He did praise Colleen for "fight", which he tells the Red team many of them need, but his final word is that she is a poor cook and needs to stay out kitchen, no doubt meaning that more globally than just Hell's Kitchen..
I can imagine how Ramsay feels after both team went backwards for 2 weeks in a row.
