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Around the World in 80 Plates

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ATWI80P Ep. 5

Team are chosen before leaving for Florence. John and Gary get to pick for their opponent and this is how it came out:
Gary's Red Team - Liz, John, Jenna
Nick's Black Team - Nicole, Nookie, Avery
Liz has immunity for this episode.

After flying teams receive a placard in English with the first part of the course: Go to the bocce players at Piazza Il Belvidere. The clue they receive there sends them to restaurant Carnachio Cafe to order "reboiled seasonal dish," which they find is ribollita, a twice-cooked soup of vegetables with bread soaked in left to gain flavor overnight. After that they had to find a Carangelo gelato store and correctly identify a flavor that is not cheese. It is ricotta, which is made from whey. The Red team was hung up on this while the Black team solved it quickly. That gave them directions to a map vendor Filippo Mannino at the square. His instructions were to drive into the Tuscan countryside in an Infiniti. Next was a tip to harvest olives with the "provided tools," a rake a bucket and a tarp. It took the Black team a while to discover what the tarp could be used for (shaking olives out of the trees)
Red gained ground on black during the drive, but Black pulled in ahead. They won $10,000 and the exceptional ingredient, which was Nara "Nonna" Romanelli who is a tiny Italian grandmother who is a Tuscan cuisine expert. The Black team attempted to communicate with her but they were quickly frustrated with her rapid-fire Italian which they could neither understand nor follow, so they basically stopped using her. Later, Curtis and Cat were aghast at this and pointed out that the Black team could have had her demonstrate her cooking and write down the ingredients so they had recipes.     

The ribollitas were made by Gary and Nookie, who put prosciutto into this should-be-vegetarian-to-be-genuine dish. Gary's ribolitta was inadvertently sabotaged when John was poking around the kitchen at 6am and inadvertently knocked over the shelf where it was resting, spilling the contents of the pot. Gary had to start all over again with help from his teammates, but he felt that he was screwed.

The presentation of dishes by the Red team to local diners plus Nonna Romanelli and her son food critic Leonard:
John - Bruschetta Trio
Gary - Ribollita
Jenna - gnocchi with wild boar (after Liz had produced tasteless pasta)
Liz - grape granita

The corresponding presentation of dishes by the Black team was:
Nookie - ribollita
Avery and Nick - gnocchi with squash flowers, porcini and Zucchini
Nicole - Pork Sausage and Wild Boar Meatballs
Avery - pear cake with mascarpone and syrup

The diners voted in favor of Black. Nicole's sausage was the most popular dish by far, so she was named MVP. The Red team had erred by essentially using a menu of non-Tuscan cuisine and even though the Black team's ribollito was guilty of the same the rest of their dishes except for the meatballs were not. Red was sent off to decide who would go home. The votes were split 1 each for John, Jenna and Gary when Jenna cast her vote to send Gary home.

One thing I had not understood before is that the winner of this competition gets $150,000 plus an Infiniti luxury sedan. It looks like they are earning it.

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ATWI80P, ep. 6

The 5th episode starts with a car trip from Florence to Modena, a suburb of Bologna. Teams are the same as for the Florence leg. They were given their first task, to drive to a cheese aging facility, locate three 80 pound wheels of parmigiano-reggiano marked with a small green triangle, and bring those out to get their next clue. That clue was to bring one of those wheels to Salumeria Tamburini in downtown Bologna. There they got a list of 12 items which needed to be purchased from a local shop after parking. The Black team was ahead and marked the items off their list, but they assumed that they already had the parmigiano-reggiano cheese on it. They didn’t and so delivery of the 12 items to the Pappagallo Restaurant was not complete by that one item. The Red team got ahead and reached the finish at Piazza Maggiore first.
The final task was to cook a 3 course traditional Bolognese meal. The Red team received as its Exceptional Ingredient time, specifically one extra hour of cooking time. The Black team had only 2 hours while Red got 3 hours to cook. The Red team was cooking at Restaurant Pappagallo and the Black team at Al Cambio. The restaurant chefs Roberto Franchitti and Massimo Poggi ate at the judges table. So did U.S. restauranteur Paul Bartolotta, who is the most distinguished Italian master owner/chef in Las Vegas. He had a further recommendation, that no water or oil be used for pasta dough preparation. Flour and egg are all that is required besides great skill.

The Black team’s Nicole was immune so she could not be sent home. That always puts major pressure on the rest of her team, as the immune chef has frequently done poorly and brought done their team. The Red team also received the option to invite them to a special dinner at Pappagallo or let them be on their own. They decided to have Black with them at that dinner. Jenna was the only one who spoke Italian, so she used that advantage to ask Franchitti a secret about the meal. He stated that Bolognese sauce contains only pork meat (which I don’t think Jenna was able to use because their was no Bolognese sauce in the meal for either team). The task is one antipasti course a primi course of tortellini and a secondi course
 
The 2 hours for Black starts at the same time as 3 hours for Red. Avery had to make 300 squash and prosciutto tortellini and was falling far behind. The team asked their wait staff to come and help. The broth for the tortellini was prepared by Nookie. A piece of beef was butchered in the worst sense of that word by Nicole for Ribeye Medallions with Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower Puree. Nick did Warm Mushroom Salad, Arugula Puree and Parmesan Cheese.

Red had only 3 chefs so it could not double up on any dishes. Liz did Pork Loin with Romagnolo Sauce and Eggplant. Jenna did Four Cheese Plate with Mushrooms and Sweet and Sour Sauce. John did Tortellini in Capon and Parmesan Broth.

The sampling by the judges table revealed that the Red team was likely to win. The actual feedback from the local diners confirmed just that. They particularly liked Liz’s dish. The Red team did win and John was named MVP. I guess that Cat and Curtis wanted to spread it around, as I expected that Liz was going to get it again.

The Black team had to vote somebody out and the worst performer Nicole could not be sent home. That made it a game of extreme strategy where the worst dish could not be sent home and the next worst was shared by 2 individuals. So all three ganged up to vote Nick out even though his performance clearly did not deserve it.  Nick was sent home despite having a better dish than the comparable antipasti course by Jenna and also the other 2 dishes by his own teammates. Why is peer judging allowed when there are highly competent judges who can make those decisions?

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ATWI80P, Ep. 6

The teams flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Black team was Nookie and John. The Red team was Nicole and Liz. The White team was Jenna and Avery. The course involves finding coconuts at a specific market. On arrival they found a task to shred 5 pounds coconuts at another location nearby. Teams carried the coconuts there in nylon mesh bags slung over a shoulder pole or by just holding the bags. The next task was to walk or run to the rice paddy and plant 20 rows of rice plants, one row at a time. Finally they could walk or run to the Doi Kam Temple. Nookie and John arrived first to win $10,000 and the Exceptional Ingredient, which was to get twice the money to shop for ingredients and two dishes rather than one. For being last, the White could not use any form of heat to cook with.

The final task was to sell one dish (Red team or White team) or two dishes (Black team) for the most total money. Teams were sent to wander around Chiang Mai and figure out what they wanted to make and sell in a “hawker” stand. The Red team chose a spicy Chinese style crispy pork belly with fresh chilies and kanah dish. The White team chose a green papaya salad. The Black team had coconut, watermelon, pineapple and watermelon juice blend for their first one. Their second one was Larb Moo with chilies, peanuts and cilantro.

The quantity of raw materials purchased imposed a limit on how many servings were possible and the portion size did too. The red team ran out of its pork because Nicole’s portion size was too large. As their dishes were more or less popular, teams were smart enough to change pricing to stimulate or retard demand. Local Chef McDang was asked by Curtis and Cora to judge the authenticity of the cuisine. The most authentic and tasty dish got a total of 150 baht (about $6) added to that team’s total.

Those total sales were:
White 2450 + 150 = 2600
Red    2150
Black 4120

So black with twice as many dishes sold almost twice as much. What a surprise! Nookie and John won this challenge. John was named Most Valuable Chef (previously Most Valuable Player), with $5,000 immediately but no immunity. They stepped aside and let the Red and White teams settle the elimination decision. The Red team was united that it should not come from, but Jenna and Nicole voted Against Liz while Liz and Avery voted for Avery. John got the power to break the tie and he sent Jenna packing in a strategic move designed to get rid of a strong competitor.

There were 2 interesting incidents of bending the rules of the competition in this episode. Jenna watched as Avery added coconut water to the shredded coconut when they were way behind on the course. Nookie elected to water down his juice mix to make more money. He sold more, but there were some negative comments from people who bought that drink.

In the context of this type of challenge giving one team double the dishes to sell seems an unfair advantage. How could either the Red team or the White team hope to really compete unless Black really had some poor dishes to sell (which wasn't going to happen with chefs at this level).

coolio:
I really hope Liz wins this!

apskip:
Coolio,

My guess is that Liz has the lowest probability of winning. I think John and Avery have the best chance and Nicole and Nookie are in the middle.

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