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Robert Irvine at 3am? Must have been before the falling out with the Food Network. Well, he\u2019s the guest panelist, and tells the teams that the big prize this week is getting featured in \u201cUSA Weekend\u201d magazine.<\/p>\n
The teams were told to head to specialty shops to answer questions. If you answer the question correctly, you can move on to take your first choice of ingredient. If you don\u2019t answer correctly, you have to do a food prep task. The groups do OK at this, answering most of the questions correctly. One team had to do two food preps, another had to do one, and the last answered all the questions correctly.<\/p>\n
After they got all their ingredients, they headed to a train station where they all board a train to cook. They have to prepare a brunch for the selection committee and 30 passengers. Aaron, Adam and Jennifer have Brioche, Ricotta, and Steak. They starts to argue for about runny eggs, whether they should make French toast\u2026 things were falling apart. The steaks looked good, but when they finally got food plated, the eggs weren\u2019t looking good. Their presentation goes well, but the eggs were undercooked, and the French toast didn\u2019t go over that well. They did like the steak.<\/p>\n
The next team has lamb, blue cheese and baggettes. Nipa takes the lamb (for a lamb kabob), Shane does a salad with the blue cheese, and Lisa does a French toast. They do pretty well, but Lisa needs to a little last minute whipping for the cr\u00e8me freshe. Their presentation goes ok (and Lisa thankfully was much better than last week). The salad is overdressed, the lamb was spicy, but the French toast went over well. The selection committee liked the change Lisa made in her culinary point of view.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey, Kelsey and Kevin went last. They had duck, raisin bread, and mozzarella. They make a duck salad, bread pudding, and honey glazed figs with crostini. The last time doesn\u2019t have much oil, they don\u2019t plate the right number of plates (at first), but finish it off. Their presentation is a little over the top, and doesn\u2019t go over all that great with the judges. The bread pudding is tough (and they noticed they didn\u2019t get as much as the other passengers), the salad was OK, and the duck was over cooked. Bobby Flay says he\u2019ll talk to Kevin about his culinary point of view to get him to change it.<\/p>\n
They judging starts, and it goes does pretty much as the critiques went as they were eating.<\/p>\n
In front of the judges, we see the \u201cwalkout\u201d from last week\u2019s preview. Bobby asks Nipa, \u201cAre you enthusiastic about this?\u201d She responds, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d They question her a bit more, complimenting her, and wondering why she isn\u2019t more enthusiastic when they\u2019re enthusiastic about her. Finally Nipa says, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I can\u2019t do this anymore\u201d and walks out, much to the surprise of the judges and the other contestants.<\/p>\n
The judges and the contestants talk a bit about this walkoff. Nipa returns and explains why she wants to get on the network. The judges rhetorically ask whether she\u2019s ready or not.<\/p>\n
Lisa and Aaron win the big \u201cUSA Weekend\u201d story. The judges narrow down the selection between Nipa and Kevin, and inexplicably pick Nipa. They do put her on notice though, explaining if a Food Network \u201cstar\u201d walked off a show like that, they\u2019d probably be fired. Nipa apologizes to the group, and Kevin makes his exit.<\/p>\n
Overall, I think Lisa made a good transition from the first week. It was an interesting challenge. Looks like Lisa and Aaron are the odds on favorites to win\u2026 at least for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"