Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Southern Discomfort
By Monty Ashley | Season 10 | Episode 14 | Aired on 07.23.2012
They've got thirty minutes. Barbie comments that she'd like to do a hush puppy. Dana is not sure how to reinvent meatloaf. Justin says he needs help coming up with ideas for fried chicken. Christina can't decide whether she should leave the skin on her chicken, and Barbie suggests putting an egg in the flour. Brian's first step in reinventing grits is reading the box to find out how to make grits. Oh dear.
Walking through the kitchens, Gordon tells Kimmie she should win. She agrees! It may be relevant that her pot is all boiling over. There's some other last-minute cooking shenanigans, like Christina accidentally knocking the skin off her chicken.
The guest judge is Tanya Steele from epicurious.com. Barbie and Clemenza are up first with catfish and collard greens. Barbie's dish is deemed very attractive and beautifully fried. Clemenza's catfish is a little undercooked. He tells us that Tanya "should have had an orgasm in her mouth." Barbie wins and is pretty obnoxious about it in an interview.
Kimmie and Brian: pork chop with grits. Kimmie has two kinds of cheese in her grits. Chef Ramsay says it looks pretty dull, but Kimmie assures him that it's how they eat this food in the south. Well, it's hardly been reinvented then, has it? Tanya likes the grits a lot. Brian has a "very beautiful" plate, but the pork chop is raw in the middle. Not like how Gordon will call something "raw" when it's slightly undercooked, but visibly raw. Oh, man. What are you doing here? Kimmie wins automatically, and Gordon takes a moment to praise her grits.
Christina and Justin: fried chicken and mac and cheese. Christina's chicken has soggy coating and Justin's is not. Justin wins. The blue team is up, 2-1.
Robyn vs. Dana. Meatloaf and sweet potato. Robyn's has too much salt. Dana has a "bacon-wrapped mini-meatloaf" which sounds great. And it looks great. Her sweet potato puree is also apparently great. Gordon heaps the pressure on Tanya for the final decision because he really likes having a tie, but Dana's dish is too good to be denied. The red team wins, 3-1. Tanya says Dana's dish was the best of the night, and it will be featured on epicurious. Robyn is a sore loser.
The reward for the red team is a photo shoot with Gordon, followed by lunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Shall I assume from that that they're not actually in Las Vegas the way the exterior shots keep pretending?
The blue team's punishment is to prep both kitchens for the night's dinner service, which will feature an entirely new menu based on southern cuisine. And they'll be baking fresh bread and hand-churning butter. As usual, they will whine about doing prep, even though it's more likely to make them familiar with the new menu than going out for a photo shoot.