Episode Report Card Daniel: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Ice So Nice They Carried it Twice
By Daniel | Season 11 | Episode 13 | Aired on 05.30.2013
So it's Susan's lamb dish now. He loves her tenacity, but it's raw. IT'S RAW. "At this stage of the competition, I expect you to nail it," he says. Ja'Nel's safe again.
Jon's up. Can I just say I love Ramsay pretending to remember perfectly what each chef cooked for him in Vegas? For Jon, it was scallop and foie gras with truffle. He nailed it. Here, he's made seared mahi mahi and citrus quinoa and a tropical fruit syrup. Visually it's got that "wow factor," Ramsay says. He tries it and says it's delicious, and when we come back from commercial, Ramsay announces that Jon has just edged Ja'Nel out of the winner's chair.
Mary the butcher, now, who butchered her seared duck breast in Vegas. She has made a pan-seared (everything pan-seared!) filet with a red wine reduction, with some jus, chicken stock, shallots and garlic. He says the filet is cooked beautifully, but spoiled with the heavy, over-reduced sauce.
Here comes Zach, yelling at us how proud he is of his dish. In Vegas he made a pork chop with an apple and fig puree that Ramsay liked, but the pork was slightly dry. Here he's got a "twist on surf n' turf," with filet mignon under prawns. But the prawns dominate, points out Ramsay, who is also concerned with the tiny medallions of filet. Zach has made medallions of a medallion, really. "Where's the rest of it?" asks Ramsay. "On our next menu, I'm using that for a tartare," Zach "explains." Susan says she knows bullshit when she smells it, and she's not wrong. Ramsay says it's the first time he's seen anyone cut filet, and Zach says he was "thinking out the box," but Ramsay says he's got the balance upside-down. Good effort, but it's not beating Jon's dish.
That leaves just Cyndi. In Vegas, she had a delicious tri-coloured pepper-crusted New York strip. Here she's made a pan-seared halibut, with a "play on succotash": potatoes, corn, peppers and onion. Jon's worried that Ramsay's having a "food orgasm" over the dish. Indeed, Ramsay says it's one of the best pieces of halibut he's seen cooked so far. He wouldn't have put butter in the cream, though. He says it's difficult to choose between the two of them, so guess where we leave off this week?
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Personally, he thinks Anthony didn't do that bad a job hosting the Oscars this year. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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