Slim, who is the same age as Whitney, though you would hardly know it since no one gassed on about how she's too young to be in the competition, is confident that her dish is better. Her confidence is misplaced -- her Chinese-spiced chicken with mandarin orange sauce falls flat because she left the best part (the broth) off the plate. At least, Gordon liked part of her dish; the same cannot be said of Avis's Chinese orange chicken and vegetable stir fry, which he describes as something you'd get from a gas station. That is very unfair to gas stations, many of which offer perfectly serviceable food.
And the parade of failure continues. Tony's wok-fried chicken with stir-fried broccoli is dismissed as kid food. "Chicken nuggets soaked in orange sauce," Joe sniffs. (Let's hope the McDonald's executive who greenlighted this TV commercial wasn't watching, or we're getting a new promotional menu item.) David's spicy orange chicken with steamed vegetables and rice looks like something that was prepared just before the nearby Crayola factory exploded. "Cartoonish!" Joe calls it. Sheetal's pan-fried chicken and bok choy eggroll is denounced for its unappealing look. Jenna, who finished her dish with 20 minutes to spare, offers an Asian orange stir fry with rice that's so unappealing, Joe flings down his cutlery. "It's boring," he declares. "It's not the spirit in what we came here to do." By the way, if you had "orange chicken" in the MasterChef home drinking game, you are probably on your way to the ER for alcohol poisoning treatment by now.
After the commercial, Tracy tries to stop the bleeding with a ginger mandarin chicken with vegetables. There's also some vermicelli egg noodles thrown in. "Can Tracy change the mood in the kitchen?" the pleasant-sounding voice-over lady asks. If she means "stop the judges' murder spasms," then, yes. Everyone seems to like it. Sharone's dish -- crispy sesame chicken with bok choy and snow peas in a mandarin five-spice glaze -- is also a winner. Sheena's is not -- she made a warm mandarin salad with pickled cabbage. "It looks like a fruit salad," Gordon sneers. More to the point, it doesn't look like much care went into assembling the plate. "What did you do with the other 55 minutes?" Gordon wonders. Faruq wraps things up with a stuffed chicken and Chinese vegetable plate in which the chicken is devoid of all life-giving moisture. "That's about as Chinese as my mum," Gordon barks, "and she's from Glasgow in Scotland." Perhaps, she emigrated. Mike -- he of the hats and the comical expressions -- offers up a nutty orange chicken with pepper entrée. "I have one problem with this dish," Gordon says, before pausing long enough for the home viewer to whip up their own nutty orange chicken meal. "I don't want to stop eating it. It's delicious."