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I want Jamie Peck from Majority Report to replace Meghan McCain. Just so Meghan would freak out of having a socialist on the panel.

In retrospect its kind of crazy how much they spoiled in the trailer. The fact that they showed both Shota and Dawn in the F3 challenge is pretty crazy.

Yeah I actually felt that the challenge was pretty difficult especially with the time management with the crab. I was actually surprised none of them cut themselves. I guess I'm pretty accident prone, but shelling crab is a nightmare.

The preview seemed to show that Dawn was struggling in one of her plating. Her and Jamie looked like they were just dumping things on to the plate....ugh Dawn stop it!

I've actually posted this on the past seasons challenge (you guys can debate there). But there are a lot of people who forgot something on the plate and survived elimination. It seems like the only time they got eliminated was when they completely whiffed (Angelina who didn't get anything on the plate). In all times (one was a quickfire, so who cares) that Dawn missed something, there were way worse dishes. I like Jamie, but her dish through conception sounded really bad. Also mixing tahini with cheddar sounds absolutely disgusting.

So with the whole forgetting on the whole missing things on the plate controversy. I am trying to recall all the times contestants forgot things on their plate and got eliminated or not. Feel free to add others, as I don't remember all top chef. not eliminated: S1 LeeAnne-Forgot to sauce her plate in the gas station (yes its a quickfire so no one got eliminated), but she actually won the quickfire. S2 Elia and Carlos- Carlos forgot to add (forgot what it was) to two of the plates. Josie/Marissa got eliminated instead. S3 Howie-Forgot frog legs in his surf and turf dish. (So 50% of his dish was missing). They thought Clay's dish was worse (even though Clay had both components) and eliminated him instead. S3 Dale-In the airplane challenge, actually forgot to give a steak (or 2?) to one of the diners. Ended up in the top 3. CJ got sent home instead. S6 Robin-Forgot to sauce her plate in the first elimination. She had immunity (but in all honesty doesn't seem like she would have been in the bottom anyways) S11 Nina-F4 challenge. Forgot to put italian dumplings on her plate (and this was advertised on her dish). Didn't get eliminated, but was actually got in the top 2. Which is surprising because everyone in the top 4 had pretty solid dishes. Eliminated S1 Dave-For only giving 2 plates and not 3 plates in the F3 challenge. S13 Angelica-Sudden death quickfire. Didn't plate anything. S17 Brian Malarkey. One of the diners didn't get a component. But it seemed like he got eliminated for the weakest dish. Also I listened to RHAP and it sounded like according to Brooke it was of the waiters fault? So it just seems like as long as you don't forget a completely important component (like an entire dish), you won't get axed as long as you have good food. Like Howie specifically was surprising that he stayed in episode 1.

In terms of missing components and still staying in the competition, there have been many chefs that had forgot parts of their components and didn't get eliminated. One in particular is Howie in Season 3. The first challenge they had a surf and turf challenge. Howie actually didn't get his frog legs on the plate. So he had 50% of his plate incompleted. The judges thought another contestant had a worse dish (even though it was completed) and Howie survived.

I mean I totally understand Kameelah's agitation with Sean since she was working in a hospital in NY (at the height of the Covid pandemic).

The premiere was so good. Probably the most hilarious first boot ever.

Seriously. When the ties were happening, it felt like Hell's Kitchen (I hate Hell's Kitchen) where every team challenge always coincidentally is a tie or a "close vote". I was like okay who let the Hell's Kitchen production team take over? Also I didn't realized the guest judge was Ed Lee. He was unrecognizable when he shaved off his moustache and beard.

So finally watched the episode, since youtube delayed uploading it. Amazon and youtube have really been dropping the ball in this season lately. I'm kind of sad they did so much generic medium tofu. I would have love use some more interesting forms of tofu like tofu knots, but I'm guessing it might be kind of a copout since they aren't making those from scratch? Probably one of my favorite dishes featuring tofu knots. Also using a tofu skin as a wrapper is another interesting method as well.

S1: Justine was also brought back.

Yeah, its been kind of amazing watching her journey. She was on the kid show the endurance, then had a ton of parent troubles, became a foster kid. Was a mess in Cancun, with her relationship with guys. Along with her horrible relationship with Zach who was such a disgusting misogynist to her. So its nice seeing her transition out of it with a loving family. Also it was pretty heartwarming to see Jonna go and hug and support other cast members when they had a fight.

Yeah I remember hearing interviews of past contestants in regarding of Restaurant Wars. One of the main issues, is that in the real world when it comes to restaurant, customers would naturally chat and stay in their tables after they are done with eating their food/dessert. Customers would have long conversations sometimes maybe and hour or so. In Restaurant wars? That is an absolute nightmare as customers who would stay and talk at their tables after being done with their meals would bottle neck the flow. I think Kevin Gillespie talked about how it would super awkward to push customers who are finished with their dinner out of the restaurant. Dawn I felt of all the restaurant was probably the easiest recipe to follow. Like the components was a sauce, a vegetable, and a protein. Which is really easy for a beginning cook to conceptualize. I feel like Shota's recipe seemed really difficult. Byron, lol good luck reading through 4 pages just for the stock.

Tofu challenge Head to head Jamie vs Byron Shota vs Maria Gabe vs Dawn Losers will go to round 2. Bottom 2 will go to one final round where the person is eliminated. It looks like this does not show the outside challenge nor the one with Brooke/Kristen. So Jamie, Shota, Maria, Dawn are safe. I think its between Gabe and Byron.

Also giving them only 3 hours to type the recipe (with ipads and not keyboards) must be a nightmare. Kind of surprised that out of everyone not one person had a grammatical error or misspelling. Guessing that they had someone do a grammatical and spelling check in between the prep and cook days? It would have been entertaining if someone meant to type "pears" but forgot an r "peas". Kristen Kish "2 cups of peas in a fruit tart?!" wtf?!"

I found this challenge parameters kind of weird, since one has the "following the instructions" component to factor in. Shouldn't Shota and Maria not be on the top, since their replicas weren't even close? I also wonder if Shota got a reprieve in that Kwame didn't pour the watery sauce on his plate. Also, curious what the judges would eliminate. Would they eliminate someone that had a good replication but a bad conception, or a decent conception but a terrible replication? They got lucky that Chris failed at both.

So there was another picture I missed in the overall preview. The upcoming challenge is a replication challenge. Noticed that it did not have the relay challenge, or the one with Kristen and Brooke as the judges. So Dawn, Jamie, Shota, and Maria are safe. I have a feeling the picture will not be in the next episode. It seems like the contestants are bathing (because they are recovering from fishing in the mud. (The one that has Shota and Dawn in the boat). So if that's true. Gabe is definitely the next to leave. If its not then its one of Gabe, Chris, or Byron. Also is the Shota, Byron, Sara final 3 still true? (assuming Sara gets back from LCK?)

Yikes. So it looked like Dawn wasn't the only one who wasn't really sure what her final dishes were either. Sara switching her fish at the last minute really is problematic. And Gabe really should not have made an amuse, and spent his time focusing honing the other 7 dishes. This is definitely an equivalent of people throwing in random slides in a group project 30 minutes before class starts.

Yup that is correct. In all honesty too Penny has Chris. Who in my personal opinion is the weakest chef, so the teams aren't as stacked. Penny is still probably the stronger team, because the other three, up until this episode never hit the bottom. Kokoson's team makeup because all 4 of them very yo-yo in their performances. They would slam it out of the park, or completely fall flat on their faces (Shota and Jamie especially). And tonight's episode was the former.

No it was optional. I teach math, so I thought there was a way maybe to incorporate group projects for a semester as part of a grade. That was a hot mess from beginning to end. Never again.

Jamie and Byron made the dessert. Maria made the sandwich. I will say the fusion Sando sandwich is hands down the most genius thing on the menu. Especially using braised tongue to mimic a Wagyu beef. That dessert is pretty cool too to make a fusion tres leches as well.

In rewatching, the problem with the losing team was that with Dawn's indecisiveness, no one gave any real feedback. When Dawn said she said she didn't know the night before. Everyone was all "oh its okay :D". Gabe even said "as long as it represents you, its fine". Which is totally not helpful whatsoever. Like someone should be like, hey "I'm dish 3, (which has these ingredients) maybe try to think of something that ties with my dish?" or "Okay Dawn, why don't you think about this, and tell us your thoughts by tomorrow morning." Like for them to not give her a timeline, essentially gave her outs to not make a decision. (I do want to point out that I like Dawn, and don't think she was malicious in her indecisiveness). But someone needed to direct her thoughts and help her focus. Its interesting when the other team. You heard Shota and Maria both saying throughout the prep, where is everyone at. Or is anyone behind? While Sara, Gabe, Chris, and Dawn had none of that. Also Gabe suggested to the team of having a "non-intrusive" service. Which hilariously morphed into let's just completely ignore the judges and not talk to them. Also this episode, as a teacher reminds me why I hate assigning group work or group projects.

Yeah, it just looked like Sara didn't trust her instinct (essentially what happened to Jamie getting eliminated). It sucked when Sara was like, "I feel like this is a problem...but everyone seems to be calm, so I guess its just me being overly paranoid". Ugh, it seems to be an unfortunate theme of female chefs being afraid of speaking up. The team really should have been like Shota, assigning specific roles.

I'm not going to lie, if I was a contestant I would probably prefer regular restaurant wars than this one. I would feel so awkward cooking, while people are like 3 feet away from me commenting my every move, and every interaction that I had with a teammate. This would be such a hard challenge for an introvert. I feel that the losing team failed, because they didn't really have designated roles either. There was no "front of the house" (Maria) or a back of the house (Shota). I also thought that the fact they decided to spent the first 30 minutes on decorating was a pretty bad idea. Since certain courses would require braising, or making broth and you would need that extra 30 minutes.