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This is the first lemon tart - but he's been whining about not having lemons & therefore having to make other kinds of tarts for quite a while now. Last time he made a gin tart because there were no lemons; I don't remember what his other tart(s) were.

Ok, fine, maybe I'll copy down Reese's basic pastry recipe to add to my repertoire. If I were in his neighborhood, I'd probably be happy to have a slice of his lemon tart. I like lemon tarts & I'm sure his is a good one, but that's the last I want to hear from him about tarts. How on earth he thought saffron would go well with it is beyond me. I don't watch dessert shows, so two in a row of 5 desserts & one savory dish is a slog. How about a challenge with no sugar or other sweeteners available? I'll allow fruits in their natural state, & maybe tamarind & pomegranate syrup because they're also very tart, but they can't be set up to do the same desserts over & over again. Or maybe I just want to be done with Reece & Reynold, as the others' desserts don't bother me so much.

Absolutely agree. It's overwritten, but it's an attempt to understand the phenomenon, not defend it.

Since I haven't tasted the dishes, I won't say the outcome was wrong - but I know I'd rather try Tessa's dish than Reynold's. I agree that you can have too many things going on in a dish for it to work, but I don't see why having the hot sauce & salsa being the lingering flavors made it not fit the brief, & the mousse that "wasn't a mousse" & was "not overly pleasant" (Jock) seemed worse to me no matter how clever the presentation may have been. Ok, great raspberry sorbet, I gather, but sorbet, chocolate pebbles, & isomalt, & dry ice or whatever it is that sends up the usual mist, doesn't seem like enough if the other major component doesn't taste good. I'm finding Reynold's tricks repetitive & therefore not at this point something I've never seen before, but rather more or less the same elements repackaged into a slightly different story each time. If he hadn't called it "Space," would it had have gotten him through? I'm a bit bummed for Tessa even more than the others that it's not a normal year - it would have been such a springboard into the next phase of her career, & now everything will be at least partially put on hold, or at least very different, for a while. Ah, well. I'm glad she got as far as she did, anyway.

I was going to say something similar - & I liked the requirement that they do both, so nobody can continue to get by almost entirely on dessert.

Or, they're pale & fine. You can barely see mine if I don't wear mascara, but they're there.

Melissa's Hong Kong milk tea tiramisu recipe is up on the Food & Wine website: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/hong-kong-milk-tea-tiramisu (Edit: part of this article: https://www.foodandwine.com/chefs/melissa-king-top-chef-season-17-winner-profile)

I feel the same - will be happy to see any of them win - but have been rooting for Melissa from the beginning and I'm not changing just because she's turned out to be a bit of a front runner.

I think the comments to the contestants are partly tailored to their personalities & relative skill level. Reece was doubting himself, so they reassure him that he's capable. Laura has more confidence, & a high skill level, so they focus on critiques that can push her even further. (I don't think she thinks she's better than the others, but she (& most of the others) has a healthy self confidence. She knows she belongs, & doesn't get overly down on herself if something doesn't work.)

Who would have been in Reece's place, though? They didn't like Poh's or Reynold's dishes, Emelia's was much worse on plating than Reece's (& Poh is right, those apples are too sweet so I'm not sure how good it could have been anyway), & I don't even remember what Laura did except they said it was fine but not special enough, so I guess she must have been in fifth place? (But I also think something simple but absolutely perfect - which is not simple to accomplish - can be a winner. Taste >> bells & whistles..) I'm also very pleased to see Tessa in the immunity challenge. My favorite 3 were Sarah T., Khanh, & Tessa, so she's the only one left!

She called it arrowhead cabbage in the voiceover at the store (aka hispi cabbage, sweetheart cabbage, conehead cabbage, etc.) It looked like some sort of (darker) savoy cabbage to me, too, but I guess once you take off the outer leaves you get the pointy interior section. It definitely looked good! (I looked it up after doublechecking to see what she said.)

I thought Padma passed on the critique about not cooking with soul as gently as she could, & while it was obviously painful to hear, it gives Bryan the chance to look deep & course correct. I think he's been in his head a little too much & it's holding him back.

I think Melissa and Jock simply disagreed with Andy - they liked the spice level in the cake. I wondered if there was an issue of the batter not being evenly mixed & him having gotten a particularly cardamom-forward bite of it, or whether it was just an example of Andy finally, actually, not liking cake. No "I don't like cake, but" from him on this one. And I definitely think undercooked pasta is worse than a spice level in a cake that one of three judges didn't care for. Obviously you disagree, but that was my take! I wish the third round had been more successful. This would have been a very difficult challenge to plan out, though.

I'm relieved Sarah & Tessa made it through. I like Simon, and I like broccoli stems, probably more than the florets, but if that's all he had left in the tank, it was definitely time to go, particularly with such poor execution. I don't think he was destined to go much further anyway. I seem to have a recency bias (I've been favoring Sarah, Khanh, Tessa, & to a lesser extent Simon) but I'm wondering if both Simon and Tessa may not have had enough time in between seasons & that it's starting to show.

It was 2014 & he sounds mortified by it now. Could be damage control but I suspect he's grown up a lot since then.

Yes, Khanh demonstrated it. I suspect it takes a little practice, though.

All the US cooking shows require you to stop & get cuts, bandaged up before you continue, even tiny ones, & throw away any food that might have blood on it. Occasionally (I think on Chopped), it's up to the competitors & if they don't stop they won't taste their food instead. Sometimes if it's really small a contestant will ask for just a glove, because it's quicker, but if you're bleeding more than a teensy bit inside the glove it'll be hard to work without a bandage on it, too. So I'm sure her reaction was about losing time, not getting a cut - especially since Sarah hadn't gotten much done & she seemed to feel she needed to make up for that. No doubt they've all cut themselves countless times & it's irritating but not a big deal unless it gets in your way. (I love Sarah, but it wasn't her best outing. She should have kept things simpler & not chosen meat that needed that much prep. At least the ice cream was good! I worried about Simon's team, too, as soon as he chose the octopus. That so often goes wrong, & the odds of that increase in a relay.)

I think you must have misheard something - she's 21 now (19 on her original season), & I only remember hearing her talk about her parents.

Too much lemon juice or vinegar usually. Those are the most common acidic ingredients.

Wheat thins. Yum.

I mostly agree with this, especially since the stakes were low. I also thought it forced several contestants to come up with things they otherwise wouldn't have, or take approaches they otherwise wouldn't, which may serve them well later. (Sarah T., Reynold, Khanh, Poh, for example - but these are among the strongest cooks). At least the ingredients were both things they could use in either savory & sweet dishes. I thought Tessa was smart to use it as an opportunity to hone her dessert-making skills & probably not worry too much about the twists or the outcome (although she's clearly fiercely competitive, & would go for the win if it was within reach). I hated the first two twist days, though. The first seemed unfair (although the team I thought was disadvantaged by it won anyway), & the second was just mean & unpleasant - I agree with those who said it would be one thing in an immunity challenge, but not for an elimination. I don't watch MCAU as a game show, but as a good-spirited cooking competition (& I think fussy desserts are problematic even with the recipe).

I didn't notice Matt's arm hair (( watched on my laptop; maybe it's more glaring on a big screen, or maybe I'm just oblivious), but I think since it's a one-off, & might be weird in other roles he's playing, that it's fine to let things like that go. The big thing was that they inhabited the roles so well. Nice job, everyone!

I think Jock is probably just a little more reserved & so it will take some time for everybody to find their rhythm. He's probably trying too hard to fill a role that doesn't come naturally at the moment. I don't worry about the Laura stuff so much (should be barred just because she's worked for one of the judges? is he really biased, or just credits her for doing well, albeit with stuff he knows well?), but I wonder if his particular obsessions as a chef are limiting. The focus on native ingredients is great, but is he as well-rounded outside of that vision, & as appreciative of a range of different approaches to great cooking? It's hard for me to tell just yet, but it worries me a bit. I think judges should ideally be connoisseurs of a very wide variety of cuisines, omnivores in every sense of the word, & I'm not sure that the three of them together fully bring that. With Andy being so young & still coming off more as a peer to the contestants, I need the sense that Jock, as well as Melissa, brings authority not just on his specialties, but on the whole range of what the contestants may produce. Ideally, he would bring the most gravitas across the board, & I'm not convinced yet that he brings that on anything other than the native ingredients challenges (although certainly he displayed a fair bit range in the dishes of his own we've seen.)

About the only thing he's got going for him is that the clearly stronger team sometimes gets overconfident. (Well, also an interesting idea, if a harder one to get the other chefs to live up to.)

I think I'd switch Kevin & Brian, because Brian seems to be getting in his head a little about not doing quite as well as he expected, & so might be trying to prove himself too much & pushing ideas forward. He may also think he took too much of a backseat when paired with Eric (& the judgment shown there wasn't great - weren't they tasting enough to realize there was an issue?). Kevin has less of an ego but also a bit more confidence at the moment, so I think he'd be better able to just execute without worrying about whether it's enough. Aside from that, seems spot on, & it's a close call either way!