wingsabre

Buddha, Gabri, and Victoire all did not execute the rice well. They all overcooked the rice, but Buddha over cooked it the least, while Victoire over cooked it the most. In terms of seasoning the rice, Victoire over seasoned hers with saffron while the other two did not over season or under season their rice. Victoire also made the error of under seasoning an item while none of the others under seasoned any. In terms of protein, Buddha nailed his proteins, but accidentally left out one item for Padma. Gabri had a forgetful protein and odd pairing of the protein but there was nothing wrong with the cook. Victoire overcooked her lamb. In terms of big picture, both Buddha and Gabri had memorable dishes and Victoire did not. So by most of the metrics, she was the right person to go home. What's sad is food from the Congo is well seasoned and will use spices. So Victoire could have done what Sara and Gabri did, and just adopted her own food with the spices from India. I was also not impressed with Sara during her season of Top Chef, but she's really improved and is a real contender for the finals. She's understood how the challenges work, and how the judges look at metrics. Her and Buddha have really done their homework compared to the others. Amar seem to be cooking just by instinct, in comparison. Tom on the other hand is just doing what he wants and not really following the rules at times, so it's a mixed bag with him.

I think it's not a big issue this episode because the restaurant is more of a chef's table concept but serve as a restaurant. So with a chef's table, you expect more interaction and theatrics. It's not just a restaurant, but something that should pop a bit.

I feel like it was so obvious from the start on who would go home, and which team would win. Nicole did a lot of really significant mistakes early on that she just never recovered to. And they were decisions that you would think she would have figured it out because she's been so skilled in other competition. Even through Last Chance Kitchen, she made significant mental errors. This did not feel like restaurant wars, because the team were not challenged to create a true concept, focus on decor and establish a vision of what they would like to do as a restaurant. This felt like just a service challenge. I think that Portland's Chef's table restaurant was probably the most innovated version as of yet, and although this did both a chef's table and restaurant, it didn't hit the spot on either. It was also in that season when Sara from Portland's season said, restaurants that always have a global concept versus a cohesive concept would usually fail. Unfortunately fer her, her team didn't listen and she went home that year. This season, the United Kitchen had a cohesive concept, while Root had a global concept which was basically everyone serving their own dishes and nothing tied things together. That's why I felt it was clear who would win early on. Root also had no head chef, which really was fatal. Their progression did not make sense, and a head chef would really be able to tell Nicole that her dish didn't make sense with the rest of the menu, or Galbri's dish was too much sauce. Ali's sauce issue is likely because he placed the sauce between the meat and the grains, and the grains absorbed the sauce. He should have plated grains, meat then sauce. It's almost like a few years ago, where someone plated on plates that were too hot and the sauce seized.

I'm glad Justin Min was able to get the girl. It's all because he bought that trash can.

It also has to do with rice selection. Black rice has a thicker husk, so the starch is not exposed to allow for agitation and creaming.

Honestly, the most consistent way to cook long grain rice is with a rice cooker. it takes a lot of the stress out of cooking rice. Even a very cheap rice cooker can be purchased for less than $20. You can cook it on the pot and you can steam rice, but there's nothing more consistent than just washing rice and cooking it in a rice cooker. Then the only thing you need to worry is the ratio, which I personally like as 1:1 in a rice cooker. The whole thing is contained, so I don't need to worry much about evaporation. They're also much more energy efficient than cooking rice on the stove top, and it'll free up a burner so you can cook other food items. to pair with your rice.

Congee can be done well in less than an hour, but black rice, that's hard because of the outer husk. There are a few options that Dawn could have taken to make it work in her time, but I think she hasn't done it with black rick before so she didn't know. I also don't think she makes congee enough to know all the tricks. Congee is way faster to make if you use broken rice. A lot of Asian restaurants will make it out of broken rice, not just because it's cheaper to buy, but because it's super fast. If she had taken the rice, and pulsed it under a vitamix to break up the rice, it would speed up the cooking process very fast. She does not need to blend it to a powder, but just cracking the grains to 2-3 pieces each will do the trick. Dry toasting the rice before cooking, which will cause the rice to further crack, and break up the husk. This creates micro fractures into the grain and will allow more hydration to occur faster. When cooked, the rice breaks up even more and helps make it creamy. When the rice was under cooked on day one, she could have poured a lot more water onto it, and just soaked the rice the whole time. The extra hydration would make it easer to cooked the rice the next day. Pre-soaking uncooked rice is done often to speed up the cooking process. In the pressure cooker, if she threw in a few chopsticks, it'll cook faster and creamier. Even a wooden spoon can help. As the water boils in the pressure cooker, the chopsticks or small wooden utensils will float and skin. It will then cause agitation against the rice and force it to break down into something creamy more.