Masterchef (CA) - General Discussion

[Meredith Quill]

Your Judges Topic!

[Meredith Quill]

Discuss Here!

[Meredith Quill]

Your Season 1 Topic!

[susannot]

I watched the show last night on The Cooking Channel and really liked it!  Hope some of you Master Chef US fans will drift over here since that show is coming to an end.

[beverlyoc]

I like the judges ... not sure of their names yet, but the Demon chef cracks me up!

[beverlyoc]

I hope we get some discussion here too ... I was entertained!

[susannot]

Alvin Leung.  He has a Michelin star, as he mentioned a few thousand times.

[Bella]

The Cooking Channel is showing repeats on Saturday mornings.

[meep.meep]

I watched.  The Chinese judge is going to get old fast.

 

If all the contestants are Canadian, then there won't be any interpersonal drama, right? :-)

[GreyBunny]

"BE HUMBLE!" Says Alvin who is not at all humble.  Yeah, he's going to get old real fast.  I was also annoyed by the guy who was perplexed the one contestant from Alberta didn't make a beef dish after she explained she had a multicultural upbringing.  As if beef is the only thing Albertans should be allowed to eat.

[beverlyoc]

He's also not telling the truth when he says he is 1 of the only 2 self-taught Michelin star chefs in the world.  A quick Google search ..

[zillabreeze]

Alvin may be a legend in his own mind, but for right now his name in my head is "Fat Yoko"

[Totale]

I knew in the abstract there were MC shows in other countries, mostly from seeing people on TWOP talking about how superior they were to the US flavor, but have never seen any.  I watched the first episode on Canada and was taken aback to see the same logo and hear the same announcer reciting what pretty much sounded like the same lines.  Are the UK and Aussie versions also so close?

[Totale]

The one sitting on the right in the auditions will be "slightly less douchey Michael Chiarello" to me until I figure out what his real name is.

[susannot]

I liked the format of starting with 26 hopefuls, then throwing them a challenge right away to whittle the crowd down to 16.  And the challenge was awesome!  One burner, one cast-iron pan, one chicken. As I learned during a prolonged power outage a couple of years ago, you can cook anything with a flame and a cast-iron pan.

 

Of the contenders that Chefs Michael, Alvin,and Claudio selected,(that we were shown) I liked the following:

 

Danny/Large Portuguese family/chicken couscous

Julie/chicken involtini

Eric/21 year old engineer/bonded with Alvin who also trained as an engineer/chicken ravioli  Very Impressed

Dale/Mr.Perfect GQ/wants to be gay Martha Stewart of Canada/chicken liver/perfect and  precise plating

Dora/tattooed plumber/cries a lot/chicken pot pie/not Bannock/What is Bannock?

[zxy556575]

Alvin may be a legend in his own mind, but for right now his name in my head is "Fat Yoko."

 

Yeah, he's not a good enough actor to pull off the faux disgust and anger. Pipe down.

[susannot]

Second episode tonight: Mystery Box is peanut butter in a dish. 

 

Top 3:  Carly, spicy peanut soup; Eric, beautiful strawberry chocolate peanut tart; Marida, hot spicy Trinidadian peanutty pork and noodles.

 

Winner Marida!

 

She gets a HUGE advantage.

 

She may choose from Canadian land, sea, or sky ingredients.    Michael chooses smelt, Alvin chooses venison, Claudio chooses duck.

 

Marida chooses smelt for her competitors.  Eric has never heard of smelt, or cooked with it. Hmmm..Is he really Canadian?

 

She saves herself,and Brooke, because she thinks she can beat Brooke at any time.

 

A blonde chef (Kaila) says she's going to add  "a crap load of cream" to her dish.  That's how I cook!

 

Two best dishes and team captains in the next challenge:

 

GQ Dale for his perfect gougeres stuffed with smelty goodness;  yum yum want to order; and

 

Pino, deep fried Spanish tapa style smelts.

 

Ben goes home.  He made smelt cakes--  "looks like compost"--ouch.  Megan(blonde stay at home mom, who made smelt quiche) also goes home. The eliminated chefs have a  great positive attitude as they leave.  Portuguese Danny stays. Great, I like him!

So Canada--next time they will make lunch for the Toronto Maple Stars!

Edited September 24, 2014 by susannot

[meep.meep]

I think her name is Merida.

 

How can that one blonde woman keep her eyes open so wide?  Is this botox?  She put an entire scotch bonnet into her dish?  Is this botoxed madness?

 

I would have made fish tacos, but then I think we Americans generally refer to smelts as bait.

[Meushell]

Sad how one of the contestants names various dishes she made, each from a different country, yet the one judge dismisses them as Asian. I know he says he is looking for variety, but I wonder if he'd be so dismissive if she made all European dishes.

Alvin throwing food and yelling is just hilarious. He even had a bit of a pout face. It's like he's trying to out-Ramsay Ramsay, and it's just not happening.

[susannot]

Top 14 cook: lunch for Toronto Maple Leafs.

 

Team Dale. White team. Dale, Eric, Brooke, Mike, Josh, Kaila.

 

Team Pino. Blue team. Pino, Marida, Julie, Carly, Tammara, Dora, Last girl (??).

 

Danny has the flu and gets benched.  He is bummed as he is a huge Leaf fan and bleeds blue.

 

They must cook fish and pasta, a healthy meal for the Maple Leafs.

 

White:  Trout. Alvin throws a temper tantrum and demands to see the pickerel that Dale rejected.  The trout is bony.  Dale is losing it. Kaila hates tomatoes, and chops her finger open.  Kaila says Dale is screaming like a girl.  Clearly more drama on the white team.

 

Blue: Well-oiled machine....or not?  Pino is not cooking his pasta. Blue team also falling apart. Looks like a white fish(halibut), pasta fagioli, green beans.  A nice meal for a home cook.

 

The women swoon over the good-looking Maple Leaf players.  The players vote,vote,vote.

 

The other voters must send a hockey puck into the white or the blue net.  A cute idea for hockey-mad Canada.

 

Blue wins!

 

White faces a pressure test. What, not the Dreaded Pressure Test?  Dale vows that he will not get thrown under the bus by anyone in the competition.

 

Danny must also compete in the pressure test.

 

Two chefs will be saved, chosen by Dale.  He saves himself. He saves the person that he says is the "weakest link", Danny.  Danny laughs and says he'll take it, and that we'll see whether he is the weakest link.  As I said, I like him.

 

They're making fresh handmade pasta, specifically ravioli.  In sage butter sauce.  Yummm.  Inside is an egg yolk.  This is a very advanced dish.

 

Eric cannot get a whole egg yolk.....

 

Kaila's dish is good.

 

Eric's dish has too much onion and sage, and no parm.

 

Josh's pasta is like paper,and is stunning, but no parm and underseasoned.

 

Brooke's pasta missing parm but the egg works. The dough is too thick. "It's dead" sez Alvin.  He's mean, but at least he doesn't pretend to vomit out the chefs' food and dramatically throw it in the garbage like Bastardbitch.

 

Mike's dish has lovely egg but they need a steak knife to cut the pasta. Oooh, not good.

 

Kaila wins and Josh is # 2.  Eric safe, Mike safe, Brooke is out.  She says it was an honor.  These Canadians are so nice and polite.

 

Next time they will cook elk, kangaroo, and boar.

 

Sorry for the very long-winded post but I really like this show and I'm hoping to get some of you foodies that I know are out there to join me.

Edited September 24, 2014 by susannot

[Totale]

They've got to watch the little pop-up windows they added there at CC, so they don't make another mistake like putting up "Hear more from Brooke about her elimination" three minutes before she was eliminated.  Duh.

 

I tried to pretend they were at Yankee Stadium rather than on some ice rink so it didn't all feel foreign to me.  Don't they have rivalries up there?  Everyone was so gaga about the Toronto Blue Jays, I figured with people from all over Canadia somebody would say something like "Blue Jays feh, my Saskatchewan Refrigerators would eat them for lunch".

 

I think they made that runny egg ravioli on MCUS, too, and it's just as gross up there.  Lot of medic action, looks like somebody's gonna open a vein and bleed out on set next week.

[RockShrimp]

Sad how one of the contestants names various dishes she made, each from a different country, yet the one judge dismisses them as Asian. I know he says he is looking for variety, but I wonder if he'd be so dismissive if she made all European dishes.

 

 

That was so offensive. Forget European dishes - she could make dishes from two different US STATES and no one would consider it an issue.

[lovetowrite73]

I watched last night for the first time and, um, if Dale sticks around I'm going to have to bow out. I cannot do bitchy queens (male or female!). Ugh. I'm glad Kaila won the pressure test since Dale tried to go in on her for not holding her weight. She was getting her finger patched up, you stupid MF!

[meep.meep]

I'm glad it's not the Dreaded Pressure Test on this show.  The hockey players were hunky, glad they didn't zoom in on their teeth!  Fish and pasta are easy to chew.

 

Random questions:  How does Kailie get her eyes so wide?  I think you can see white all around.  Does no one in the entire country know how to pronounce "pasta?"  How lucky is Danny?  No one noticed that one team was all men (picked by the bitchy queen) and one team was primarily women?  Hockey players don't eat dessert?

 

Totale

 

figured with people from all over Canadia somebody would say something like "Blue Jays feh, my Saskatchewan Refrigerators would eat them for lunch".

Or the Canucks, or the Oilers, or the Canadiens....  But, wasn't it the Maple Leafs?  The Blue Jays play baseball.

[Totale]

Totale

Or the Canucks, or the Oilers, or the Canadiens....  But, wasn't it the Maple Leafs?  The Blue Jays play baseball.

 

Shows what I know about hockey :)

[meep.meep]

It would seem to make sense with the colors. If I ran the Maple Leafs, their color would be red.

[Bella]

Finally catching up on this show after a week away. These judges are just as mean and snotty as those on the US show, just not as loud.

[Bella]

The same stupid egg yolk pasta in the pressure test? Yuck.

[zillabreeze]

Fat Yoko is really starting to irk me now. Smacking when he eats and spitting out food where everyone has to see it. Lacking the basic manners of a three year old. I want to slap those pretentious glasses right off his face!

[susannot]

He has yet to dump a plate into the trash while fixing the unfortunate chef with a Deathglare, though.

[susannot]

So, wide-eyed Kaila won the Mystery Box challenge, which was All-Canadian burgers.  She selected apples'n' beer for her competitors to work with and chose Eric and Josh as the two who had to bake a dessert.  Eric's pie was underdone and he ended up in the bottom 3; while Josh knocked it out of the park with some profiteroles.  Winners though were 2 pork chop and apple dishes prepared by Danielle and Dora the tattooed plumber.  The dishes looked delicious.  Dora and Danielle will be team captains next episode.

 

Portuguese Danny went home for putting a messy looking pile of pork cubes on top of a mayonnaise/apple slaw.

Edited October 1, 2014 by susannot

[Totale]

Why didn't Kaila pick maple syrup for them to pair with beer?  That seems like the toughest pairing to me.  Even I could probably make something edible out of apples.

[susannot]

She evidently thought that Josh would be baffled by the apples.

[beverlyoc]

I initially thought the syrup would be the most difficult - but they're all from Canada.  They're probably used to using maple syrup in everything.

 

I didn't understand that one judge's snarky comment to Danny about pork and apples being Portuguese.  I knew poor Danny was going home at that point - but just about EVERYONE used pork and apples.

[Bella]

The challenges in this episode seemed more appropriate for talented home cooks rather than professional chefs. The MC:US forum had occasional complaints about the level of cooking expected from the contestants. I wonder if this will become an issue with MC:Canada, and if so, to what extent.

 

So far, I'm liking this show very much, mostly because of the casting and the non-Alvin judges. Kaila's eyes are distracting, I like Dora and Josh, Pino seems like cannon fodder, Dale annoys me, and Eric strikes me as the kind of good chef who will leave early. 

[Donny Ketchum]

Pino seems like cannon fodder 

Really?  Didn't he win a challenge and lead a team to victory?

[mjc570]

I just watched the Maple Leafs (leaves?) episode, and I like it a bit more than the US version, mainly because of the non-Alvin judges (I'm tired of Gordon and Joe) and it seems like they show more of the actual cooking.  I also like that the judges tried all the dishes.

 

I don't know what she's like as a cook, but I am rooting for Dora the plumber, because of her name/job/personality.   Don't like Eric's pissy face, or Kaila's eyes.  Everyone else seems ok, at least to watch.

[RockShrimp]

Did they blur the Philadelphia logo on the cream cheese in the original Canadian version of the show? Or did they just not get sponsorship $$ for the US airing. That was so weird that they said the brand name but blurred the logo. 

[Rammchick]

Why are Kaila's eyes so dilated?

And yes, blurring the word "Philadelphia" but then saying it repeatedly was totally strange, I agree.

[Writing Wrongs]

I'm kind of rooting for Kaila. She's really stepped up.

 

Glad Josh is gone, now to get rid of Dale.

 

Why does Eric always have sad puppy dog face?

[Lamb18]

I like this show.  I kept comparing it to the US show.  The English judge is Gordon Ramsay's counterpart without the temper tantrums.  The American-sounding judge is the Graham counterpart - he even sounds like Graham!  Then the Chinese judge is the Joe counterpart.  Some of the contestants are like the US ones: Kaila is like Courtney, or rather, fills the sexy girl role; there's one guy who reminded of Cutter at the end of the show - one of the blond guys.  Maybe the bad cheesecake one. Then there's a stay at home dad, I forgot which guy he is.

 

Which Toronto team did they serve?  I thought it was the Maple Leafs since they were out on a hockey rink, but now that you all have mentioned it, the colors are Blue Jay colors, not Maple Leaf colors.  If the colors were green and red I'd say Minnesota Wild.

 

Dale super bugs me - he was awful when he was captain of his team!  Nasty man, I hope he has a mega failure soon.

[Totale]

I assumed the producers wanted to double dip the cream cheese company and they said "Forget it.  We paid to have it sponsored on newtork TV in Canada, but nobody's watching this on your tinkertoy cable channel in the US, so take the air".  It looked stupid to just blur the name, I was surprised they didn't edit the audio as well.

[anniebird]

My DVR cut out before the end - who got the boot?

[Lamb18]

I watched several episodes in a row last night, so I don't remember the exact order of elimination, but it was either Brooke - a young woman cosmetologist - or Danny, Portuguese with hair in a pony tail, a little rough looking.

[susannot]

In this episode, Josh got the boot for a sad-looking cheesecake that literally fell apart.

[anniebird]

Thanks - there were several sad-looking cheesecakes - I guess his was the worst.

[meep.meep]

Josh's was literally only partially on the serving plate because it stuck to the pan.  Parchment paper, dude!  At least they didn't have to cover it with fluorescent sauce, like on the US version.  And Natalie's (?) with the key lime and limoncello sounded and looked lovely.

 

 

blurring the word "Philadelphia" but then saying it repeatedly was totally strange, I agree.

Not-Gordon actually called it Kraft.  Why blur the logo and then use the name of the company?

 

At last, it's not just me being bugged by Kailie's eyes!

 

Eric now permanently looks like he's about to burst into tears.  Maybe Danny didn't cook as well, but he had confidence.

[susannot]

It was Danielle who cooked the limoncello/key lime cheesecake.  Can't wait to see the recipe show up in a Philly cream cheese ad!

[MajorWoody]

We stumbled onto this series the other day. We are not fans of the US Masterchef, mainly because we hated the judges,except for GR,who is at least keeping in character. We were hoping for somewhat different judge types on this show,but sadly, that's not the case. As others have noted,the Asian guy is such a jerk it's a wonder somebody hasn't offered him a knuckle sandwich to chew on.

We'll probably DVR a few more episodes, but basically just to fill space on the machine while our other shows are in between seasons.

Does anyone know if these judges, and in the same vein, the ones on US Masterchef, are really as nasty in person as they are on the show?

[Bella]

Does anyone know if these judges, and in the same vein, the ones on US Masterchef, are really as nasty in person as they are on the show?

 

Check out MasterChef Junior, which begins a new season on Nov. 4, if you want to see the warm, fuzzy side of the three U.S. judges. It's actually my favorite show in the MC franchise after the UK professionals version.

 

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Canadian judges to weigh in on them.