r/HellsKitchen • u/ArchmageNinja22 • 38m ago
Games Hell's Kitchen 16th Place, Episode 5: If You Play With Fire Spoiler
galleryTeam Challenge: Ramsay declared that the team challenge was the surf and turf relay. Each team would work in pairs to identify the protein used in four dishes, and they would be timed. The team that identified all of the proteins in the shortest time would win the challenge. Furthermore, since each team had 9 people, each team would send up three pairs and one trio.
The Red Team was the first to go up, meaning that the Blue Team would return to the dorms until the Red finished their challenge. The first pair consisted of Briana and Denine. In a confessional, Briana said that she wanted to go up with Denine because having two strong chefs together would shave valuable time from their challenge. Although Briana identified the seafood protein in only one minute, Denine wasted time trying to identify the land protein and further refused Briana’s help. By the time that Denine brought out the correct protein, it had been nearly 4 minutes. The next trio, Uri and Michael, surprisingly had strong palettes and identified the second dish within 2 minutes, bringing the total time to a little under 6 minutes. Then, the Red Team brought out their trio consisting of Fabiola, Scott, and Jessica. Having two weaker chefs in this trio proved to harm them because the three failed to identify any protein. After some time, they gave up and began making random guesses. 5 minutes passed before they could get the correct answer, bringing the total team time up to 11 minutes. Jeyda and Vanessa closed the challenge out for the Red Team. Although Vanessa failed to guess a single ingredient correctly, Jeyda impressively carried the trio, guessing the final dish in 3 minutes and 30 seconds. The Red Team’s final time was 14 minutes and 30 seconds.
The Blue Team followed and switched strategies by pairing weak chefs with strong chefs. The first pair to go up was Mattias and Jeremy. Mattias’s concerns that Jeremy would struggle heavily were proven right after Jeremy ate through the dish and ran to the proteins slowly. This meant that the bulk of the challenge was carried by Mattias. However, he identified the two proteins in a little over 3 minutes. They were followed by Jay and Elaina, who took around 2 minutes to identify their proteins. Sarah, Melinda, and Brendan all took on the third dish. Even though Melinda and Sarah constantly confused proteins for a different ingredient, Brendan took the lead on identifying proteins. Under his direction, the trio took only 2 minutes and 30 seconds to identify the third dish, which meant that they were currently only at half of the Red Team’s time. Finally, Ben and DeMarco took on the final dish. Ben believed that he would easily pass the challenge, but he failed to identify the land protein. That being said, DeMarco helped him with both proteins, taking only 3 minutes to correctly guess the final dish. This gave the Blue Team their second win of the season.
Challenge Result: Blue Team win (2-1)
Reward/Punishment: The Blue Team earned a day on a luxury yacht, which included an expensive seafood lunch and a dessert buffet. The Red Team’s punishment consisted of them preparing seafood for that night’s service, which would be seafood night. Denine declined to use her Punishment Pass.
The Blue Team was astounded to find just how grand the seafood lunch was. On top of expensive shellfish like lobsters and oysters, they were impressed to find numerous containers of caviar and champagne. Elaina said in her confessional that she thought it was a little too “bougie,” but she didn’t care. Many of the Blue chefs toasted to DeMarco for securing them the challenge win, which lifted his spirits. However, Ben felt a little annoyed because he thought that his “accomplishments” were being ignored.
On the other hand, the Red Team got to work on fileting the salmon. Sous chef Meghan berated Vanessa for haphazardly fileting salmon, which rendered the meat unusable. She reminded everyone that these careless mistakes cost restaurants money in real life. At this point, Denine took over prep and instructed everyone to follow her process of fileting the fish. Jessica, seeing how dejected Vanessa was, gave her encouragement and secretly taught her how to filet the fish. Uri also felt a little concerned for Vanessa. In his confessional, he stated that he didn’t like how Denine was treating the rest of the Red Team, and this latest stunt felt rather passive-aggressive; this was not good for team morale.
Pre-Service: To prepare for seafood night, sous chef Ryan taught both kitchens a series of special recipes that would replace many of the usual menu items: tuna tartare in place of beef tartare, shrimp scampi dish to replace the capellini, a filet mignon/lobster tail surf and turf taking the place of lobster Wellington, and and three fish entrees (Arctic char, Dover sole, and swordfish) instead of the lamb, veal, and New York strip. In addition, there would be a calamari tableside appetizer to be served by Elaina from the Blue Kitchen and Denine from the Red Kitchen.
Blue Team Service: Ben, who was on appetizers, overcooked a shrimp scampi and forgot to smoke the tuna tartare. Ramsay binned both dishes and asked if Ben cared about standards. He insisted that he did, resulting in Ramsay asking why he let the mistakes slip by. Ben, lost for words, simply insisted that he would do better. He got the refire accepted. Meanwhile, Brendan, who was on fish, served acceptable scallops and lobster tails throughout service. He earned Ramsay’s praise and declared that he knew that he was “the stuff.” The Blue Team moved on to entrees, DeMarco and Sarah shared responsibilities on fish due to the sheer number of seafood entrees on the menu. However, Sarah burnt an arctic char and undercooked swordfish. She also picked up an arctic char with tongs instead of a fish spatula, resulting in the fish breaking in half. When Ramsay confronted her, she blurted out that the fish fell apart because it was too delicate. Ramsay asked if she was blaming the fish, which Sarah refuted and apologized for. However, DeMarco of all people helped cook the refire, which was accepted. He also got the traditional fish entrees (halibut and salmon) accepted. With Ramsay’s praise, DeMarco put out perfect fish throughout the night and re-anchored Sarah.
Even though fish was now on the right track, Jeremy on meat struggled heavily. He burnt an entire tray of Wellingtons and served raw filet mignons. Ramsay asked how meat could be so difficult, especially because there were only three entrees that required any form of meat. Jeremy froze up, even when Ramsay instructed him to go back on his section. He then proceeded to undercook chicken.
Jeremy’s Ejection: While attempting to cook an order of Wellingtons, Jeremy once again burnt the entrees. Ben came to help him, but Jeremy failed to communicate that the tray was scalding hot. Ben grabbed the tray with his bare hands, burning himself and dropping the tray. Sous chef Ryan rushed over and immediately ran water over Ben’s hands before sending him to the medic. Ryan relayed to Ramsay that Ben burnt his hands on a tray. At this point, Ramsay gathered the entire team into the storeroom and demanded to know who was holding the tray. No one spoke up, but Brendan said that the only person on meat was Jeremy. Ramsay asked if this was true, and Jeremy admitted that he was holding the tray that burnt Ben. An infuriated Ramsay went over all of Jeremy’s mistakes: he overcooked and undercooked meat, sent out a raw chicken, and then, worst of all, burnt a teammate. He ejected Jeremy on the spot. In his exit confessional, Jeremy said that he didn’t know how he burnt Ben. It was an accident, and he felt bad. However, now that he was eliminated, he didn’t know where to go from here. It sucked.
Ramsay then turned to the remaining chefs and instructed them to either get a grip, or follow Jeremy out the door. Brendan jumped on meats and did not make a single mistake, while DeMarco and Sarah continued doing well on fish. The Blue Team completed their first service. Ramsay admitted that while they performed poorly throughout most of the night, they at least managed to bounce back and finish service on a high note. As such, they got their first service win.
Red Team’s Service: Jessica undercooked scallops, resulting in Denine attempting to push her off her station and cook the scallops herself. Jessica told Denine that she had control of her station, so Denine yelled at her to get off her own section. Ramsay immediately confronted the two and told them to remain professional. Although Jessica got the refire accepted, Denine clearly held disdain towards her and refused to talk to her throughout the night. Jeyda also undercooked a shrimp scampi and carbonara, while Michael took too long to make the tuna tartare, but both recovered.
The Red Team’s situation did not improve on entrees, however. Fabiola only brought up one filet mignon for the surf and turf when two was on order, and even then, that filet was raw. On another ticket, she put a chicken breast in the same pan that she used to cook the filet mignon. After Ramsay berated her for cross-contaminating the meat, Fabiola became very frazzled and struggled to calm down. Vanessa, who was on fish, fared even worse. Since she was leading the fish station on entrees, she was simply unprepared for the responsibility. She undercooked arctic char, overcooked swordfish, served salmon that was stuck to the pan, and served a mushy lobster tail. Soon, Uri, Briana, Scott, and Jessica all abandoned their own stations to help Vanessa on an order of Dover sole; even then, it still came out burnt. At this point, Ramsay kicked out the entire Red Team and ordered them to come up with two nominees for elimination.
Elimination Ceremony: Denine nominated Vanessa and Fabiola. Ramsay eliminated Vanessa for having been nominated more times than anyone throughout the competition and still struggling so much. In her exit confessional, Vanessa said that it sucked to be eliminated, but Hell’s Kitchen was a challenge that she still hadn’t adapted to. She was happy to return home.
Ramsay’s Elimination Quote: “Jeremy left after he burnt another teammate, and Vanessa left because she kept burning fish. I couldn’t trust either of these two around fire, so I had to put them out.”
As always, vote for the 16th-placer whom you want to leave Hell’s Kitchen; the chef who receives the most overall upvotes is eliminated. All ties will be broken by the most number of comments voting for a particular chef.
Bonus Vote: Pick one chef from each team to be Best of Best/Worst. If the chef is on the losing team, they’ll be crowned BoW; if the chef is on the winning team, then they’ll instead have a standout good service.
