photo: nbc
Night at the Museum
Original Air Date: Dec 8, 2010
Ryan O – Two Cents Reviewer
ryano@thetwocentscorp.com
So, I am jumping in for episode 2 but here’s a quick recap of episode 1:
Here are your 18 “All Star” (but non-winning, thus my reason for the quotes around All-Star) cheftestants:
Elia Aboumrad, Season 2 (finished 4th)
Stephen Asprinio, Season 1 (5th)
Richard Blais, Season 4 (Runner-Up)
Jennifer Carroll, Season 6 (4th)
Tiffany Derry, Season 7 (5th)
Tiffani Faison, Season 1 (Runner-Up)
Carla Hall, Season 5 (Runner-Up)
Mike Isabella, Season 6 (7th)
Jamie Lauren, Season 5 (7th)
Dale Levitski, Season 3 (Runner-Up)
Antonia Lofaso, Season 4 (4th)
Spike Mendelsohn, Season 4 (5th)
Angelo Sosa, Season 7 (Runner-Up)
Dale Talde, Season 4 (6th)
Casey Thompson, Season 3 (Runner-Up)
Marcel Vigneron, Season 2 (Runner-Up)
Fabio Viviani, Season 5 (4th)
Tre Wilcox, Season 3 (8th)
A formidable group, mostly.
The quickfire was a team challenge with the chefs grouped by season. Season 4 won. The elimination challenge was for each chef to remake the dish that eliminated them. Angelo won. Elia was eliminated after pretty much just making the same exact dish and doing it with a lot of mistakes including not steaming her piece of fish.
On to episode 2!
As the chefs walk into the kitchen, Joe Jonas, of Jonas Brothers fame, is with Padma. Dale T. doesn’t know who he is and believes he must be a pastry chef.
The quickfire challenge is to make a snack that will be given to 150 kids sleeping over at New York City’s Museum of Natural History. The kids won’t have any utensils, so that’s a factor in the challenge.
Here’s what they made:
Antonia: white chocolate and cherry muffin
Blais: White bread, spiced apples with whipped honey and crunch chocolate
Spike: homemade potato and carrot chips with mascarpone and marshmallow dip
Tre: cracker with cranberry and cherry jam and apple smoked bacon
Casey: chocolate and bacon lasagna with apple juice and candy
Dale L.: sweet tart nuggets and caveman boulders with chocolate sauce
Jamie: mini cheddar biscuits with homemade cinnamon apple sauce
Tiffany D.: coconut rice pudding with grapefruit sauce
Dale T.: corn cake with dried cherries and whipped maple topping.
Fabio: apple with white chocolate, caramel, and blueberry
Tiffani F.: rice crispy treat snowball with malted milk and graham crackers
Angelo: fried dough, white pepper, old bay spice, and cheddar crumbs
Stephen: snickerdoodle with white chocolate, coconut ganache, apricot, and mint
Jen: bacon ginger taffy and honey grilled peaches
Mike: chocolate coconut corn bar and coconut horchata chaser
Bottom 3:
Tifffany D. — messy and hard for kids to keep it together
Mike — chocolate wasn’t strong enough,
Stephen — mint not strong enough, cookie was good but things in between weren’t that good
Top 2: Spike and Tiffani F. tie. They both have to make the snacks for the kids and the kids will determine the winner. Everyone else has to help and Spike and Tiffani pick teams from all of the other chefs. No one is thrilled to be helping Spike or Tiffani win the quickfire.
Two little girls say Spike’s snack isn’t that good because of the raisins. Raisins? Not the way to go with kids.
Joe and Padma come in to find out the winner. Normally, people would be, “OH wow, it’s Padma!” Not these kids. They clearly couldn’t care less who Padma is. Joe Jonas, however, gets a big reaction. When asked about the snacks, Spike’s doesn’t craw much cheering and some kids actually boo. Kids go crazy for Tiffani’s snack. She wins immunity and another advantage in the elimination challenge.
Tom shows up as the kids are leaving. The elimination challenge is to create breakfast for the kids and their parents. It has to be served at 7:30 the next morning. They can only use what’s in the museum kitchen. One team, Team T Rex, can only use meat, dairy, and eggs. The other team, Team Brontosaurus, can only use fruits, veggies, and grains. Tiffani picks the T-Rex.
They go to sleep at 2:10 am in the Hall of Mammals. Then, the alarm goes off at 3:45.
The kitchen is well-stocked but Tiffani’s meats don’t include any herbs or acids. She’s concerned about flavoring the dishes. She’s also surprised that she can’t use any of Team Brontosaus’s food at all. For example, no grains. She thought the T-Rex was an omnivore, despite what Tom said.
Jaime cuts herself and needs stitches. Jen, her partner, doesn’t have a problem and understands that she has to go to the hospital. Other chefs think she’s a big baby and talk about they’ve duct-taped their thumb back to their hand and just kept cooking.
Katie Lee, host of the first season, is the guest judge.
Here’s what everyone made:
Team Brontosaurus
Dale T and Mike: Fresh corn grits, stewed peppers, salsa verde
Marcel, Richard, and Angel: Banana parfait with seasonal fruit and tandoori maple
Carla and Spike: “V9” — gazpacho with fruits and vegetables
Fabio and Stephen: Potato gnocchi with leeks, spinach, and mushrooms
The judges eat with some kids, who have a mixed reaction to all of the dishes except the parfait, which they liked.
Team T-Rex
Antonia and Tiffany D.: Mini fritatas: bacon and cheddar, ham and cheese, and chevre
Tre and Casey: Salmon with shrip and apple smoked bacon sauce
Jen and Jamie: Braised bacon and hard boiled eggs
Dale L. and Tiffani F.: Steak and eggs with hollandaise
The kids, again, have mixed reactions but they don’t seem to really love anything from this team.
In the stew room, Jen poo-poos the idea of cooking for anyone but the judges regardless of the challenge.
Team Brontosaurus wins. Judges liked the gnocchi and parfait but the parfait was the winning dish.
Team T-Rex. Tiffani mentions the blind choice wasn’t fair but Tom doesn’t really care, telling her that she was told what she’d have.
The judges call the fritata runny. They say the steak and eggs were good but it’s steak and eggs and both are pretty easy to cook well.
The sauce on the Tre and Casey’s salmon was salty. Tre worked on the sauce. They’re told they probably shoud’ve left it off.
Jen thought their team should’ve won. Jamie’s leaving didn’t affect her dish.
Gail says Jen’s egg had no flavor. She’s pretty argumentative about her belief that it did have a lot of flavor but all of the judges agree it was fairly flavorless.
The judges say the salmon was cooked well but the sauce was overly salty
The losers go back to the stew room.
Katie Lee says Jen’s eggs and bacon were both soft and there was no variation in texture. The judges wonder what to do with Jamie? She didn’t help but she also didn’t hurt the dish.
They come back.
Jen is out.
That’s a huge upset. She, and everyone else, is shocked.
I’m really surprised. Jen was a really strong competitor in a really strong season. But, everyone makes mistakes, I guess.
What did you find to be tasty in this episode? Did you think anything was overdone? Give us your Two Cents below!
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