Around the World in 80 Plates: Where’s the Beets!?

Somehow, I did it. I watched 80 plates even though it was Chevenless. I didn’t think it would be as entertaining following Chef “Cheven” Keven’s departure last week, but I have rallied on and continued to watch despite his absence.

This week the gaggle of cheftestants head to Morocco and we learn that Marrakesh is such a clusterfuck that Nookie vowed never to return to after traveling there in a previous life. He tell us there are babies driving mopeds next to camels and donkeys and he’s right–it’s bananas.

Once they make it to Morocco, they are greeted by Curtis and Cat who reveal the twist this week: they will be split into 3 teams of their choosing and must leave on a horse and carriage right away to start “THE COURSE.” This week’s course has them running around like idiots trying to find a spice shop in the giant marketplace, the Medina.

Chaz wisely pairs up with French-speaking Gary freakin’ Walker and the other dude whose name I can’t remember, but he’s not important. Red headed Avery teams with Nookie and another guy whose name I can’t remember either. He’s borderline important but his name eludes me. And then the rest of the girls: Jenna, Liz and Nicole team up together. It all seems good at first because Jenna speaks French BUT then they realize they are all WOMEN and they are in MOROCCO. Shit. They might be screwed.

So they all scramble for the spice shop and Chaz’s team is last to arrive but first to leave because they solved the first challenge and can move on. Then they all run to the top of a building where they have to pour tea and Nookie’s team wins the challenge and the exceptional ingredient: a tour guide. They really shouldn’t be calling the prize an “ingredient” anymore. I get it–it’s cute, but he’s a man, not an ingredient.

The tour guide helps translate the process of how to make a Tagine while the other teams are left to their own devices and have to figure it out the old-fashioned way–by eating everything in sight and asking the Moroccan people stupid questions.

It really doesn’t even begin to get interesting until they are all cooking and Avery’s beloved beets go missing. Her eyes explode into giant fireballs and lightning and thunder surround her and she probes her opponents about the beets’ whereabouts. Then she reverts back into her human life form when a staff person returns the M.I.A. beets that were mistakenly moved.

That’s it. Team Chaz wants her gone because she is cray cray!

They all serve their food to the diners and the “other guy” on the team with Nookie and crazy Avery serves some really crappy beans and ruins their perfect service. After they realize they might be in the bottom so they devise a strategy to send Chaz home because he makes tons of mistakes and is annoying.

The rest of service doesn’t matter. Everyone loves Liz’s saffron cous cous and she wins MVP so her team doesn’t have to vote anyone off the island. But everyone else has to vote and it’s battle of Chaz vs Avery.

It’s a 3-3 tie and Liz has to make the tie breaker. She weeps and sniffles and rolls her eyes in disbelief but ultimately votes of Chaz. Which is STUPID because he was actually entertaining to watch! I mean, I still don’t know other people’s names on this show and you send CHAZ home? I’m all for fairness but Bravo should have intervened here.

Next week, we learn they are not done in Europe yet and head to Italy–Chazless, and Chevenless. Insert sad face here.

Around the World in 80 Plates: Barcelona

80 plates relocates to Barcelona, Spain this week and all I could think is that it’s a good thing Sai is gone. She would have been so disappointed that they were not yet en route to Asia and she would have had a serious meltdown–like every other week. I think she got confused and thought she signed up for “Around the continent of Asia in 80 plates.” But Sai is gone and we are left with plenty of other cheftestants Cheven for our entertainment.

I am still quite confused as to what role Cat Cora and Curtis Stone have in the context of this show. Like, they’re supposed to be our world traveling Padma and Tom but they don’t judge the food themselves and don’t have any power to send anyone home. Bravo could have used Mary Kate Olsen and Kobe Bryant and nothing would be different. The format would be the same but an Olsen twin and Kobe Bryant would be wayyyyy more fun to watch.

ANYWAY. The chefs, Curtis and Cat are now in Spain and the teams are again changed which is becoming really confusing. It’s all of the girls and Nookie versus the boys: Cheven, Chaz, Gary freakin’ Walker (I love this guy’s name and I like to say it with added gusto) and everyone else whose names I can’t remember.

The Nookie team is stronger by far even though they lose this challenge to the red team. Nookie once lived in Barcelona and can cut up a fish like no one’s business and he could have single handily won “The Course” challenge for his team…if the rest of his team did better, that is. The course wasn’t that entertaining to watch. They cut up some fish, they all got inked from the ink squid, Nookie got pissed and the black team won the exceptional ingredient: gama roja. Oooooooh, red prawns. Why doesn’t this same that exceptional to me?

Jenna is crazy fluent in Spanish and able to ask for samples of every ingredient at the market with no problem. Oh, and she got some the items the team needed to build the menu. (It’s OK, Jenna. I like samples, too.)

The black team really has their shit together unlike the red team which is just an epic disaster. Cheven is trying to visualize the menu at the market which apparently he shouldn’t be doing yet according to his other teammates. Chaz is wearing the lowest V-neck shirt I have EVER seen on a man and standing around with his hands on his hips pissed off at dear old Cheven. We will call it the “Chaz stance” moving forward.

This week for “The Takeover,” both teams are cooking out of the same restaurant which also happens to have an open kitchen to the dining room so the Spanish diners can enjoy some entertainment in watching the chefs all fight and cry and ruin flan while they eat. That’s the kind of dinner service I would like to have.

The black team is insane. Cheven is supposed to be front of the house but he apparently has some phobia of leaving the kitchen. Everyone hates him for it and everyone tells the camera that they are plotting to send him home.

The red team is cooking away while Jenna runs around with a notebook and pen trying to write the menu. Everyone hates Jenna. But they should LOVE her. Say what you want about her but she is a front-of-the-house queen and her team should be bowing down before her for schmoozing the Spaniards. You know, the people who ultimately hold the team’s fate in their hands. C’mon guys!

Then everyone hates Liz because she starts crying over her flan that she can’t brûlée. They instead brûlée figs to serve with the flan but it doesn’t match what’s on Jenna’s beloved menu she created. Cue Jenna blowing a fuse in her brain. She’s pisssseddddd.

Chef extraordinaire José Andrés joins Cat, Curtis and the restaurant owners to discuss the food, which of course has no bearings on who will actually win or lose. They are smitten with the black team’s tapas but hate Chaz’s fish. They also are liking Liz’s flan, so she can stop crying now.

The black team wins and Nookie is the MVP. Duh.

The red team makes the BIGGEST MISTAKE OF THEIR LIVES and sends home the best thing about this show, Cheven! Ok, that’s slightly dramatic but I will miss his sideburns, his anger, and his comments like “It’s like a fish holocaust over there. I take that very personally considering I’m Jewish.”

I will try to recap again next week. Hopefully someone else will step up to the plate and show at least an eighth of the personality Keven “Cheven” Lee had. We’ll miss you Chevs!

Around the World in 80 Plates: French Gefilte Fish

Another week, another country, another hour of Cheven’s proclamations that he is the best in every area of the culinary arts. Following last week’s premiere episode (recapped here), the cheftestants take the train to Lyon, France. The black team is riding in style in first class while the red team is standing in crowded, sad coach.

Last week’s MVP Chaz got to pick his teammates this week as a part of his prize, so the black team has been reassembled to include an all-star cast of personalities. He chose the great Cheven, the devious Nookie, red-headed Avery, and for good measure, Gary freakin’ Walker (because he can speak French and because he can speak French, only).

This left the red team with Sai, who still can’t read a map, the self-appointed leader/annoying chihuahua, Jenna and everyone else. Obviously the black team is the stronger team because they have more personality in Gary Walker’s little pinky then the whole red team put together.

So the story begins with the teams arriving in Lyon and driving off to the first location of “The Course.” I guess it would have been too easy for Bravo to put the entire team in one vehicle…and more environmentally friendly. So for our entertainment, each team splits into two cars. On the black team, Cheven leads the way. Then he misses the exit. Chaz is about to lose is F’in mind, a reoccurring theme of this episode and I assume the whole season.

Meanwhile, the red team, who was lagging behind arrives at the destination first where they are met by Jean-Marc, a humble Lyonesse cheesemonger who is smiling and animated and wearing a red bandanna tied around his neck. The challenge: identify which six of the plethora of cheeses that sit in before them are sheep cheese. This takes for-ev-er and the although the black team swoops in and looks like they might beat Jenna and her minions out, the red team gets the most enthusiastic “OK” from Jean-Marc and move onto the second challenge.

The challenge: herd sheep. Because this is a cooking show, after all. The red team is struggglingggg. I mean, it was painful to watch. Jenna’s power has clearly gotten to her head as she continues to bark orders at the herding chefs. But she keeps saying “please” after each demand, which I love. Because she is a true sweetheart. A barking, extremely irritating sweetheart.

The black team links hands and like THAT the sheep are practically all herded. That is, until guard dog Cheven gets lax and the sheep all escape. So the chefs do it again and then beat the red team and move onto the wine pairing challenge.

This goes without saying, but Cheven regales us with his sommelier skills so he takes the lead on this one, ahhhh-gain. Nookie doesn’t even have to taste the wine because he declares that it’s just about math (WTF?) but somehow it works and they win the whole thing.

The exceptional ingredient isn’t really an ingredient but it does turn out to exceptional because for the “takeover challenge” they have to make a traditional Lyonesse menu and on that menu must be the dreaded quenelle. No one has much experience with it but not to worry, the winning team gets a personal lesson from the M.O.F. chef Joseph Viola! He’s very important apparently because he is a M.O.F. which Gary Walker kindly translates for the viewers: the best worker in all of France.

So they learn all about quenelle and Chef Viola flirts with Avery which just pisses Chaz off because he wishes chef Viola would rub his leg under the table, too  they need focus, for crying out loud! Cheven tells us that quenelle is just like oh-so appetizing gefitle fish, pike or carp fish that sits in a jar of fish jelly and is a staple at every Jew’s Passover sedar table (mine included).

The red team’s punishment for losing is that they must roam the streets of Lyon and figure out how to make quenelle the scrappy way. They decide to eat it at a restaurant so they can decipher the ingredients. Personally, I would have just ASKED someone because someone somewhere has to speak a little English and have a notion on how to make it. But their way works too.

But actually, no, it really doesn’t. They end up creating a dumpling instead of a traditional quenelle and the French diners are horrified.  They like the salad, however. And they like the brownie for dessert that Jenna made. Very French.

But the red team has major kitchen drama. Sai is taking 10 years to plate a  4-ingredient salad, the other chick loses count of her fish, Jenna is annoying everyone and ughhh, it’s a hot mess.

The black team is equally as crazy. Chaz is plating ENORMOUS portions of chicken, Gary Walker is giving the diners all of the courses at once, but Avery saves the day. She cuts Chaz’s portions down, cooks up a perfect quenelle that impresses Chef Viola and wins MVP! The black team won this challenge without a fight.

The elimination isn’t as fun this week though. They all collectively decide that Sai sucked it up and give her the boot. She’s sad. No one else is. The End. Fin.