The nuclear fallout from last episode’s bombshell still hadn’t cleared as the lowest ranking teams were pushed straight into an elimination round with The Gatecrashers. There are three whole new teams to get acquainted with: “Sporty Mums” Theresa and Joelle, “Wellington Foodies” Steve and Maura, and “Sugar and Spice” Dai and Dal. The first instant restaurant was hosted by the Sporty Mums, wrecking their villainous gatecrasher vibe immediately. When was the last time a gatecrasher invited you over for a lovely civilised three-course meal? They should have just rocked up with a half-empty goon and immediately changed the music to Destiny’s Child. That’s my personal understanding of gatecrashing, anyway.
We got to know the Sporty Mums intimately through shots of them throwing a netball around in the kitchen. Typical gatecrashers. There was a weird dress-up montage of them in the bedroom trying on silly wigs and glasses – it’s not all sports round here, it’s also zany fun. They tell us that they will be “tactical and aggressive like in a game of netball”. Watch your distance ladies, stay three feet from the judges at all times or you’ll get called up for contact. They headed off to the supermarket where they tossed their leeks back and forth so many times it began to feel a bit like this. Sports.
Back at their instant restaurant Vinyl, the pair established that they were going to use a code word for when things are going wrong. So, instead of saying “things are going wrong”, they would say “burnt sausages”. More of that netball strategy. The other guests began arriving and sizing each other up. Corporate Dad Aaron did not like the look of Steve the Wellington Foodie: “he seems very analytical, probably does Excel spreadsheets”. This is 100% based on the fact that he was wearing glasses. Corporate Dad Josh directed his focus towards the Laotian team Sugar & Spice: “I’m a big fan of Thai food…expecting a few different types of noodles”. Burnt sausages, we have our first casual racism of the ep.
The judges arrived as the fire alarm went off. Theresa had burnt the pastry for her shrimp cocktail tart. Burnt pastry? More like burnt sausages. Once they silenced the alarm and cleared the smoke, they were ready to plate up their weird prawn cocktail tart to a sceptical table (Aaron reckoned it would be a “prawn pie with tomato sauce”). It went down okay, Neil thought that warm avocado tasted like banana (not a thing), and Dai loved it so much that she leant over and tried to eat Tracey’s (“she’s a prawn hoover” said Neil, still flummoxed by his bana-avo). The Sporty Mums returned to the kitchen to start their main and Tracey had a massive flirtatious moment with ben Bayly. Talk about Fire and Ice.
The main course was burnt sausages. Well, it was lamb and polenta chips but it was burnt sausages in a spiritual sense. The polenta was misbehaving so they had to cut down the number of chips to puny-ville. Once they sorted that, the lamb was served a mere 2 hours late. But it was cooked to perfection, and served on an appealing rancid green pile of mashed peas (“exorcist stuff” said Neil). Dai the human hoover struck again on everyone’s polenta chips, exclaiming “this is good s***”. I like Dai a lot.
Dessert was a mysterious “chocolate silk” which dragged up way too many memories for our dinner guests. Corporate Dad Josh reminisced about his recent trip to Denny’s, and the similarities between their presentation styles. Judge Gareth said the 1950s dessert “took him back”. Wait, how old is Gareth? He seems about 35. Is he potentially Benjamin Button? Probably. Judge Ben also revealed some more Mommy issues, saying that the chocolate taste reminded him of when his Mum used to buy him Dairy Milks for being a “good boy” at the supermarket. Sheesh. What a powerful and mystical dessert. The Sporty Moms came away with a solid score of 68. Three cheers for the ref.
Buzzwords of the ep: “burnt sausages”
Prop of the ep: smoke alarm (make you sure you have yours checked etc)
Screengrab of the ep: Neil being funny as always
