Masterchef Goes Large

Ben from the other week's restaurant is just round the corner from me and is actually very nice so I couldn't help rooting for him, even though he was a slight moron.

Yeah as documented on the London restaurants thread we ate at his restaurant this weekend and it was really good.

Ali Campbell explain what Grime was to Matthew Fort

oh god i'm gonna have to watch this now aren't i

― a photographer, satanist and ukip voter (bizarro gazzara), Monday, April 8, 2019 12:37 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Be glad you missed Mani 'dish is aight' slurping up some soup.

Ps. I watch this religiously. The 'concept' plates are frequently bonkers.

Wtf has this guy got against fish curry?

Great to see the kooks up for a place in the pantheon of 50 years of british music.

What was the deal w/ that guy who - twice - didn't actually deliver the brief in any way? Is he thick?

"I'm doing a dish called Northern Sole."
"What fish is in it?"
"Cod."

That guy?

oh god i'm gonna have to watch this now aren't i

xp haha yeah, that guy. Thought it was expert trolling at first but c'mon man. Despite him explicitly saying it was called 'Northern Sole' the editors of the show just put 'Northern Soul' underneath it, because it was just too wtf.

I like that this week's judge let's off a little more about how things are going during the cooking. The others all tried their very best to not let anything on. When they'd taste a sauce they'd be like *must... keep... blank... expression*

xp BG you need to see this pronto imo

We have developed the habit of watching the week's worth of these on a Friday or Saturday night. I can barely wait! (Mind if you lot start spoilering who goes through I will have to catch up in the thread later, not that that should stop you obv.).

We're a small but dedicated crew, I think we can manage no spoilers.

Despite him explicitly saying it was called 'Northern Sole' the editors of the show just put 'Northern Soul' underneath it, because it was just too wtf.

It was more wtf than that, he actually said "The dish is called Northern Soul, with a 'u', because it's cod". In other words "I'm not going for the obvious pun, instead I'm going for a dish which has no connection to the name or the brief whatsoever".

Mind = blown (I missed that "with a 'u'" remark!). That's some 5D concept cooking!

Yeah he said "with a u" to both Aitkens and his fellow competition, separately, so he clearly rationalised it in his head that way.

Maybe it was a meta-commentary on the futilty of trying to encapsulate a musical tradition through the medium of cookery - it wouldn't actually have had anything more to do with Northern Soul music if the name of the fish i had sounded the same as 'soul'.

That's possibly giving him a little too much credit seeing as he was a shouty self-satisfied chump.

B-but plates shaped like guitars! Skate tendon mohicans!

he was a shouty self-satisfied chump.

Otm. He's a nuisance. All the better his chow will be further served off tonight.

xp Oh god the mohicans <3

So you're a top chef who worked at Noma, participating for the second time. What do you do? Choose a main ingredient (pig fat) you've never worked with before, massively over-salt your dish (how did he not taste this?) and as a consequence are scared shitless of overseasoning again so you completely underseason your next dish. Car crash.

Aye, last night was a car crash all round.

In "how do you do, fellow kids" news, "small vinyls" go at "33 rounds per minute", you listen to a record player while fishing in a boat and devoted John Peel listeners owned all the Spice Girls singles on cassette.

OMG.

So it turns out these little morsels of ludicrousness are making me more psyched to watch the show, rather than acting as spoilers.

That's weird, we started watching an old series of M:TP last night. The one with savant psychopath James, who's either going to win at an absolute canter (no spoilers pls!) or get kicked out for hunting a fellow contestant

What's weird?

Masterchef (and, I think Mastercheftheprofessionals) has taken to using past winners and finalists as if they were food critics* in the early rounds - it turns out that I have a vague memory of about 5% of them and the rest I would swear I'd never seen before, even though I've watched every series of the thing going back to the dear dead days of Loyd himself. SO the chances of me spoiling anything are zero. Having said all that, GBM >>> any form of Masterchef.

*presumably the risk of being saddled with another Sitwell is just too great.

and devoted John Peel listeners owned all the Spice Girls singles on cassette.

This had us cracking up too :D

My favourite LOL was Richard Corrigan saying, "You're really pushing the boundaries by mentioning John Peel there"

The bottom of the puns barrel was officially scraped with "Fleetwood Mackerel".

Haha, I missed that. Stupid social life.

Someone who grew up in Buckie reckons they listened to loads of bhangra when they were at school. No wonder in such a hotbed of Asian culture.

The female chef justified her Club Tropicana inspired dessert because her sister was Wham daft when they were growing up. She's 32.

My dish is called 'Sunny Afternoon'... yeah, yeah, The Stereophonics

That caused groans in our house too. Also the Bowie quote she used is the same as the o e someone used last week. WTF? Is there a briefing document?

OMG they are playing the Stereophonics version of Sunny Afternoon! It is gross.

Calling a dish “Top of the Cods” does not make it relevant to the music industry.

nor do endless stories about how you grew up.

they cut away really fast but i think you can *just* see the judge die inside when the guy says stereophonics.

Top of the Crops
Top of the Cods

...

The Stereophonics version almost had me clicking away ffs. Only dish that looked the part to me was the Bowie one, but apparently it tasted like shite, and the guy using cleaner tasting lemon in his dish got a higher grade.

What a fucking mysoginist judge that was, last weeks. His disgust for her dripped off the screen. He'd've bitten the woman's head off if he wasn't being filmed. Sure, maybe her dishes weren't all that but neither were anyone else's. He scored her significantly lower than others who got the same, or worse, critique. Rigged.

"What's the connection to music?" the judge (and other competitors) say repeatedly over a dish which is called hip hop in a weak (but completely reasonable and understandable) pun over it being rabbit.

The ones which pass without comment are "Brixton academy through the years" which is a cube of hoggett and veal sweetbreads (because that's a posh kebab, obviously) and "oh you pretty things" which is a 'celebration of songs that mention breakfast'. Because it's a bowl of mushrooms served with mushroom ketchup and an empty mug with some song names written on it.

This has turned into the worst theme in years.

Otm to all of that. Would’ve gone with Procal Herring myself tbf

Absolute cunt's parade all week, chefs and judges alike.

I had two new puns they should have gone with.

The final dish should have been called Choccy's Got A Temper. And the frozen one earlier should have had a peaty whisky added to it and been called La Islay Granita.

lol at kemp throwing a hissy fit at the pigeon claw on his plate.

La Islay Granita

*doffs hat*

It's not been great. Peter Hook almost eating every desert was a highlight, which is saying something. I did like seeing Andrew Ridgely tbh, hadn't seen him since his last TOTP performance probably. This show force feeds you so much filler and repeatings of the same old dreariness ("the uk music scene continues to take the world by storm" etc) I'm glad it's over tomorrow actually.

what's the deal with professional chefs and sleeve tattoos?

They're often a bunch of weirdos on the Professionals.

I don't know if you've been out in public in the uk recently but sleeve tattoos are virtually compulsory in most places.

imo they kicked out philippe because they were afraid he's better than them. absolutely ridiculous. don't wanna watch the rest of the season

don't have twitter but i hope everyone is giving them hell

Brin 4 the win

Yeah. We liked Cliodhna but I'm notorious for putting the kiss of death on anyone by calling them for the win just before they comically arse it up.

Still broken-hearted Ajay went out, he seemed so good.

Grace and Anna are obviously a breath of fresh air, but if Jhané doesn't win, it's still the same bad old Masterchef.

I liked Matt until I realised he reminds me of that dorky pic of young Elon Musk.