Masterchef Asia S1E08: Lost in Transit

It is the top 9 now and for the team challenge, the contestants were split into 3 teams of 3, to cook cuisine from one of Japan, Vietnam and Indonesia. The 3 team captains were Ha, Lennard and Lica, having cooked the best 3 dishes in the previous episode. 

This challenge was held in Changi Airport, which captured a wide diversity of guests tasting the food. Together with the different cuisines on show, it definitely provided a more even playing field, as the show has been subjected to some criticism for having some advantage to the Singaporean contestants.

 Ha's team was to cook Japanese cuisine, and although Leong was known to be skilled in that area, Ha chose not to select him, instead selecting Sandrian and Priya. Perhaps it was because she forsaw that there would be too many dominating personalities in the team? Lennard's team comprised Jasbir and Marcus, to cook Vietnamese food while Lica's team seemed to have the most disadvantage, since her teammates Leong and Blanche had no expertise on Indonesian food, although Lica had a mis-step in not choosing Jasbir, who was skilled in Malaysian and Indo food

Opps!

 Back in the Masterchef Kitchen, it was actually Lennard's team that ran into the most trouble. Their menu was to initially consist of banh mi, but there was no bread to be found. On the menu was also pork balls, but the fryer malfunctioned. Finally, the noodles was deemed by the judges to have not been prepared in a hygienic manner, which meant that they had to be made again from scratch, leading to too little noodles. Lennard was also shown to be disregarding the judges' advice in when to marinate the meat, which led Audra to comment that if Lennard's team lost, it would likely be Lennard that was going home. 

When everything that can go wrong goes wrong, you realise you wore the wrong colonge

I did like how Jasbir describe the preparation of the meatballs, to include fatty meat to give it more taste and moisture, as it was definitely useful for other home cooks watching :) It was also nice to see Susur give advice on how to squeeze the minced meat into balls quickly.

Interesting developments were also concurring elsewhere. Lica was shown to have trouble preparing the peanut sauce for a noodle dish, and resorted to using hazelnuts and candlenuts, which did not require a skin to be removed. In stepped Susur, who showed Lica that the peanut skin could be removed easily with a kitchen cloth. Leong was also shown to be struggling with preparing his beef, especially when he frequently had to multi-task and assist out his teammates who were constantly calling him for help.

Ha's team seemed to be doing well but Susur remarked that Sandriah, who was tasked with preparing the rice and salad, was doing too little. This seemed to tick her off, as she told the camera that saying such a thing to a Japanese chef would get you scolded, since the rice was a very important component of Japanese food. What stood out for me was how Ha backed up her teammate, which showed that she is a really good leader. At that point, I felt that Ha had the most qualities to win the competition. 

Soon, 2 hours was up and it was time to head to Changi Airport to see who could attract the most customers. My guess is that Changi Airport got quite a good deal from the whole event, since all they had to do was to provide an open space for the contest, not even needing to provide a kitchen, while they got positive publicity and also a sales pitch for their stores at the end of the program. Unless of course, Changi paid for this publicity :p

 The contestants soon became aware that there was a need to compete for customers, and both pretty Lennard and pretty Blanche were despatched to bring in customers. My own take would have been to send out Lica instead of Blanche :p Ha was also sent out as she had a unique look.

How can you say no to her food?

The judges reviewed the food and found Lennard's beef to be bland, Lica's noodle to be un-Indonesian and Ha's pork to be too tough. It was pretty obvious who would be kicked out if their teams lost, especially for Lennard, who had chosen not to heed the judges' advice. Luckily for him, his team garnered the most votes, likely thanks to Jasbir's deep fried pork balls. Still, credit should be given to Lennard for not panicking when so many things went wrong. He kept his cool and rallied his team to still put food on the table.

 It turned out that Leong's plan to put out more dishes than the other teams failed. Lica's team turned out to have received the least votes, and Lica was sent home. This also spelt the end of the Filipino representation on the contest, from an initial high of 3 contestants.

 There was still a final twist in the story, where Audra informed the contestants that they were at Changi Airport for a reason, as their next destination would be Hong Kong! How long they stay there remains to be seen, but it is definitely nice to move away from Singapore. It seems like Priya would have a slight advantage, as she shared that she had lived there for 5 years previously.

 This episode is brought to you by Knorr, Panasonic, Uber Singapore, Carlton Hotel and Changi Airport :) No they did not pay for this post, the product placement is just too obvious to miss!

 The full episode can be viewed online at this link :)