zipzap wrote:That was freakin' outrageous, that useless Julie served up 3 mediocre dishes (the judges even said the chicken lacked seasoning and the cake was 'just OK'), none of which were even finished (sorry, wasn't tonight's brief about making it LOOK good???) and beat Chris who met the brief with bells on but maybe taste-wise it didn't quite live up to his (much higher than Julie's) standard.
Chris let himself down again when it counted. The time to show your stuff and he basically just roasts a bird and boils the buggery out of 2 types of meat. Then he boils some spinage and makes potato mash

When he had the 4 expert guest judges in the other week he did steaks that took him 5 minutes and roasted some bones

again ... He's hardly shown 5 star restaurant skill when he needed to.
Then he's told that presentation is important tonight but then waltzes in to the judges at the end as says "oh, I wasn't really thinking about presentation" as he serves up an arraw of meat dishes. Didn't even contemplate doing at least one dessert which was crazy IMO. He didn't meet the brief which was to produce dishes that would photograph well in a cook book.
FWIW, they liked Julie's chicken dish, they thought her lamb was excellent but not so excited by her cake. Chris on the other hand didn't cook his quail properly, served tough beef cheeks and did an average job with the pigs trotters.
IMO Julie is the better cook of the two. Chris is too obsessed about combining beer with everything and cooking 10 tonnes of meat. He's a bit of a one trick pony I'm afraid. He's a great cook but struggles to do anything other than roast or boil meat whenever he is put on the spot to create something himself.