Sir. This is a Wendy’s.

I made this recap from scratch.

Days of Future Plates

Knockout Week begins with the 16 contestants split into two groups of 8, with this first challenge whittling down our first batch of eight down to five

they call it Knockout Week, I call it The Blog Fav Mass Grave Week. With so many of them needing to be eliminated and everyone at this point of the competition being reliably good cooks, this does of course mean the judges are about to be hurling nonsense critiques like they were playing Wii Bowling. The most ridiculous of them all being leveraged as Fay for not making her couscous from scratch

I don’t think they have EVER expected someone to make their own couscous, and I don’t think anyone on the show has EVER made their own couscous. I’m not even sure most restaurants make their own couscous!

The woman was too stunned to speak. But her eyebrows spoke a million words.
I do think Fay could’ve stretched herself a little more and maybe included some sort of a crisp bread for a bit of extra texture and process because the Smoked Fennel and Couscous Salad with Labneh isn’t the most demanding dish in the world and did look a bit mushy

I think there were ways of critiquing this dish without stooping to levels of pettiness only ever previously documented on Come Dine With Me.

Not helping Fay was the fact the anxious fledgling blue tit that flew in through the window and came to be known as Henry was making three different kinds of dumpling dough AND having to do negotiations with suicidal pots of flour

so, he might not be so good at that second part of his job, but his trio of dumplings came out phenomenally well

the particular highlight being his Lamb and Cumin Dumplings with the Soy and Chilli dipping sauce

he did extremely well this round and was as excited for himself as the chickens from Chicken Run were when Rocky the Flying Rooster first showed up

I am never letting him beat the bird in human clothing allegations.

While one of my Faves was safe for another episode, sadly the earth was opening up around Paddy the Bassoonist who was serving lunch at one of the nicer retirement homes

it looks delicious but amongst the rest of the room really going for finer dining, it was pretty rough. Which really begs the question “what the HELL had Paddy expected it to look like?”

there were however some really good aspects to the dish – much like Gregg Wallace himself, the gammon was beautifully boiled and most of the cabbage accompaniments were really good but the Colcannon and his puree were lacking in seasoning.
Shaun got quite similar critiques in that his duck was beautifully cooked but it also looked like a farm animal had been involved in a combine harvester incident

it was also heavily critiqued for the parsnip puree and the plum sauce being so sweet the whole thing almost became dessert adjacent.
Shaun wasn’t the only one to have issues with sweetness, as Claire had made the last minute decision to dip her leeks into the same mixture she’d used to candy her chillies

however, she naturally gets a few bonus points over Shaun because her salmon was both beautifully cooked and also an instructional guide on how to make a sailboat if you’re every stranded on a remote section of the Haida Gwaii Archipelago

Her cook book is actually just a field guide about how to survive in the Canadian wilderness. Chapter 7 is a recipe for a urine purifier made out of saskatoon berries and a lobster.

Hazel was also going for a fish dish, opting for halibut which she was serving with the motifs of a taco including an Avocado Cream, Tempura Jalapenos and a Sweetcorn Puree as well as an Orange and Fennel Salad

it does sound like a really lovely dish and it does look very fresh and summery – I’d certainly order this in a restaurant. However, I do think the Tempura Jalapenos looked like they needed a fraction longer in the fryer

I would also have maybe liked something that felt like a stronger reference to the tortilla – a sail of halibut to race Claire in the Fish Offal Regatta, perhaps?

Gabriel was keeping things Brazilian with his take on traditional Brazilian Barbecue – serving up Sirloin Steak with a Chimichurri Sauce, Roasted Corn and Pineapple

there was also a Palm Heart in bone marrow drag having been filled with a Mushroom and Bacon Puree

the judges weren’t overly enamoured with this drag performance of Bad to the Bone, thinking its presentation was a little bit sloppy – I personally don’t see much wrong with the plate other that perhaps the steak wasn’t rested enough but beyond that, it’s pretty standard Fancy Steak plating?

Finally we have the only dessert of the day, unless you count the combined effort of Shaun and Claire who between the pair of them served up God’s Worst Crumble, was from Sam who dreams of owning a restaurant where single people have to press their faces against the window only dreaming of getting in

his dish being inspired by the Sticky Rice combination that he and his boyfriend both enjoy – his boyfriend preferring it with Mango while Sam is partial to coconut ice cream. It was a very touch and go dish with just about all of Sam’s components requiring setting, so I was impressed that it was all holding together

however, the white chocolate and mango mousse had gone very granula and looked slightly curdled

I really like Sam and if this dish had come out as he wanted, it would be spectacular, however I do think the judges were VERY lenient with letting him through because it had by far and away the most glaring mistake, beyond maybe Shaun for serving up the Borden family living room and calling it a duck dish.

A Future Signature Dish Ranking:
1. Henry’s Flighty Dumplings
2. Hazel’s Ode to a Taco
3. Welcome to the Stage, Miss Demi Bones
4. The Winner of the 2025 Fish Offal Regatta
5. All 5 Stages of Couscous Related Grief
6. The Horse Head in Gregg’s Bed
7. Shaun’s One Duck Revival of the Lizzie Borden Musical
8. Sam’s Gritty Mousse

You could see the writing on the wall for these three – they really strung Fay up most of all so I was particularly sad for her in the circumstances

but I was most gutted for Paddy specifically

he never got to the theatrical round where he could’ve served up a cauliflower in a bassoon!

And joining that pair of very muc flagged eliminations, was Shaun

I did really like him but that duck dish was a real brain fart moment.

Pro and Behold

As is unfortunately want to happen, we do eventually have to come to the challenge that holds very little jeopardy and is nothing more than a thinly veiled advert for a London-based restaurant. This time, the location being Theo Randall’s Italian restaurant in Mayfair

they did very much have to send this specific group there or else Olivia would’ve had to weigh Theo Randall’s soul like Italian Anubis

She deems you… unworthy.

What I did like about this particular iterations of the challenge was that they did at least focus on pushing the contestants out of their comfort zones. By which I mean, they chose the smallest member of the group to fight the biggest chunks of meat

between having to manage a grill with flames licking taller than she was was

and deep-frying a truck load of vegetables for her Sirloin Steak and Fritto Misto main course, there was a snowball’s chance in Italian Hell of Hazel leaving this kitchen with her eyebrows fully intact. She coped extraordinarily well, I would personally have given up the moment I realised I had to fight a cow’s hind quarters 4 times over AND prepare a biblical amount of vegetables while Henry just had to perform the second messiest beheading in recorded history

and worry about some peppers

the biggest flaw in this challenge is that the dishes are never created equally – although Henry’s did come with the ever looming threat of becoming forever indebted into Theo Randall’s aspirationally Italian mafia

he may have cooked all the Turbot pretty perfectly, but I think Henry’s portion sizes may have been bleeding the company’s bottom line dry

Theo was just a bit distracted with forcing Sam to do the world’s most stressful maths equations over on the Scallop station to do the accounting on Henry’s

but given that Sam had never prepared, let alone cooked, scallops before he coped extraordinarily well with the service, especially with having Theo Randall breathing down his neck and asking him “If 1 portion of Turbot is meant to be 150 grams and I charge £42 but Henry is serving 380 grams of turbot per person, how much money am I losing?”

FLY HENRY!

Joining Sam on the GCSE Maths starters was Gabriel, who was making a Duck Cappelletti dish. Theo was mostly just concerned that Gabriel was a little bit overly confident

I don’t think it’s a case of being cocky so much as it is Gabriel just being gay and Brazilian. And even if he was being a bit cocky, he put his money where his mouth was and served 15 pretty perfect plates of pasta – although I will say, his sauce didn’t look quite as rich as the one Theo had demoed

but nobody seemed to be complaining.

Lastly, it was Claire on desserts, with a really phenomenal sounding Chocolate and Ricotta Tart served with Pistachio Gelato

and while the customers would of course be incredibly discerning, there was nobody judging Claire harder than the Gelato Appraisal Machine

I’m 1 bad day away from chucking it all in and starting a minor religion worshipping this machine. With G.O.D. (Gelato Optimisational Device) pleased with her offerings, she was blessed with an extremely smooth service – granted mostly of her workload was prep work and she wasn’t having to cook steaks to order, but there was a chance that the machine could turn on her at any moment and smite her down

he’s always watching.