Hell’s Kitchen (Season 6, Episode 8) – “9 Chefs Compete”

Last nights episode started with the palate test. The test everyone thinks they’re going to do good at until they try. As they find out though, it gets more difficult to distinguish tastes when you take away some of your senses. In this case the chefs are blindfolded and have to wear headphones so they can’t hear Gordon talking.  It’s a head to head test with one chef from each team. As I thought would happen they didn’t do very well.  The women ended up winning the palate test with their reward being lunch at Opaque, a restaurant where you dine in the dark.  It was interesting watching their expressions and movement while in the dark… especially when Suzanne starting sucking up to Gordon. But can you really blame her for trying?

Meanwhile, back at HK, the men had to prep for dinner, clean the glasses and make a sorbet that would be served in between courses.  And while they’re doing that, Scott brought them a couple of nice looking plates of food and then dumped it all in a blender. Most of the men didn’t seem to enjoy blended duck, but Van didn’t have a problem with it. He just thought of it as a protein shake. Hard to imagine though… blended duck. Not for me.

Dinner started and it looked like it might be a good night, but then the normal problems started. The women couldn’t get their timing together, Sabrina served up some undercooked lamb, which Gordon sent her out of the kitchen to eat for herself. Over on the mens side, Andy was running short on mash, but one armed Dave stepped in to make some on the fly.

Gordon declared the blue team the winners, with Tennille being the best of the worst. Tennille sent up Suzanne and Sabrina for elimination with Gordon throwing Amanda into the mix. I think it was obvious at this point where Gordon was heading. Amanda was sent home, with Gordon ending the show with “Amanda was a sweet girl, but sweet girls don’t make great head chefs.”

My favs are still Kevin, Dave and Sabrina.