After Anushka lost her immunity challenge yesterday, Queensland Week continues with a special team challenge.
Today, they’re in Noosa Heads at the surf club. Here’s an article with behind the scene photos from Feb.
Matt is standing on the beach with a fake tan on his legs, white shorts, a striped blazer and a cravat. Gary looks like your dad on the weekend, wearing a polo and long shorts, George just looks uncomfy in belted shorts, and a tucked in polo. It’s weird seeing them in casual attire, and the contestants feel the same.
Tati is here for Matt’s legs, and gets a bit thirsty.
Matt tells them about their challenge today. They’ll be doing barbecue cooking, Elena Duggan, season eight winner, and Matt Sinclair are here to help.
George splits them in teams, right down the middle.
Green team is Joe, Tessa, Christina, Nicole, Steph, Simon, and Ben. They choose Joe as captain. Elena is the mentor.
Blue team is Walleed, Tati, Anushka, Derek, Sandeep, and Abbey. They choose Walleed as captain. Matt Sinclair is the mentor.
Before the teams can get cooking, Gaz gives them the rules.
They’ll have two and a half hours before service to cook. They have to make four dishes – one meat, one seafood and two sides.
“It true barbecue style, it has to be served on one plate,” he says.
Each team will be serving 150 people. They’ll have their mentors there to mentor only – not to cook. Gaz reminds them that this is MasterChef, so they have to cook the best food they’ve ever seen. The least impressive team will be sent straight to elimination tomorrow.
ANUSHKA WATCH: Anushka, the cute 49 year old optical distributor and cake queen, is wearing frames we’ve seen before. They are dark legs/arms/whatever they are, and cream frames.
Best shot I could get up close 
Isn’t she the cutest?
The montage starts. As usual, the music is tense and almost makes me feel like I’m frantically cooking for 150 people. To me, that sounds like a nightmare. I did have a montage nightmare yesterday, but it was all about my teeth.
Elena decides, half an hour in, to ask if their food is coherent, because one is more of an Asian feel and one is Italian. Steph has spent the half an hour cutting and prepping eggplant, so she’s committed to it. She’s pretty much forced to make her eggplants have a more Asian taste.
Matt tells Walleed that he hasn’t really spoken yet, so he needs to talk to people and do more stuff. Walleed is doing little jobs, and Matt starts to talk to the blue team like a captain.
I don’t think the blue team is in trouble, Walleed isn’t a confident leader and that’s why they’re getting screen time and dramatic music.
Matt pulls Walleed aside and tells him to get it together and be a bit harder. After the talk, Derek describes Walleed as the captain they need to push him through service.
“I totally forgot you were the captain until now,” George tells him.
Over on the green team, Nicole is dealing with HUGE chunks of meat and I honestly just want to eat a whole steak right now.
With fifteen minutes until service, guests start pouring in, all 300 of them.
Service starts, and four people prep each plate on the blue team.
Over on the green team, they haven’t gotten the plates out, they haven’t done anything. The wait staff are standing in front of them doing more waiting than staffing. Finally, they start going.
First to be tasted is the blue team. They’ve presented their food to the judges on four seperate plates with enough food for each of them.
Off the bat, George says it all looks so good, and he’s salivating.
The trio of judges start to eat the prawns and the salad first.
George says everything is so perfect.
Matt says the combination is the best they’ve had so far in Queensland.
Next is their lamb cutlet and eggplants.
Straight away, they say that the lamb isn’t cooked consistently and that’s not good for them.
Nonetheless, they say it’s a coherent set of flavours. It may be only the lamb that sends them to elimination.
It’s time for the green team to get tasted.
Editing was particularly cruel to me for these dishes, as they didn’t show them from a good angle, or they just skimmed past super quick.
The prawns are overcooked. George calls it a waste of hard work. They split it, but didn’t cook it split. They couldn’t taste any of the ginger.
The salad was good though.
Next they try the beef.
“Oh, yeah,” Matt says. “Oh, yeah.”
“I love that mushroom salad,” Gaz says. He lists what he loves about it. “They cooked the beef beautifully.”
Then they talk about the view.
Both teams serve their last dish, and time is up.
It’s time for the decision – who will be heading to elimination tomorrow?
“We asked you to put on a barbecue. for 300 Noosa locals and we are so happy,” Matt tells them, before saying it’s the best food so far in Queensland.
Gaz tells the blue team about their problem – inconsistent lamb cuttles, but they loved the prawns. He tells the green team they loved the beef and the salads. Then…
“However, your prawns, just completely missed the flavour of the ginger you promised. And worse than that, they were well and truely overcooked,” Gaz tells them.
“Blue team, congratulations, your safe,” George says. “Green team, it was little things, details. You need to go for gold, because tomorrow we’re going to the Gold Coast.”
As always, this recap was written as I wrote the episode. There will be spelling and grammar mistakes.
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To watch this episode and catch up on one’s you’ve missed, head over to southhemitv.com
Felicity Feiner 
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