I am not so much into the reality part of it, and the theatrics argghh, but I am very interested in the food and the recipes.
In the last 24 hrs since the winner of Masterchef has been announced there was been a huge backlash as to Julie being the winner. The number of complaints of general public thinking Poh should have beaten Julie is surprising.
Heres my response and round up of the final week... see link:
Heres a copy of my response below:
| Re: Plating Vs Taste Posted: 20/07/2009 15:49 | | | ||
| That is the question...and of course we know that TASTE prevails over plating. The look of a meal is like the introduction of an essay lol But if the Body or main argument isnt solid, then ya cant expect to score highly. Julie's TASTE got her thru it...Her food tasted the best! I expected Justine and Chris to make the play-off, but they were subjected to some harsh eliminations. I think they both were all round complete chefs, and STREETS ahead of the others. I am still very disappointed that Justine lost out to a bloody pompous cake, which NO chef will ever have to make in their career. While Chris may have served up some relatively tasty food, but it didnt fit the criteria of the cookbook concept. It simply didnt look appetising for a cookbook, and that was the main premise of the task... I didnt think that a cookbook task should have been the basis for elimination either. Anyone of the potential masterchef contestants could have easily succeeded with a cookbook deal, and would have had AMPLE time to perfect the LOOK of their dishes, not just bloody 2 hrs or whatever it was. Lots of people are crying over Poh not winning but we should all be more disgusted that Justine and Chris got outed because of such poorly thought out rounds which essentially didnt prove who was the better chef. Once they got down to only FOUR remaining chefs: Justine, Chris, Poh and Julie, thats when the challenges offered in the final night should have been used for ALL four of them... I would have loved to see all four chefs do the blind taste testing. I cannot believe how poorly both Poh and Jules did in the taste test round, only 11 and 12 ingredients. How lame!!! I guarantee Chris and Justine would have got a heck of a lot more...I dont think anyone should be granted the masterchef title if they cant name at least 15 ingredients. I know several who were sitting at home without the privilege of being able to smell and taste the dish and came up with more than what they did. Isnt the palate the most crucial part of being a good chef? Heck we could even see carrots in it LOL I will commend Masterchef for making the final blind taste testing though, because i felt in previous taste test eliminations it wasnt fair. Often the person who started first suffered having to pick that 1 extra ingredient. Can u imagine getting to ingredient # 19/20 and then the last contestant having to name that barley substitute or whatever it was... The blind marking would have worked fantastic for the dessert replication, but of course it couldnt have been used for the chicken challenge. They would know for sure whos was whos lol That would defeat the purpose. Could u imagine having everyone of the last 4 or even last 5 contestants being put under a stringent testing process similar to that of the final, and having each contestant scores accumulated...That would have been more Justice, or should i say JUST-ine.  I could not believe after so many taste testing eliminations, that neither Julie or Poh, thought of STOCK.. Thats the foundation of most soups and many dishes...Poh even used stock for her main dish lol. And Carrots and cellery are stable ingredients for those type of caserole like dishes. I would agree that the contestants didnt deserve to be helped out during the cooking process. However you cannot complain about it now, because they were consistently helping right throughout the start of the top 20. In fact Poh was always the more independent cook and didnt want any advice, she would shoe away the chefs and wanted to do it her way, perhaps if she was more welcoming for them to try her dishes maybe she too would have had some support. Poh seemed to give the impression she was in control. It wasnt just the sorbet that let Poh down, there were several components, taste wise that let Poh down, except for her choc slice, which they all said was perfect. The comments of the judges didnt reflect their marks in the end. Curtis said to Poh, if i was blondfolded I would have thought your dish came from Aria. Yet he only gave her 8/10 lol and gave Julie 9/10 Does that mean Julies dish tasted better than Aria's dish? or perhaps better than King Matt Moran's? lol What also frustrated me was that most of the judges didnt want to go out on a limb in the chicken round and say which dish they preferred. Curtis seemed to LOVEEEEEEE Poh's dish but gave both contestants 7/10 Gary and George seemed to frown upon Poh's dish saying it wasnt very complex, and they were totally praising Julies, but they gave both of them 9/10 lol. Matt Preston was the only judge who was able to distinguish between both dishes in both rounds. He marked 1 dish higher than the other according to his preference. I would have liked to have seen a judging panel which was less biased. Especially would have loved to have the founder of the bloody dessert, Matt Moran to judge his own dish for crying out loud lol where was the logic? They have the studio crawling with top aussie chefs and they couldnt put 4 of them on the panel? lol Why not have bloody 10 on the panel lol wouldnt that give a more accurate score? lol count them all up and average it...its not that hard is it? lol This was an important final was it not? If we had the top 4 remaining contestants, with maybe 10 chefs judging them each time, in multiple rounds I think we would have got a much better picture of who the best chef was, and i think Justine or Chris would have prevailed. In terms of the big picture though... I think the top 5 contestants are going to have similar recognition in the culinary world. Sure they may be 100k short now, but i think any one of them were going to get experience in some of the top restaurants and get book deals. I think even if Julie didnt make the final, she would have got her book deal lol In terms of plating and look and overall taste, Justine had the best all round package out of all of them. If chris had of pulled his finger out and plated less of his what he liked and more mainstream dishes he too would have been tuff to beat. Hats off to Chris for sticking to his passioned theme lol pun intended. I would have ranked the contestants this way: 1. Justine 2. Chris 3. Julie 4. Poh 5. Julia While many of responders here were implying Poh was given the disadvantage i still think Julie was a better chef overall. Poh really did put on a great show in the last couple weeks, and poor Julia who lost our way too early, She seemed to lose her confidence, but even Julia I think has a better palate and will become a better chef than Poh will ever be, despite me ranking her below Poh. Just one last comment about poor BRENT. He was eliminated by his peers...he was the earliest threat to everyone, he won the first major round. I would have liked him being given one the second chance draws and invited back instead of Tom. I really do think that the top 20 should have been allowed to visit the masterclasses every week even tho eliminated early, for the second chance draw. Maybe they should have had a cook-off for the 2nd chance draw too lol. Edited by: BudGSmuggler on 20/07/2009 15:53 | ||||
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