Recaps
Episode 107
Following a long night, the teams are back into the kitchen at 7:15am the next morning. With only five contestants remaining, Chef Ramsay merges everybody into one team. The chefs take their new jackets back to the dorms for a quick celebration, but then it's time for a new challenge. After watching Chef Ramsay prepare his popular fruit flambé tableside, each chef will have to recreate the preparation.The contestants load up carts with the ingredients, part of the presentation, and get to work. Jessica immediately burns her sugar, while Jimmy is accidentally knocking things over. Time runs out and Chef Ramsay starts tasting. He likes the caramel in Michael's, but doesn't appreciate the dirty plate. Ralph gave the caramel nice color, but forgot to dust the fruit in the icing sugar. Chef Ramsay tells Jessica she didn't cook the sugar enough and then tastes Elsie's dish. He likes everything about it. Color, taste, clean plate. Lastly, Jimmy's. Also nice. Chef Ramsay declares Jimmy the winner.
As the winner, Jimmy is allowed to pick another contestant to join him on his reward trip. Jimmy chooses Michael, which he explains is payback for not nominating Jimmy for elimination previously. Jessica, Ralph and Elsie are left behind to scrub down the dining room. Chef Ramsay, Jimmy and Michael, meanwhile, head out for a helicopter tour of Los Angeles. When they land on a building downtown, Jean Philippe is waiting with two waiters and champagne and caviar. Jimmy couldn't be more happy.
Early the next morning, the chefs return to the kitchen to prepare for the night's dinner service. Maryann and Scott, overseeing the prep, explain that the night's menu will be a combination of the Red and Blue menus from the previous service, with some fancy touches added. After a full day of prep, Chef Ramsay enters the kitchen at 6:30 and calls the staff together. He announces that he's adding a Caesar salad and fruit flambé to the menu, both of which will be served tableside. And Jimmy, as the challenge winner, has to pick a teammate to be responsible for all tableside service that evening. He goes with Elsie.
Out in the dining room, Chef Ramsay walks Elsie through a quick primer. Minutes before opening, Chef Ramsay kicks Scott and Maryann out the kitchen. The contestants are completely on their own tonight. Diners being filing in. Michael and Ralph get the first starters out in record time. Elsie is trying to prepare her first Caesar salad, but forgets her mixing bowl. She rushes into the kitchen and back, then whips up a salad that her diner enjoys.
In the kitchen, meat orders are piling in. On the meat station, Jessica is facing her toughest test yet, while Chef Ramsay instructs Jean Philippe to start pushing fish. Forty minutes into service, food is reaching the hot plate faster than ever. Chef Ramsay asks Ralph to join him on the pass, to help him dress the plates. This is a tremendous compliment from Chef Ramsay. And just when things are going well...the lights go out in the kitchen and the dining room. But before anything goes crazy, the lights kick back on.
Over on the fish station, Jimmy is trying to balance lobster and halibut preparation. In trying to keep his area clean, Jimmy accidentally throws out a cooked lobster. When Chef Ramsay calls for it, he has absolutely no idea where it went. Ninety minutes into service, things are still going swimmingly until Jessica realizes that she doesn't have any more filet mignons. She tells Chef Ramsay, who does not take the news well. While Jessica fights with Chef Ramsay, Michael heads to another room to look for filets. As Jessica mopes around, Michael returns with a tray of steaks. Crisis averted.
Meanwhile, Elsie moves on to tableside flambes. The first one doesn't go so well, as she can't get the alcohol to light on fire. Back in the kitchen, Ralph is still dressing plates with Chef Ramsay, who tells us that having a person like Ralph on your side instill confidence in the kitchen. Jimmy, however, has forgotten to put on a risotto, sabotaging an entire order. Chef Ramsay tears into him, and then absolutely explodes when he sees Jimmy put fish stock on the risotto. Chef Ramsay scraps the tickets and tells the kitchen to start it over. For good measure, he gives Jimmy some more criticism.
In the dining room, Elsie is flambéing away, and her dessert is getting rave reviews from all customers. Back in the kitchen, Jimmy is still struggling at the fish station. Chef Ramsay asks him why he has a fish still in the pan and Jimmy finally snaps. He yells that he's trying to do two things at once, and when Chef Ramsay summons Jimmy to his side, Jimmy says no and stands his ground. Chef Ramsay calms him down in his own special, then sends him back to his station. Then he notices Jessica's filet pan flaming wildly, Chef Ramsay decides to shut down the kitchen. But not before specifically telling Jessica and Jimmy that they let him down tonight.
Gathering the team together later, Chef Ramsay tells them he was proud of how the first half of the night went, but then everything fell apart. Lauding Ralph for being down the last couple of weeks but bouncing back, Chef Ramsay asks him to nominate two contestants for elimination. Back in the dorms, Elsie pulls Ralph aside and asks him to nominate her. She complains that she's tired and things will only get more hectic and she doesn't want to slow anybody down any more. Knowing that Jessica kept him off the chopping block last week, Ralph weighs his options.
The team returns to the dining room. Ralph nominates Jimmy and Jessica based on the evening's performance. Given a chance to defend himself, Jimmy says he's a team player, but admits that the pressure overwhelmed him tonight. He apologizes for his outburst. With the same chance, Jessica says she's also a team player who had a bad night. After a moment of thinking, Chef Ramsay eliminates Jimmy because he couldn't bounce back from his trouble tonight. But Chef Ramsay tells Jimmy to keep his head up and always be very proud of how he performed.
