Hell’s Kitchen Coverage: Episode 11: Sticking Around

It’s a trip around the world in this episode of Hell’s Kitchen.

Hell’s Kitchen ended with Ramsey telling Elise to take her jacket off. In what seems like Elise being eliminated along with Carrie, Ramsey then tells the other chefs to take their jackets off. What’s going on?

Ramsey tells them that Hell’s Kitchen is closed because they are going to New York City to see BLT Steak. This trip is meant to motivate the chefs to work harder and remember what they are playing for.

In New York, they meet Raheem Vaziralli, a Foods of New York Tours tour guide who shows all the different cuisines New York has to offer. From Pizza at Lombardi’s, Peking duck in Chinatown, even French, Greek, Mexican and Indian cuisines are on the menu. That filled the chefs right up.

At BLT Steak, they are shown the restaurant, kitchen and are told what it takes to survive in the tough culinary world of New York.

Back at Hell’s Kitchen, there is a giant slot machine waiting for the chefs. That slot machine determines what ingredients and what cuisine each chef must prepare in the challenge. Jennifer got the cuisine she wanted (Greek) while Tommy got what he didn’t want (Indian).

The rules for who wins is different here. It’s determined by “king of the hill.” One chef sits in a chair as “king” and if another chef makes a better dish that chef is now the “king.” Surprisingly, each dish is better than the last. Jennifer is the last in the chair, winning it for the red.

The red enjoy a nice day at the beach enjoying-zorbing? Apparently zorbing is getting into a giant globe while other people push you. It’s a treat seeing Elise pushed around for once on this show. Her screams are music to the ears.

At dinner service Elizabeth is clearly frazzled. She has no clue what’s going on and is on the verge of tears. She really can’t cook tonight either. Elise doesn’t have a good service either. Her wellingtons are falling apart and she blames Tommy for not scoring the first tray properly. In the replay from earlier, we see that Tommy clearly tells Elise that he is not scoring the red team’s wellington and tells her to score them. Now she’s blaming her mistakes on somebody on the opposite team? How can you get, Elise?

The last straw comes when Elise under-cooks a NY strip, cuts it, reheats, and it comes out dry. Both her and Elizabeth are thrown out leaving Jennifer the only red team member left.

The blue team fares better with only Natalie bringing out dry bass. All of them are returned.

Even though the blue team was clearly the better team, Ramsey says “I will not select a winning team unless I get a perfect service.” At this point it’s understandable as to why Ramsey expects a perfect service. There are only seven chefs left after all.

Both teams are told to choose who gets eliminated. Red chooses Elise and blue chooses Natalie. Natalie is eliminated.

It’s down to the final six on Hell’s Kitchen and Elise is still there. At this point, it looks like it could come down to either Paul or Will going up against Jennifer. Paul and Will are clearly the best chefs on the blue while Jennifer can run circles around Elise and Elizabeth any day. Let’s hope Elise is gone next episode because her attitude and outbursts have gotten stale.