Hell’s Kitchen Coverage: Sandra’s Way

It’s a battle for survival and some beach volleyball on an all new episode of “Hell’s Kitchen.” Don’t forget to spit shine your server’s shoes.

In the kitchen that day were four domes in each kitchen. Ramsay said that each dome had an ingredient under them. The challenge was for each individual chef to take an ingredient under the dome hat lights up and make a dish out of it. Every five minutes Ramsay rang a bell to tell the chefs it’s time to lift the next dome and use whatever ingredient they get and incorporate it into the dish.

Once the first dome came up it was utter chaos. There were hands grabbing at everything. This continued with each dome. A few notes here:

1. Rochelle never cooked lobster and she at first seemed lost as to how to kill it.

2. Scott couldn’t tell the difference between duck breast and chicken breast. They both may be birds, but they have different colors and tastes.

Also, Kashia and Sandra both grabbed fingerling potatoes. Ramsay informed them they can’t use the same ingredient. So Sandra settled with egg noodles. This continued with the next dome when Sandra and Jessica used endive. Sandra refused to give it up. They each claimed one grabbed it before the other. Who really cares? Just switch already.

Sandra got her way.

The special guest judge was the owner of “Providence Restaurant” in Los Angeles, Michael Cimarusti. Chef Michael was allowed to give a point to both chefs that came up, but he only did it once with Gabriel and Melanie’s chicken dishes. Kashia and Rochelle gave the Red a 2-0 lead. Rochelle’s lobster dish was spot on for someone who never worked with lobster before.

One of the biggest surprises is Jessica thought she was cooking swordfish when instead it was ahi tuna. Because of that she made it well done instead of medium. Joy even told her swordfish is white, not red. How a trained chef got those two completely different fishes confused is a mystery.

Once again, after another tie the Red Team won. Their reward was a day at “Terranea Resort” and a volleyball lesson with three time Olympic gold champion Kerri Walsh-Jennings.

The Blue, on the other hand, had to do the chores of all twenty-two “Hell’s Kitchen” servers. Anyone can feel Jason’s pain when he asked Jean-Philippe if he wanted the shoes “spit cleaned.” At this point the audience is spitting at the TV in disgust of constantly seeing the Red win challenges every episode of every season.

That night it was one-on-one evaluation time. Every time the phone rang, Jessica picked it up. She seemed like she was having way too much of a good time doing it. After that Ramsay decided to something he never did in “Hell’s Kitchen” before: have the weakest chef on each team cook three of “Hell’s Kitchen’s” dishes (scallops, risotto and halibut) and the chef who performs the worst gets eliminated. For the Red it was Jessica and for the Blue it was Richard.

Both chefs seemed to do pretty well except on some spots. Jessica piled the risotto too high and forgot the toothpick in the lobster. How did she forget about the toothpick? Her halibut broke and she had to put another crust on it. It came out fine considering. Richard also did pretty poorly on the risotto. It tasted too much like cheese.

Ramsay was about to announce who was being eliminated when we get the season’s first “to be continued.”

It’s hard to know who got eliminated this episode. For all we know Ramsay can decide not to eliminate anyone and waste a whole bunch of people’s time. That would be one of the cheapest things ever done on the show. Richard has the highest chance of getting eliminated due to his cheesy risotto. The only constant on this show is that the Red will always win challenges and the Blue will do punishments.