The twelfth episode of Season 10 of Hell's Kitchen aired on FOX on July 16, 2012. In that episode, an eating contest against a competitive eater took place, the annnual Blind Taste Test featured an important milestone, and Ramsay gave the chefs the chance to showcase their own dishes for the following service.
Intro[]
Before heading back to the dorms, Ramsay compared Clemenza’s dirty jacket to a tepee and that somebody could sail across the Atlantic with it, much to everybody’s humor. Fearing that she may go home next, Robyn asked Clemenza to do her a favor and lead the blue team as she needed somebody in her corner and had no problem kissing somebody’s ass. Then, Robyn felt that with Justin and Brian having a bromance, Clemenza was the only person she could trust. However, Clemenza said that it would take a lot to pull the wall over his eyes after everything he has seen.
Meanwhile, the red team discusses the issue with the blue team as Christina felt Robyn back-peddled when she announced Clemenza as a nominee. Even though the two were not working in the same kitchen anymore, Christina felt that Robyn still drove her nuts in the dorms. Tiffany and Brian were still sore over what happened that night when the former belittled the latter. While Tiffany was not sympathetic over Brian’s complaints, he said that she sucked, and it was a personal punishment to see her face. Then, Justin reminded Tiffany that when the blue team came over into the red kitchen, they did not push the women out of their stations. Still, Tiffany ignored Justin, leading him to call her out of her mind.
Wing eating challenge[]
The next day, both teams came downstairs, where Ramsay decided to have a little fun and introduced a wing eating challenge. After asking for volunteers, Ramsay picked Barbie and Tiffany from the red team. For the blue team, he picked Brian, who claimed he could eat a large amount of food despite his appearance, and Justin, who was the only one from his team who did not have his hand up. When Ramsay noticed Justin’s miserable look, the latter said he could not eat that fast without choking. While it looked like Ramsay was going to join them, he said there was no way he could take them on. Their real competition was world champion eater Joey Chestnut, though Justin said there was no chance in hell he could beat Chestnut. After, Ramsay explained that the four chefs would work together to beat Chestnut, with Dana hoping Tiffany could eat wings as fast as she could drink beers. The first team who could eat all 60 wings would win $500.
As the challenge began, both the chefs and Chestnut were neck in neck, but Tiffany felt like she could hurl as the wings were too much, while Brian wanted to attack the wings as it was $500 on the line. Despite the chef’s efforts, Chestnut finished first as they only had seven wings left. However, Brian commended the champion for his strong performance.
Team challenge[]
After Chestnut left, Ramsay announced the Blind Taste Test was their real challenge. Still, Barbie was not happy as her lips and tongue were burning simultaneously. Because the red team had an extra person, Kimmie volunteered to sit out as she smoked earlier that morning. However, Dana said that they all smoked that morning before accusing Kimmie of wanting to watch them compete. Then, Robyn felt that Kimmie was too scared to compete.
In the first round, Brian and Christina put on their blindfolds and headphones. While Brian said that he trained for that challenge, he never thought it would be after having a pound of wings in his stomach and all over his mouth. Both got beets and pineapple, but Brian got turkey, calling it very dry and making Clemenza laugh. Still, Christina mistook it for tofu, much to Barbie’s bewilderment. The score was 3-2 for the blue team, and when Ramsay reminded Christina about the tofu incident, she was left embarrassed. In the second round, Robyn wanted to see Barbie fall flat on her face. While Barbie only got cilantro, Robyn failed to get all her ingredients correct. The score was a 3-point tie, and Dana laughed at Robyn’s failed run. On the third round, Tiffany could only guess walnuts, but Clemenza got none of his ingredients correct, making the score 4-3 for the red team. In the final round, both Justin and Dana got fig and radish, but as the former got both scallops from earlier, and the final ingredient being sunchoke, the blue team won the challenge 7-6. After the challenge, Ramsay was impressed that Justin scored the first perfect run in the challenge’s history. Robyn called it awesome, while a sore Dana accused him of cheating.
Scoring[]
Red Team | Blue Team | ||||
Chef | Score | Total | Chef | Score | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Christina | 2/4 | 2 | Brian | 3/4 | 3 |
Barbie | 1/4 | 3 | Robyn | 0/4 | 3 |
Tiffany | 1/4 | 4 | Clemenza | 0/4 | 3 |
Dana | 2/4 | 6 | Justin | 4/4 | 7 |
Results | 7-6 |
Reward[]
The blue team was rewarded with a day at Raging Waters with the whole park to themselves, and Justin was happy to get a tan. When the blue team walked out for their reward, the red team spitefully used their boxes to barricade them. Robyn called the park kickass during the reward as they got to go on any rides they wanted with no lines. Justin was happy about being out on a beautiful day, and Clemenza was seen doing a handstand. Later, the blue team relaxed in the sun, but a bored Brian wanted a scary ride and tried to convince his teammates to go on the largest slide of place. Everybody but Clemenza was up for it, so Brian did it at least twice.
Punishment[]
After hearing the blue team’s reward, Tiffany was upset that they lost and was very jealous. The red team was punished by participating in delivery day, which included restocking both kitchens. Christina did not want to get used to losing after a third challenge losing streak during the punishment. After seeing the number of packages they had to move out, an agitated Kimmie asked if they were kidding her. Later, a delivery of ice came in, with Christina feeling exhausted just looking at the truck. Tiffany wanted a personal assistant and wanted somebody to shoot her before spilling a bag of ice onto the floor. When Kimmie asked Barbie for some help, the latter decided to place the ice bags at the edge of the truck instead of on the ground as they wanted. That angered Kimmie, and she proceeded to tell off Barbie. However, Barbie refused to let a 6.1 and 300 pound Kimmie talk her down as the two had a fierce argument, where Barbie told Kimmie that she never worked a day in her life and that her ass shows it. That led to an angry Christina yelling at them to knock it off as they had no time.
Once the red team got their boxes in, Sous Chef Andi revealed their second part of the punishment; unbox all their peppercorn, grind them by hand and mortar, replace the fryer oil for both kitchens, and prep potatoes. All of that led Kimmie to call it the worst punishment she has ever done. Dana called it the least fun activity she had done and got some flakes in her eyes.
Menu creation[]
Later that day, the blue team came back from their reward but were met with a cold reception from the red team. That night, a truck horn blared, annoying Tiffany as she thought the red team was done with delivery day. After Barbie signed off the paperwork, she found a small box meant for them before wondering what it was. When everybody gathered in the dining room, Barbie opened the box to reveal a tablet. After pressing play, it opened a prerecorded message from Ramsay. Then, Ramsay announced that he was giving both teams a chance to have their own menus for the following night’s service and gave them one hour to create a menu with three appetizers, three entrées, and three desserts.
Both teams broke away from each other as an excited Dana called it a big opportunity to show Ramsay what they had. As the red team agreed on their menu items, Kimmie was stoked about putting her ideas on the menu. Still, her mussel idea was shot down by Dana, along with a beer batter for the halibut by Barbie, much to her dismay. Robyn and Justin were not on the same page for their menu items on the blue team as the latter felt the former’s ideas were too difficult. Justin even felt Robyn’s ideas came from a deli. Then, Brian and Justin agreed on their ideas. After Robyn grew concerned about their menu being too simple, she had another idea that was shot down. After, Clemenza’s red snapper suggestion was shot down, leaving him to feel that Justin and Brian were running the blue team. Meanwhile, Kimmie’s barbecue sauce idea was shot down. Dana felt Kimmie was taking things too personally as the red team decided to make something like barbecue sauce. Eventually, both teams got their menus completed. While Justin felt that the blue team’s dishes were not too complicated, they would be in big trouble if nobody could execute them.
Before service[]
The next day, both teams began prepping for that night’s service using their own menu items. Still, Kimmie had no idea what she was doing and asked her teammates questions, leading Barbie to call her the weakest link on the red team because of that. Despite calling prep hectic, Kimmie was ready to kick ass with a barbecue sauce. However, both Christina and Tiffany found the sauce tasting more Jack Daniels and honey. Christina suggested to Kimmie that she add more soy sauce and expressed concern about the former not knowing what to do. Despite that, Kimmie got her sauce fixed up. In the blue kitchen, Clemenza accidentally spilled sauce on his jacket, dismaying Justin. Remembering Ramsay’s comments from the previous elimination, Clemenza left prep to clean his jacket, but that pissed Brian as there was a lot of prep work to do. Barbie was very slowly cleaning the mussels in the red kitchen, with Tiffany sarcastically thanking her for the help for two and a half hours and accusing her of doing it on purpose. With Sous Chef Andi pushing the red team to get plates ready, everybody was getting pissed a Barbie. Even Christina lost her patience, and Kimmie threatened to hit Barbie. However, Barbie knew that her teammates did not care for her as a chef, and she cared more about Ramsay’s comments before leaving for a smoke break and angering Christina as they were very behind before taking over the mussel cleaning. Brian noticed that Clemenza was still missing in the blue kitchen, frustrating everybody, and Robyn wanted to choke him out. With time nearly running out, Tiffany asked Christina and Dana to taste her potatoes, but the two felt they were very crunchy. However, Tiffany claimed they were done, felt that she knew what fine dining was, and had nothing to worry about.
With only 30 minutes left before service began, Ramsay walked in to see the dishes both teams created. Ramsay felt the mussels looked washed up for the red team, which Christina felt was not the start they wanted, the beet salad tasted of dirt, and Dana hoped they could bounce back. However, Ramsay liked the remainder of the dishes. As Kimmie was happy her dish received praise, Christina knew they had to adjust the service to start. For the blue team, Ramsay criticized Robyn’s crab cake for looking 1980’s, the wagyu carpaccio lacking seasoning and the steak au poivre having too many onions. As they continued to get more negative reviews, Robyn feared the blue team would crash and burn. When Ramsay got to Clemenza’s quail, he saw it was raw with many bones, and as he was about to eliminate the latter immediately, the episode ended in a cliffhanger.
Trivia[]
- This marks the first time in the show's history somebody scored a perfect score on the Blind Taste Test.