The top seven, sans Sav, head overseas. First up: a cook-out at Victoria “Beckham” Harbour and plenty of gratuitous skyline shots from a rooftop.
MasterChef soars to a new level as the amateurs head to Hong Kong, city of magic and wonder, to experience a thrilling new variety of rapid montage. Harry is king of the amateurs because he gets to fly business class, while the rest are jammed together in economy like the filthy peasants they are. As they touch down in Hong Kong, Harry has become thoroughly convinced that he is better than normal people, and the other amateurs all have deep vein thrombosis.
The amateurs meet the judges atop a tall building at night, with the glittering cityscape laid out before them. The atmosphere strongly suggests that they are there to plan some kind of casino heist, but unfortunately it’s just going to be cooking again. It’s getting a bit repetitive isn’t it?
Andy informs the group that Hong Kong is home to 79 Michelin stars, 76 of which belong to the same McDonald’s. He then tells them that they’ll be getting a mystery box in the morning, and they all go to bed. So what was the point of this rooftop meeting? Are they just pandering to glittering cityscape enthusiasts? Cheap, MasterChef.
Next morning the amateurs show up at Victoria Harbour, named after Victoria Beckham, to discover what’s in their boxes. It turns out to be a cornucopia of Hong Kong ingredients, including crabs, pork belly, soy sauce, mangosteens, and a bunch of things I don’t know how to spell.
The three best cooks will get a place in tomorrow’s cook for immunity from the next elimination, which will take place back in Melbourne because it would just be too depressing to cut someone loose on the streets of Hong Kong.
Josh is outside his comfort zone, but he likes the look of the pork belly, hopefully just as food, although when he tells Andy and Poh that he wants to “make it sticky”, doubts arise. Poh reminds Josh that the most important thing today is that she say “umami” as often as possible.
In a sudden shock twist, Harry decides to make seafood. He notes that he hasn’t cooked this crab before, which is lucky, because it’d be weird to cook the same crab twice. He believes that by cooking the crab and making crab stock he can pack his crab full of crab flavour. Checks out.
Mimi gazes out over the water and finds herself unable to stop dissolving into a montage of old childhood photos. She is feeling the weight of history and culture upon her, and feels uncertain about what to do. “There’s so many ideas in my head,” she says, but after running through them all decides that the best idea is to try to cook something.
Meanwhile, Lachlan has decided to go with what he knows: wearing a beanie. He explains his Thai-inspired dish to Andy and Poh. Andy and Poh have no idea what he’s talking about. In fact, they don’t seem to be entirely sure who he is. They quietly ask the producer to check his passport.
Nat and Jean-Christophe have a chat. He admits he’s never been to Hong Kong before. “Imagine a Frenchman in Hong Kong,” he says. Everyone pauses for a minute to do so. Wow. While Nat is imagining a Frenchman in Hong Kong, Sofia steals her mangosteens, and it becomes clear this entire Hong Kong trip was just a ruse to enable Sofia’s plans to establish a black market mangosteen business.
Josh tastes his dish. He doesn’t like it. Finally, he knows what the judges have been going through all these weeks. It’s too salty. Jean-Christophe asks what he’s going to do. Josh doesn’t know. As a Michelin-starred chef, Jean-Christophe knows what he should do (make it less salty), but admirably retains his objectivity, refusing to give Josh a hint.
‘Imagine a Frenchman in Hong Kong,’ Jean-Christophe says. Everyone pauses for a minute to do so. Wow.
Meanwhile, the judges meet to watch Poh do a weird monkey impression, the reasons for which are destined to remain forever unknown.
Harry is happy with how his dish is going. His noodles are resting, and his crab is catching up on some reading. Andy tells him that what matters is how he edits the dish, yet again getting food confused with newspapers.
Moving on, Andy and Poh visit Nat, who mispronounces her own dish, forcing Poh to correct her and Andy to frown in total incomprehension. Nat is basing her rice-noodle rolls on “intuition and also memory” – the deciding factor will be whether it’s a memory of rice-noodle rolls, or of, say, a pony ride, which would taste awful.
Mimi is progressing well on her pineapple buns, which is a kind of bun that contains no pineapple, making Mimi a liar. Jean-Christophe tells her that her pork is looking lovely: the guy never stops flirting.
Over on Darrsh’s bench, he reveals that he’s working on his bao buns, despite the fact that Poh told him explicitly earlier that “bao” means “bun”, so “bao bun” is redundant. Darrsh just never learns, and if the judges find out he’s still using tautologies, he could, under MasterChef rules, be immediately disqualified.
With three minutes to go, Lachlan’s oil isn’t hot enough, Nat’s pork is too hot, Josh has combined saltiness with sweetness with sourness with bitterness with umami to make something beyond man’s worst nightmares, and Mimi, after taking out her pineapple buns, believes herself to have become a god.
Time is up, and the dishes must be tasted before the authorities discover that the show did not get a permit to film here. Night falls. Everyone’s food goes cold.
Several days later, the judges start tasting. Harry’s crab stares at them with menacing beady eyes. Poh thinks Harry’s done a great job, although who knows if we can trust her? “You’ve really honoured the crab,” she says, but the crab thinks it would’ve honoured it more not to kill and eat it. Jean-Christophe attaches a piece of crab to Harry’s chest, having been drinking since dawn.
Josh steps forward hoping to show the judges that he’s not just a meat-and-three-veg guy – he’s also a meat-with-an-egg-on-top guy. Everyone is very happy with Josh’s dish, which they pin up on the fridge to show how special he is.
Lachlan serves the pork that he is very concerned about. He is right to be concerned: Poh loves the flavours, but not the texture; his decision to coat the pork in corduroy has backfired. Sofia advises him to “shrug his shoulders off”, which is dubious advice, as cooking without shoulders is fiendishly difficult.
Darrsh serves pork belly bao. Andy demands to know whether the bao is fluffy, even though it’s right in front of him and he could just eat it and find out. Darrsh is so stressed his head explodes in a fireball. After an ad break we discover that the baos are not fluffy and Darrsh’s family will carry the shame forever.
Nat serves her mispronounced cheung fun. All the judges wet themselves with joy over it.
At last Mimi, plating up pineapple buns and even more monologues about her heritage. The judges eat and immediately burst into hysterical laughter. Mimi’s knack for comedy buns has paid off. Andy is forced by Mimi’s bold flavours to reassess his life, coming to some disturbing conclusions.
In the end Mimi, Nat and Harry go into the immunity cook, while the other three must spend the night on the wharf to think about what they’ve done. Tune in tomorrow, when there will be even more pointless establishing shots.
