Tonight’s instant restaurant is Mitch and Laura’s, the brother and sister team from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. They head off into town to begin their shopping for tonight’s meal.
The entree for tonight is smoked venison. Main is roasted wild boar. Dessert is Black Forest mousse cake.
Their restaurant is called The Pines and is decorated as a green forest and woodland.
They begin preparing their chocolate mousse cake and ice-cream for the dessert. Then they get started on the cherry jelly. With 43 minutes remaining they make the mousse. They go and get changed while the other contestants begin to arrive. The contestants were completely wowed with the decorations of the instant restaurant.
Mitch and Laura start preparing their entree. The judges arrive and the menu is revealed to all of the guests. The guests are not overly impressed with the bugs crawling around on the tablecloth.
Laura begins to sear the venison in a frypan until it is golden. After it is cooked in the oven they take it out to carve it up. Laura is not really happy as the venison is a little overcooked.
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The entree is taken out to the guests. Pete and Manu taste the entree. They lift a fancy glass cloche and smoke comes out. Laura suddenly realises that the lovely jus she has made is still in the kitchen. Manu says wow, and that it was gorgeous. He is very impressed but he was missing a jus and the meat was not rare. Pete says he was impressed with how serious they were about the competition. He said they need to work on their cooking technique and that the venison should have been more pink. The contestants now get to taste their meal. Zana is not impressed as her meat was tough and she was having trouble chewing it. Monique loved the dish and said that had the meat been cooked properly then it would have been a 10/10 for her.
Laura and Mitch begin preparing the main meal. Laura cooks the boar back straps in a frypan and accidentally leaves them in the pan. She is worried that she has overcooked the boar. She cuts open a test piece of boar and she is happy with it. They are concerned that they are serving pan fried boar instead of roasted boar. They begin preparing the cranberry sauce, carrots, potatoes and celeriac puree. However their red wine jus is not edible, they are unable to fix it.
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The main meal is served to the judges. Pete was disappointed that the boar wasn’t roasted as it said on the menu and he did not like the cranberry sauce. He would have preferred a jus. Manu agreed with Pete about the jus. He said there is a lot of work to be done with the dish but if they are going to be around in the competition for a while then he can see them producing some amazing food. The other contestants really seemed to enjoy the meal, even Zana loved the meat. They commented on how tart the cranberry sauce was though.
It’s dessert time. Laura tempers the chocolate and puts it into the fridge. The Black Forest mousse cake seems to have set well. They take the ice-cream out of the freezer and it is sloppy. It has not set properly so they try and get it on the plate as soon as possible. It has turned to slop, there is no way they are able to quenelle it.
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The dessert is taken out to the guests. Pete and Manu seem impressed with the tempered chocolate from the start. Pete says the mousse cake was perfect. He loved the sponge, the mousse and the jelly. It was sensational and he couldn’t fault it. He said he didn’t mind that the ice-cream wasn’t set but he didn’t really see the need for it. Manu said he disagreed with Pete, he said the whole dish was perfect. He said it was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!! He said he is now going to ask more from them in the future, the bar has been set high. The other contestants loved the dessert and they agreed that it was faultless. Zana did not like the sponge layer in the cake, she was disappointed with the dessert. Her husband agreed with her.
It’s time for the guests to score their meals.
JP and Nelly – 9
Anna and Jordan – 9
Zana and Gianni – 8
Cheryl and Matt – 8
Monique and Sarah – 7
Combined score of 41/50
Manu
Entree – 6
Main – 8
Dessert – 10
Pete
Entree – 7
Main – 8
Dessert – 9
Mitch and Laura’s Instant Restaurant Score: 89/110