As usual the pairing was extremely unfair. Priyanka and Nayanjyoti have already worked together a few times and understand each other. Add to that they’re both great at desserts, so they already had an upper hand. The other two pairs had little to no commonalities.
Talking about each pair -
Priyanka/Nayanjyoti - they chose a good dish, an apple pie is a dish they both as bakers may already have made. They played to their strengths. They did work very well together, instructions were clear, they’ve learnt from past seasons using the clock as a reference point. The judges kept telling other teams that they had less elements, didn’t this team also have a similar number of elements? Also if we talk about their playing, it was simple.
Suvarna/Priya - it’s not easy working with Suvarna, but today she didn’t seem so bad; until she started her blame game. We must give credit to Priya, she knew she had to play second fiddle to Suvarna if she even wanted to get a presentable dish to the judges. I quite liked their idea, and it annoyed me when the judges kept telling them that they had less elements. I think they had as many as Priyanka and Nayanjyoti. The first comment from Suvarna, that she was happy to be paired with Priya because she would listen to her, spoke volumes about the person she is. I was happy when the judges shut her up when she mentioned Priya forgetting the white chocolate.
Sachin/Naziya - I thought they’d be able to work together, they both come across as easy to get along. The chaos on their table was mainly due to Naziya not bringing the necessary ingredients. At the cost of sounding repetitive - how can one forget to bring sugar if making a desert??? After that she didn’t bring dark chocolate, then she had just one orange. Then she even managed to burn the pistachio crumble and says she only added a spoon of butter. Why is it so hard to follow instructions? Hats off to Sachin for still keeping his cool. He did get annoyed at one moment, but didn’t let Naziya know. I thought that was a sign of a good team player. I’m surprised in spite of so many set backs they managed to get a dish on the table. At presentation or even otherwise Naziya appeared so non chalant about goofing up big time. She was allowed to walk back, but that won’t be true for Sachin (if he has to leave tomorrow). I’d have expected atleast some remorse from her.
All of their plating was quite similar, and in my opinion Suvarna and Priya had the best plating.