I’m livid after watching the episode. They invited and showed everyone’s family during tasting, except Deepa and Sachins. What wrong have they done? The Sindhi in me is hurt seeing this blatant bias against the Sindhi contestants. If Aruna can play the religion card, so can the audience.
So they start tasting with Aruna’s dish. It looked like she’s just put a bunch of things on a plate, I’m sure her daughter could come up with better presentation. There was no mention on the presentation, when other good looking plates had feedback. That was a pave?
Just putting vegetable chopped in a certain way doesn’t make it a pave. Also it didn’t look baked at all. Looked like boiled vegetables. According to the judges her dish was faultless (no surprises).
Shanta - she made a fish coated with maan dhaniya crust and served it with cauliflower pithika and green beans, with a beautiful looking gravy. Plating looked boring until she poured the gravy, which made it pop. All the judges really liked her dish.
Kamaldeep - she made a chocolate cake with a peanut praline (chikki) stuffing, chocolate ganache and white chocolate and lemon zest buttons. It didn’t look appetizing at all. If I saw this on a dessert counter, I’d skip it. The judges tried calling it rustic, to make up for the lack of finish. Interesting how a word can hide all your mistakes. Garima thought the ganache was smooth, but it looked quite grainy on screen. Had any other contestant made this (except Aruna), the judges would’ve said we expected more at this stage.
Nayanjyoti- that pot pie looked so beautiful, and I think everyone really liked the flavours. It’s just that the sides weren’t completely cooked. Loved the braiding on the sides of the pie, gave it a very polished look. The plating was simple, but considering he had a pie to serve, he did well by not crowding the plate.
Gurkirat - he made a nest with something that looked like noodles (the seviyaan used in a knafeh are way thinner). He had a bapha doi (steamed yoghurt) ball in the centre which had a centre filling of blueberry compote. He made strawberry leather/jelly to cover half the top. He decorated well with berrys and flowers and caviar (forgot what flavours). His plate looked beautiful. In fact for me it was tied first with Sachins. He got all good reviews, except that he should’ve used a lighter coloured plate for the caviar to show.
Suvarna - she made bombil fry, coriander and rosemary flavoured rice and tambda rasa (I think). Plating was extremely simple, but the flavours were praised. The rice had a very strong flavour because she used two strong herbs to flavour it. Overall she received decent comments.
Deepa - she made a guchchi pulao and shaadi ji bhaji. The judges started praising her flavours, everything seemed perfect, until they realized, she wasn’t someone they wanted to save today. Then they started talking about how the guchchi had mud which could be felt in the mushroom and rice as well. Seemed like they were nitpicking.
Sachin - his playing was wow! The judges actually praised his plating, so that’s a big win for him, considering the judges have taken some sort of oath to not see any positives in his dishes. His dish received mainly good reviews - they liked the use of pepper to add sweetness, the crisp tasted like naan. And then they remembered that they had to have him in the black apron challenge. So they spoke about how he should’ve used chicken tikka or pieces in his koftas for a bite. Anybody could see how crunchy those koftas were. Clearly there was a bite in that. Also he had salad and the naan crisp for a bite. It clearly seemed like zabardasti ka fault finding. It’s a pity, because his dish definitely deserved to be safe.
To me the three dishes that should’ve been saved were - Shanta, Gurkirat and Sachin.