Masterchef Singapore S02E01 RECAP!!!

CW: This is going to be very TLDR so you might wanna settle down with a caramel prawn baked rice puff pastry (if you know, you know).

Welcome Back!!! BAM! Everyone! We're back! It's Masterchef Singapore Season 2! After almost two years, it's still the only reason to watch Channel 5. I can't even say I'm fully recovered from Season 1, what with its ups and downs, lovable contestants, as well as uncomfortably sweaty re-enactments of colonial energies. In summary for those of you joining MasterChef Singapore for the very first time, Season 1 got off to a really great start with its foregrounding of Singaporean and regional cuisines. This was mostly thanks to a line-up of incredible contestants who really brought the sambal from the get go. Among them were Kakak OGL Shams for the Win in the end Never Win, Sharon Gonzago with the Good Hair, and Diana Queen of the Home Cooks. Midway, the show kind of fell off the horse a little bit when suddenly "elevation" became a priority, and a combination of that plus some really weird challenge mechanics saw a bloodless finale where the fiery Singapore food culture that opened the season became reduced to "Asian flourishes". By the end, most people stopped caring who was going to win, and were instead making fun of the show's cheesy reality TV mechanics, i.e. Singapore electoral politics. Now, this being the season of Seng Kang GRC, I'm trying to be optimistic. With shallowly-bated breath, I'm hoping that this season will not disappoint us in the same way. But, in the quick 30-second preview of the season to come that they flash at the top of the episode, I've already seen a couple of red flags: I might have caught a glimpse of an ang moh chef, plus noted Boba Liberal and CCP sympathiser Uncle Roger is slated to make an appearance, and alright, yup, Bjorn has already yelled "THIS IS MICHELIN QUALITY DUDE". Choices! Trust me when I say I'm not holding out for a ventilator. Anyway, books, covers, etc: LET'S GET STARTED! Changi Jewel Okay so the episode kicks off at... Changi Jewel. Five seconds in and I'm already confused. I can't quite wrap my mind around why we're here, exactly, but often with Changi Jewel the question is not why, but why not? We're off to a great start, kids. Anyway, the contestants are greeted by our esteemed panel of judges, back for round two: Bjorn, Damian, and Audra! I'm so happy they've made it through the pandemic, and Audra's hair is looking amazing. Damian's face looks severe as ever, and Bjorn just looks happy to be there. I still can't wrap my mind around why they're at Jewel, like help me out here guys. Is it a Shake Shack challenge? Are they gonna take a bus to Changi Village to make nasi lemak? Are they tapping into viewers's latent nostalgia for air travel? It becomes clear as Audra starts sermonising at the contestants about how Changi Jewel represents dreams coming true, and I realise, okay this is just THEATRE (lol Joel, you're so out of touch!). Anyway her speech doesn't seem to rouse the contestants 'cuz when she asks "WHO WANTS TO BE THE NEXT MASTERCHEF" there's a little tremor of uncertainty in the group before a few nervously stick their hands up. Outstanding. See, this is ultimately Singapore culture: you can build all the indoor rainforests you want but Wei Ming from Ang Mo Kio just wants a simple life. A few contestants are singled out for small-talk, just like the Presidential inspection of the honour guard at NDP, and very bizarrely a contestant called Trish is arrowed with the following: "eh Trish your husband is some top gun in the SAF right?" Look, producers it is squarely 2021, and a woman's husband should not be the LEADING let alone DEFINING point of interest about her. Is he here? Is he cooking? What SAF strings did he pull to get a mention? Shake my damn head. Anyway, 24 contestants need to be whittled down to 12 by this episode's end and so the judges explain some really weird-ass mechanics for the Heats: some of the contestants will face off in groups of 4, others in pairs, with only half of the contestants from each face-off making it through to the final 12. My eyes literally glaze over as they're doing this (too many numbers), and I'm also scanning the group for people to crush on, but before I know it they're being whisked away into some secret cooking laboratory in Changi Jewel, so less talk more COOKING! Heats! First up, kudos to everyone for the exemplary social distancing, more accurately: kudos to the harangued production crew running around with a one-metre ruler at all times. As the contestants troop into the kitchen they're staggered so beautifully it could be contemporary dance. I think social distancing accounts for this broken-up heats mechanism: they obviously can't have 24 people cooking off in a kitchen at the same time, and so they're duking it out BATTLE ROYALE style, in small groups, with each group cooking along themed battles (e.g. pork, fish, dessert, etc). They basically get to cook whatever they want within the theme. I can't say I like this. Something about this feels inherently uneven, and it lacks something of the rousing hyper-local fanfare of last season's opening challenge: THE SAMBAL BELACAN CHALLENGE. That challenge, alone, got me sucked into the show: the audacity, the sweaty drama, the intuitive beauty of a bunch of people whacking away at their mortars and pestles to produce fragrant chili paste? It was so absurd and romantic! And isn't there something so exquisitely masochistic and Singaporean about a competition saying: IF YOU CANNOT EVEN MAKE PROPERLY YOUR SAMBAL, YOU SHOULD JUST GO HOME. I remember, in Season 1, contestants going up to the judge's table with their little petri dishes of sambal. The verdicts were often as simple as "mm can" and "no good." No ang moh MasterChef could ever. Instead, in Season 2, rightly or wrongly, we get a bunch of people making, well, off the top of my head... paella, eclairs, cheesecakes, and, most symbolic of these culinary culture wars: Caramel Prawn Baked Rice Puff Pastry. Round One: Seafood The first group of four to compete is cooking seafood. Amongst the challengers are singer-writer-actor-now-Masterchef Contestant, Inch Chua, who I was surprised to see on the show (we know each other! waves). There's also a lovely flight attendant called Mitchelle, who, FYI, I met at the MasterChef audition when I was sent "under-cover" with 8 Days magazine to write about the audition process. I therefore have like 0.8% insider knowledge, most of which is locked behind a powerful NDA. All I can say is that Mitchelle, who I dubbed Pasta Lady in that article, won me over with her sunny disposition, penchant for delightfully Singaporean-ising the names of European dishes, and her gorgeous clothes. I somehow knew she would make it on the show. That, plus the fact that she made her own pasta dough, rolled it into ravioli, and served it with chili crab sauce, all the while swooping her arms theatrically in the air saying "raviolo" more times than I'd ever heard it said in my life. It's worth pointing out now that the show has a major pun and dad joke problem. Riffing off Mitchelle's flight attendant status, the judges go: "so Mitchelle, now that you have your wings clipped, are you going to clip the wings of your competitors?" Later, Mitchelle gets in on the punnery herself, describing her Tom Yum Paella with a belaboured "take you from Spain to Thailand" analogy. I'm calling it: every time there's a stupid pun on this show, mostly Bjorn's fault I'm afraid to say, let's take a shot of chlorox. Turns out Inch is making a paella too (cue reality TV drama SFX) and so this round becomes a battle of the Paellas 'cuz the other two contenders are fairly forgettable. Oh wait no, scratch that, there's Alderic and his attempted Hokkien Mee Fried Rice which... sis, what? Isn't Hokkien Mee Fried Rice basically Paella? Was he made to call it by that weird misnomer so that we wouldn't end up with a three-way Paella fight? I think so, because that would make all of us wonder why, on an ISLAND renowned for its seafood dishes, the first challenge of MasterChef Singapore revolved around... Spanish soggy rice? As it turns out, Aiman, the fourth contender, makes a sort of lobster thermidor rice thing so we in effect get FOUR seafood rice dishes, which, someone just take my wine. Aiman at the last second forgets to put on the sauce and says shit on air, which turned me on a bit ("aiseh, Aiman," exclaims my mother, everyone welcome Dolly Tan, btw, who's watching this with me). The judges, btw, are SO noisy during the cook, alternating between spelling out the obvious (along the lines of "you need to cook that, don't you?") and the needlessly dramatic ("uh oh you're running out of time aren't you?). My mother: "aiya why they keep disturbing them! Just leave them alone lah, keep asking so many questions for what?" Unsurprisingly, the top 2 goes to Mitchelle and Inch, and Mitchelle in particular I'm very excited to see on this show ("no luck to you, good luck to you, better luck to you, and best of luck to me!" she says in her reflection on the cook-off, simultaneously ranking her competitors, wishing them luck, and judging their food, all the while flashing a megawatt SQ smile, like a very over-achieving RGS girl with designs on your PSC scholarship). Round Two: Pork This is a one-on-one battle, and in come Carina and Trish for a porky pork face off. Trish, if you'll remember, is the lady from earlier with the "big shot" SAF husband, and it's hard to forget 'cuz they keep bringing it the fuck up (turns out he's a pilot, how do we know? 'cuz they KEEP BRINGING IT UP). Look, I'm no fan of the SAF but I do like the unassuming Trish, who for this cook-off is making her grandma's Char Siu recipe. Carina, who I'm told is a children's theatre director, is making Gyozas, which is a bit of a chin-scratcher 'cuz Gyozas, while yummy, are... firmly in snack territory? Tbh, I wouldn't be nitpicking on this if, mid-cook, Carina hadn't turned saltily to the camera to say of Trish, "Personally, I wouldn't do pork belly in a 40 minute challenge" and in my head I'm like, sis, this is reality TV, and salty sisters end up last, so you'd better focus on making your snack. Turns out Carina isn't alone in trying to neg Trish's char siu ambitions. Audra says to her as they start the cook: "oh, Trish, you're not making a marinade?" and I'm like, Audra, can you hear yourself, a marinade? They've got 40 minutes. This is almost as bad as when in Season 1 Bjorn saw that Zander was making Carbonara and, went "what, no Guanciale?" Sure Bjorn, let me just find some artisanal cured pork cheek from the sponsored-by Cold Storage pantry (newsflash: the groceries this season are sponsored by RED MART, which seems significant but I don't know why). Clearly all this Trish-negging is just producery set-up so there's some suspense, though really there can be no credible fight between glazed roast pork belly and... gyoza. It's like against the laws of physics or something. Please lah, show me a gyoza that's more delicious than 3 layers of pig fat glazed and charred with more fat. Summore, Trish is working off an heirloom grandma pork belly recipe, so you KNOW the producers are gunning for the "my grandma would be so proud to see me win" zinger, which indeed, Trish, as she receives the win, obligingly delivers: "if my grandma could see me with this white apron, she would be so proud..." A note on Trish. She's got a lovely, down-to-earth personality, an unpretentious air about her, and some really solid plating and food ideas. I'm sure her husband's lovely and no doubt is paid very well to protect our skies, but honest to god if they mention him one more time on this show, there'd better be a really good pay-off later. Like, surprise episode 10 twist: Trish helps her team win in a Total Defence challenge where they have to cook a meal in the jungle amidst an air strike simulation: "my husband told me there's always a 10-second window between bombs! 10... 9... quickly season the boar!... 8... 7..." Round Three: Dessert Ostensibly the MOST dramatic of the cook-offs this episode, if only because the producers really gave us RuPaul's drag race levels of faux suspense with this one. The two dessert contenders are cutie-patooty engineering student, Derek, who's all wide-eyed surprise and MasterChef super-nerdery; and Oon, a quite dishy dentist whose home kitchen looks like he might have won the last MasterChef (whose prizes included very expensive cookware from VZug). Dapper Dentist is making red velvet eclairs (red velvet is a little... 2018 isn't it?), to which Audra goes, "ooh I love eclairs, are you gonna make me a good eclair, Oon?" and I'm like, sis, is it me or are you being very sultry this evening? Derek who, as the judges keep reminding us, is an engineer, is all about the progressive gastronomy wizardry. "Oh my god you're SUCH an engineer, Audra coos at him (STOP IT, AUDRA), as Derek explains some weird frog-egg looking thing he's producing with drops of fruit juice. Turns out he's making some fancy-schmancy de-constructed poached apple thing, which, you know, fine, okay. The final product is in fact quite gorgeous, if mysteriously green (flashback to the lurid radioactive pandan diarreah from Season 1). [NB: Now, longtime readers of my recaps might remember my gentle disdain for Aaron, the last MasterChef contestant who, like Derek, brought this sort of Star Trek cooking onto the show. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about modernist cooking, I just think it's a nightmare we'll wake up from in the near future when the world is in some calamitous global food shortage and we shudder at the hubris of serving things like chocolate soil and oysters made to look like mushrooms. This is also the brand of cuisine that saw a bar recently serve me a cocktail made from oyster distillate that was meant to taste like orh luak but that in fact tasted like sewage, which to me is like, if you're going to be so precious about things can make it not taste like sewage? I believe the specific term that was used to describe Season 1's Aaron was "progressive zichar," which, you know, hold my wine. For some reason, Derek, whose vibe is more Culinary C3PO and less 63-Degree Egg Fuckboi, appeals to me a lot more. It's the fresh-faced earnestness and geekiness for me, and men with gentle energies and an unassuming air always win the day for me. I also like how matter-of-factly he delivers possibly the bitchiest line I've heard on the show so far: "how good can an eclair be, anyway?"; someone print that on a T-shirt] Anyway, the win goes to Derek, no surprise, given how his dessert is already making Bjorn foam at the mouth on episode one, delivering perhaps the biggest line of the show to date: THIS IS MICHELIN QUALITY. First of all I think this is a pretty bold claim to be making within the MasterChef franchise, though I am very happy for Derek. I mean we're gonna have to take homeboy Bjorn's word for it, him being a chef and all, but a reminder that Bjorn is also the guy who, in Season 1, said Zander's sliced fennel in soy sauce made him, and I quote, want to cry. Also, and probably more importantly, what ~is~ Michelin Quality, and what is it used to measure? Is it, simply, deliciousness? Or is it, more likely, a performance of Eurocentric cultural and aesthetic norms about the meanings of food? Don't @ me, there've literally been documentaries made about this. I hope Bjorn screams "THIS IS MICHELIN QUALITY" at something else on the show, and I hope it's something like, I dunno, Orh Nee. Meanwhile, Oon, whose eclair is certainly to Audra's delectation (she started it!), looks crushed. But as he walks away, CLIFFHANGER, the judges tell him to stop. It's so obviously going to be a double win, and it's kind of embarrassing how hard they bang us over the head with the set-up. Please lah, we've been watching reality TV competitions for 20 years, guys, nothing surprises us anymore. But because they cut patronisingly to advertisements at this juncture so will I. Ad Break What the FUCK is up with that KFC ad starring Elvin Ng and Rui En selling us the new Goldspice Chicken, featuring a creamy salted egg crust, curry leaves, and sweet basil? What is the plot of this ad? Is this an experimental film? Why are they staring so desultorily (seductively?) at each other, and doing little else? Why does Rui En have a single smear of red eyeshadow under her eye? Why is she so mystified by Elvin Ng ("is he for real?" she intones internally, as she watches him munch on chicken, to what effect, I ask), and why does he look like he's poisoned the chicken? Has he? Can he? Did they improvise this scene? Who made this Ad? Did someone actually write this? Is this someone's job? Do people get paid for this? Why am I still so poor? Round 4: Baking Okay back to the show. Surprise, it's a double win for Derek and Oon. The boys fist-bump adorably and run, cheering, out of the studio. I SUPER ship this pairing and will write a cooking boyslove fanfic for them if someone pays me enough. Up next is the baked goods round, featuring the two most emosh storylines in the episode. The first is Nor, a home-maker, who on entering the MasterChef kitchen already starts crying. Don't cry Nor! She's so emotional because this is really dreams-come-true stuff for her and she really wants to prove to people that she's got the skills and know-how. I get the sense from the way she talks about herself ("I'm no ordinary mum") that people tend to under-estimate her, and we are ALL here for that rising phoenix storyline. I got so excited that I actually forgot to take down what she was making, but it's got a punny name (drink): Cakespeare in Love, so I assume there's... cake? Whatever it is, it's apparently an "18th century dessert," which is, sis, what, hold my wine, we are here for the research, we are here for this crypto-dessert moment, we are here for this archival material! This lady has not come to play play. [Though sidenote: I'm not sure a dessert being from the 18th century is particularly recommending, especially if it's English, as I'm gathering it might be from the whole 'Cakespeare' thing. The seminal 19th century culinary text, MRS. BEETON'S BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, gives recipes for such austere Victorian delectables as "Common Cake, suitable for sending to Children at School," "A Nice Useful Cake," "Rock Biscuits," and, my favourite, "Scrap Cakes". It also contains a very involved recipe for "Hot Buttered Toast". And this was the 19th century, when sugar was MORE commonly available, so imagine the 18th.] The other emosh storyline is from Chinese tuition teacher, Leon, who within the first five seconds of his interview is all: "I've always had confidence issues because of my weight." Okay, stop, don't need to do liao, give him the crown, thanks. Audra chimes in here, going: "YOU WERE BULLIED IN THE PAST BUT TODAY YOU CAN FORGE YOUR OWN DESTINY" (really loving this Anime version of Audra, where can I download the same software update for myself please?). I love how gentle and sweet Leon is, and for this challenge, he graces us with a lemon matcha cheesecake, which he calls Lemon Tree (drink). "This is me on a plate," he says, which is a lovely turn of phrase, and one I super relate to. This idea conjures up for me that complicated emotional world made up of food and eating, shame, and love, fear and desire. It really is all there on the plate, a dynamic that's instantly recognisable to all of us who've been bullied for our weight. Then there's Umar who has the most fabulous swirl of hair down his forehead that never seems to go out of place no matter how fussed he gets, and sis gets FUSSED as first the sugar burns and then the time runs out, and the judges are screaming obvious things like "uh oh, make sure that doesn't burn!". Once again I also forget what it is that Umar is making, because I find him so charming. Or is it because I was so utterly distracted and horrified by the Frankenstein monster produced by the soft-spoken Derrick, who flabbergasts us all with his plan to feed us CARAMEL PRAWN BAKED RICE PUFF PASTRY. It really looks like one of those word scrambles where the first three things you see will define the rest of your year. It's "SCREAM" and "FUCK" and "CAN DON'T" for me. One minute Derrick is making some caramel thing and the next minute the camera cuts to a bowlful of king prawns, and the only way those two things should meet is in different stages of digestion. Later, as Damian tastes this dish, he says, sour-faced even for him: "you've got the herbs going, then you've got the rice going, then you've got the cream cheese going, then there's the sugar, and then you've got the acidity from the pineapple..." and I'm like, wait, what there's pineapple too? Where the fuck did the pineapple come from? Bjorn, ever the cheerleader, gamely, chimes in with "I KINDA LIKE IT" which, I dunno, kinda raises a few Qs w/r/t his MICHELIN QUALITY exclamation, above, but let's leave it. I have very little else to say about CARAMEL PRAWN BAKED RICE PUFF PASTRY-gate except that, verily, this is the sort of thing that happens when you keep telling people to elevate, elevate, elevate until kee siao. Nor gets the first win, which is all whoop-di-dee, and then sis really drops the gauntlet with: "People tend to under-estimate me but I am actually a dessert aficionado and I have a real sense for varying textural components [insert some other very profesh sounding academic cooking terms here]" and it's very clear sis knows her shit. Also, DESSERT AFICIONADO, strong book title. I'm still not entirely sure what she served up, but Damian describes it for us: "it's got all the notes-- salty, umami, sweet, sour, bitter..." and my mum, who's still here btw, chimes in: "aiya so busy her plate," and I literally have to turn to her and say, MOTHER IT'S FROM THE 18TH CENTURY. Leon gets the second win, narrowly beating out Umar's well-received offering, and it's all smiles and "you go girl, you are beautiful no matter what they say," and with that, says Audra, turning to her colleagues, WE HAVE OUR FINAL 12!!! Yikes! We didn't get to see all the contestants face off, and those that got edited out for time were squeezed into a little montage sequence that gave us the greatest hits from the other heats. From what I could gather though, there was a LOT of drama including such zingers as: THIS WAS A FAILURE.... people crying... no aprons being given out 'cuz both the dishes were so bad... and a dish actually called THE ORIENTAL DREAM. The edit we got seems a little milder in comparison. Some general thoughts about the episode: I'm not going to lie, as excited as I am to be back in MasterChef Singapore, this was okay at best. The way the last season opened with such a potent and thrilling gesture towards local cuisine set a very strong tone. Initially at least, it seemed to put our food culture at the centre of the show. With S2E1, we've seen "local" flavours more or less consigned to that tiresome "Asian touch" genre again. I guess the upside with this format is that we get a stronger sense of who these contestants are as cooks from the get-go, which is fun, but I hope the show gives us some sambal in the coming weeks because I didn't sign up to watch another season of Creative Pastas. Also, with the experience and expectations of Season 1 to work off, it's clear this season's contestants are coming in primed and ready. Given how the last season rewarded "elevated" cooking and steadily de-prioritised local food culture, I think this might have some clear down-sides insofar as what kinds of cooks the show has attracted, and what kinds of attitudes about the relative "worthiness" of different cuisines they're bringing with them. Fingers crossed. It'll be very, very interesting to see how the show navigates the whole "elevating" local cuisine thing given we're still in the midst of a lot of grumpiness w/r/t questions of culinary appropriation. What does elevation mean in a cuisine where refinement may not look or taste the way it does in another? Who gets to say? Is blue rice more atas than white? What would it take for Bjorn to scream "THIS IS MICHELIN QUALITY" at a plate of rendang? Stray thoughts: -I love how Damian's go-to compliment format is: "I could eat your XYZ any day of the week," which he says a couple of times on this episode. He also says at some point: "this has surpassed everything I've eaten in the past month." First, I really hope he's eating okay, and secondly, I love how organised his eating schedule seems to be. I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday. -I also really like that the producers seem to be egging the contestants to act more competitive on the show. It's only episode one and they seem to have prodded otherwise very placid seeming Singaporeans to say things like "HOW GOOD COULD AN ECLAIR BE, ANYWAY". Once again, someone print that on a T-shirt. -Bjorn is really the king of hyperbole, which is what we love about him. We stan a generous king. That said, he's already played the MICHELIN QUALITY card so now I'm very curious about what other ecstatic heights of praise he can reach over the rest of the season. Perhaps "this soup resurrected twelve generations of my family, re-housed them in new bodies, and sent them throughout the universe on a mission of scientific discovery". -Back to Trish and her husband, I really hope the show gives her some really powerful feminist arc where she single-handedly helps MasterChef Singapore pass the Bechdel Test. I am, however, also quite fond of my jungle air strike theory, though that is the ONLY way I can accept the way they've framed Trish this episode. -Why does Audra say "dude" so much? Why does anyone say "dude"? Does anyone still say dude? Is this an expressly straight people thing? Someone help me understand. -Remember we have a drinking game where every time we hear a dad joke or a stupid pun, we take a shot of chlorox. Most cringe from this episode, re the show-down between Derek and Oon, was Bjorn going: "will the student take the dentist to school, or will the dentist extract..." I can't remember the rest 'cuz I fully lost my shit at this point.  

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