The Chopping Block
Premiere Recap

Good evening and welcome to the series premiere of The Chopping Block. Eight couples are going to New York City to compete for the chance to open their own restaurant. There will be four restaurants for them to work in and secret food tasters will be there to judge them on their work. Hell's Kitchen (UK) Marco Pierre will train them and and help one team win a quarter of a million dollars towards their restaurant, a new kitchen and a trip to Europe.

The show opens with the teams cleaning up their restaurants and preparing to work. The eight teams are put into two bigger teams--red and black.

CHALLENGE: RED TEAM

Marco Pierre meets up with them and lets them know that if they want to win, they have to work as a team. Their first challenge is to prepare to open at 7pm the very next night. Each team has two trucks with supplies and only fifteen minutes to decide what they need.  There is a bit of panicking, but in the end both teams get what they need to begin cooking.

Later on, Marco tastes the food to decide who he will appoint as head chef.

He hates the scallop dish from Chad and Mikey

He enjoyed the salmon dish from Michael and Panya.

He thought the chicken piccata with risotto from Kelsey and Vanessa was bland.

Although he removed the salad from his plate, he loved the veal Lisa and Anapol made.

He chooses Lisa as the Head Chef of the evening.

CHALLENGE: BLACK TEAM

Meanwhile, the Black Team seems to be having a hard time, despite how hard they are working.  Things are breaking, people are getting frustrated, yet they are still determined to do the best they can to impress Marco at the tasting.

He has mixed feelings on the scallop dish made by Koha and Denise.  He liked the scallops but not the corn they added.

He thinks the lamb and risotto dish from Dean and Shari was a bit much and thinks they should have kept it simple.

Zan and Than's chicken dish impressed Marco due to its simplicity.

Angie and Samantha's shrimp, chicken and sausage jambalaya made him happy to eat--at home. He did not feel as if it would work in a restaurant.

Than is chosen as Head Chef for the Black Team.

SET UP

Marco reminds them that if they win, they are all safe and if not, one couple will be eliminated. This motivates everyone to work as hard as they can to make everything perfect.  They split up writing up menus, cooking and  cleaning up and setting up the restaurant.

AND IT BEGINS!

The doors open and both teams begin to serve and try and make their customers happy. Everyone is a bit nervous, and the fact that there are anonymous food servers there to determine who will win does not help matters!  Everything keeps getting confused and mixed up, causing a lot of tension between everyone.  People keep fighting, making mistakes and even serving cold food because it is not served in time.

The Red Team runs out of filet mignon, which annoys their secret critic.  They are also annoyed with the desserts, which one table claims is 'dull' and 'hard as a rock.'

THE NEXT DAY

Marco gathers everyone around and brings out their secret food critic, a man named Coby Kummer.

BLACK TEAM
Appetizer review: He liked the crab cakes, calling them very impressive.
Entree: He didn't like how the chicken was undercooked.

RED TEAM
Entree: He says the salmon filet with the lemon sauce was like 'walking through Emerald City'
Dessert: He says it was like a home-ec experiment and he could not bite into it.

He says the Black Team wouldn't last one night in NYC, but the Red Team has a lot of promise, so they won the challenge.

This means that one couple will go home from the Black Team.  Marco gathers them all together. They all argue over who should be eliminated, especially Angie and Zan.  Marco thinks it is the Head Chef's responsibility to make sure everything runs smoothly. He is about to eliminate them, but Denise and Khoa decide to bow out.  Marco reminds Zan and Than to realize how lucky they are.

The show ends with the Black Team toasting each other and vowing to never to end up in the elimination room again.

Tune in next week for more drama on The Copping Block, cooking and eliminations. Goodnight everybody!

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