[car engines revving]
I've invited eight of Triple D's greatest chefs here
to Flavortown Market to compete the first ever
Triple D Legends Tournament.
The championship is on the line here.
To win, they'll have to complete the Flavortown 500,
a virtual race course with culinary pit stops
along the way.
The chef who successfully navigates five legs of this
epic course, while serving up Triple D worthy courses,
will win the championship and a whopping $30,000.
The money, the trophy, the title.
The race to victory as our six remaining chefs battle to get
the most mileage for their grocery money
on Budget Bridge in an extreme team budget battle.
[all booing]
Obviously, our cuisines don't match.
I don't like necessarily
having my fate in someone else's hands.
I'm gonna get some cheese sauce in your beard.
Is that cinnamon in the tomato sauce?
-Yes, sir. -Oh.
Oh, god, no.
It's leg three of the Triple D Legends Tournament,
tonight on Triple G.
So let's bring out the six remaining contenders
for the triple D championship.
Last week, I was this close to going home.
[Guy] Chef Hales, I know this is just burning you up.
You have the top echelon of chefs.
Very, very difficult competition in this.
Maybe I got a little overconfident.
This is not going to happen again.
-What's up, my Guy? -[Guy] Big smiles.
Yes, sir.
[Oniel] All my competitors, they have something
unique about them.
Here we go. Here we go.
For instance Eric, he's not even Mexican, and this guy makes some
of the best Mexican dishes you could think of.
Bobby The Butcher.
Bobby and all the other guys that's coming, I really don't
care what you won before,
how long you been here doing it.
There's a new sheriff in town. Chef O.
Uh, one, two, three.
There's six of us, but there's only three carts.
Yeah, this isn't gonna go well.
Anyhow, let's not worry about this.
Congratulations. You've aced this race so far.
Let's take a look at what's next on the Flavortown 500
race course.
You've survived Guilty Pleasures,
you've survived Brunch Boulevard,
but to win the $30,000 grand prize, you're gonna have
to conquer three more of the Flavortown food stops.
Week three, six chefs left, and it feels like there's
a long way to go.
I'm one of the most recent triple D chefs.
As the new guy in town, I'm definitely getting a little
momentum here in Flavortown.
I haven't been on the bottom yet.
And the next destination, probably our most demanding,
and that is... Budget Bridge.
Now, to cross this one, you'll have to be able to stop
on a dime and shop on a dollar. Ba-dum-bum.
I'll be here all week.
You'll have to deliver dishes that taste like a million bucks
on a meager grocery budget.
But that's what we do as Triple D chefs, right?
Budget battle right now. I'm the king of it.
I'm Jamaican, I grew up poor.
So I know how to cut on a straight line.
Because this is the time to put your money where your mouth is
in an extreme...
team budget battle.
That's the reason he has three carts.
[Bobby] I'm not a huge fan of teams.
I've won two Triple D tournaments by myself.
-Chef Bobby. -[heavy exhale]
I don't like having my fate in someone else's hands.
I haven't made it to the bottom two yet.
I'm trying to keep that streak alive.
Now, we're going to pick teams, a good old fashioned way.
Arm wrestling.
But I ain't got no muscles, bro, so we got to figure out
something else. -Don't worry.
Hunter's probably got something planned for us.
Hunter, what do you got?
I guess you're going teams today, huh?
[all booing]
-You got booed. -Oh, really?
You got booed.
I'll be winning this game today.
Wow. That is horrible.
All right, go over and give them the straws.
Here's what's gonna happen.
You're gonna pick the straws.
Long straws will be a team. Medium straws will be a team.
Short straws will be a team.
All right, so who's got a long straw?
All right, so let's go Oniel and Hallock,
you guys will stand together in the front.
[Hallock] The two of us working together is going to be
an interesting match. He is Island and Caribbean.
I am Southern.
I love his flavors, and I'm excited to work with him.
who's got the medium straw?
I think I do.
Hales and Jacob, you'll stand over there.
[Jacob] I was really happy to get Richard as a teammate.
Brother, let's take it down. I'm into it.
Richard and I are very different when it comes
to cuisine.
He's known for more Asian-inspired dishes,
and I have an American diner.
I think it would be really fun to put
two of our styles together.
Eric and Bobby.
East coast. East coast.
I'm happy because Bobby, he's slick.
He is the best of the best, but who's gonna be
in charge?
Who's going to make the decisions?
Who's going to drive the cart?
Since you're competing in duos, I want you to make the judges
a classic food duo. -OK.
[Guy] OK?
Now, on the outside of each one of the envelopes is a classic
food duo, and that duo has a dollar amount.
Oniel and Hallock, you have the long straw.
You get to pick first.
OK?
-What do you got? -Spaghetti & meatballs.
[Guy] Seventeen bucks.
We got spaghetti and meatballs.
I turn around and look at the judges' table behind us.
Who I see?
Maybe the number one Italian chef in America, Rocco.
I'm like...
"Are we gonna pull this off right now?"
Medium.
-Number one. -What do you got?
-Turn it. -Macaroni and cheese.
[Guy] Macaroni and cheese, 16 bucks.
Steak and potatoes for $9 bucks.
[Bobby] I feel like this envelope might have been played
right into my hands.
We do a ton of marinating meats at Tuckaway,
our butcher shop, steakhouse.
Now, 30 minutes to shop, pay, and prepare, and plate
your classic duo on a budget.
Now remember, Wendy's gonna be right over here.
You have to check out with her.
You can keep your remaining money...
and you can shop again, but you have to shop together
as a duo. -OK.
The bottom team, those two are going to have to compete
against one another in sudden death elimination round.
Three, two, one, go.
$19 is all we have to spend for steak and potatoes.
I could spend that on half a steak.
This is gonna be a challenge in itself.
I mean, obviously, our cuisines don't match,
but maybe we can tie them both in.
My style of food is modern Mexican cuisine.
I love chimichurri. So why don't we grab them?
Tons of veggies for chimichurri, yes.
Great steak.
Eric's got the Mexican background.
He mentions chimichurri.
Herbs are super budget-friendly.
I'm all about that.
I'll take the -- I think we go with skirt steak.
Skirt steak's a cheaper cut.
It can be tough, but I'm familiar with steak.
I know I can make this delicious
in the amount of time that we got.
Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.
[Eric] We start loading some beautiful tricolored fingerlings.
It's really important.
I mean, we are cooking steak and potatoes here, but let's be
honest, they were the cheapest potatoes.
Where's all the herbs?
But we have to shop correctly.
-[Bobby] Just one, just one. -[Eric] Just one?
-Just one. -Corn?
Yeah, but we're paying for all that husk.
It's got to be something where we can just
use the whole product.
We can't get pricey ingredients.
-What if we did... -[Bobby] Charred onion?
Yeah, charred spring onion.
Spring onions. Char 'em on the grill.
What a great combination with steak.
-How are you? -Good morning. How are you?
I forgot all my coupons at home.
-That's OK. -[Eric] But trust me.
-Remember it [indistinct] -You're at $16.
Wait for your change.
We're not gonna leave that on the table, but we're
gonna think about it and use that money wisely.
-OK. -Thank you -- have a wonderful day.
-[Bobby] Have a great day. -Have a wonderful day.
-Right now. -Beautiful.
-So, this is what we're going to do. -OK.
Let's add a little it was spicy spaghetti and meatballs.
I'm Jamaican, so I really wanted to
put a level of spice in it. -All right, sounds good.
[Oniel] OK.
Spaghetti and meatball for only $17.
[Hallock] Ground beef, whatever, which is cheaper?
That's mind-blowing, because I know the ground beef about
to kill all that money.
$4.99. What's this?
[Hallock] Ground beef. It's $5.
All of the sudden, $17 doesn't seem like quite enough money
to make a great spaghetti and meatball.
How much for the baguette? $1.79.
-Let's go. -[Guy] What's your idea?
So we're going to do like a spicy...
Marinara spaghetti and meatballs.
[Guy] Got it.
You need eggs to go in the...?
[Hallock] In the meatballs.
-$1.79. -[Oniel] All right, let's go.
[Hallock] I've been playing it safe, and I've been getting by.
But in order to win this thing, I'm gonna really have
to step out of my comfort zone.
And I am so thankful that I had Oniel by my side.
10, 11, 12, 13...
[Oniel] You want to do the three chilies?
Yeah.
OK, you're at $16.67.
When it come under budget, my new name is
Oniel Whoopsie Budget Smith.
-There you go. -[Hallock] All right, thank you.
OK.
All right, well, I think doing something traditional,
but with your maybe, like, Asian flair.
Let's combine our styles.
We have to make macaroni and cheese with only 16 bucks.
-At least get our base going. -Well, let's get our cheese.
-We'll go mozzarella, new school, right on. -Yeah.
So let's get some pasta.
Yeah, being the chef-owner of a restaurant, everybody is
depending on me to kind of watch that money.
-It's a really fine balance. -One box -- all right.
What pasta are you going with?
we're going with this fun one here, the campanelle.
-campanelle, OK. -Yep.
What's gonna make this over the top?
Well, we're gonna put a little bit of his Asian flair
into this American mac and cheese.
OK.
Jacob was adamant about me doing Asian.
I knew my pantry had chili flakes and had oil,
so I'm gonna make my own chili crunch.
I could do a salted fennel.
Cool, sure.
I'm slicing the fennel, and we're gonna fry it
for a little bit of texture.
because I'm gonna elevate the dish like I do
everything else.
-So you're at $9.83. -All right, thank you.
We have about $6 left.
I'm feeling like we under-shopped.
I say, "Let's go start our cook,
and then we'll go shop."
-All right. -OK.
So here to critique our Triple D food duos are a classic
Triple G food trio, our judges.
First, we have the resident spice guru and OG Triple G
judge, the one and only Chef Aarti Sequeira.
Hi.
TOC IV champ, who is also a proud Triple D alum,
Chef Champ Mei Lin.
And a Triple G All Star Tournament champ
and James Beard Award-winning chef, the legend
-Chef Rocco Dispirito. -Whoo.
Hi, chefs.
So, this is the third heat of the Triple D race to victory.
-[Mei] Yep. -And they got to team up today.
And when you think about trying to bridge, bridge,
Budget Bridge, this gap between Jamaican style cooking,
North Carolina style cooking, in spaghetti and meatballs.
Yeah.
That is a long bridge.
[Guy] 23 minutes!
23 left!
[suspenseful music playing]
The sauce.
Oniel's working on our meatballs.
I'm gonna get the sauce and the pasta started.
I'm adding one shallot, garlic, tomatoes,
and tomato paste, and paprika.
The thing about spaghetti and meatballs that is tricky
is it's kind of three elements.
Because you've got the meatballs, you've got
the sauce, and you've got the pasta.
[Rocco] It's true. It's true.
All of them have to be perfect. It's a deceivingly simple dish.
And we all know there's only one way to make it, right?
There's only one way -- my way, so...
Oh, my gosh!
Can you imagine them making meatballs for Rocco?
Oh, my god!
Typically, a really good sauce takes time, but we don't have
time for that.
I'm concerned that our spaghetti and meatballs is
going to be "too safe."
Do you think that maybe a touch of cinnamon would be good?
I was just thinking about it.
I swear to god, I swear to god, I was thinking about that.
I typically never put cinnamon in my spaghetti sauce,
but don't want to let Oniel down.
I can't be the weak link in our team.
I definitely don't want to be in the bottom two.
I don't know what I'll do
if I have to duke it out with Oniel.
In Jamaica life, we put cinnamon on everything.
I'm starting to think Hallock got some Jamaican in her.
Is that cinnamon in the tomato sauce?
-Yes, sir. -Oh, no.
-Oh, god, no. -[Guy] Huh?
It's interesting. Definitely put the spin on it.
Rocco's ancestors are rolling in their graves right now.
[Eric] You're doing the marinade, you're doing the steak, right?
[Bobby] Yeah, it's all set. Marinating now.
It is such a twist of the mind to now have to work
with somebody else, right?
Especially someone you were just competing against
last round. -Ah, right.
Their teamwork skills now are more important than
their cooking skills.
[Guy] 20 minutes left!
You want me to throw the potatoes in the water?
[Bobby] Yes, chef.
All right, talk to me. What's this looking like?
[Eric] We're gonna do a chimichurri.
Bobby's working right now on a marinade for the flank steak
that's gonna hit the grill.
Bobby, what's in the marinade for the --
Just a little garlic, cilantro, red wine vinegar, sugar.
Got it. What do we got in there, Eric?
[Eric] Oregano, cilantro, parsley, jalapeno,
and then we used our pantry ingredients, our spices,
to give it that extra -- -Good use of the pantry.
No one ever said that they were gonna be the leader in this.
It was just natural.
Here, acid, might need salt.
[Bobby] I think we're both putting a ton of trust in each other.
A little bit of salt.
Just letting each other run with what we're doing.
[Eric] And this is why I like you.
Bobby's a great chef, but he's my competition.
If we finish in the bottom, I'm gonna have to go head
to head with Bobby to see who stays and moves on.
I don't wanna compete against Bobby.
Every dish that that guy produces is spot on.
I'm gonna check the potatoes.
It's kind of not fair.
I probably got two minutes left before I start pulling them
and smashing them.
It feels like Bobby and Eric have worked together before.
Right -- like they're just doing what they need to do.
I want to avoid the bottom round at all costs.
I'm here to win Triple D Legends Tournament,
the trophy, the money, and the title.
You know, Eric, I've been hoping that we were going
to cook together this whole time, but I do just want to say,
don't screw this up, please, OK?
I've done fine without you, and I don't want you to be
the reason I go home.
Thank you for that vote of confidence.
[Jacob] Traditional mac and cheese is something that I can pull off
because I'm known for comfort American food.
-You're starting the pasta now? -Yep.
And Richard took over the Asian-inspired
garnishes and the fennel.
I like a little punch.
If I win this tournament, getting a little bit of extra
cash for the savings account would be wonderful.
Our restaurant is being torn down.
This will be our last year in business in our location.
It will be nice to have some money in a savings account
to help us find a new space, and/or figure out what's next.
I'm gonna get some cheese sauce in your beard.
Oh, yeah. That's good, brother.
[Jacob] Thank you.
I was hoping to be paired with Jacob.
I feel like we're the top one and two to beat.
When I drew straws with him, I was like, yes.
-[Jacob] Me too. -All right, man.
I think I may have the distinction of being
the only chef on Triple D
that guy has been to three of the restaurants.
[Guy] All right, so what's this, chef?
[Richard] We're gonna do a little crispy salted fennel.
So instead of using breadcrumbs on top of the mac and cheese,
we're using this. -Yeah, I like it.
Wanna try it?
It's good, right?
Tasty.
All right, duos, we've got 15 minutes.
Halfway point, 15 to go.
Putting these meatballs together right now.
All right, we got the spaghetti on the pot.
[Hallock] Spaghetti's working.
[Guy] So, what's in this meatball?
Some Thai peppers in there. We got paprika.
We got some salt, some pepper.
We got a little bit of cinnamon. -OK.
[Oniel] We're about to deep fry these babies right here.
I'm self-taught, and that's why I'm so confident within myself.
This is my passion.
-You ready for the meatballs? -[Hallock] Yeah, I'm ready.
All right, I'm coming right now.
The pressure that's on me right now is very intense,
because not only I'm working for myself, I'm working
for Hallock also, because I really want her to make it
to the next round.
At the end of the day, I'm gonna send her home,
but just not this round.
Look at them meatballs.
They got no business looking like that.
-None. -[Hallock] Oh, man, they look great.
I haven't tasted the meatball, so I'm just going
to trust Oniel.
Oh, my god, these meatballs look so good.
A touch of cinnamon in the meatball, just sort
of feels out of place.
I'm curious about how this dish is gonna turn out.
It's good, it's a little sweet.
I typically never put cinnamon in my spaghetti sauce,
and with Rocco here, we have to really nail that sauce,
so I'm adding in some parmesan cheese
to counteract the sweetness.
If I win this 30k, I would be so proud of myself,
and I'd gain some confidence and think, "Hey, maybe I do
belong here. Maybe I am a talented chef."
That will work.
Six minutes. Six to go.
When do you want me to start steaks?
-It's your call. -[Bobby] All right, heard.
I'm gonna start them.
For our steak and potatoes, I get the meat on the grill.
Guy doesn't call me Bobby The Butcher for no reason.
This is what I do.
What's going on with the smashed potato?
[Eric] And then we're gonna smash it down and crisp it up.
Chef, any thoughts on that remaining money?
Some greens, maybe, and we do a charred onion salad.
-[Eric] Like a tomato. -[Bobby] With the charred onions?
[Eric] With the charred onions.
We still had a couple dollars left over, and we have to be
smart about game play, so we took the opportunity
to get another ingredient.
-There you go. -[Bobby] All right.
[Eric] Perfect. Let's do this.
That's gonna make a killer tomato onion salad.
Super classic steakhouse side.
[Eric] Keep the change. Give it to charity.
-Have a blessed day. -[Bobby] Thank you.
Bye.
-We leave the tomatoes raw... -Yeah.
-...and do the onions charred, and then toss it that way. -Half them?
-[Bobby] Yeah, yeah, yeah. -[Eric] How about a little oil vinegar?
[Bobby] Yeah, of course.
Some vinegar, some water.
We have to make sure this dish is perfect.
$30,000 to win this tournament is gonna do a lot of good
for a lot of people.
And I'm playing for my family, and the restaurant.
There's a lot on the line.
That looks banging.
It does need salt, though.
[Guy] Hey, chef, how much money you got left?
-We still have $6 left, so... -Six bucks left?
You're in a budget battle.
You're not supposed to be saving money.
Like, if you have $16, you need to spend $16.
So we head back into the store to do more shopping
with our $6.
[Jacob] What protein you thinking?
[Richard] Do we need protein? What about kimchi?
-[Jacob] How much do we have? -[Richard] We have $6, so...
So we go and we get the kimchi. It was very expensive.
-$5.15. -Thank you.
There's six.
I know that my sauteed kimchi is a knockout.
I'm doing kimchi over here.
I have been on so many Triple D episodes and I've been on so
many Triple Gs because I'm always bringing something new.
See, I put a lot of butter in this and the garlic.
I like the idea of sauteing that kimchi because I think it
tames it a little and brings out some sweetness.
-So, I think that was actually a really good move. -Yeah.
Two and a half.
This pasta is really cooked al dente.
All right, beautiful. Should we do the noodles now?
-We have the noodles ready. -[Oniel] Meatballs all day.
Whoopsie!
[Hallock] And then we're gonna ladle the sauce on top.
[Bobby] I start the dish with our tomato salad.
-[Eric] My chimichurri is done. -That's beautiful, chef.
How you looking on potatoes?
[Eric] I'm about to pass them to you, seasoned and ready to go.
-Chef, you're close on the steak. -[Bobby] Heard.
[Eric] Bobby slices the steak and puts it on top
of the chimichurri.
Gorgeous.
90 seconds!
All right, pasta's coming out.
Once the pasta's done cooking, I can add it
to the cheese sauce.
All right, is this a good vehicle for your kimchi topping?
Good job.
OK, one, two, three, four, nice and even.
[Richard] We plate the kimchi,
the fennel.
I'm making a little chili crunch.
For this chili oil, my base is the red pepper flakes
and the oil.
And then he has the idea to add some of the fennel frond
on the top.
-Wow. -Oh, wow.
Very dramatic-looking mac and cheese
from Jacob and Richard. -[Jacob] Beautiful.
-That's it. -Man, that looks good.
[Eric] Hey, I'm into it.
[Guy] Three, two, one.
-Duos are done. -Great job, everybody.
-Yes, sir. -Whoo!
Good job. Thanks, brother.
-Way to go. -Dude, that's baller, man.
-That's baller. -[Hallock] I'm gonna say it.
-Whoopsie. -Whoopsie.
[Guy] All right, judges, this is the third stop
in our Triple D Legends Tournament.
Now, each team had to make a classic duo
on an extremely low budget.
Up first, it's Chef Eric and Chef Bobby.
What do you have for us?
[together] For our steak and potato budget, there's $19.
[Aarti] No way!
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I thought we were supposed to do that together.
You said, "together."
We have done culinary duos
for the last 10 years.
Never one time ever have I seen that.
That was so good.
All right, what do you got, gentlemen?
We had 19 bucks to create this dish, and we decided
to divide and conquer.
I took on the steak, did a quick marinade with some
garlic and herbs.
[Eric] I picked the chimichurri, complemented the steak well,
and we used the tricolored fingerlings,
smashed them, fried them.
And since we had a little money left, we figured a little bit
of a salad.
Chefs...
honestly, I wouldn't have known that this was
a budget battle because this was so much food
in front of us.
Skirt steak was perfectly cooked.
You par cooked the potatoes with only 30 minutes, which is
a great achievement in and of itself.
And then you said, "We have extra time and money."
All right, so let's see if we can win this Camaro.
And you made a little salad that is a perfect compliment
to everything going on on this plate.
The chimichurri is my freaking favorite.
And I think it's because you went hard with one of your
free ingredients, which was the vinegar, and the oregano.
And it really takes this chimichurri to another level.
I would say the only other thing for me is that
the potatoes need a bit more salt, because everything else
on this plate is so brightly seasoned.
-OK, appreciate it, chef. -Thank you.
I would say it went really well, but I know that we're
surrounded by such solid chefs, and so I'm just hoping we did
it a little better than the guys next to us.
Yeah, killed it.
All right, up next, the duo of Chef Jacob and Chef Richard.
Gentlemen, what do you have for us?
so today, we kind of combined our styles.
Wait, wait, wait.
You guys aren't gonna do the --
It's already been done, man. You know?
Gosh, you had your chance.
All right, what do you got, gentlemen?
For our budget battle today, we got mac and cheese.
And then Richard added a little Asian flair to the top.
I did the jarred kimchi with butter.
And I did a salted fried fennel on the top.
And then we added a little bit of the fennel fronds
for a little pop of freshness.
Who does this?
Like, who puts fennel and kimchi,
and then puts that on mac and cheese?
I was like, "This is not gonna work, you guys."
It totally works.
I took a bite of everything together, and it just is
unlike any mac and cheese I've ever had.
The pasta's cooked perfectly.
Great choice of pasta, campanelle.
It's fun. The cheese sauce is incredible.
The addition of the kimchi, honestly, just made this entire
dish sing, although I thought my fennel was a little
over-caramelized, so it's kind of eating bitter.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
[Richard] if I go home from mac and cheese, I will never serve
to anybody or look at another bowl of mac and cheese.
[Guy] All right, judges, thank you very much.
Last but definitely not least, the team of Chef Oniel
and Chef Hallock. Tell us about it.
So today, what we got for you guys, we have Spicy
Meatball Spaghetti. I did the meatball.
I seasoned it with cayenne pepper.
We got garlic in it, the Thai peppers...
-Cinnamon. -...cinnamon.
[Hallock] For the sauce, we had some tomato paste, some chopped
tomatoes, paprika, cinnamon.
I am terrified.
I'm just hoping that Rocco likes our meatballs.
All right, Oniel and Hallock, a lot of people think,
"Oh, spaghetti and meatballs, very easy."
But no, it's not that easy. Cooking pasta is difficult.
Making meatballs properly is difficult.
Making a sauce in 30 minutes, by the way,
is pretty difficult.
It's not like the spaghetti and meatball my mom made for me
my whole life. But it's delicious.
The pasta is cooked al dente.
The sauce is very interesting, has bright tomato flavor.
I think the idea of throwing the meatballs into the fryer
was clutch here because it kept the moisture in there, so it
sealed it in.
I really loved the addition of the cinnamon in the sauce.
It really kind of added that undertone of warmth, but I wish
that I had some freshness, some herbs,
because the meatballs are very rich.
-Thank you. -[Guy] All right, judges, thank you.
Duos, you did a great job.
This is gonna be a difficult one.
We're going to send you back to the kitchens.
We'll have a decision soon. Thank you.
All right, judges, which duo is gonna have to have
a do-over? -Dude.
Right?
I thought that this was gonna be a much easier decision.
-I know, I know. -It is tight.
Is anybody a home run?
-I loved Bobby and Eric's dish. -Yeah, Bobby for sure.
Yeah, they're definitely safe. Their dish was excellent.
So you have Jacob and Richard with the Mac and Cheese.
What did we love about that? What did we not like about it?
My only knock for it was that my fennel was a little over
fried and it actually ate bitter.
[Aarti] Yeah, but then the spaghetti and meatballs was
also pretty terrific.
[Rocco] Hard to pull off for 20 bucks.
I was really craving
some fresh herbs in that spaghetti and meatball.
Not just on top, but in the meatball itself. -[Mei] Yeah.
If I said, "Hey, for your next meal, you get to have
"the mac and cheese or you get to have
the spaghetti and meatball." Which one would it be?
Oh, gosh. I don't know.
They're both so good for different reasons.
It's really hard
Chefs, teams, duos, you delivered.
It was awesome.
Probably one of the more difficult decisions that I've
seen recently at the judges' desk as to who is
in the bottom two.
But the ones that, without question, clear-cut
best dish of this competition will go...
Chef Eric, Chef Bobby.
Congratulations. We'll see you guys next week.
-Thank you. -[Eric] Good luck, guys.
Chef Jacob, Chef Richard,
and the duo Chef Hallock, Chef Oniel.
It was not unanimous.
But the judges have spoken.
The two chefs who will be moving on to next week...
will be...
Chef Hallock and Chef Oniel. Congratulations.
[sighs in relief]
I can't believe we made it.
-Thank you. -See you next week.
Good luck, guys.
Flavor is what wins at Flavortown.
By the way, we about to go eat this meatball and spaghetti
right now. Whoopsie-licious.
You didn't do anything wrong.
It's just, you don't have a meat in this.
So, it's gonna be a sudden death battle.
One of you will move on to next week, and the other will take
the off ramp into Blandville. Chefs, back to your carts.
-Good luck. -Thank you.
[Jacob] This is, kind of, messed up.
Getting to work side by side with Richard and now,
you know, kind of going head to head against each other
definitely adds another level of stress and intensity.
But if you're gonna cook against people
in a competition, you cook against the best.
Chef Richard, Chef Jacob, welcome to the Championship
Budget Battle Elimination Round.
I'm sorry that you're here.
I know how amazing the two of you are as chefs.
And Richard, you were just here
last week. -It's OK.
I'm in the bottom two again.
It is very scary because I don't want to go home yet.
I know Jacob's going to bring it, so I have to bring it.
I want you to dish up a winning seafood dinner.
OK?
But here's the...catch. Ha-ha!
Here's the catch of the day. Your budget?
I don't know how much it is. Hunter!
Got any money?
I got this from the cash register earlier.
[Guy] All right.
Whatever Hunter stole out of the register...
I hope it's enough. I'm sorry.
-No promises there. -[Guy] What do you got there?
$20.
[Guy] Seafood dinner.
$20 budget.
30 minutes to shop, prepare, and plate your seafood dinner
on a budget.
You need to come through the register here.
Check out with Wendy.
Whoever wins, we will see you next week.
Competing against the four other chefs that are still
on the quest for the $30,000.
Three, two, one, go!
-[timer dings] -[suspenseful music playing]
I feel really confident going into this.
I'm real good at seafood at the Spoon Trade.
We are in a little beach town, and most of the time we have
a locally caught fresh fish entrée on our menu.
I'm gonna go shrimp.
I've got some tricks up my sleeve for that.
I grabbed shrimp, the most affordable seafood.
I'm gonna get butter, roast some vegetables.
I love butter-roasted vegetables.
I think that kind of is, like,
a complete meal kind of thing.
Dinner, to me, I went back to, you know, mom making dinner
or grandma, and there was always mashed potatoes
on the plate.
Pecans.
I didn't get more seafood.
For one, I was thinking budget, so it made sense to get one.
And I would really just want to be nice and simple.
The bottom two chefs here are going head to head.
It's not the place I want to be in, but it's definitely pushing
me to take to the next level.
$18.31 for you today.
Thank you. Nothing in there.
[Richard exhales loudly] I'm gonna go shrimp.
Only $20 now to do a winning seafood dinner.
All right.
Seafood's very expensive, and on top of that, I don't do
a lot of seafood dishes at my restaurants or at home.
When it comes to budget, usually seafood's the first
thing off the list. -[Mei] Right.
Because it's so expensive.
That's what makes it so challenging, so interesting,
and so difficult.
Flavortown is not an easy place to compete.
I know, in these challenges, the gameplay is very,
very important.
And I know if they tell you that it's a seafood dinner,
it better be filled with seafood.
So I grab squid, shrimp, and catfish.
What are you thinking of making?
-I'm gonna make a pasta. -Not going Asian?
-Remember, it's seafood dinner. -Yeah.
But I think pasta, cioppino is better for that.
OK.
I'm always doing Asian food, but at home, I'm doing Italian,
I'm part Sicilian, my dad's half Sicilian,
and so I've been growing up eating spaghetti,
red sauce, clam sauce my entire life.
Tomato sauce and basil, one is never without the other.
-[Wendy] How are you? -[Richard] Good, how are you?
You're at $22.54 right here before I do anything else.
Oh, my god.
I removed the catfish.
I still have squid and shrimp. It's a seafood dinner.
I need at least two of the seafoods.
I think three's a grand slam.
I hope it's a home run.
[Wendy] There you go.
[Guy] 24 minutes!
[Aarti] The last round was very, sort of --
it had that false security of working with your friend.
-[Mei] Right. -[Aarti] But now it's every man for himself.
[Guy] What are you making?
I'm doing some butter-roasted vegetables with some crushed
potatoes, some shrimp skewers, and a little salsa verde
of some sort. -[Richard] Nice.
The first thing, I start on my potatoes.
Try to keep them as even size as possible so
they cook the same.
While my potatoes are cooking, I got to get these
vegetables cooking.
Come here, butter.
These veggies, it's not only multiple textures,
it's multiple colors, and multiple flavors.
So this roasted veggie medley really is a vehicle
for anything you put on top.
Now it's time to focus on shrimp.
Gonna work with a lot of shrimp, but I think skewering
these up and grilling them is gonna be a nice plate
of food. Do a little quick marinade.
Bean on the bottom two, and going up against Richard,
definitely gets your heart pumping a little bit.
I've seen him on "Guy's Grocery Games" quite a bit.
He's been around the block before.
I definitely am feeling nervous.
The championship is on the line here.
I'm gonna grill them.
[Guy] Don't burn them.
[Jacob] It needs a sauce, so I'm gonna start making
a little parsley salsa verde.
Every good dinner needs a good sauce.
Fresh lemon.
I'm feeling good. I got this momentum.
Everybody at home's rooting for me.
I want to keep fighting for this big prize in order to have
a little level of security for myself.
-That's good. -Jacob's only using one kind of seafood.
-That seafood has to be perfect. -[Mei] Exactly.
Richard has a little bit of leeway because he's got
a couple of different versions in there.
Richard, what are you making?
I'm making a little spicy seafood...
spaghetti. -Going Italian.
[Richard] When I typically make pasta, I use a lot of guanciale.
I can't afford it. It's like five or six bucks.
So I end up getting a bacon that was $1.99.
A few sprigs of basil -- I smack it just to start to release
the oils, and I start to reduce it.
Tasting good.
Building it. Trying to build it.
Now I'm gonna start working on my seafood.
[Rocco] Oh, someone's taking the time to score the calamari, too.
That's not really an Italian thing, but I definitely know
it's a Chinese thing.
It actually acts as a tenderizer.
[Rocco] Tenderizer, yeah.
And I imagine sauces stick better.
[Richard] You know, I'm a meat guy.
I don't have a lot of seafood in my restaurants, so...
cook for your life.
Seafood is definitely an outside my lane.
I used to have a saying that said,
"Born to lose, cook to win."
And opening up all these restaurants with my own money,
no partners, just my wife standing behind me.
She's way beyond my league. I'm just so lucky.
She's praying for me right now.
I throw the calamari in, and I just want to make sure
that some of the flavor from the seafood starts to get
into the sauce as well.
Oh, that's good.
[Guy] Two minutes!
[Jacob] My potatoes are perfect.
I didn't really have to do much.
I just kept whipping, getting it nice and smooth.
OK, potatoes.
I put my butter-roasted veggies down.
OK, off.
My shrimp skewer turned out perfect.
Salsa verde.
OK, those shrimp skewers look delicious.
Rocco, I'm doing pasta, and I just realized
you're here. Just like, dawned --
[Guy] 90 seconds.
If I were to remember that Rocco was the judge, I would
have probably stayed away from Italian because there's nothing
that you're gonna get past him.
This seafood pasta has to be perfect.
I am not serving Rocco Dispirito a overcooked
strand of pasta.
Five, four, three, two, one.
That's it.
Great job, guys. -Wow.
-[Rocco] Nice work. -[Aarti] Amazing.
Whoo!
This is it, judges. Budget Bridge elimination round
of our championship race.
Chef Jacob and Chef Richard, had to make a budget
seafood dinner on $20.
Up first, Chef Richard, what do you have for us?
[Richard] I did a shrimp and squid tubes and tentacles pasta,
and I spent some extra money on bacon to add at the bottom
to replace the guanciale.
I ended up spending about $5 on basil, but I just felt like
there's no way I could do a pasta without basil.
And I stepped out of my comfort zone
of doing Asian food.
Chef Richard, a plate of pasta is always
a welcome home for me.
I think it's one of the greatest things
you can make in competition because nearly everyone
loves great pasta, and great pasta this is.
It's delivering that sweet salinity
that you want from seafood.
We all seem to agree that more than one seafood is
a celebration of seafood.
And so, we're really happy that you did that in this case.
You picked such great bombastic ingredients, right?
The bacon, the calamari, and the shrimp, the basil,
like these really big, loud ingredients.
And that underbelly of smoke from the bacon is
really lovely.
It's quite amazing the depth of flavor
that you got in the sauce,
and the amount of time that you had to cook.
Thank you so much for the addition of the basil.
I thought the basil actually added a great
herbaceous note to the pasta.
However, I do wish that I had a little bit more seasoning
to the pasta itself, maybe a little salt
in the pasta water. -I did -- I salted the water.
I salted I mean, I put a lot of salt.
Did you?
I mean, I'm telling you, I emptied my salt container.
OK.
Also, the calamari for me, however, is a little over,
just a tad chewy. -Thank you.
[Richard] I used my whole salt.
I couldn't believe they said it was not salty enough.
Fantastic. Thank you, judges.
Not to be outdone, Chef Jacob.
So, my seafood dinner here, I try to make a nice big plate
of food, something that kind of represents something
I might eat for dinner.
Shrimp on a skewer was my only seafood.
I did say calamari, mussels, and clams to the dish
before I plated it, so there is some essence of that there.
You know, I just really love butter-roasted vegetables
with a little roasted garlic, mashed potatoes,
nice and pureed and smooth.
And then, freshness, I put a little like
an Italian salsa verde on there.
[Aarti] Chef Jacob.
Yeah, I did not think that this would be as flavorful as it is.
And it's very flavorful.
I think your shrimp is cooked perfectly.
I love that because you put them on the grill,
you get the two different personalities of shrimp
in one bite.
You only had one seafood, and we had all said,
"Well, then you better cook it right."
And you cooked it right. So well done there.
The vegetables were cooked perfectly.
I really love the attention to detail.
Your salsa verde really added that perfect amount of acidity
that you really needed for this dish.
Great job giving us a big plate of food.
It's very impressive to see all of this.
I think you have every root vegetable in the cellar, right?
You managed to get mashed potatoes done
that are delicious. They're smooth, they're creamy.
I would like to have seen one more seafood element.
Thank you.
This wasn't necessarily a "seafood dinner"
since you only had four pieces of shrimp on a skewer.
The only thing I think is that the whole thing needs just
a touch more salt to pull it all together.
-Thank you. -Judges, thank you very much.
Gentlemen, great job. You did not disappoint.
The only thing disappointing will be sending one
of you home. The judges will deliberate.
We'll call you back in a bit. Thank you.
-It's not gonna be fun. -[Aarti] No.
Well, they both did a great job making a seafood dinner.
There's no question about it.
The vegetable shenanigans on that second plate
was very impressive, right?
[Aarti] It did feel like shenanigans.
It was like a corralled circus of vegetables
with mashed potatoes on top of it that were delicious.
[Aarti] Yeah.
I do wish that Jacob had grabbed one more type
of seafood to really nail this as a winning seafood dinner.
I thought the seafood in Richard's dish, I mean,
one out of the two were cooked perfect
and the other not so much.
The calamari definitely fell short for me.
I thought it was a tad bit chewy.
What Richard did, though, with the seafood that I think
is very smart is he used the seafood to flavor
the sauce, that then flavored everything on the plate.
-[Aarti] Mm-hmm. -[Mei] Right.
I think there's something to be said for that.
So does that trump the other dish?
[uncertain vocalization]
[suspenseful music playing]
Chefs, unfortunately, one of you will be getting
off the racetrack, one of you will be hitting pit row,
and the other will move on to the competition next week.
The chef checking out, and whose car will be
eliminated from the race is...
unfortunately, Chef Jacob.
Chef, really appreciated you being here
for the tournament and hate to see you go.
Thank you so much for a great competition.
To lose to a group of chefs that are champions and winners,
like, there's no losing for me.
Going home is kind of a bummer...
-It was great to meet you. -It's been a pleasure. Pleasure.
...but my dish didn't meet the game
as well as it could have.
Our next stop involves even more of a climb because...
we're going to Take Out Turnpike.
I want you to make the judges...
We're gonna go with burgers and a side.
This is quintessential Triple D.
I'm looking for an exceptional job.
I'm about to make it whoopsie-licious.
Ha-ha!
-This is smart gameplay. -I'm expecting they're all.
[Aarti] Chef Bobby is hungry for this.
[Bobby] Hey, Oniel, check this out.
You're such a show off.
The pressure is immense right now.
It's like turned all the way up.
[Aaron] Look at that.
That's a good-looking dish, man.
Must be a dish he's made a million times.
-I want to win. -I came here to win.
Take it all the way home.
The closer I get, the more of a reality winning it becomes.
-That's it, stop working. -Ah!
Whoo!