Masterchef Australia S12 E16 Recap — Larbing About

After last night’s elimination, in which Dani confirmed our suspicions that the awarding of an immunity pin for this season was indeed a completely pointless exercise, there is a mournful atmosphere around Masterchef HQ — or if not around Masterchef HQ, at least around my house, because I quite like Dani, despite her pigheaded refusal to do the bleeding obvious on BOTH occasions she’s been on the show.

To cheer everyone up, the cooks are allowed out of HQ. To bring everyone down again, they are taken to Ringwood. It’s not the most obvious location for a Masterchef challenge: Ringwood is to fine dining what Ringwood is to basically everything else. At a restaurant called Thai Ute — shocking waste of the humorous potential of the word “Thai” — they gather, to be told by Andy that they will be travelling through Melbourne’s suburbs for the whole week, presumably as a punishment.

Andy relates how his happiest food moments occurred out in the burbs, where he discovered “big flavours” — although it would be many more years before he discovered how to say “big flavours” as a substitute for coming up with anything meaningful.

Melissa demands to know what Poh’s favourite Thai dish. Then Reece’s. Reece says his favourite Thai dish is pad see ew and everyone laughs. I don’t get it. Maybe they’re just homophobic? Anyway, the point is, today is a team challenge in which Thai food will be cooked, so everyone will have to be at their culturally appropriative peak. Ginger Sarah will sit…