I was really annoyed by the many chefs who said "I've never had X" or "I've never worked with Y". I would think that a professional chef would be familiar with other cuisines.

True, but that doesn't mean you're familiar with all of them. Russian cuisine's not exactly widespread, and Middle Eastern food's just catching on. No one can be expected to be familiar with everything. That being said ...

Seriously, even if you haven't cooked Italian very often, you've eaten it, haven't you?

Italian and Chinese food are fairly ubiquitous, even if both cuisines are often butchered by American interpretations. (Or, reasons why Victor refuses to eat at Olive Garden.) They're hardly alien.

On the whole, though, the Hawaiian guy was the one who nailed it in my book, because he wandered into a cuisine he wasn't familiar with (Indian) and began making associations and figuring out what things do. Which takes good instincts. I suspect a lot of those who got lost easy will be gone soon.

I loved that: "You didn't make what you thought you were making; however, you made a stellar something else!"

Yes, unbeknownst to him, he made a classic Indian dish.

Kudos!

Russian cuisine's not exactly widespread, and Middle Eastern food's just catching on.

Come on! That lady's from NJ not some isolated hinterland. Middle Eastern food has been easily available for years and years now. And, even if you aren't familiar you can make assumptions.

You've got to have some basic knowledge. If I could figure out basically what kinds of foods to do trained chefs should be able to.

The thing that they showed the Hawaiian guy doing that I thought helped him a lot was tasting some of the prepared foods at the store to serve as a reference for his dish. He should have just called his sauce "yogurt sauce" or something rather than invoke the cuisine of a different country.

Come on! That lady's from NJ not some isolated hinterland. Middle Eastern food has been easily available for years and years now. And, even if you aren't familiar you can make assumptions.

Oh, no arguments. I thought Tom was going to tear her apart for the "I can just read about in books" comment.

True, but that doesn't mean you're familiar with all of them. Russian cuisine's not exactly widespread, and Middle Eastern food's just catching on. No one can be expected to be familiar with everything.

I disagree. I could have made something from every cuisine, and I'm just a home cook. I'm not saying that it would have been stellar, but I had an idea or a place to go for every cuisine- a starting point to think about, I would not have been flying blind as some of these chefs seemed to be.

On the whole, though, the Hawaiian guy was the one who nailed it in my book, because he wandered into a cuisine he wasn't familiar with (Indian) and began making associations and figuring out what things do. Which takes good instincts.

Yes. And I agree with lisah that tasting the prepared foods was really smart. Did he say he had never cooked Indian food (which is what I heard), or that he had never had it (which is what Padma says later)?

I could have made something from every cuisine, and I'm just a home cook. I'm not saying that it would have been stellar, but I had an idea or a place to go for every cuisine- a starting point to think about, I would not have been flying blind as some of these chefs seemed to be.

This. Although, that may be because I lived in NY for so long. Chinese and Russian would have been the hardest for me I think.

I loved the quickfire, although I knew immediately that the Europeans would win.

Other questions:
Did Radihka say she was first-generation Indian? I'm going to assume she meant American.

What was the water flowing by the Brooklyn Bridge? Is that some new fountain?

Finally, Jean-Georges!

I could have made something from every cuisine, and I'm just a home cook. I'm not saying that it would have been stellar, but I had an idea or a place to go for every cuisine- a starting point to think about, I would not have been flying blind as some of these chefs seemed to be.

Exactly!

I think Chinese would have been hard just because there are so many options.

We are all trying to figure out if the girl from Baltimore (Jill) was wearing a Nancy Reagan t-shirt ironically or not. Either way, I like her so far. She seems to have a good sense of humour.

Want. To. See. Ep!!

(But I'm w/ Vortex, Megan, and Lisah on this - I'm not a professionally trained chef, and I've made Russian and Chinese food at home before.)

Well, and it's not like they had to come up with these different styles using stuff from the pantry - they had the opportunity to see what was in the store, what the ingredients, spices, what the smells were - and a lot of those stores seemed to have a deli counter or something similar - more of them could have done what the one kid did.