Elgin Community College culinary arts graduate Zach Laidlaw made it through the bento box challenge on Thursday’s “Next Level Chef” episode and is now one of just six contestants remaining in the TV competition.
As the Fox show enters its last rounds, the finalists no longer compete in groups but as individuals and Laidlaw was required to surrender his “immunity pin,” which he could have used to keep himself out of an elimination round.
The week’s 30-minute face-off had the contestants creating bento boxes, a Japanese-style lunch, in which they were required to make sushi rolls, a protein and something with a tempura batter to be judged by celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais.
Based on past performances, Laidlaw and three other competitors were assigned to the mid- level kitchen while the other three chefs were sent to the basement kitchen to use its inferior equipment.
Laidlaw, a Burlington native who now works as a professional chef in Maui, chose chicken strips for both his sushi dish and Hawaiian-style satay skewers. His tempura vegetables were complemented by a yakitori dipping sauce.
While Arrington lauded his sauce as incredible and the judges found his flavors generally favorable, they deemed the chicken to be overcooked and questioned why he chose chicken for his sushi when better proteins were available. They also suggested he was being too complicated with his presentations.
Named best of the bunch were the ahi tuna box prepared by Christina Miros, a home chef from New Jersey, and a shrimp box prepared by Mada Abdelhamid, a home chef from Los Angeles. Both will be moved to the top level kitchen for next week’s competition.
Because Abdelhamid’s box was named best of the night, he was given a coin to be used for 10 extra seconds in selecting ingredients in a future competition or to take away 10 seconds from a competitor’s selection time.
For the first time in this season’s show, three people were chosen for the elimination round instead of two. Those vying to remain in the game had the boxes declared most inferior: the lobster box prepared by Izahya Thomas, a social media chef from Miami; the salmon box prepared by Gabi Chappel, a social media chef from Brooklyn; and the black cod box prepared by Nicole Renard, a social media chef from Washington state.
In the cook-off in which the three made dishes featuring Japanese wagyu beef, the least impressive was the steak and tempura meal produced by Renard, who was sent packing.
In the next episode, the competitors will be asked to make “picture perfect” dishes. Each will be shown a photo of a dish that they will have to reproduce as closely as they can.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
