(sorry).
As such, Emily scored high and was back in the race. For the mains round, there was a fair amount of banter going on between the boys regarding their dumplings. Or doughboys, as Josh’s Nan likes to call them. Even Mr Bains got in with the laughter and wisecracks, which was fun and entertaining to watch and the BBC would do well to edit more of this behaviour in for the rest of the series.
Things have been fairly dry so far. 
All three plates in my opinion looked very strong and impressive regarding presentation. Dom’s ox cheek was fantastically tender, Josh’s saddle of rabbit with salt baked carrots sang harmoniously from the plate and Emily’s recreation of an allotment garden hit the brief perfectly in my opinion.
But ol’ Sat found some schoolgirl errors and dissed Dom for not communicating a story, again. Josh on the other hand got an admirable 9 for his efforts. Decision time lay with the puddings and again Emily and Josh came up with familiar ideas of recreating a street party for the guests. In fact the pair had been matching dishes all week. Josh upped the ante though by creating 5 separate desserts for his table; namely Victoria sponge, scones, strawberries and cream, rice pudding and a lardy toasted jam sandwich.
Emily shot him one hell of a look when she found out. Dom on the other hand stood alone again, once more with his Victory Trifle. In his opinion it was a 
100% dessert and if you know Dom, he does nothing but 100% (he says 100% A LOT by the way). His main problem was deciding to make a quintessentially British dessert with Italian shop bought ingredients and that is what ultimately cost him when Sat had to decide who would go through the judging round.
If only Dom had made his biscuits by hand, he would have got through. 100% Helping Matt, Prue and Oliver to decide who should go through the final banquet round was none other than Ken Sturdy; another twinkly, sparkly chap who really warmed the cockles of my heart. Getting these old boys and girls onto the panel for this series has been inspired and they’ve been doing a great job of stealing everyone’s thunder.
Going forward with their dishes, it was pretty neck and neck between the two competing chefs. Emily swam ahead with her starter and fish dish, with Mr Fort swooning over combination of sweet and meat in her ‘Fight them on the beaches’. But Josh’s main - ‘Normandy Rabbit’ - brought the biggest smiles to the table, they all literally fell over themselves when gobbling it up. Ken loved the use of the sand bag too, as it brought back memories of Normandy.
So when it came to announcing the winner it was very tough one to call. If Emily’s downbeat face was anything to go by, Josh had it in the bag. But the panel thought otherwise, she was through and blimey, wasn’t it nice to see her beam at last and light up the screen. Believe in yourself Emily, believe!!!
Danny is a food adventurer, enthusiastic allotmenteer, supper club host and writer of the entertaining and quirky epicurian blog, Food Urchin. He also writes for Great British Chefs and past credits also include writing for Delicious Magazine online and MSN Food and he is an absolute sucker for East End pie and mash (with loads of liquor and vinegar).
