Great Food Truck Race Season 12 Gold Coast

Photo - Food Network

The Great Food Truck Race season 12 airs on Food Network at 9pm ET/PT on Thursday nights. This season is along the Gold Coast and there are only seven food truck teams who are competing to win a $50,000 grand prize.  This year there are stops in Los Angeles,San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Las Vegas and the season is six episodes long.


The food trucks competing are:

• Bachelor Kitchen (Austin, Texas)
• Crystal’s Comfort Food (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Eat My Crust (Phoenix, Arizona)
• Fat Kid (Virginia Beach, Virginia)
• Lunch Ladies (Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts)
• Mystikka Masala (Dallas, Texas)
• Super Sope (Turlock, California)

More information about season 12 of The Great Food Truck Race and the teams competing can be found in the press release and on the Food Network site if you are interested.

Feel free to discuss this season in the comments.  I usually do a preview with spoilers for The Great Food Truck Race, but I didn't get around to it for this season.  I will do another post for the final episode.

UPDATE - Here is the post with the winner.

Buddy vs. Duff Season 2 Discussion

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Season 2 of Buddy vs. Duff airs on Food Network at 9pm ET starting on March 15th, 2020.  This season will be eight episodes long with the finale being on Sunday, May 3rd. This season of Buddy vs. Duff will also feature their wives (Lisa Valastro/Johnna Goldman)  and Buddy Valastro and Duff Goldman will have helpers in each of the challenges.

Buddy and Duff will be making supersized cakes and will be "judged on a point system based on creativity, difficulty, adherence to the theme and the incorporation of a special challenging element, ranging from detail, special effects, interactivity, and more."

Season 1 of Buddy vs. Duff was very popular and controversial with a lot of people talking about the behavior of Buddy Valastro on the show.  Buddy and Duff didn't really want to do another season after the show aired last year, but I guess they warmed up to it.

Feel free to discuss season 2 of Buddy vs. Duff in the comments and talk about the changes from season 1 to season 2.

To see who won Buddy vs. Duff season 2 see this post. 

Taverna Trela - Restaurant Impossible Update

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Tonight on the season finale of Restaurant: Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Delray Beach, Florida to makeover Taverna Trela. Taverna Trela is a Greek restaurant owned by Bobby Orfanos who has neglected the restaurant since the loss of his parents.  He is supposedly $400,000 in debt and owes money to a lot of vendors.  Robert Irvine will need to inspire Bobby to fix the restaurant in order to succeed.



As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Taverna Trela to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant: Impossible):

Spring Baking Championship Season 6

Spring Baking Championship season 6 airs on Food Network on Monday nights starting March 9th, 2020 and will once again be hosted by Clinton Kelly.  The judges on the show will remain the same with Nancy Fuller, Duff Goldman, and Lorraine Pascale returning.

There will be eleven bakers competing for a $25,000 prize over the nine-episode season (there were 10 bakers and 8 episodes last season) and the winner will be revealed on Monday, April 27th after a double-episode finale.

The eleven bakers competing are:

• Val Criado - San Antonio, TX
• Sandra Danso-Boadi - Mississauga, ON
• Sohrob Esmaili - San Francisco, CA
• Arin Hiebert - Calgary, AB
• Franck Iglesias - Old Saybrook, CT
• Molly Matthaei - Jackson Hole, WY
• Aisha Momaney - New York, NY
• Christine Nguyen - Sugar Land, TX
• Anibal Rodriguez - Rio Grande, PR
• Aris Rodriguez - Sedona, AZ
• Tati Vernot - Miami, FL

The press release about the season from Discovery is below and feel free to discuss the season in the comments.

To see who won season 6 of Spring Baking Championship, see this post. 

Worst Cooks in America Winner - Season 18

Tonight at 9pm ET/PT on Food Network is the season 18 finale of Worst Cooks in America where the winner will take home a $25,000 prize. The final two contestants are Shannon Akins representing Anne Burrell's team and Leo Lech representing Alton Brown's team.

The episode description states, "The final two recruits get private cooking lessons from Alton Brown and Anne Burrell and learn to make a dish of their choosing. Then Alton and Anne teach their recruits how to make a three-course, restaurant-quality meal. For the main dish challenge, the two finalists put all their new culinary skills to the test in order to impress judges Kelly Choi, Brian Mazza and Jet Tila, who do a blind taste test and determine the winner of the $25,000 prize."


I will update this post with the winner once the episode airs and feel free to discuss the episode/season in the comments.  A lot of talk this season has been about Alton Brown as a mentor and there has been a lot of discussion about his behavior on the show.

Continue reading to see the winner....

Vegas Chef Prizefight on Food Network

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A new Food Network series called Vegas Chef Prizefight airs Thursday nights at 10pm ET on the channel and is hosted by Anne Burrell. Eight chefs are competing in a competition to be named Head Chef at the brand-new $10 million restaurant at the Flamingo Las Vegas. Each week, chefs will face challenges at a different restaurant within the Caesars Entertainment empire to prove they have what it takes to run a high-profile restaurant in Las Vegas.

The chefs competing on the show are:

• Brittney Brown (Detroit, Michigan)
• Jeffrey Compton (Auburn, Alabama)
• Julia Helton (Chicago, Illinois)
• Jeff Kraus (Tempe, Arizona)
• Janey Lyu (New York, New York)
• Lamar Moore (Chicago, Illinois)
• Roshara Sanders (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
• Juan Zepeda (Denver, Colorado)

The season will be six-episodes long with the finale airing on Thursday, April 9th. Feel free to discuss the season in the comments and I will do another post before the season finale. A press release about the show with more information is below.

To see who won Vegas Chef Prizefight - See this post. 

Lil G's Kajun Restaurant - Restaurant Impossible Update

Tonight on Restaurant: Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Belle Chasse, Louisiana to makeover Lil G's Kajun Restaurant. Lil G's is a Cajun restaurant owned by Therese Creppel who bought the restaurant 12 years ago.  She has managed to stay in business with the help of her daughter, but she has supposedly had consecutive years of losing more than $100,000.  Her daughter Brooke is only taking home $14,000 a year in pay from the restaurant and the restaurant is putting a strain on their relationship.


As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Lil G's Kajun Restaurant to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant: Impossible):

Food Network Tournament Of Champions Discussion

Tonight at 10pm ET on Food Network is the series premiere of Tournament of Champions.  Tournament of Champions is a cooking tournament where 16 of the most celebrated chefs face off in a bracket style competition.  They will have head-to-head single elimination matchups until a winner is crowned.  A randomizer machine determines the protein, produce, equipment, cooking style, and time for each of the cook-offs

There are eight chefs from the east coast: Maneet Chauhan, Rocco DiSpirito, Alex Guarnaschelli, Elizabeth Falkner, Darnell Ferguson, Amanda Freitag, Marc Murphy and Christian Petroni.

And eight chefs from the west coast: Richard Blais, Eric Greenspan, Antonia Lofaso, Beau Macmillan, Jet Tila, Marcel Vigneron, Michael Voltaggio, and Brooke Williamson.


The chefs have been seeded 1 to 8 and the bracket is below:

Tournament of Champions has been heavily promoted and the season will only be five-episodes long. Round 1 will last two episodes, then the final eight, final four and final two will each have an episode.  Guy Fieri is the host, Simon Majumdar and Justin Warner will be doing play-by-play analysis of the competition, and there will be a rotating panel of judges.  As far as I can tell, it looks like the only prize for the show is bragging rights for the winning chef. UPDATE - It looks like they will win a brand new truck as well.


What do you think of the seeding and who are you rooting for to win?  I will update this post with the winners of each match-up until the finale and you can discuss Tournament of Champions in the comments.

• Matchup 1 - Antonia Lofaso vs. Marcel Vigneron.  WINNER - Antonia Lofaso 92-89
• Matchup 2 - Eric Greenspan vs. Jet Tila. WINNER - Jet Tila 76-72
• Matchup 3 - Alex Guarnaschelli vs. Darnell Ferguson. WINNER - Darnell Ferguson 72-71
• Matchup 4 - Christian Petroni vs. Marc Murphy. WINNER - Christian Petroni 85-84
• Matchup 5 - Elizabeth Falkner vs. Amanda Freitag. WINNER - Amanda Freitag 92-82
• Matchup 6 - Richard Blais vs. Beau Macmillan. WINNER - Beau Macmillan 81-76
• Matchup 7 - Michael Voltaggio vs. Brooke Williamson. WINNER - Brooke Williamson 96-90
• Matchup 8 - Maneet Chauhan vs. Rocco DiSpirito. WINNER - Maneet Chauhan 91-81 
• Matchup 9 - Antonia Lofaso vs. Beau Macmillan.  WINNER - Antonia Lofaso 96-85
• Matchup 10 - Amanda Freitag vs. Darnell Ferguson.  WINNER - Amanda Freitag 82-78
• Matchup 11 - Christian Petroni vs. Maneet Chauhan. WINNER - Maneet Chauhan 93-89
• Matchup 12 - Brooke Williamson vs. Jet Tila.  WINNER - Brooke Williamson 94-83

To see who won Tournament of Champions and to discuss the finale, see this post. 

Kids Baking Championship Winner - Season 8

Tonight at 10pm ET on Food Network is the season 8 finale of Kids Baking Championship where the winning baker will take home the prize of $25,000 and a feature in Food Network Magazine.  The final episode was originally scheduled to air on March 9th, but it looks like Food Network moved it up a week and they will have back-to-back new episodes tonight.

The four remaining bakers going into tonight's episodes are Morgan Chaffin (Glen Burnie, MD; age 11),  Sam Occhiogrosso (West Hartford, CT; age 11), Graysen Pinder (Wilmington, NC; age 13), and Reggie Strom (Bend, OR; age 12).


The final episode description states, "Fruit is an important element of baking, so Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman challenge the final three bakers to make fruit cakes, but not the holiday kind. Instead, they have to make cakes that look like actual fruit! One baker will walk away with the title of Kids Baking Champion."

I will update this post with the season 8 winner of Kids Baking Championship once the episode airs and feel free to discuss the episode/season in the comments.

Continue reading to see who won Kids Baking Championship season 8....