Food Network's Ciao House Season 1

Food Network's newest show Ciao House airs on Sunday nights at 9pm ET on Food Network and the prize for winning is "an immersive culinary education across Italy, training with renowned Italian master chefs."  Alex Guarnaschelli co-hosts the show with Gabriele Bertaccini and the series will be eight episodes long with the finale on Sunday, June 4th.  It seems like Giada De Laurentiis would have been on this show if she didn't leave Food Network for Amazon. The ten competitors living together and competing for the prize are:

• Omar Ashley (Avenel, New Jersey)
• Corey Becker (Brooklyn, New York)
• Saba Duffy (Framingham, Massachusetts)
• Trenica Johnson (Houston, Texas)
• Jess Mahoney (Los Angeles, California)
• Preston Paine (Dallas, Texas)
• Sarah Raffetto (New York, New York)
• Justin Robinson (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Natalia Rosario (Chicago, Illinois)
• Matt Wasson (Staten Island, New York)

They will compete against each other as individuals and in teams to prove their mastery of Italian cooking techniques and dishes.  Each week, new teams are picked and someone from the losing team will be eliminated by team voting.  The first episode is available on YouTube if you need to catch up and feel free to discuss the season in the comments.  

UPDATE - To see who won Ciao House, visit this post on the finale. 

Tournament of Champions Season 4 Winner

Sunday night at 8pm ET on Food Network is the two-hour season 4 finale of Tournament of Champions. There are four chefs remaining who are competing for bragging rights and a $100,000 prize. The final four chefs are Jet Tila, Britt Rescigno, Maneet Chauhan, and Mei Lin.  Maneet Chauhan won season 2 of Tournament of Champions and Jet Tila was in the final four of the last two seasons, but lost to Brooke Williamson in both of them.  Britt and Mei Lin are both first time competitors.

For the semi-finals of season 4, Jet Tila will face Mei Lin and the winner will represent the West in the final matchup.  Maneet Chauhan and Britt Rescigno will face off with the winner representing the East in the final matchup.  The two winners of those match-ups will face off in the finale to determine the winner of Tournament of Champions season four.

Here is a previous post about all of the matchups and outcomes for season 4 of Tournament of Champions, but below is how the final four got to this point:

• Jet Tila beat Carlos Anthony 84-77, Lee Anne Wong 83-78, and Adam Sobel 88-86.
• Maneet Chauhan beat Jonathon Sawyer 92-85, Stephanie Izard 86-84, and Karen Akunowicz 88-81.
• Britt Rescigno beat season 3 champion Tiffani Faison 89-88, Darnell Ferguson 83-81, and Jose Garces 85-81.
• Mei Lin beat Crista Luedtke 84-82, Tiffany Derry 92-85, and Shota Nakajima 91-84.

I will update this post with the winner of the final three match-ups after the episode airs and you can discuss this season in the comments.

UPDATE - Continue reading if you want to know who won the final matchups and season 4 of Tournament of Champions.  The episode was released on Discovery+ so if you have that premium service, you can watch it there ahead of the normal air time.  Obviously spoilers ahead so stop reading if you do not want to know......

Dutch Treat - Restaurant Impossible Update

On this week's episode of Restaurant: Impossible, which is the season finale, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Franconia, New Hampshire to makeover Dutch Treat. Dutch Treat is owned by John who is overworked and has lost his desire for the restaurant.  There is junk everywhere in the restaurant and John doesn't seem to want help from others.  Robert needs to determine if John is able to regain his desire for the restaurant in hopes of turning the business around.

As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Dutch Treat 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):