FungYi

TVB NewsFlash 24: June 29, 2006

Beautiful Cooking Finals!



TVB's Beautiful Cooking Finals was held last week and scored the top slot for ratings . The hosts also took their time to introduce their contestants. From the beginning Ronald showed no mercy in igniting rumours as he talked about Tavia being 'at her highest peak (Fung) in both career and romance because she's a TVB Siu Fa Dan and having Lam 'Fung'!' causing much laughter for the audience. The other contestants including Ella Koon and Michelle Yip also received similar treatments by Alex and Edmond respectively.

Much to the audience's delight the guest judges for the evening matched perfectly with the beautiful ladies- Raymond Lam and Ron Ng (Double Dragons). When Ronald was introducing Raymond, he had openly described him as a 'lady killer, causing girls to fall head over heels with his hero saves beauty scenes...' causing a rather large grin on Raymond's face. However, Ronald soon turned around to his other hosts saying 'I don't understand why girls only fall for him...I mean if I had a co-star like Tavia doing fall and catch scenes I don't even need to act to have those eye contact like Raymond's!'

To this, the other rumoured boyfriend of Tavia, Ron Ng broke in jokingly 'Hey you guys forgot about me in The Academy with Tavia! I think we are pretty matching too!' Alex quickly reminded Ron to shush up because Ella Koon was there next to him.

However, Ronald refused to give up. He told Tavia 'don't consider Raymond because he has lots of girlfriends...you need someone like myself who is serious and responsible!'

Raymond quickly replied 'Hey I am serious when it comes to relationships!'

Ronald quick wittingly asked 'what about Michelle here?'

When Michelle started to answer, Raymond quickly cut her off saying 'we are co-stars and never went out cause we never had feelings for each other.'

Alex also hinted 'What about Tavia?' to which Raymond pretended he didn't hear the question and laughed nervously. Tavia was also blushing under her new tan and hid behind Ella Koon throughout the interrogation.

Warm Up Game

When the show finally started the warm up it was to prepare the duck for the pekking duck dish. This required the contestants to skin the roasted duck and chop the rest of the duck meat into neat pieces to be arranged on the dish. The first one trying out was Ella Koon who took the knife confidently but looked as if she was chopping wood on the duck. The duck skin turned out to be attached to rather huge chunks of meat and the rest of the duck collapsed messily on the plate. The hosts teased that whoever becomes Ella's boyfriend in the future better not cheat on her because they might end up like the duck.

Michelle's duck chopping experience according to the actress is rather memorable as she never cooked before. Fearing of touching the oily duck with her perfect nails she bearly got pieces of skin out of the duck and it looked almost untouched when the time was up. In the end everyone thought Tavia's was the best out of all of them.

Round One- Thai Money Bags



Round One for the finals was the Thai Money Bags. Don't let the look decieve you because it is fairly hard to make. To make this dish, the chef said you need to cook the fillings stir fried on the pan. The contestants was given sqaure sheets of spring roll pastry and had to work out themselves how to put the filling the pastry and tie the top with celery strings to make it money bag shaped. Then the dumpling would have to be deep fried.

Ella Koon kick started with stir frying the fillings by pouring what looks to be rather excessive oil. Alex pointed out 'I thought we were safe because Ron Ng is here and she wouldn't poison her boyfriend. Now I have second thoughts!'

Ron laughed telling Ella 'hold back the oil! I'm getting fat!'

The camera didn't stay off Raymond at all, who's eyes never diverted from Tavia. The camera caught Michelle looking up at Raymond when cutting the pastry and Ronald decided to help out by telling Raymond 'Michelle needs your help. It's ok I will look after Tavia for you.'

Raymond didn't seem to have listened to Ronald at all but was shouting to Tavia 'Don't you need to cut the pastry in half first?'

Tavia was laughing as she held onto the pastry 'I have no idea what to do with this! Cut it huh?' she cut the pastry into two sheets of triangles.

Raymond continued talking to his rumoured girlfriend 'Now peel off the sheets one by one...'

Ronald interupted 'Excuse me but being a judge you are not supposed to help out'

It seems Raymond took no notice of Ronald's warnings as the time approached final 10 minutes he got up from the judges' seats- clearly frustrated by giving directions from where he was and walked up to Tavia's strawberry kitchen. Tavia had about seven money bags looking ready for frying. Raymond told her to stand back as he heated the oil and said to her 'you can get hurt...let me fry it'


Ron Ng also came up to the strawberry kitchen seeing Raymond frying 'You've got to decorate the dishes Tavia!' Tavia took his advice and started decorating the plates but not stealing glances of Raymond frying the money bags. At one point she pulled on his sleeves 'you better stand back a little bit' and 'the money bag is ready isn't it?'

The time of judgement soon followed. Ella Koon's money bags somehow tasted like it was steamed more than fried. Alex said it was because she was boiling the money bags at first then poured oil on top. But overall it was a rather...creative experience. Michelle's looked like parcels wrapped with excessive celery strings. Ronald could hardly bite through the thick pastry to get to the uncooked fillings in the center. Tavia's was agreed to have looked the best and the taste was good. The hosts took a couple points off for Raymond helping his rumoured girlfriend out but this was made up for by both judges giving Tavia a 10/10.

Round Two- Eel Dish



The final round was the creative contest whereby the contestants are given a main ingredient for them to make whatever they please. Seeing its the finals, the hosts had the perfect ingredient in mind- eels.
But first the contestants must take the eel out of the tank. Everyone had different tactics. Ella wearing thick mittens, Tavia with a frying pan and Michelle using the lid of a soup pot.

Raymond was about to hop out of his seat again when he saw Tavia's face but was dragged down by Ronald as he explains 'Its a beautiful cooking show...not a romatic cooking show!' But eventually due to time constraints the hosts and judges had to help the girls out with the eel. After it was properly cut, the boys settled back to enjoy the rest of the show. Raymond occasionally laughed at Tavia's silliness.

At the time of judgement, Ella presented her 'Deep Fried Eel pieces in spicy salt'. Alex thought it was more salt than anything else but she recieved a 51/60 for her hard effort. Tavia offered the judges 'Braised Eel with Garlic and Turnip' After tasting, Ronald turned to Raymond 'Ok after twice eating Tavia's food I have to admit she's good. Only her cooking makes me finish the whole plate.' Ronald also reveals to the audience maybe that was why Raymond gains weight during filming of Twins of Brothers and Golden Faith but lost so much weight in La Femme Desperado! Her final score for this category a 59/60. Michelle's 'Eel Soup' didn't earn much of a phraise from the judging panel scoring only 34/60.

By: Winnie_blueangel

posted by FungYi @ 9:05 PM