Tag Archives: Abigail Mbalo

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 17: Roxi Wardman steams ahead to win Finale, praised by Chef Marco Pierre White!

MasterChef 17 RoxiAs we predicted in our blogpost yesterday, Roxi Wardman was crowned MasterChef SA Season 3 winner last night, and has waved her career at Transnet as an assistant train driver goodbye.  While her ‘opponent’ Sipho Mdlankomo is widely liked, there should be no debate about the fairness of the result, as the scoring was shared at every step of the three-stage challenge which the Top 2 had to go through last night.

It was a shock to see the transformation in Roxi’s appearance, from always well-MasterChef 17 Roxi Red pink hairpresented in terms of make-up and bling bling jewellery while she was in the MasterChef SA kitchen, to her red/pink hair, heavy make-up, and proudly-visible tattoos which she did not have as a Finalist.  We had only seen one piercing above her lip in the past.  It seemed as if Roxi could not believe that she had won the competition.

The Top 2 finalists met up in the MasterChef SA kitchen for one last time, and were delighted to see the other 10 Finalists there too, coming in support of the Top 2.  An even bigger surprise was the surprise arrival of Roxi’s parents and her boyfriend Byron, as well as Sipho’s ‘boss‘, as she called him, his wife, and their Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 16: double episode no piece of cake for 2 Finalists

MasterChef 16 Top 4Last night’s two-hour episode was a bundle of nerves for both the Top 4 finalists as well as for MasterChef SA fans, with difficult food challenges.  With Ian Young and Philippa Robinson sent home, Sipho Mdlankomo and Roxi Wardman will be fighting each other for the Top slot.  The programme was divided in two halves, filmed on two different days.

Cake Challenge

The Top 4 were to bake a cake ‘fit for a queen‘ in the first hour, it not being known initially that a Finalist would be eliminated in each half.  Roxi was happy, desserts and cakes being her forté. Pastry Chef Lorraine Meaney from the Cape Grace hotel, a guest in Season 1, joined the kitchen, and set the challenge of a Cardamom Lemon Chocolate gâteau.  Chef Lorraine was the Head Pastry Chef Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 15: Top Five Foraging, Mel Sutherland ‘muscled’ out!

MasterChef 3 15 Top 5 ForagingMasterChef Season 3 is slowly coming to an end, with only three more episodes to go.  Last night it was clearly winter when episode 15 was shot in the Cape forests, the focus being foraging.  It also meant the end for Mel Sutherland, who was sent home due to an unsatisfactory ‘muscle (sic) ceviche with wild garlic panna cotta and squid ink jelly‘!

On arrival at the MasterChef SA Top 5 were told that they would have to find their own ingredients in nature. Chef Pete Goffe-Wood told them: ‘The first part of this challenge you have to find your own ingredients. And you’re going to do it in the way we’ve been doing it for thousands of years – you’re going to go foraging’.   The Top 5 were to go out into nature to gather Continue reading →

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 14: five hundred’s Chef David Higgs a highlight; Abigail Mbalo smoked out!

MasterChef 3 14 Final 6Last night the MasterChef SA Season 3 Top 6 finalists returned from Mauritius to a treat in Johannesburg, being lunch at South Africa’s number 2 Eat Out Top 10 restaurant five hundred, at the Saxon Boutique Hotel, a restaurant on my bucket list!  Returning to the MasterChef SA kitchen at Nederburg, the finalists had to replicate each of Chef David Higg’s dishes, Abigail Mbalo leaving the MasterChef SA kitchen, having forgotten to plate some of the elements.

For the second time in a few weeks episode 14 started more than 10 minutes late, without warning or apology by M-Net, not even on Social Media.   We saw the Top 6 Finalists arrive at five hundred, and they were seated at the Chef’s Table.  A screenMasterChef 3 14 five hundred opened to the kitchen, and Chef David welcomed the Finalists, saying that they would be served a 6-course lunch to congratulate them on getting so far in the competition.  The dishes presented would be those that have been the highlight of the five hundred menu in the past 18 months.  He mentioned their rooftop garden, which was planted in the same time period.  Chef David also said that they do things differently at five hundred, the chefs serving the diners.

Nederburg wines were to be paired with each course, but we only saw the sommelier pair the first course of pressed prawns with broccoli coral, mayonnaise, and nori soil, with Nederburg The Anchorman Continue reading →