Sara Bates recaped episode 8 for season 9!

This week on Food Network Star there were twists and turns!  To begin, we learned that the 7 eliminated finalists returned to compete in Star Salvation.  One finalist won and achieved salvation and returned to the competition.  We learned that the winner of Star Salvation was Lovely!  She sent 6 finalists home to get back into the game.

For the mentors challenge the finalists were tasked with taking a plate of food and describing it so well that it made the mentors hungry.  The mentors were hungry for Italian…

The finalists had 30 minutes to create a signature Italian dish, then 30 seconds to write a mouth watering description and present it to the mentors.  The finalist who made the mentors the hungriest won a significant advantage in the Star Challenge.

The finalists completed their dishes and were brought in front of the mentors two at a time.  In a shocking twist, the finalists switched plates and had to taste and present each others dishes, not their own!

Damaris, who made linguine with meat sauce, and Lovely, who made fettucine alfredo with shrimp, went first.  Rodney and Stacey went second, with Stacey describing Rodney’s “Late Night in Little Italy” dish, and Rodney describing her chicken saltimbocca with pasta.  Lastly, Nicki described Russell’s veal sugo with fettucine and he in turn described her burst tomato pasta.

Overall, the finalists had a very hard time describing each others dishes, however, Nicki did great.  She did the best presentation overall and made the mentors hungry, winning the Star Challenge advantage!

For the next challenge, the finalists were split into two teams and created a field piece.  They visited two iconic restaurants and created a food story show.

Nikki’s advantage was that she got to pick her two team members, and she selected Damaris and Stacey. The second team was comprised of Russell, Lovely and Rodney.

Team Nikki was charged with doing a show on Jim, The Donut Man.  Damaris did the introduction and she did great!  Stacey spent time in the kitchen with Jim, learning how to make the donuts.  To wrap things up, Nikki talked to a longtime customer.

The other finalists did a story on Vito’s Pizza.  Russell did the introduction and overall did pretty good.  Rodney spent a minute in the kitchen with Vito, and lastly Lovely talked to a couple of patrons about the pizza.

Once the shows were wrapped up we headed to the screening room.  In addition to the mentors, three folks from the Hollywood Reporter were there and gave their input on how well the finalists did.

On the story of the Donut Man, overall the team did great.  Stacey talked over Jim several times and that bothered everyone.  The mentors said Nikki was fantastic and Damaris gave a strong presentation.  They definitely made everyone hungry for donuts!

With the story of Vito’s Pizza, the mentors didn’t think that team did as well.  Rodney was goofy again and everyone said they felt it was difficult to understand him.  Lovely wasn’t engaging and almost too polished. They did not leave the judges hungry.

Nikki’s team won the challenge and they were all safe.  It came down to Lovely, Rodney and Russell as to who would be going home.  The mentors discussed and they all agreed that the finalists had 3 very different personalities with very different strengths and weaknesses.  Overall they agreed that Lovely had to go home.  She got back into the competition, however, they noticed the same issues as when she was in the competition before.

Next week the finalists will be involved in a Restaurant Impossible challenge!  I can’t wait to see that one. Have a great week all!