Monk: In a bit of a change of pace, I’m going to try my hand at TV recapping for the second season of BBQ Brawl, which airs for *checks notes* 10 episodes *gulp* on Monday nights at 9pm ET on Food Network. 10 episodes? Well let’s see how this goes…

While we think of barbecue as primarily an American cuisine, there are live fire traditions all over the world, and this week “BBQ Brawl” aims to explore them a little. How deep or superficial will that be? Only one way to find out…

Just five competitors left, and much like Team Eddie last week, Team Bobby is now down to one player and gets to steal a player from another team. Bobby’s thought about it and…decides to not steal anyone. He’s good with Erica as his sole contestant and she is heartened by his faith in her.

Bobby then announces this week’s Advantage Challenge – an “International Tortilla Challenge” where each contestant has to make his/her best international barbecue dish with a tortilla in 30 minutes.

Brittani is named best dish on Team Eddie for her Caribbean fish taco (overcoming the unintentional almost-sabotage from her captain Eddie) and David’s gamble to use naan instead of a tortilla pays off for Team Michael. Erica “wins” for Team Bobby (duh) and then even gets named as best dish overall.

Erica’s advantage means that instead of spinning the “Wheel of Cue” to determine what cuisine his team will cook, Eddie gets his choice and goes with “Caribbean.” Michael spins and gets “Japanese ” and finally Eddie gets “Southern American.” Two hours on the clock and the contestants are off to the pantry.

The teams game plan and Team Bobby looks to be in great shape with Erica’s Caribbean heritage. Team Michael may struggle with Japanese even if Ara spent time in Japan and worked at a sushi restaurant and I’m not sure how intimately Team Eddie knows the South American barbecue cuisine other than “meat on a grill.”

Those dynamics more or less seem to pan out during the cooks. Erica and Bobby are calm while David’s issues with time management rear their ugly head as his ramen broth is bland and he has to call in Michael at the last minute to help out. Hopefully Ara’s cold smoked salmon will keep them afloat. Team Eddie have all their meats going and don’t seem to have too many cooking issues, so perhaps I underestimated them on this challenge.

Team Bobby’s “Caribbean BBQ” platter has Erica’s Jamaican grilled snapper with lime chili butter, her moros y cristianos (beans and rice), and Bobby’s jerk rubbed pork that could use more oomph. Bobby’s rum punch spritz is well balanced with the champagne cutting the sweetness of the rum, and the judges are appreciative as always for a bevvie.

For Team Eddie’s “South American BBQ” platter, Brittani has two chicken dishes – Peruvian and Argentinian – with Peru scoring points over Argentina. Christopher’s flank steak’s is cooked perfectly, particularly with the chimichurri topping (a “perfect bite” according to Brooke), but the texture of his chorizo sausage casing is a little rubbery, much to Christopher’s visible chagrin.

Finally, Team Michael is up with their “Japanese BBQ” platter. Ara’s cold smoked tuna sashimi misses with the judges due to its over-smokiness and earthiness of the togarashi spice rub. David’s yakitori chicken which was grilled over a charcoal chimney is “yumitori” but his pork ramen broth is lacking flavor due to the condensed timeframe of the challenge. Finally, Michael’s hibachi style ribeye seared over live coals is one of the best steaks some of the judges ahve had in a while, perhaps ever.

Bobby’s faith in Erica pays off as they are the first safe team. Team Michael is next, so that means either Christopher or Brittani are going home. I have a bad feeling about Christopher…

Brittani went 1 for 2 on her chickens while Christopher also hits .500 on his flank steak and chorizo dishes. Christopher gets the axe and unsurprisingly he disagrees with the judges decision, saying they “didn’t get it right this time” and that he believes “he was the one who could have gone all the way to the end.”

Bells for Christopher, the cocky “barbecue nerd, ” #1 draft pick, and sole North Carolinian this season…

FINAL Christopher Prieto Watch

Christopher goes home this week. While he came out strong in the initial challenge, his track record has really been mixed since then. Tonight, he loses the tortilla challenge within his team to Brittani and then while they both have issues in the Team Challenge it seems as if he goes home for his chewy chorizo casing. Brooke says she learned a lot from him and can’t wait to see what he does next. Faithful readers will know that’s the successful Prime Barbecue in Knightdale, which we previewed in 2020 and recently got a favorable writeup by Daniel Vaughn of Texas Monthly.

What was your favorite part of episode 8 of BBQ Brawl season 2? Leave your response in the comments and be sure to check back next week for a recap of episode 9.

Monk: In a bit of a change of pace, I’m going to try my hand at TV recapping for the second season of BBQ Brawl, which airs for *checks notes* 10 episodes *gulp* on Monday nights at 9pm ET on Food Network. 10 episodes? Well let’s see how this goes…

Note: I’ve corrected the episode numbers on this and all other recaps after getting tripped up whether the super-sized premiere was considered one or two episodes. Nonetheless, we should be good to go now.

After a bit of trash talk between the team captains, we are reminded that Team Eddie is down to one contestant and now gets to steal a competitor from either Team Bobby or Team Michael to join Christopher. Eddie chooses Brittani from Team Michael, who he says “has been on fire” the past few weeks. Michael bemoans losing such a strong competitor.

Eddie then chooses the next Advantage Challenge: grilled oysters. He is a Houston resident and thus is feeling confident going in for this captains challenge, but Bobby also feels comfortable with grilled oysters. Michael perhaps less so.

Eddie’s New Orleans-style chargrilled oysters with lump crab meat beats out Michael’s Asian-influenced oysters with Cleveland caviar (pickled mustard seeds) and Bobby’s grilled oyster with smoked shrimp and compound butter. So his confidence going in works out for him, and he gets his team an advantage in the seafood challenge of having the ability to steal mystery ingredients from other teams Dirty Santa-style. He takes the king crab legs from Team Michael, leaving them with the octopus. Team Bobby gets to keep their salmon.

Each team has to use their ingredient in each of their dishes in the “Seafood Showdown,” which is an abbreviated 90 minutes long. Turns out the octopus doesn’t bother Michael or this team at all and each of the contestants seem to have a background with it. The other teams look comfortable with their ingredient, so this week it will all come down to execution.

In order of judging:

Team Eddie goes with a crab theme for their platter. Eddie himself grills crab legs and tops with a gremolata. This was a big hit with the judges. Christopher’s plantain tostone with crab guisado (crab and tomato stew) is not as crab forward as judges would have hoped so looks like he won’t be in the running for top dish. Brittani’s grilled crab with sambal and spicy corn is good once the judges are able to combine all ingredients onto a forkful but her beer battered crab nuggets get dinged for not being grilled or smoked. Kind of important when it comes to a barbecue show, notes Rodney Scott.

Team Michael deals with the octopus in a Texas-meets-Mediterranean themed meal. Michael’s burnt flour and squid ink pasta with octopus sauce gets praise from judges for his technique in getting smoke into pasta. Ara’s braised octopus with lardons is on the chewy side, and David’s Spanish octopus stew gets dinged for using some of the same octopus from Ara which results in two different octopus textures in the dish.

Team Bobby’s “salmon three ways on the grill” starts with Bobby’s charred green curry salmon with crispy cowboy rice gets rave reviews from the judges. Bobby clearly was at ease cooking salmon in this challenge. Taylor’s salmon pinwheel with gochujang sauce and stuffed shishito is “very rich” which is “overwhelming” to Brook; never a good thing. Erica’s seafood gumbo lacks flavor and salt even after she got some tips from Bobby mid-cook but Erica hopes that the crispy salmon chicharrons will help save her.

After all meals are judged, there doesn’t seem to be a clear favorite since each team had issues in execution. Team Michael apparently gets graded on a curve for the difficulty of cooking the octopus and is the first safe team. Team Eddie is also safe, and Eddie avoids going back down to one contestant yet again.

That means Team Bobby will lose a teammate, and Taylor makes it two weeks in a row that a contestant goes home for a cream cheese dish (after Lu last week). Erica gets emotional in losing her best friend in the competition but will also have a new teammate soon enough. We’ll find out who Bobby steals next week for an international barbecue challenge.

Bells for Taylor, the Georgian pastry chef.

Christopher Prieto Watch

Not Christopher’s best showing this week, especially on a dish that is so near and dear to his heart. I believe this is the second time he has done plantain tostones, and I don’t think either has gone particularly well. Nevertheless, he moves on to the next week. Christopher and Brittani seemingly get along well enough this week and should continue to be a strong team in the competition.

What was your favorite part of episode 7 of BBQ Brawl season 2? Leave your response in the comments and be sure to check back next week for a recap of episode 8.