Tuesday's My Kitchen Rules opened a fresh Instant Restaurant round after Jane and Shane's pigeon disaster sent them home on 50. Tiffany and Giancarlo and Mary and Golden had earned a direct trip to Kitchen HQ, leaving three original teams to take on three new rivals.

Krysten and Lucy, Angus and Simon, and Alisha and Deanne now face Sheridan and Ted, Harrison and Oliver, and Zoe and Zac. Everyone starts this round with another dinner to deliver, and the newcomers were hardly getting a gentle welcome.

The Garden Club Opens For Business

After seven years waiting for their chance, Perth mother and son Sheridan and Ted opened The Garden Club, a nod to her gardening and his golf. Their ambitions stretched to nines and tens.

Sheridan brings the practical approach of a maths teacher, while Ted likes experimenting with techniques. He has also won the family's Christmas cooking competition twice, although Mum was the judge. Manu Feildel and Colin Fassnidge were going to be a rather different proposition.

Angus cast the original teams as predators and the gatecrashers as prey. So much for letting everyone settle in over a nice dinner.

Zoe's Diet Becomes The Table's Business

The chicken liver parfait arrived with milk bread and red wine gel. Zoe, who is pescatarian, did not eat it, and suddenly the conversation moved from the plate to her place in the competition.

Angus questioned what she was doing in a cooking contest. Alisha asked, “Why are you here?” Alisha and Deanne also challenged how she could judge dishes she would not taste, with Jane's selective eating becoming a comparison point.

Zoe had not eaten meat since her teens. She pushed back, pointing out that her diet usually attracted little fuss. With beef cheeks coming next, she would be waiting until dessert to eat, although she could judge presentation and Zac could taste the meat dishes.

There was still someone on their team eating the food. The dinner table had managed to make one person's dietary preference feel like a much bigger emergency.

Two Courses Need The Same Fix

An incorrectly set oven timer threatened the parfait, but the entrée made it through. Manu liked the presentation and the red wine gel, while the texture showed promise. Missing salt dulled the flavour, and the bread-to-parfait balance needed work.

Manu awarded seven and Colin six. A respectable start, but those hoped-for nines and tens were already slipping away.

The beef cheeks came with Gruyère mash, confit carrots and gremolata. The meat was tender enough to yield to a spoon and the mash was smooth, yet insufficient seasoning held back another course. Both judges repeated their entrée scores: seven from Manu, six from Colin.

Zac liked the main. Angus challenged whether he was being honest or looking after his fellow gatecrashers, and Zac stood by his verdict. Even liking dinner was becoming contentious.

Dessert Pulls Them Back

Ted accidentally ran tap water into the palm sugar syrup, leaving Sheridan to rescue it. Their black sesame mochi cake and dark chocolate ice cream still delivered their best course.

Lucy rated the ice cream “10 out of 10”. Colin loved its richness and balance of sweetness and bitterness, while Manu enjoyed the sesame flavour but wanted less mochi on the plate.

The official dessert scores were seven from Manu and eight from Colin. At last, the menu had a course that lifted the result.

Sixty-Nine Sets The New Benchmark

Zoe and Zac gave seven; Harrison and Oliver and Krysten and Lucy each gave six; Angus and Simon gave five; Alisha and Deanne gave four. The guests contributed 28 out of 50.

Manu's three sevens totalled 21, while Colin's six, six and eight added 20. That made 41 from the judges and 69 out of 110 overall.

Ted took encouragement from getting the food out despite the mishaps. Sheridan and Ted have set the first target of the new round, but five teams still have to cook before their position is settled.

Krysten and Lucy are next back in the kitchen. Sheridan and Ted can swap cooking for judging, with a fairly clear reminder of how much the little details can cost.

My Kitchen Rules continues Monday at 7.30pm on Seven and 7plus.