*1) Fran – Personal trainer/Ex-WNBA player. The sports wrap: A healthy wrap that customers build on their own. Alley-oops, 1996 just stole your idea.
 
There will be canned applause when ordering, high-fiving and sports things on walls. You get a fitness tip in your sandwich, I mean wrap, like a judgmental fortune cookie. (“Put down that wrap, fattie!”) Aussie haircut: “Isn’t this a bit toyered?” She disagrees; Chipotle sold $1.5 billion in wraps last year. Wraps may be all the rage from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah. I am distracted by what looks like my girlfriend’s purple satin bath robe she is wearing over a black dress, looking like a young black Maude. (Aussie for "tired" - RG)
 
*2) Joey – Bona fide Jersey/Brooklyn meathead archetype seen in every WWII movie. Concept: meatballs. Name: Saucy Balls. (now say it like you’re from Jersey: sawwwcy bawls). Made Grandma’s (saucy) balls with a side of rigawt, I mean ricotta cheese. Many ball jokes ensue. (There was also a concept inspired by Hooters that didn’t make the cut called Peckers, with a rooster theme.)
 
- 3) Sarah – Private chef to “A-list” LA celebs. What’s Good – Organic and Healthy Café. 6 page, 100 item menu. Signature dish: mac n’ cheese that uses fruit and vegetable purees to increase nutritional value. Yuk. Precious overload: IT’S A CUPCAKE! Judges are mean: Tastes like the paper bag. Sarah, you’ve been Flayed! Guess you’ll be making Hot Pockets for Steve Guttenberg for a while longer. Congrats on creating the rare double shark jump on cupcakes and mac n’ cheese. Give her a Ted McGinley t-shirt and bus fare home.
 
*4) Sudhir – Software sales. The Tiffin Box: Southern Indian cuisine. Goal: “Indian Chipotle”. Make Indian flavors more accessible to American palates by making it lighter and healthier. Genius. Judges love the food. Leaning heavily toward being 100% vegetarian. Oh, Sudhir, you’re breaking my heart. You just lost 90 percent of your market and my love.
 
*5) Sandy –  Bartender, Hair Cuttery frosted-tips enthusiast. Limbo: Where healthy and devilish foods collide. Serving pulled pork (Hell) and pulled bison (Heaven). Hell, please! Judges love concept.
 
*6) Jamawn – Un/self-employed cook in Detroit. Chicken wings and waffles. Hard-working black father of five with tons of spirit. Haircut is baffled by combination of waffles and chicken wings, as am I. Food is okay, but they love his tale of woe and persistence. It’s a Cinderfella story.
 
-7) Jason – Bully’s Burgers & Wings. Has “secret sauce” – it’s all-purpose! Like ketchup! Serves wings. I want to smack the tenebre out of Charo’s ham hand as she eats chicken wings with a knife and upside down fork again.
 
-8) Joe – Owns LA restaurants called “Big Wangs”. Wings + sports bar = Big Wangs. Obnoxious stereotype. Points out that the black guy is making wings too, because “that’s what they do.” Wang wing envy? L'il Wangs is fast casual version. See any problems with the name? Me neither. Joe, you’ve been out-wanged.
 
-9) Aimee – Kristin Chenoweth doppelganger. Runs a pet waste removal business called ... wait for it ... wait for it ... The Poo Crew. “My restaurant’s name is SoupZ and the inspiration probably comes from ... soups.” All natural, made to order ... in a VitaMix blender. “SoupZ ... for when chewing is too much trouble.” Reminds me of the SNL sketch Bass-O-Matic. Her spicy vegetable mix soup looks like C.H.U.D. waste. Flay: “Tastes like if you took nacho cheese chips and pureed it with some water.” Judges spit into napkins, make ugly faces. Back to the Poo Crew, Pikachu.
 
*10) Stephenie – Attorney. Asian-American addition to this rainbow of blah. Compleat: Fixed calorie healthy fast food. So ... Weight Watchers? An entrée, side and dessert for a fixed amount of calories.
 
*11) Alex – Hard n’ Soft Taco Bar: Fusion tacos. “Whatever you’re making, I could make it a taco.” Example: Chicken parmesan taco. Entrant #9, clean up on aisle 3! La fusión salta el tiburón.

*12) Marisa – Wok: Stir Fry for the Healthy Heart. Came to her in a dream. Made to order pick your own ingredients from seven columns. Does Batman have to go through all this rigmarole? No! Alfred just makes him something. Pre-cooked cooked to order. Sauce on the side. BURN HER, SHE’S A WITCH!
 
*13) Eric – MeltWorks: Grown-up grilled cheese sandwiches. Serves a BBQ chicken grilled cheese. The menu is the dreaded multi-column build-your-own deal. It’s been his vision for three years. As MLK said, “I have a dream. I have a dream of melted Asiago on a fresh ciabatta with thick slices of honey-baked ham.”
 
-14) Brianne – “Educator”/possible acid casualty. Inflates something that looks like a birthing structure for giant cartoon clowns. Café Creativi – Interactive Café for Kids. Left brain menu and right brain menu. Clown birthing bladder has nothing to do with restaurant.
 
-15) Sina – Persian cuisine (shh, that means Iranian.) Serves six-story kabob meat slider. Sina is the business name. Bad news if they don’t even give Captain Kabob’s name.
 
-16) Nam Nam – The first mainstream Vietnamese fast casual restaurant. You’ve got my attention unnamed (and doomed) hipster Vietnamese dudes. Namsters start talking about waiters. Steve Ells says, “I wasn’t aware that fast casual had waiters.” Buh bye pho now.
 
-17) Pot Belly – Pot pies. Tell me more, angry sexy librarian. “We have a chicken pot pie, but why not have a cheeseburger pot pie or a Philly cheesesteak?” Because the ovens are too hot in the bowels of Hell where I just banished you. Judges agree.
 
*18) Krystal/Greg – Bartenders. Hicks: Classic American small bites and BBQ (LA hipster version). Southern comfort food tapas. “Never been done before.” I disagree. Celebrating the American redneck. With tapas? Served tiny banana cream pies. Judges like. Charo thinks it might be offensive. Yes, tiny portions of BBQ would be offensive to rednecks.

Summary of remaining concepts:

1) WBNA wraps
2) Saucy Balls
3) Indian light & healthier
4) Limbo – decadent or healthy
5) Chicken and waffles
6) Healthy fixed calorie food
7) Everything is a taco
8) Healthy design your own wok meals
9) Grown-up grilled cheese
10) Redneck tapas
 
I think the Indian Chipotle concept is great if executed properly. The Saucy Balls guy is a force of nature. The taco concept is a novelty that could work. Redneck tapas could work – lowbrow small plates. Limbo could work, because you may have the intention of eating the healthy options, but switch over once you get there and pass out in a platter of ribs.
 
WNBA wraps? Nope. All this make-your-own healthy stuff? No thanks.
 
I think the chicken and waffles guy is a sympathy choice put in there for dramatic purposes.
 
Because this is airing on NBC and not Fox, it is less exploitive and has much less timing wasting “coming up next”, “what you just saw”, and idiotic exaggerated pauses.
 
While I have never been a fan of Bobby Flay, he is not Gordon Ramsay and that is a beautiful thing. The show connects with the real world of restaurant creation and management, which is an interesting world, so I will be blogging recaps for the rest of season.