Let’s Eat (Food Network)

Let’s Eat (Food Network) – Premieres 12th August

A Sunday morning cooking show, where hosts Brandi Milloy, Jamika Pessoa & Stuart O’Keeffe knock some food up in front of a studio audience.

With each of the chefs creating something within the theme of the episode, they go through some exceptionally basic stuff at a breakneck pace. All of which is greeted with oooh’s and ahhh’s from the audience. Then to round off the show, a guest chef is brought in to to give a briefest of run throughs on how to make one of their signature dishes.

With the show only being 20 minutes long, and with the amount of content it has, it all feels very rushed. Like a condensed take on Saturday Kitchen, but with awkward interactions and any real lack showing what to do. Altogether it’s an unenjoyable bit of viewing.

1.2/10

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Reality Cupcakes (Food Network)

Reality Cupcakes (Food Network) – Premieres 6th August

A show that follows Ashley Foxen, who runs the Reality Bites bakery which specialise in making cupcakes look realistically like other things.

In the episode, Ashley and her team made up of family members, receive orders from three different clients. Where after receiving the brief, begin to create the order.

During the making of the cupcakes Ashley highlights various parts of the bake that are either unique to it, or are more difficult than usual. All the while the rest of the family help out or jape around. Then when the cake is finished, it’s delivered to the client where they watch the guests get their mind blown at what they’re really eating.

While the show is similar to programmes like Texas Cake House, Dallas Cakes & Ridiculous Cakes!. This doesn’t offer anything new to make it stand out, and with the episode going through three orders, gives the show a very rushed feel to it all that makes it all very forgettable.

1.9/10

Ultimate Summer Cook-Off (Food Network)

Ultimate Summer Cook-Off (Food Network) – Premieres 5th August

A cooking competition where six chefs go head-to-head over 4 weeks in a barbecue based competition to win the grand prize of $25k.

The show is split into two rounds. In the first, the chefs have 30 minutes to make  6 portions of the item required. Before they begin cooking the chefs also have to select a cooler at random which contains an ingredient they have to incorporate into the final dish. The when the food is prepared, tasted and judged, the winner gains an advantage for the next round.

In round two the chefs have 60 minutes to create two versions of the same dish. One set to a certain set of parameters and the other to their own creation. During this round the winner from the last is given access to a selection of ingredients only available to them. And at the end of the round the worst performer is eliminated from the competition.

For a Food Network competition, this one does seem to have more of a focus on how and why the competitors are cooking their variations of the dishes. Which makes it one of the more of the interesting cooking competitions that they’ve released. That said it’s doesn’t have any unique twists like Sugar Rush to make it stand out from the rest, though if you like this type of programme it does the job.

3.6/10

Comfort Food Tour (Food Network)

Comfort Food Tour (Food Network) – Premieres 21st July

A travel food show hosted by Mark Anderson and Ryan Fey of The Grill Dads fame. Where they head off to various US cities to sample the best comfort foods they can find.

In the programme Mark and Ryan visit three restaurants which specialise in various cuisine. And while there, the pair meet with the owner and are shown how a couple of their most over indulgent items are made. After seeing the cooking process and with them occasionally messing about. The pair sample the food, and give the standard food show descriptions of what it tastes like. Then after all the dishes are gone through, move on to the next place.

It’s the standard Food Network type of show, though the pair are more entertaining than most. And if you liked The Grill Dads, this is more of the same.

2.9/10

Triple D Nation (Food Network)

Triple D Nation (Food Network) – Premieres 13th July

A follow up show to Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, where Guy Fieri goes back to the places he visited in DD&D to see how they are doing.

In the show Guy visits four of the formerly featured places where he goes through what he liked about the place before, and when meeting up with the owners they say how being on the show changed their fortunes.

After the chat Guy has some of the food he sampled there before, as well as trying some of the new items they now have on the menu. Along with the programme reusing some of the old footage showing the owners going through how the dishes were made, and finishing off with the owners revealing how Guy prepared them for life after appearing on the programme.

With the programme being a recap show, it’s similar to the Kitchen Nightmares episodes where Ramsey revisits the places he helped. Though in this it does seem Guy told every place the exact same piece of advice… to increase the size to the restaurant and get ready for more people turning up. That said if you liked DD&D then this is exactly more of the same.

3.1/10

Wedding Cake Championship (Food Network)

Wedding Cake Championship (Food Network) – Premieres 25th June

A Food Network clone of the Great British Bake-Off, but with the twist that it’s only focusing on the making of wedding cakes. In the competition six teams of bakers go up against each other, where the last remaining team wins $25k.

In each episode the teams have to go through two rounds. The first round is a one hour challenge where the judges set the theme for them to create a wedding cake item. After the had been produced, tasted and critiqued the winning team ends up getting an advantage for the next round.

In round 2 the teams are given 5 hours to produce a wedding cake for an engaged couple. The bakers have to incorporate what the the engaged pair have asked for, while the round 1 winners get an extra piece of information to help with their cake.

Then after the cakes have been made, both the judges and couple sample the them, where the engaged couple gets to reveal which team won the episode. After that has been announced the judges then reveal the worst two performers, and then eliminate the weakest team.

As baking shows go it does have most of the Bake Off staples in it, with the marquee where the bakers compete in, to the hosting pair that wander around chatting and dropping innuendos to contestants as they bake. Though with all the similarities, it isn’t watchable as Bake Off. And with the whole show based on the one theme it has more than a small chance to become repetitive.

3.3/10

Girl Meets Farm (Food Network)

Girl Meets Farm (Food Network) – Premieres 24th June

A standard Food Network cooking show along the same lines as Valeries Home Cooking where Molly Yeh is entertaining some guests at the farm she lives on with her husband.

The programme starts off with Molly talking about the event that coming up, and shows what she’ll be cooking to feed the people arriving for it. Then during the show Molly shows how to make the dishes, where at the end of the programme everything is presented to the visitors for the meal.

As a cooking show, the meals produced are more technical than the stuff shown in Giada On The Beach, though everything in it seems really basic and doesn’t come close the stuff done in It’s Suppertime.

2.0/10