"Oh Bryan, we've missed your smile in this kitchen. It's been an emptier place." Matt Preston's sentiment could be echoed around the lounges of the homes of most MasterChef fans.
But sadly, a return wasn't to be.
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Bryan Zhu, the 25-year-old photographer who dreamed of opening a dessert bar despite his family's concerns about the industry, was among the eliminated contestants invited back for a second chance at MasterChef.
"I miss this pressure but I'm starting to feel that I'm enjoying it already," he told viewers.
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Each contestant was asked to hero one ingredient that would be used to create a savoury dish and then used again in a sweet dish if they made the top six.
Among those champing at the bit to return was Jess, who had spent her time away doing work experience in high-end restaurants of Melbourne. "It feels so amazing to be back, the atmosphere's electric and I've been missing it every day since I've been gone."
Bryan chose ginger and decided upon ginger pork and prawn dumpling, with ginger dipping sauce.
"I actually like savoury it's just that I've never had a chance to show off my savoury strength which I'm really hoping to show off today," said Bryan.
"Aha ha, look at you!" George Calombaris exclaimed at Bryan's chopping prowess to whistles from the gantry.
"Bryan's dumplings look like they're coming along really well. It's going to be a dumpling-off between him and Tamara," Sam told viewers.
Tamara was also doing prawn dumplings, but her's were chilli pot stickers with a chilli jam.
"I'm a little bit concerned about my dish today because the cook that sent me home was a form of dumpling. I've really put myself on line doing dumplings again but if I can't do them properly now to get back into the competition, then I don't know," she narrated to the cameras.
"And now I realise that Bryan is doing dumplings as well, there's going to be a direct comparison between my dumplings and Bryan's dumplings. I'm scared that I haven't made the right choice to cook dumplings today."
When it came to tasting, it looked like Bryan had won the dumpling-off.
"I can't tell you when I've had dumplings as good as that," said Gary Mehigan.
Preston commended Bryan's use of ginger: "You have walked a fine line but you have walked it elegantly and beautifully".
Then it was Tamara's turn.
"I've had nightmares about the dumplings I last cooked in the kitchen, they were an absolute disaster and I want redemption today. I want to banish the demon and I really want these dumplings to be my saving grace."
Tamara did redeem herself with pot stickers that were "put it in its rightful place in a kind of art gallery".
"I can taste all these different spaces of chilli and I'm salivating and I'm going to start to dribble," said Calomabris.
Jess' time at Melbourne's Cutler and Co. was put to good use, serving up perfectly pan fried duck breast with parsnip puree and heroing blackberry with a jus.
"Solid cooking, technically perfect .. it's just bang on," said Mehigan. "Happy days," concluded Calombaris.
"Just confirms how much I've learned and I just want to get back in so bad," Jess concluded.
Jess, Samuel, Bryan, Tamara, Pete and Lee all made it to the dessert round.
Sorry Pia. "It was actually amazing to be back in the MasterChef kitchen," she said. "Being pushed to another level again, I actually treasured that experience."
Back to Bryan, it seemed clear that the judes thought he was the one to beat. "If you're a betting man, who has got the talent to beat Bryan?" Preston suggested.
But Jess had been "working really hard on" her desserts since being eliminated.
"Being back in this kitchen reminds me just how much I love cooking and seeing all my friends there I just want to be back among them," she told viewers.
Jess worked on a blackberry aeromousse that would be accompanied by milk and lemon myrtle elements.
"Jess is absolutely in the zone, a bit of a professional edge," said an impressed Mehigan. "Bryan has proved he's brilliant with desserts... I think Tamara is a little confused."
Tamara looked set to stumble by having too much chilli in her dessert and so rushed back to the pantry for more ingredients.
Meanwhile Bryan was busily feathering his nest with skills newly acquired from his time at Koi dessert bar (owned by Reynold Poernomo) and delivered a beautiful ginger brown butter twill to add "drama" to his ginger and lemongrass icecream, with salted ginger caramel.
"Obviously he's gone to Reynold, he has learnt some stuff and he's only putting a couple of things on the plate instead of lots of stuff leading to confusion," complimented Calombaris.
"Bryan's working really well down there, he's really tidy, he's focused, he's like a new Bryan," MasterChef contestant Eliza cooed from the gantry.
"He would be a massive threat if he came back in," fellow contestants Ben and Ray eagerly discussed.
But Jess also looked like a real threat.
"I just really felt that I left before my time, I want to prove that I can show the kind of promise and the kind of creative cooking that the judges thought I should be showing," a teary Jess told viewers. "And I want to show them more."
Even Mehigan noted she was a "little bit emotional" but congratulated her on "a sensational dessert", with Preston hailing her as "the benchmark that we are going to judge everybody else".
Yet some last minute tweaks by Tamara to her dessert of pineapple nougat with chilli peanut brittle, which now included a millet puff wafer, had the judges salivating.
"Ooo that is not what I thought I was going to get," said an impressed Mehigan.
"Oh wowser," Calombaris said on tasting. "So clever," Preston declared "..Is it creative? Unbelievably so."
"That is knocking it out of the park good, like really, really good," Mehigan concluded.
While the desserts by Samuel and Pete were enjoyed by the judges, they got shot down for not having dishes "as blow away as Jess or Tamara's". Lee's was complimented in passing.
Then it was Bryan's turn. "It's probably one of the prettiest dishes I've putten (sic) up."
"I think it looks amazing.. it's very sophisticated," declared Mehigan. He and Calombaris called the final decision a "nail biter" upon tasting.
"The fight for that apron is going to be a tough one," concurred Preston.
Still this was a second chance for only one contestant, not three.
"And as we expected it was a very, very close fought thing. Boy did you make it hard for us to make a decision," said Mehigan.
"Three dishes that heroed their chosen ingredient beautifully. Three dishes that belonged on the table of a great restaurant. And three dishes that were each, in their own way, worthy of winning your place back into the competition," Preston said of Bryan, Jess and Tamara's desserts.
But in the end no amount of work experience could trump time in the MasterChef kitchen, and it was Tamara who won back her apron.
"The winning dish combined the creativity, the joy and the sheer boisterousness that made that dessert not just delicious but incredibly memorable," said Preston.
Jess felt the most downtrodden.
"I'm so proud of the kind of dishes I put up. On any other day it would have been good enough to get me back in," she said. "It's really tough to hear Tamara's name being called but I do feel happy for her."
Bryan chose instead to focus on his future (and that's why he remains so loved). "Fingers crossed this won't be the last you hear of me."
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