It feels like out of nowhere David and Betty are delivering top quality Asian dishes you might see at Melbourne's Chin Chin or Kylie Kwong's Sydney restaurant Billy Kwong.
A once weakish My Kitchen Rules team, they haven't faced Sudden Death since going against Duncan and Court, while top dogs Tim and Kyle have stared down the barrel of elimination on more than one occasion of late. And it was no different on Monday night.
The balance, to quote judges Pete and Manu, felt "a little off" as Kyle and Tim yo-yo'd from best to worst ("When you're on fire, you're on fire") and Valarie and Courtney nearly didn't complete the challenge and were berated for producing weak desserts.
Still reeling from David and Betty's remastered macha garden dessert (which had the hallmarks of a Heston Blumenthal creation) last challenge, the judges salivated over the pair's fast food offerings, particularly their Thai coconut mussels.
"Mmmm, wow!" said an almost bowled over Pete. "Not overcooked just plump, gorgeous..."
"Spicy, sweet, salty broth," Manu finished for Pete as they slurped their way to seafood heaven. "I think if the rest of the entrees are like this we are going to have a great competition today."
Their fried snapper with green apple salad went off without a hitch, as the pair looked set to cruise into the semi-finals.
"Two courses down David and Betty, Amy and Tyson are really killing it," said a thoroughly impressed Manu.
But Amy and Tyson, who have been strong competitors throughout the show, had the challenge in the bag after providing faultless dishes, including crispy chicken skin that had Pete snapping at Manu's fingers.
The brother and sister duo brought it home with their "stand out" peaches and cream dessert; easily creaming the other teams for time. And while Betty and David did slip slightly in the judges esteem with their Kafir lime pudding, they easily made the semi-finals just behind Amy and Tyson (and without the use of a single hashtag - thank God!).
Instead it was Kyle and Tim whose faces fell flat as they suffered a massive fall from grace.
Despite winning last challenge and having an advantage over the other teams, the meat-lovers turned into meat-heads by producing solid, but not faultless, food that the judges did not feel was "worth waiting for".
Even though the entire cook looked set to send Mark and Chris packing - with displays of messy floors and benches, near collisions with Amy and "contemporary plating that has gone askew", coupled with "dry and tough" pork - it was apparent that anything could have happened in Sudden Death. And that has been where Tim and Kyle have been finding themselves all too often.
Still the Adelaide boys pulled out all the stops against the Victorian footy lovers, with Kyle jamming as many rich flavours as he could muster (including bone marrow) into the "mother" of all gravy. That combined with a winning cauliflower combo (heavily hinted at being "borrowed" from Amy and Tyson) to go with their tender beef cheek, and it was Mark and Chris' lack of texture in their chilli beef ribs that sent them home.
Yet the spared duo are far from being in a winning position going into the semi-finals. Their lack of consistency, having failed on an all meat challenge last week, is more than just surprising.
And if challenged by Valarie's almost unbeatable curry, there doesn't look to be much wiggle room left for meat sauce.
Amy and Tyson may not have chosen them as the weakest team to compete against in the semis, but it seems the Queenslanders too see David and Betty as the wildcard of the competition, who could ultimately cause one of the biggest upsets in MKR history.
"We're going against David and Betty," said Amy. "David and Betty get too much strength from being underdogs, we think if they can get through a tough semi-final they will be hard to beat in the final, so yeah we want to try and knock them out in the semis. That way we don't have to see them in the grand final."
"I take that as a huge compliment actually, this is going to be a good fight," said a confident Betty.
