There were thousands of people lined up outside, hoping, jostling, angling for the opportunity of a lifetime. In South Australia, the MasterChef judges were despairing of ever getting something decent to eat at the auditions for season one of the program. "We were pretty brutal," judge Gary Mehigan says.
Inside, Poh Ling Yeow's pan-fried chicken breast with pancetta and sun-dried tomato aioli was a queasy flop. "Messy and oily. No," Mehigan said with a shudder. It looked so unappetising as it collapsed on the plate that George Calombaris refused to even try it.
And yet, the judges saw something in Poh. "Just that little glimmer of, you know, potential," Mehigan says now. "It was just that little moment that we looked at each other and go, 'She knows more than she is letting on.'"
