The Nu Nu taste test challenge landed on the MasterChef Australia contestants like a tropical storm—sudden, fragrant, and impossible to ignore. Nu Nu, the Palm Cove icon helmed by Nick Holloway, isn’t just a restaurant; it’s a postcard of Far North Queensland translated into plates.

Coral trout pulled from reef waters, mud crab wrestled from mangroves, finger limes that pop like citrus caviar—Holloway’s menu is modern Australian with an Asian whisper, every dish a conversation between ocean, earth, and fire.

For the contestants, the assignment was brutal: blind-taste three signature dishes, then recreate one from memory in 75 minutes. No recipes, no safety nets, just the metallic tang of panic and the ghosts of lemongrass past.

The judges—Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow, Sofia Levin, and guest maestro Holloway himself—lined up behind a bamboo curtain like culinary gods in linen. First course: Holloway’s legendary mud crab salad with green mango, chilli, and nuoc cham.

The crab meat arrived shredded into snowy ribbons, tangled with julienned mango that snapped like fresh snow and a dressing sharp enough to cut glass. Contestants leaned in, noses flaring—Harry sniffed once and whispered “fish sauce, lime, palm sugar—ratio’s everything.”

Mimi, eyes closed, dissected the heat: “Bird’s eye chilli, but seeded—subtle burn, not a slap.” The dish’s genius was restraint; the crab sang soprano, the mango played bass, the nuoc cham conducted with a citrus baton.

Second course: coral trout crudo with finger lime, coconut, and kaffir lime oil. The fish was sliced sashimi-thin, translucent as rice paper, pearls of finger lime bursting like pop rocks on the tongue.

The coconut came as a whisper—milk espuma, feather-light—while kaffir oil painted the plate in green perfume. “It’s Thailand on a Queensland reef,” Holloway said, voice low, almost reverent.

Contestants scribbled furiously: Sav noted the trout’s 30-second cure in salt and sugar; Darrsh identified the oil’s cold-press method—“no heat, or the kaffir goes bitter.” The dish was a high-wire act—too much lime and it curdled; too little coconut and it floated away.

The finale: grilled pineapple with pandan ice cream and palm sugar caramel. The pineapple arrived charred at the edges, caramelized into smoky sweetness, pandan ice cream melting into emerald rivers, caramel threading like liquid amber.

“This is dessert as memory,” Poh said, spoon scraping bowl. “Childhood satay stalls meet beach bonfires.” Contestants tasted and trembled—Jamie clocked the pandan’s overnight infusion; Pez fixated on the caramel’s 118°C snap. The clock started its merciless tick; stations erupted into controlled chaos.

Harry drew the mud crab salad and attacked like a man possessed. He butchered the crab with surgical calm—legs twisted, meat extracted in snowy chunks—then julienned mango with a mandoline that sang like a cicada.

His nuoc cham was a balancing act: fish sauce, lime, palm sugar, a whisper of garlic. The judges hovered; Holloway nodded at the chilli flecks—“Bird’s eye, seeded, perfect.”

Plating was poetry: crab piled like a tropical snowdrift, mango ribbons curling like waves, dressing drizzled in calligraphic loops. Andy’s verdict: “You’ve captured the soul—bright, balanced, alive.” Harry’s grin could’ve powered the Gold Coast.

Mimi tackled the coral trout crudo, her station a zen garden of precision. She cured the fish in a salt-sugar blizzard, fingers trembling like moth wings. Finger limes were segmented into caviar pearls—pop, pop, pop—while coconut milk reduced into espuma that hissed like sea foam.

The kaffir oil was cold-pressed in a makeshift mortar, leaves bruised until the air turned green. Sofia tasted, eyes fluttering: “The oil sings—citrus without screech.”

Mimi’s plate was minimalist haiku: fish fanned like petals, lime pearls scattered like dew, espuma drifting like mist. “You’ve honored the reef,” Holloway said, voice thick. “This is Nu Nu in a bite.”

Pez inherited the grilled pineapple, a dessert that could curdle faster than milk in humidity. He charred the fruit on a screaming-hot grill—smoke curling like genies—then churned pandan ice cream in a makeshift blast chiller, leaves steeped overnight in coconut milk until the green was electric.

The palm sugar caramel hit 118°C on the dot, threads spinning like spider silk. Poh’s spoon dove in: “The char, the cream, the caramel—symphony in sugar.”

Jamie’s attempt faltered—undercooked pineapple, ice cream split like a bad marriage—but Pez’s plate was a tropical sunset: golden wedges, emerald scoops, amber rivers. “You’ve bottled Queensland summer,” Andy declared. “And uncorked it perfectly.”

The losers weren’t sent to the gulag—yet. Darrsh’s crab salad drowned in dressing—“Nuoc cham tsunami,” Joe muttered—while Sav’s trout turned mushy, finger limes forgotten in the frenzy.

The elimination round loomed like a storm front, but the taste test had already crowned kings: Harry’s salad earned immunity, Mimi’s crudo a pantry raid, Pez’s pineapple a golden ticket to the next invention test. Holloway’s parting wisdom: “Nu Nu isn’t about perfection—it’s about place. Cook like the reef is watching.”

The challenge’s legacy lingered like kaffir perfume. Harry’s nuoc cham ratio became kitchen gospel; Mimi’s finger-lime technique spawned a TikTok trend—#NuNuNails, pearls popping on thumbs. Pez’s pandan ice cream sold out at a pop-up in Cairns, tourists queuing for a taste of televised tropics.

The episode wasn’t just cooking; it was cartography—mapping Queensland’s coastline onto plates, one citrus burst at a time. As the credits rolled, the judges toasted with finger-lime gin: “To Nu Nu—where mystery meets memory, and every dish tastes like home, if home was a reef at sunset.”