Netizens Debate After MasterChef AU Judge Criticises Wonton Centre For Being "Not Crunchy"

The show even features new judges - Season 4 winner Andy Allen, food writer Melissa Leong, and chef Jock Zonfrillo.

In the latest episode that has caused a stir on the Internet, contestants were given the challenge to make the judges dishes that "packed the best crunch" to avoid being sent home.

Pang, a former top 10 contestant from Season 9, is a fan favourite on the show for his cooking inspired by his family's Chinese and Mauritian background.

According to his MasterChef Australia profile, after being eliminated in 2018, he started his own pop-up dumpling kitchen called 'Bumplings' in Perth, as well as wrote a book called This Is a Book About Dumplings.

However, in yesterday's episode, he did not pass the first round of eliminations after one of the judges, Andy Allen, found his crispy prawn wantons not crunchy enough.

"Sorry, but mine is not crunchy. That's soft," Allen said after taking a bite, while a crunch is clearly heard from Zonfrillo's mouthful.

"So, in my opinion, that doesn't meet the brief," Allen continued while pressing the side of the wonton with filling in it.

"The meat-containing portion of a wonton does not need to be crunchy! This is like the crispy rendang all over again," exclaimed the season two winner on Twitter after the episode aired yesterday, 3 May.

"I would even go so far to say that if the 'ball' portion of a wonton is crunchy, it is a badly made wonton," Liaw added in a later tweet.

"Fried chicken is just crunchy skin, so why has the wonton been so poorly judged?" asked a Twitter user, who echoed Liaw's reply that if a food is crunchy in the correct places, it should still be considered good.

"You'd be rightly annoyed if you served fried chicken and were told it wasn't good because although the outside was crunchy, the meat was moist and succulent," said Liaw.

Meanwhile this user suggested that Pang made a mistake by making wontons for the challenge in the first place, which makes Allen's evaluation fair.

"But I put it to you that if wontons don't need to be crunchy and the brief was to make something 'extra crunchy', then were wontons the correct choice for the challenge?" the netizen asked.