| “ | The only way you lose is if you give up on yourself and I'm not giving up without a fight. | ” |
Albaya Cruz Reya Riba la Cuzala Tesero III, or simply Bime Cruz, was a contestant on Season 4 of MasterChef. He ranked in 14th place.
Personality
Bime was shown to be a likable guy who always kept a clear head and took full responsibility for his mistakes when he knew that he had a bad performance. He was a strong cook with a high spirit and strong determination. However, later on he was shown to have poor leadership skills as well as having major problems with handling pressure, making simple mistakes (using cream of tartar instead of cornstarch in his Lemon Meringue Pie being the prime example) and not being able to bounce back from them, leading to his meltdown in his last Pressure Test. He got along with most of the other home cooks, but was disliked by Jordan for his leadership skills and cooking abilities, and Krissi for allegedly leading her team to failure during one team challenge. When he returned for a second chance, he was randomly bullied by James and Natasha for no reason at all, with the former calling him a cockroach and the latter calling him a loser. However, he received a good amount of support from Luca.
Season 4
Episode 1
Bime did not appear in this episode on the first day of auditions.
Episode 2
Bime made a shrimp scampi, he received a no from Joe and two yeses from Graham and Gordon, and received his white apron.
Episode 3
Bime was one of the sixteen chefs who were immediately accepted into the MasterChef kitchen.
Episode 4
For the basic ingredient challenge Bime made a potato hash. He was in the top 3 but lost to Natasha. He was not seen in the langoustine challenge.
Episode 5
Bime's team won the Kindergarten Lunch Challenge so he did not have to compete in the Cheesecake Pressure Test.
Episode 6
Bime was not seen in the black cod challenge. In the cupcake challenge, his and Bethy cupcakes were the best and they were both team captains for the next challenge.
Episode 7
Bime was the team captain for the red team, unfortunately his team lost the firefighter lunch challenge. Back at the Masterchef kitchen, the judges say that since Bime was the team captain, he was saved from pressure test, and also they let Bime save another person, and he saved Jordan from the pressure test.
Episode 8
Bime was in Las Vegas to Judge the teams in the burger challenge.
Episode 9
In the foreign ingredients challenge Bime was in the Top 3. He made an elk flank steak. He lost to Eddie. He was not seen in the Agnolotti Pressure Test.
Episode 10
In the Glee Lunch Challenge, Bime was on Krissi's team, and when his team lost, he was blamed by the rest of his team for serving raw chicken even though Ramsay revealed his team got more votes for the chicken despite that. It was actually Jordan's fault the team lost due to poorly made salmon. In the Lemon Meringue Pie pressure test, he made an infamous mistake of adding cream of tartar to thicken his curd instead of cornstarch. When Ramsay went to taste it, he commented on how the curd wasn't set when he went to cut it, and then brought two cocktail glasses and poured the lemon curd into them. He told Bime to drink the unset curd along with him, and when they did taste it, the curd was terribly grainy. Bime said that was from the cream of tartar. Ramsay told him that there was only a teaspoon in the recipe, and when he asked Bime how much he added, he said he added ten tablespoons, claiming that he messed up and grabbed the wrong ingredient. His terrible Lemon Meringue Pie sent him home although Ramsay assured him that he should not really have been at risk of going home to begin with, knowing full well that Krissi's selfish decision to save herself and leave Bime in the Pressure Test was to blame.
Episode 18
He came back to the competition for a chance at redemption, along with Lynn and Bri. Bime made it through the first elimination challenge, but was edged out by Bri in correctly preparing and serving seven cooked portions of salmon.
Episode 25
Bime was seen in the finale as were many of the past contestants from that season, who returned to cheer on for Luca and Natasha.
Competition History
| Week 4 | High/In |
|---|---|
| Week 5 | Win |
| Week 6 | In/Win |
| Week 7 | No Pressure Test |
| Week 8 | Immune |
| Week 9 | High/In |
| Week 10 | Lose/Eliminated |
Post MasterChef
- After his appearance, Bime worked at Stoneforge Tavern before moving to The Foundry an American Table & Bar. As of March 2018, he is Head Chef at Cibo Matto Caffe.
Trivia
- At 35, he is the oldest male contestant of the season.
Quotes
- "The only way you lose is if you give up on yourself and I'm not giving up without a fight."
- (After being eliminated) "For me to make this dumb mistake, it's costing in this competition. It's like I let the judges down, you know; that's the worst part, but the dream doesn't die here. I'm leaving with the belief and the tools to become something special. I think that my daughters are gonna be proud of their daddy; that's all I want. I'm glad I did good for me."
- (After failing to get a second chance) "I'm not feeling defeated; I'm feeling encouraged and motivated to keep going. Bri, you know, she won today. Congratulations to Bri. She deserves to it, congratulations to Bri. My reality is I want to be a great chef and I'm leaving here feeling like I got this."
Gallery
Season 4
External links
References
| MasterChef U.S. Season 4 |
|---|
| Judges |
| Gordon Ramsay • Graham Elliot • Joe Bastianich |
| Contestants |
| Krissi Biasiello • Jonny Blanchard • Lynn Chyi • Natasha Crnjac • Bime Cruz • Sasha Foxx • Malcolm Green • Adriana Guillen • Eddie Jackson • Beth Kirby • Bri Kozior • Jessie Lysiak • Luca Manfè • James Nelson • Kathy Prieto • Jordan Roots • Bethy Rossos • Howard Simpson • Savannah Sturges |