I haven't compared her with Rocky, who also did poorly.

She however won and she won the task on the basis of shoddy service for extortionate prices. Neither team should have won and the whole lot of them should have been in the boardroom.

Sir Alan should have picked the winner after tasting the food

Wouldnt you loved to see him eat it

To be honest though, what part of Sir Alan's business is going to have his future Apprentice having to prepare food? That's where this series is losing me a little ... too much emphasis on the humour behind the rubbish food and less of the machiavellian back-stabbing behind the scenes.

I'm still wondering what a blini is....

I've lost any respect Ive had for Sugar. In previous series when there have been minor problems with customer service he's jumped on them and made a real fuss about it.

This time the product produced was basically unedible crap charged at a ridiculous price but he didn't give a monkeys for the customers.

If he'd had any balls he would have said that this wasn't acceptable and fired both project managers on these tasks.

did the quest for a big profit meant the food had to be almost like slop .no .. it was because they were only doin it for a day and so they didnt care/or have to care .they couldnt go bust only get some £ deducted though and also did the customers really care or was it a wheeze as they were part of the apprentice tv show ..not the real world .

Found this on another site, written by Svetlanka.

"The way we made them when I lived it Russia. We would add just a pinch of baking soda to make them more porous though. The batter should be almost liquid so its easier to pour it on the pan. If it goes too thick, just add more milk/water. The bliny should be thin, as thin as you can make them. We used to make huge piles of bliny, just buttering and stacking them (often we used 2 frying pans at a time to speed the process - just got to find your rythm ). Then you pick them one by one, put the jem on (I use freshly blended cranberries + sugar), fold them (we dont roll them like creppes, rather just fold in half, then quarter, then 8th) and eat them while they are hot, with hot black tea with lemon. Thats the way. ps. There are many recipes for Bliny. Buckweet, oatmeal, with or without yeast - you name it, you can make bliny with them, but the recepies would differ greatly for these varieties. This one better used as it is."

They are mainly served with sweet fillings but sometimes with caviar.

In fairness to Yasmina (although why I should bother to be fair to her I've no idea), although her food was awful, the boys were equally disgusting, plus all that spotty, untoned male flesh yeech - they deserved to lose for the outfits alone.

All the food looked disgusting; I'm surprised the companies paid them anything tbh.

Whilst it's true that in general you want to pay sweet FA for ingredients it wouldn't have been hard to barter at one of the many markets for some fresh produce. The food might have even tasted okay and then they wouldn't have had so much money deducted.

Still, you could tell the firms involved weren't stupid and didn't have any real clients there. One looked like a graduate event and the other just some work drinks thing.

Sir Alan's made a fuss over who was responsible for customer service failings in the losing team before. He's never overturned the result in a task where the criteria was straight profit.

Just going over the menu at her restaurant and I saw this-

Buckwheat pancake rolled around creamy leeks & Barkham blue cheese,

I imagine this is the inspiration for the 'blinis'at the party. I thought it was strange she had made then into a wrap; whenever I've seen them they've been small like small scotch pancakes, with something on top.

Indeed, this is the key flaw in the apprentice. The incentive is for the teams to achieve a good one-off result, even if the result is achieved through deception or poor quality of work which leaves customers aggrieved by the experience. The skills required by a real businessman are often not tested at all.

This task exemplified the problem, unwary new customers suffered for maximum one-off profit for the teams and unscrupulous practices, low standards and deceit were rewarded above competence, customer satisfaction and quality of product.

I agree with you vivid, but I do also think that it was entirely possible for either team to get their act together and spend a bit more time producing quality food, while maintaining profit. For example, if Yasmina had spent more a bit more on better quality ingredients and spent more time on preparing better food, then their corporate client would have paid them full price for their services - and they would have gotten repeat business (if it were a 'real' business scenario).

The flaw of the apprentice really is that it will never simulate 'real life' business scenarios, because everyone is in it for themselves and only pretending at being a team member, whereas the reality is they are not really prepared to play second fiddle to the 'project manager of the week' - especially if they are rubbish