Chef JJ Indianapolis team building

My take on the recent cooking competition at Chef JJ's. This was my first competition like this and a few lessons were learned. There were eight people in my group and there were a lot of different opinions on what to do. That was frustrating and created some chaos. The first thing we had to do was identify some spices. Everyone was testing the different samples by smelling them, but not tasting. When we were running through them I was told, we already have that one. That one being cayenne pepper that someone thought was paprika. That's just one example and there were a couple that threw me off, like cardamom, which I rarely use. Then we had to identify some fresh herbs. I still swear we had oregano and not thyme. That thyme looked nothing like what I purchase at the grocery store. We had to prepare a salad and I made a dressing with orange juice, mustard, balsamic vinegar, evoo, s/p. Similar to my all time favorite but with apricot preserves instead of OJ. I thought we killed it. Then the flatbread competition. I didn't knead or roll ours and it was too thick with too much cornmeal. Every other team went with pizza so I made the decision to go Mediterranean, evoo, onions, tomatoes, capers, sour cream, tender baby lettuce. I think we came in last amongst the six groups on the salad and flatbread competition. Now, two proteins, flatiron steak and chicken breasts. The chefs helping us wouldn't let the egg go above 400 even for the steaks. I was told rather firmly that you don't go above that if you are using cast iron grates. I told the chef I have two eggs at home, both with cast iron grates and I always sear at 600 plus. He just shook his head like I'd lost my mind. Already had a team member that took over the steaks anyway. He deiced to marinate it with Worcestershire when I always just use a dry rub, so I only made a suggestion that he take the steaks off and at least get it up to the 400 mark. That led to a rather intense discussion regarding using the pan he marinaded them in. He snapped with "I'm an Animal Science Major from Texas A&M and you can't do that". To which I replied "I was a pre-med Biology major and there is nothing wrong with that. Have you never heard of steak tartare?" Just too many cooks in the kitchen. One of the members of a different team got reprimanded by a chef for burping the egg when he opened it. Chef yells, "you don't ever do that". Ok, news to me. Sorry for the long story, but it was stressful to say the least. Thank goodness they kept the wine and beer coming. 

One of the people in my group kept insisting we put cheese on the flatbread that had evoo, onions, tomatoes, capers, sour cream, s/p, and baby lettuces on it. I declined since I was going for Mediterranean to be different and all other groups were doing pizza. I asked the chef why we didn't place higher on that competition. He goes, "you probably should have put cheese on it." Seriously? The restaurant made desert, which was different and not very good. Might explain some of the judging if they though that was good. It was a really dry biscuit with a dollop of marshmallow fluff and some chopped up fruit like apples and mangoe on top.  I'm no Master Chef, but I was surprised at the 400 max temp and one of the  other teams getting fussed at for burping their Egg.