In the surprisingly-fun series premiere of Bravo's new food competition Around the World in 80 Plates, St. Louis native Clara Moore was sent packing after one of her teammates (who admitted that his own food sucked) decided to manipulate his team into voting for her instead. 

I caught up with Clara to find out her feelings on the elimination and her crazy fellow chefs. Check out our interview below!

Follow all my recaps and interviews for the season right here.

Ology: So how was watching the episode back and seeing Nookie's strategy?

Clara: It was pretty enlightening. I was honestly surprised that he totally had me hosed. We had a moment where we confided in the kitchen. We both talked about how we didn’t feel good about our dishes and I really thought that he was equally feeling uncomfortable. Apparently I was the only one. I was actually really insecure. Even to this day I would swear up and down that he also felt insecure. He was obviously just playing to his strengths. He’s good at what he does, I guess.

It was really crazy how it turned around so quickly. Why do you think everyone kind of jumped on the bandwagon?

It was a “I want to be on the winning team” sort of thing. Everyone felt their neck on the chopping block. And then Nookie was just like “Well, here’s a scapegoat” and everyone was like “Yeah, that’s a scapegoat” and I stupidly didn’t have enough whatever in me at that time to say “No, no, hell no. I don’t deserve this”. I was kind of just broken down at that point.

If you could do it over, would you have said something?

Certainly. Two things: I really felt that the judges were going to go through everything in one of our dishes and talk about them. And that’s what really made me anxious. And the fact that they didn’t saying anything about me in judging I said “What just happened?” I was very very surprised. I would next time, for real.

But did you really think you'd be the one sent packing?

Once we left that room I kind of knew what was going to happ,en. It was honestly sort of like “You know what, I’m not going to play this game with you Nookie. I’m going to go a whole different route”. People wanted it to be a me against him childish battle. I really did feel and wished I had said all the things I felt about Nicole. She really was the one who drove me crazy all day, had been so selfish, and her dish really was lackluster.

I wanted to ask you about the cast. One of the best parts of the pilot was getting to meet everybody. What were your first impression?

The first people I met were John and Nick in the cab. And the funny thing is we are all Midwesterners. So it was really nice to meet them and it was pretty fun. We got along really well. But then everyone else started piling out of their cabs and all met each other. I thought it was a hilarious cast of characters. Characters really being the operative word there.

Who do you think is the biggest weirdo?

Well Sai is obviously the biggest weirdo. She’s so random and the things she said, she would things and we would all kind of look at each other like “Whaaat?”

Who did you think was your biggest competition? Did you even get to think about that?

I didn’t until we were actually cooking. Once we got cooking, John really blew me out of the water with the way he works quietly and steadily. His plating was absolutely gorgeous. He had a very professional attitude the entire time and I thought “Oh, that’s the guy I gotta worry about”.

So who are you rooting for now? Is there anyone on the cast that you connected with?

My bestie, I’d like to say is Gary. Gary and I really connected. He’s from Detroit and I feel that Detroit and St. Louis have a lot of similarities. He too was like “Look at this crazy cast of characters, oh my God”.

How do you look back on the whole experience?

I’m pretty much a no-regrets kind of person. Life is what it is. But this was such a pinpointed defining moment. If one thing had been different, if I had said one thing different. If I had stood up and said “No Nookie, your stuff was the worst. Why are you attacking me?” I kind of do have regrets that I didn’t do that. I think I was just cut pretty short. I feel like I could have gone pretty far in the competition.

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Thoughts? Let us know in the comments!

Follow Sharon Tharp on Twitter: @sharontharp

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