I Was On Come Dine With Me Canada… Here’s What They Don’t Show You

I signed a contract with Come Dine With Me Canada and I had no idea what I was walking into. From the casting process, to cameras in my house, to being judged at my own dinner table, it was one of the most unique experiences of my life. So in this video, I'm going to share with you my experience on Come Dine With Me Canada. Basically the show is a cooking competition. It is a very famous show, they do it all over the world, in different countries, in Europe, Australia, so many different countries, and they were actually bringing it back to Canada for this year, 2026. One of my friends just saw an advertisement saying that they were looking to hire locals in the Niagara region to participate in the show. He kind of sent it to me and was like, I think you would be great at this. I've always had a passion for food. I've always had a passion for hosting parties at my house that revolve around big dinners, barbecue, things like that. The previous format of the show was really about drama, it was about characters, goofy characters, goofy drama, cooking mistakes, things like that, and they made it clear that this was more about the food. Oh, it's Slavic surprise. All right, that better not be dinner. Obviously they wanted some personality to show behind the camera, but they were really looking for the food. Yes, it is reality TV, but there's always a narrative to these shows. There's always gonna be a plan that they have going into it. They can film a ton of content and they can edit that content into whatever narrative they want to portray. Look at that, overcooked on the bottom, crispy as and it looks like Gandhi's flip flop. All of a sudden the third interview came and this question they kept asking me was, what are you gonna make? And typically I'd say, I'm not sure yet. If I get selected, don't worry, I'll think of something great. And this time I was like, I need to come up with something. Before going into my third Zoom interview, I put together a menu that I've cooked before that everybody has enjoyed. And during that interview, I explained it all to them, called me and congratulated me saying I was gonna be a participant on the show. And that's kind of where it like really hit home. And it's like, wow, like I never thought like this would come to fruition, but it did. I had to go through with the story producer and explain my whole menu. I had to tell her the whole process, how everything is cooked, what every ingredient was. They were really detailed in every aspect of my food. So I had to give them a full ingredient list. I had to give them timings. I had to give them like everything. And I'm not usually that type of cook. Like I usually cook by taste where if I think, oh, this might need a little bit of this, I throw that in. Or I kind of cook like that and I don't really have set recipes for my meals. So that was a little difficult transition for me to kind of map it all out for them, but I get it. Like they need to be able to plan accordingly because they're filming a show. They don't want me just going in there and winging it, having that kind of unknown aspect. So once I submitted it to them and they accepted it, it was locked in. I couldn't make any changes. If I said I was cooking something on a cast iron pan, I couldn't put it on the barbecue. I couldn't put it on a smoker. That type of stuff was difficult for me because I couldn't really pivot. It's usually where I host my parties and my dinners. I do a lot of cooking in my backyard, on my smoker, on my barbecue, on my cauldron. This is the smoke and soy soiree. We got fire, we got smoke, we got grill, and we got soy. That's why we're here. It's very easy to cook a great meal when you have no pressure, when you have no cameras on you, when you have no shots, when they're not moving everything around, setting up the shots. You know, you stir a pot and then they're like, oh, we do it again so we can get the better shot. There was a lot of that. So it was very hard to cook my best meal in that kind of environment. I think I made a really good menu. Again, guys, you can watch it on City TV Plus. It's on Amazon Prime. It's on a lot of streaming apps. I'll put the link to it in the description below. But if you guys haven't seen the episodes yet, you guys can watch the episodes. I'm used to filming YouTube videos where it's a little bit more relaxed. You know, there's me and my buddy Cody behind the camera. These guys showed up to my house with a crew of like 10, 15 people there. Me and my wife, we cleaned our whole house. It was very, very laughable because the only room in my house that I didn't clean was my gym. They wanted my biography to be like, what do you do on a Sunday morning when you wake up? I said, typically Sunday mornings, I'm jumping in my cold barrel. I'm doing a cold plunge. And then I usually go in my gym and do a little workout to warm up. So I kind of had a feeling they were gonna incorporate the gym and the workout into it. However, we cleaned our whole house. We thought they were gonna show me in the cold barrel, maybe get a few clips of me in my house, walking my dog or with my wife. And they walked through our whole house and they got into the gym and they were like, yep, we're filming it here. And that was the only room in our house we didn't really clean. So I was a little, I was like, okay. But you know, that's what they wanted to do. And it turned out great. It was six days of shooting. So the first day they came to my house, they did my introduction, they did my bio. And then each of the remaining five days, I went to the other contestants house and tried their meals and filmed their meals. And then we wrapped up filming how we rated those meals. The final night was at my house where I did all the cooking. So that one was at my house. I didn't really have to go anywhere. It was a long week for me. And like props to all the people that work on this show because these guys travel all throughout Canada filming this show. It certainly showed how hard these people work. And like, it would be very difficult to maintain that life. Like I only did it for a week and these guys are doing it week after week after week in different cities throughout Canada, like Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto. They're all over the country filming these videos. So props to everybody on the crew. I thought I was good at making videos, guys. These guys are on another level in terms of production. You know, every minute detail they fix. If there's something that doesn't look right in the background, they're moving it and they're replacing it. If the lighting is a little off, they're redoing it. Fumble your line a little bit, they're redoing it. So they redo a lot of things and they really took their time to make the best show possible. And you can tell in the final production of the show. There was four other contestants, all different from different walks of life, different generations, different ages. And it was very hard to please. I was the last night. So I was the sixth day of shooting for everybody. I thought that would be to my advantage because I could get to know people and learn what they like and didn't like and have that to my advantage. I quickly learned that that was almost a disadvantage being last. One of the contestants was like a 70 year old woman. So I could tell that if I was tired, she was probably super, super tired. And it does show, like I kind of realized after the fact that she was very hard to please by the end of the week. It's just not for me, unfortunately. Savor the flavor and smell the bouquet and like, ah, give me a rum and Coke. The start of the week, she was very easygoing. And by the end of the week, it kind of just went all downhill. First, I'm not a guy. I never will be a guy. All right, guys. Like there was nothing I could do to please her. And you'll kind of see, but I couldn't get to know these people on a personal level without the cameras rolling. I'd never met them before. The only time I met them was when the cameras were rolling. The crew was very, very professional about keeping us quiet, not letting us get to know each other off camera. They wanted to capture all that on camera. So it was very hard for me to get a read on these people, what they liked and what they didn't like. It's crazy how quick you bond with people. Like a lot of these people that I filmed with that were contestants, I became friends with. Hey, Chris, how are you, man? Local vodka, I know where that's from. Yeah, exactly. If I didn't like their food, it was very hard for me to critique them. However, like I was there to judge their food and rate it out of five or out of 10 for their hosting experience. So you had to be honest in your thoughts. And if there was something I didn't like or didn't enjoy, I put that. Biggest letdown would have been the. A lot of people are commenting on why I would go back for seconds and give something a low score. Okay, but you did go back for seconds. Felt obligated to eat as much as I could. I'm a big eater, yes. Yeah, Gina noticed. Yeah, he's in shape. Yeah. Okay, Gina. That was just my opinion at the time, guys. I normally eat bigger meals. So if I had a smaller meal served to me, I was obviously asking for seconds. Give me seconds. And like, I was there to eat, you know? The people who know me, like if food is free, I'm gonna eat as much as I can. They were having seconds, yeah. Now, because they're not shy, because they know I've already started to set the tone. So nice, we're having it twice, Auntie Gina. Yeah. And that's what I kind of went into that process to do. What did the show teach me about myself? Certainly it was not something I've done before. It was not something in my comfort zone. And that's what I like doing. I like getting out of my comfort zone. I like taking risks. I like learning about myself. And that helps me build confidence in my daily life. So that was my main reason for being on the show. And that's what I learned about myself. Auntie Gina, if you ain't gonna eat the lamb, I will take that from you. Take your fork and take it. Oh, yes. Auntie Gina. There you go. Good boy. Obviously you need to be confident to put yourself anywhere on TV, on the internet. You have to have that kind of confidence in yourself where you don't care what people think of you. You don't care what people are gonna say about you. You just do you and you be you and you let the world make their own opinion. But as long as you are satisfied with yourself, that's what matters the most. And you need to gain that confidence. And doing things like this really helps me gain that confidence. It was something I've never done before, like I said. And it really allowed me to get out of my comfort zone, try something new, try something I haven't done before. And that was my biggest takeaway from the experience. I loved how I was able to enter this world of reality TV, see how it was all produced, see how I was portrayed and go through it all. My eyes don't water unless it's windy. Chris, you old softy you. Was it fun? Yes. Did I have a great week? Did I have a great experience? I certainly did. I would probably do it all over again just for that experience. So much positive feedback from friends, family members, strangers who have watched the show. If you're willing to get out of your comfort zone and try something new, I think that's something that every person should learn to do and try at least a few times. Do something that scares them, do something that makes them nervous, do something that they don't normally do and get out of your comfort zone. That's kind of what I want to inspire people to do by making this video. And it really shows in my everyday life. We got the squash show, we got the smoke show outside and now we got the gun show. I learned a lot about connecting with people and that's why I love. I also learned a lot about cooking from the other contestants. So would I do it again? I certainly would do a reality TV show again. Put in your comments, which show should I apply for next? So being on Come Dine With Me Canada was something I will never forget. Like I said, it gave me a whole new respect for overall TV production, overall reality TV. Certainly has made me more interested in watching other reality TV shows, especially Canadian based shows. If you have questions about the show, put it in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the show, what you thought. I'm very disappointed. That's kind of my interpretation of the show in a quick little YouTube video here for you guys. If you haven't watched it, check it out. It's on City TV Plus. You can watch all five episodes now at the time this video is released and I'd love to hear what you guys think. If you guys are new to the channel, if you've just found my channel, hit that subscribe button, stick around. I do a lot of automotive content on my YouTube videos, so keep up, stay tuned for that if you guys are a fan. If you guys have gravitated here from the show, make sure you guys comment that that's where you came from and we'd love to have you stay along for my journey. Thank you. It was a great experience.