Top Chef, 2/15/12

We’re in Vancouver! Wait—this is Top Chef Texas. Why are we suddenly in Vancouver? Oh hell, I don’t care. As long as Paul or Beverly wins. Please lose, Sarah and Lindsay. I will say this, though: I love that the final four are one dude and three dudettes. GIRL POWER!!! Sarah, Beverly, Paul, and Lindsay pile into a van. Somebody actually yells, “It’s TOYOTA time!” which sounds as genuine as Lindsay’s and Sarah’s smiles looked as they hugged Beverly. Paul tells us his paternal great-grandfather fled China and went to the Philippines to make a better life for his family. I gotta say, that’s a much more compelling backstory than Lindsay telling us she used to be a beauty queen. Tom and Padma greet the chefs on a snowy, windy mountaintop and announce the Culinary Games. There will be three events; winner of each gets $10k; at the end, one chef is going home.

First event: cook a dish on a gondola ride up and down the mountain. At the top, they must select an ingredient to incorporate into their dishes on the way down. Paul’s nervous cuz he gets motion sickness. Sarah’s flustered cuz she can’t figure out what to cook. Bev decides to go with a cold dish cuz it’s so cold in the gondola. Lindsay tells us that cooking at high elevations is different from cooking at sea level. Why thank you, Professor No Shit, Sherlock. At the top of the mountain, Paul selects wasabi paste; Sarah, prune juice; Bev and Lindsay, horseradish. Pretty snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler joins Padma, Gail, and Tom for the tasting.


- Paul: seared lamb loin with curried and roasted enoki mushrooms, wasabi crème fraiche, juniper gastrique
- Sarah: chorizo sausage; raw egg; caramelized onions, mushrooms, gooseberries, almonds
- Bev: salmon tartare, white anchovy horseradish, sour cream crème fraiche, crispy fried panko and capers
- Lindsay: seared salmon over creamy red quinoa with chorizo, horseradish vinaigrette, sour cream crème fraiche
4th place: Paul, 3rd place, Sarah. 1st place … is Lindsay. DAMMIT. She wins $10k and will be in the finale.

Handsome skeletoner John Montgomery joins Padma, Gail, and Tom. For the second event, the chefs have one hour to remove foods frozen solid in ice and cook something with them. “I’ve never used an ice pick!” Bev laughs. Really? I have, and I’m from Florida. (Just to punch holes in cardboard, but that’s neither here nor there.) Padma yells go. Paul gets his crab legs out of their block of ice in minutes, but Sarah and Bev are really struggling. He helps them, throwing ice around to try to break the blocks apart. That was nice of him.


- Sarah: pea and spinach soup with turmeric, almonds, and king crab
- Paul: king crab poached in brown butter spiced with garlic, cayenne and turmeric; mango chutney; orange marmalade
- Bev: seared scallop with red wine-orange reduction; buttered peas, corn and couscous
Paul wins! He gets $10k and will be in the finale.

OOOOOHHH, A BEVERLY VS. SARAH SHOWDOWN!!!! Omg omg omg pleeeeeeeeeeease win, Bev!

Gold medalist Cammi Granato joins the judges for the 3rd event. Bev and Sarah arrive and are a bit alarmed to see that Padma has a gun. “Do we have to shoot our own game?” Bev wonders. LOL. Girlfriend, please. PETA would descend upon Top Chef, Bravo, and all sponsors with a fierce fury. It’s a biathlon! Bev and Sarah will have to cross country ski, then will have ten bullets to shoot targets with ingredients on them. Sarah says she used to target practice with her grandparents with shotguns; Bev is worried because she’s never skied or shot a gun. I’m thinking Sarah’s heft will slow her down in the skiing, so maybe if Bev can get to the shooting range first, even with crappy shooting she can get good ingredients before Sarah gets there. Holy crap, it is painful—and hilarious—watching Bev and Sarah try to ski. LOL. But I was right, and Bev reaches the shooting range first. YES! And she shoots way better than Sarah, too.

- Beverly: roasted arctic char, onion-red wine-beet compote, celery root-truffle puree, shaved fennel salad
- Sarah: rabbit braised in red wine with cherries and hazelnuts, sauerkraut puree, slice of rabbit heart
I’ve been refraining from weighing in so far this episode, but let me indulge myself: (if I ate meat,) I would eat the hell out of Bev’s dish and toss Sarah’s straight into the trash. And that’s not my anti-Sarah bias; that’s my anti-savory+sweet bias. Cherries+rabbit meat? YUCK. Anyway, Tom praises the flavors and colors of Bev’s dish, but says she might have overcooked the fish slightly; Gail and Cammi say her dish was yum. Tom praises Sarah’s braising rabbit and making kraut in such a limited time. Cammi liked Sarah’s flavors; Gail says the rabbit was a little tough. Tom says both dishes are great and the decision will be a tough one. Paul and Lindsay join Bev and Sarah in the kitchen as they wait. Paul is Team Bev; Lindsay is Team Sarah. DAMMIT, Sarah wins. DAMMIT. She wins $10k and will be in the finale. Booooooooooooooooooooooooo! Omg, booooooooo.

Team Paul. TEAM PAUL. TEAM PAUL. TEAM PAUL.

Top Chef, 1/11/12

Handsome Hugh and Padma announce that it’s Restaurant Wars, bitches!!!!!!!!!!! (I added the “bitches.”) The past few seasons, I have been quite amazed by how avoidable — and recurring — the problems seem to be that inevitably bring the losing team down. So this time around, I’d like to give the chefs some tips:
1. Do not work front of house if you also have a dish to cook. Leaving your dish to be finished by someone else is a SUPREMELY bad idea.
2. Do not work front of house. Precious few chefs have been able to pull it off successfully.
3. Do not captain the team. Whether fairly or unfairly, you will be blamed if the team sucks.
4. Do not make the dessert — unless you can make an orgasm-inducing dessert, that is. That whole “the chef who makes the dessert always goes home thing” is true ONLY when the dessert sucks. Nobody in the history of Top Chef has been or will ever be sent home for a yummy dessert.
Let’s see if it’s any different this year.

Well, something’s already different: it’s girls against boys. On one hand I’m stoked, cuz I love it when the girls beat the boys, but on the other hand I’m wary, because this usually means we’re in for a sexist comment or two. Or several. I’m ok with Ed opining that “the male chefs have more talent,” because he’s basing that opinion on which chefs have weaknesses, NOT on which chefs have penises. Let’s have no lady-bashing, ok guys? Thanks. Oh — but we will have some Beverly-bashing, courtesy of Sarah. *eye roll*

Handsome Hugh says the name, design, and menu of the restaurant should all be in sync with one another; Padma says each team will be dining in the other team's restaurant and will be serving on consecutive nights. Good! Two in one night always felt rushed. The boys will go first; each team must prepare a three-course menu with two options in each course. As he and Padma leave, Handsome Hugh cautions everyone to “Work together.” Oh yeah:
5. Put all petty crap aside and focus on winning. Don’t be that jerk who simply cannot work with [insert chef’s name], thus bringing down the entire team.
Are you listening, Sarah?

Edward and Lindsay will be front-of-housing. Ed volunteers; he’s good at it because he owns his own restaurant. Lindsay is volunteered by Grayson, who says Lindsay “has opened several restaurants for Michelle Berenstein” and “will be awesome at it” and “will be calm under pressure.” And, lol, I’m sure that effusive praise has nothing to do with the fact that Grayson knows the front-of-houser is often sent home. Boys team: Canteen. Girls’ team: Half Bushel. HALF BUSHEL????? Lame. Sarah, who is apparently channeling her inner Heather, keeps shooting down all of Beverly’s entrée suggestions. Ponytail Chris observes that the girls are being catty, but the boys are getting along great.


First Course
- Ty’s Thai style crab and shrimp salad with caramel sauce and peanuts
- Paul’s ham and pork pate with mushrooms, mustard seeds, duck fat crostini and nectarines
Second Course
- Ty and Paul’s poached salmon with warm tomato water, clams, crispy salmon skin, tomatillo jam
- Paul’s crispy pork belly with green apple and sweet potato puree
Third Course
- Ed’s almond joy: almond joy cake, malted chocolate mousse, toasted spiced almonds, banana coconut puree
- Ponytail Chris’s homemade cracker jack, cherries, peanut butter ice cream noodles

There are some problems expediting; other than that, Ed does really well front-of-housing. As far as the food ... ok, look. I’m sure that to other people, it was delicious, but for several reasons (I hate nuts, I hate fruit + meat, I hate savory + sweet, I hate poached anything, I hate sweet potatoes, etc), that entire menu was SEVERELY unappetizing to me. I’ve said it once; I’ll say it a thousand times: I love this show, but if I had to actually eat some of the things the chefs make, I would cry. Here’s hoping the girls do better, because, um, yuck. Speaking of the girls, I was LOLed when, Grayson, who really liked Ponytail Chris’s dessert, yelled out “Chris JONES!” the same way that that rapper yells out his name: “Mike JONES!” Ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa!

Girls’ turn. Sarah and Grayson argue. Lindsay tells us she was prom queen. Lindsay hastily explains to Bev how to plate her (Lindsay’s) fish dish. (Uh oh. See #1. Since she’s front-of-housing, Lindsay should have pulled an Ed and made an easy-to-execute dessert, not a complicated entrée.) Sarah makes me want to punch her in the face with this exchange:
- Sarah: “Beverly, did you find those for me?”
- Beverly: “If you wanted them earlier, you should have taken ‘em out. I didn’t know.”
- Sarah: “Beverleeeeeeee?”
- Beverly: “I’m sorry.”
- Sarah: “Beverleeeeeeee? Seriously? You’re here to help the team. This is not how we’re going to start service, ok? We’re gonna focus. We’re gonna put the best food out we can.”
OH GIVE ME A BREAK. Beverly’s inability to read Sarah’s mind warrants a condescending talking-to??? I was soooooooo irritated by that. Beverly says Lindsay and Sarah treating her like a child is annoying, but she just ignores them and focuses on her food. Proving that she’s way more mature than I am, because I would have “accidentally” spilled something icy cold and sticky on Sarah’s crotch.

Dinner begins, and from the get-go it’s obvious Half Bushel is having problems. The judges enter and wait for several minutes at a deserted hostess stand because Lindsay’s in the kitchen checking on her dish. She eventually seats them. She tells us “I can’t be in three places at once.” Which is what people who have no idea how to front-of-house always say. When the boys enter, the hostess stand is again empty because Lindsay’s in the kitchen checking on her dish. She seats them, then goes back into the kitchen to check on her dish. After a waitress, not Lindsay, asks the judges if they’re ready for appetizers, Tom notes that would-be diners have been waiting like five minutes to be seated. Because Lindsay’s in the kitchen checking on her dish. Service gets backed up. Lindsay starts dropping eff bombs left and right, snaps at Beverly to stop plating with a plastic spoon (Oh yes, because food plated with a plastic spoon TASTES AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!!), and gets in a heated argument with Sarah, whose orders are getting backed up, as Grayson yells at them to stop. Grayson’s having to throw away a lot of melting desserts because orders are so backed up. She says Lindsay’s tone is “bitchy” and that maybe she wasn’t the best choice for front of house. *snort* Ya think? A waitress enters the kitchen as Linday is leaving, accidentally almost knocking dessert out of Lindsay’s hands, and Lindsay acts like the woman no-joke just tried to kill her mother. Piling on the bitchiness, Lindsay says her dish sucked because Beverly ruined it; piling on the making-me-like-her-more-and-more, Grayson says that Lindsay probably told Beverly to use the wrong cooking technique.


First Course
- Grayson’s peach salad: grilled peaches, pickled shallots, arugula, crumbled goat cheese, bacon vinaigrette, candied pistachios
- Sarah’s arancino: risotto ball filled with buffalo mozzarella, sweet and sour eggplant, celery salad
Second Course
- Beverly’s braised short ribs over potato puree with Thai basil, apple slaw with kimchi, curried peanuts
- Lindsay’s grilled halibut over fingerling potatoes with chorizo sausage, fennel and sherry vinegar salad
Third Course
- Grayson’s schaum torte: vanilla meringue, champagne berries
-Sarah: Italian donuts with hazelnut cream, banana sugar glaze

The judges say Canteen had better service/ atmosphere; Half Bushel had better food. Agreeeeeeed. I would eat the hell out of that arancino (YAY VEGETARIAN DISH!), (if I ate meat) the fish dish, and both desserts. I know this is Restaurant Wars, and it’s all about the total package, but hey, better food’ll always prevail. Half Bushel wins. GIRL POWER!!!!! Tom and Handsome Hugh praise Grayson’s salad and dessert. Emeril drools at the memory of Sarah’s arancino. Padma tells Beverly “I loved your short ribs.” Beverly wins! OPEN YOUR MOUTHS AND SUCK ON THAT, LINDSAY AND SARAH. Back in the stew room, Sarah, who cannot let Beverly have her moment, just has to say that Lindsay deserves just as much praise as Beverly. Grayson and Beverly give each other I-wish-this-hussy-would-shut-the-hell-up looks.

Canteen was the judges’ and fans’ least favorite. Tom says the Thai flavors in Ty’s dish were too mild. The salmon was bland and the components didn’t work well together. (See? I told you it sounded unappetizing!) Emeril says Paul’s pate dish was good but the crostini was soaked in fat, and the pork belly was good but the rest of the dish “just faded out.” Tom says Ponytail Chris didn’t do enough. Tom and Padma liked his dessert; Emeril and Handsome Hugh, who called it a jumbled mess in a bowl, did not. (Team Emeril and Handsome Hugh.) Tom tells Ed since he called his dessert an almond joy, there should have been more coconut (Yuck, coconut.), but other than that non-flaw, his was the fave dish from the team. So basically it’s between Ty and Ponytail Chris … and Ty goes home. Well, I thought Rule #0, always cook good food, went without saying.

Nyesha beats Ty in Last Chance Kitchen. YAY!

Top Chef, 12/14/11

Padma and guest judge Tim Love, who’s kind of a hottie, inform the contestants that for this Quickfire, they must taste a bunch of tequilas, select one, then create a dish that pairs well with it. Reason #2 I can’t be a chef: I hate alcohol. (Reason #1: I’d weigh 476 pounds.) No immunity, but the winner will win $5K. That’s ok. $5K > immunity.

Can I just say that I love early in the competition, when there are a bunch of chefs running around, throwing things to each other, yelling angrily about all the [food item] being gone, and darting around shouting “Behind!” It’s chaos in the kitchen! Anyway, Ty-lör wins the Quickfire with his steamed clams in Thai style fish caramel sauce, paired with the 1942 tequila. Caramel + seafood + alcohol?????? I would rather beat my head into a wall than eat that, but yay Ty! I like him and his goofy grin. And after nearly chopping off his finger and then being in the bottom last episode, he needed a pick-me-up. I hope he and his boyfriend go on a fun-filled vaykay with that five grand.

For the elimination challenge, the chefs are split into teams of two. Padma says “the game is on,” and Tim says each team has to cook a dish for his “game dinner,” so I at first I thought they were talking about stupid sports. Then I realized they mean game meats, thank god. Nyesha and Dakota get venison; Sarah and Paul, squab; Grayson and Ponytail Chris, elk; Lindsay and Cute Chris, boar; Heather and Beverly, duck; and Edward and Ty, quail. And all the chefs will get to judge each other’s food and send three teams to the chopping block … and an entire team is going home. Double elimination, oh no! The winning team gets to split $10K. Fat ass prize money, oh boy!

Last episode, Dakota called Heather an obnoxious bully for how Heather treated Beverly. At the beginning of this episode, Nyesha said how Heather treated Bev showed a lot about Heather’s integrity. And now a third person has taken notice. “Honestly, Heather’s being a complete bitch.” says Edward, who’s not one to mince words (COOKING PUN!), and I have to say, I wholly agree with him. Heather is extremely bossy, not at all willing to compromise, and hypercritical of Bev. She “doesn’t think like a chef,” Heather sniffs (twice). But what really started to annoy me was when Heather simply would not stfu about “I just want to make sure that the whole dish isn’t too Asian.” “Bev cooks Pan Asian, and I cook American farm-to-table plates.” “We might wanna think about the name of our dish. I don’t want it to appear to be a completely Asian dish.” Jesus christ, Heather. I bet if an Asian water showed up to take the dish to the judges, Heather would start screaming about a conspiracy and demanding a white guy. To her credit, Bev never once flies off the handle at Heather, the way I would if my teammate kept repeating that she doesn’t want our dish to be “too black.”

The Voltaggio brothers’ Samsung commercial: THEY ARE SO FRIGGING HOT.

- Lindsay and Cute Chris: roast rack of boar with peach barbecue sauce, kohlrabi slaw, farro fried rice
- Beverly and I Hate Asians: five-spice duck breast, polenta, pickled cherries, herb salad
- Grayson and Ponytail Chris: juniper roasted elk, sweet potato, citrus greens
- Ed and Ty: sorghum quail, pickled cherries, eggplant
- Nyesha and Dakota: roast rack of venison, kabocha squash, beet gratin
- Sarah and Paul: pan roasted squab breast, squab meat sausage, nectarine pickles, shallots, jalapeno

Ed and Ty made the fave dish. Yay Ed! Holy crap, Ty won TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in this one episode. Color me jealous. The chefs get together to decide which three teams will be up for elimination: Nyesha and Dakota, Grayson and Ponytail Chris, and Beverly and Asians Keep Out.

The judges say Beverly and Please No Asian's dish was too disparate. Tom asks Asians Are Icky if she feels she deserves to be in the bottom; she says no, it’s the result of everyone being jealous that she won the steak dinner challenge. Eyes roll. The judges loved Nyesha and Dakota’s dish, but the meat, which Dakota cooked, was too rare. Grayson and Ponytail Chris’s meat was yummy, but the sweet potatoes, which Ponytail Chris cooked, were a major misstep.

Tom asks Bev why she thinks her team is in the bottom; before she can get three words out, Down With Asians interrupts her, tells the judges that she and Bev have never gotten along, and that all Bev did in the steak challenge was cook shrimp for two days, which means Bev has a bad work ethic. Dakota, bless her, stands up for Bev. Bev defends herself but starts crying. I HATE CRYING I HATE CRYING. Only slightly less than I hate No Asians Allowed. Back in the stew room, Asians Go Away irritates the living hell out of everyone bashing Bev and the Asain aspects of their dish. Dakota points out that it wasn't the Asian flavors that the judges had a problem with; Grayson points out that throwing your partner under the bus make no sense because it’s a dual elimination; one of the judges points out it’s pointless to bring up old issues.

And … Nyesha and Dakota are sent home. This decision makes sense; it was a game challenge, after all, and their meat was undercooked. (But in last week’s steak challenge, the person who made potato gratin, not steak, was sent home, and the person who made cake, not steak, won. Go figure.) Bye bye, fellow black girl. :(

But wait! Nyesha won Last Chance Kitchen. So she's still in it. Yay!