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!
Pee-wee Herman in the house. Yay, childhood icon! Dude is aging quite well. For the Quickfire, the chefs must make one of his favorite foods: pancakes. Was it really necessary to have a table full of pancakes just to announce that pancakes will be made? I’m asking because I’m greedy and I’m jealous that I didn’t get to help devour all the extra food after filming was complete. 
Anyway, yay pancakes! Love it when the chefs are assigned something non-pretentious: pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc.—and it’s quite eye-opening when somebody completely bombs such challenges. You should be able to cook outside of your ostentatious comfort zone. Re-anyway, the winner gets five thousand dollars. “Five thousand dollars for a pancake? Wow. That’s a stack!” Pee-wee quips, and dammit, I actually laugh at that. Cooking begins. Paul, who has apparently slipped into the mad scientist shoes of the recently eliminated Ponytail Chris, breaks out the liquid nitrogen.
Pee-wee tells everybody he or she made the best pancake he’s ever had. All the pancakes sounded pretty damn scrumptious (minus the bacon and pepper, i.m.o.), and he doesn’t call out anybody for making a bad one, so he’s probably being sincere. And the winner is … Ed!!!! But everybody feels like a winner when Pee-wee tells them he got them all brand new bicycles. Cool!
For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs must make a family style lunch, and Padma says they have to use those bicycles to ride around town finding food and a restaurant to cook it in. Ha! The next day, everyone saddles up—Lindsay, who is blonde, puts her helmet on backwards—heads for the farmer’s market, 
and then one by one finds restaurants in which the owners/staff act as if this isn’t completely staged and agree to let the chefs crash their kitchens for a few hours. Ed doesn’t want his chicken to be overcooked, so he’s going to undercook it just a hair. Lindsay is the last person to find somewhere to cook; she’s worried about having enough time. Post-cooking, Grayson’s so concerned about breaking the egg yolks inside of her chicken breasts on the way to the Alamo that she risks burns to hold the tray in her hand instead of putting it in her bike basket.
- Sarah: summer veggie salad, boiled egg, chicken skin vinaigrette
- Paul: roasted chicken salad with Thai basil oil, red curry gastrique, cucumbers, and summer squash
but Peewee says the chicken is slightly odd; Tom says it’s on the edge of undercooked. Gail loves Paul’s dish; Padma wanted more spicy. Gail says Grayson’s dish is good; Tom says it’s delicious but he wishes she’d left off some stuff; the plate’s too busy. AND THEN PEE-WEE MAKES ME LOVE HIM MORE THAN I EVER KNEW I COULD: “I thought it was delicious, but I have a lot of childhood issues with runny yolk that I’d have to lie down to tell you about.” Thank you, Pee-wee!!! I knew I couldn’t be the only person on the planet who feels that RUNNY YOLK IS FRICKING DISGUSTING. 
Lindsay wins. (Boo.) Ed, Grayson, and Sarah are in the bottom, and … Grayson goes home. If you ask me, serving bland food is a much bigger crime than serving a lot of delicious food, so Sarah should have gone home, dammit. 
