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Welcome to Slashfood's traditionally weekly recap of the previous night's episode of Top Chef. This week's episode was 'super-sized,' meaning that we got to enjoy 15 more minutes of Top Chef goodness (and those that tried to DVR the episode might not know how it ends!).
The show opens with the Quick Fire challenge, but this time the chefs are greeted by Padma sans guest chef judge. What's the deal? Padma explains that the contestants themselves will be the judges during this Quick Fire challenge. Knifes are drawn and each chef is paired up with another, because this is a head to head challenge.
The chefs are going to play 'Name That Ingredient.' Each pair is given 30 seconds to taste the same sauce. Then one at a time they name the number of ingredients that they can identify, each time going one higher than the last. At any point the opposing chef can challenge the other chef to 'name those ingredients!'
Who won immunity and proved they have an iron palate? Read on to find out.
After two rounds of pulse pounding tasting (actually, I thought this challenge was rather boring, so I'll spare you the details) we are left with two tasters: Stefan and Hosea. They both taste some Mexican Mole sauce, and must identify all the ingredients, one by one, in turn. Once an ingredient is incorrectly identified the opposing chef has the chance to win it all by correctly identifying an ingredient. Stefan stumbles with his guess of 'tomato paste,' and Hosea wins immunity by correctly identifying vegetable oil.
This leads us to the immunity challenge, which is a little more interesting than this week's Quick Fire. It would seem that long time Top Chef judge Gail is getting married. Who better to cater her bridal shower than the Top Chef contestants (I bet that saved Gail a bundle!). The chefs are broken up into 4 teams:
- Something Borrowed: Ariane, Radhika, and Jamie
- Something Blue: Melissa, Leah, and Fabio
- Something New: Danile Carla, Eugene
- Something Old: Jeff, Hosea, and Stefan
Team Borrowed decides to 'borrow' flavors from Radhika's culture and make Eastern Spiced Lamb Marinated in yogurt, vadouvan carrot puree, wilted kale, with a cucumber raita. Team Blue, flummoxed by the lack of blue food, decides to turn to the sea for inspiration and makes an uninspired plate of Chilean sea bass, roasted corn puree, and swiss chard. Team New goes off into left field with their choice of Surf & Turf deconstructed sushi roll, frisee salad with won ton, peach-miso bbq sauce, and yuzu sorbet. And Team Old looks to the tomato and whips up Tomato terrine wrapped in eggplant, carpaccio with tomato sorbet, and gazpacho.
Each team has 30 minutes to shop with an $800 budget (to feed around 40 people) and then 2.5 hours to prep the day before the party. Each team gets their ingredients with little difficulty and the food is prepared (though Eugene over does his rice, but still serves it).
The food is served and everyone seems to agree that Team New's dish wasn't good at all. People didn't know what to do with it, the rice was poorly cooked, too much was going on, and it just didn't work.
On the other hand Jeff's tomato sorbet and Ariane's lamb were the hits of the night (and both were sources of drama within their respective teams. The lamb didn't look like had enough time to cook, and Stefan was certain that sorbet just wouldn't work).
Fast forward to Judges' Table, on which Dana Cowin editor-in-chief of Food and Wine magazine sits this week, for the winner and the loser. First, the winner: Ariane. She was shocked to hear that she won, as was Jamie who was certain this was her week.
Equally shocked to be asked to pack his knives was Daniel. The judges said that all he did was add little things to each dish, all of which either made the dish worse or didn't add anything. As he walks off Daniel complains that the judges just didn't understand what he was trying to do, though I think he just couldn't cut it.
And that brings us to the end of another recap. Which dish was your favorite from Gail's party?
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12-11-2008 @10:48PM Deanna said... I enjoy the blind tasting or testing of the palates immensely- I think it tells much more about the chefs than TV can show. Can't believe you called it "boring" and you are a foodie!!????
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12-11-2008 @4:56PM Scott McNulty said... I don't think I've ever identified myself as a foodie, to be honest. I like food, and I like TV... and so I am writing the recaps. :)
The taste off just didn't have the suspense that other challenges do. I will agree, though, that it is a very good challenge in terms of finding the most talented chef.
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12-11-2008 @4:59PM A smith said... I usually do too, Deanna, but they didn't do a good job of this. One had over 30 ingredients in it and I think they only had to name 4. It also took them a while to catch on to the fact that things like salt and oil were most likely in there. It wasn't as fun as the blindfolded tests of the past.
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12-11-2008 @6:29PM Jena said... I think the show is less well done this season, in general. They're doing more of the "make them think [this]" when the opposite happens. (I really thought, based on the commercials and two minutes of the show that the lamb was going to be practically raw.) I imagine there's probably enough drama in the kitchen without the network fabricating it, but maybe that takes too much editing/effort?
Also, in the past seasons, while I was watching all I wanted to do was cook and eat food that looked as good as what they were making, but I'm not finding that this season. Anyone else?
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12-11-2008 @7:54PM uticafoodie said... I love Top Chef. I just wanted to sign up to be able to comment as I am a new visitor but this is only way I could find to register. Sorry for not having more to add yet.
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12-12-2008 @1:15AM Michael Natkin said... No! No! I can't read this, I'm still waiting to watch the episode on TiVO. But I just had to share that I made Ilan's fideos from season 2 and they do indeed rock the house.
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12-12-2008 @11:38AM Jim Kosmicki said... note to future Top Chef contestants -- it's okay to defend your dish or decisions, but when the judges (who've already selected you for the bottom three!) give you multiple opportunities to learn from their critique and change your mind -- DO IT. Yes, you may get kicked out for not defending your dish (although that's usually later in the competition), but you're not going to ever win by defying the unanimous feelings of the judges.
and while Eugene made an error in trying to rescue the rice, I can also understand where he comes from. We were told, I believe, that he worked his way up from busboy or something like that. He's working class all the way. To those of us like Eugene, you can't afford to just throw things away because a mistake was made -- you try to rescue it in some way. You gotta keep food costs down! At this level of cooking (and definitely in a competition like this) that's not how it's done, but I can understand his instincts. I was glad to see him survive. I don't think he has a chance to win, but he's shown some interesting perspectives and ingenuity -- remember his impromptu charcoal grill for the Thansgiving?
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12-12-2008 @5:03PM RobynT said... Yes! I am glad Daniel acted like an idiot in panel so that Eugene could stay. I felt the same way as Jim about Eugene "saving" the rice--although I am also biased: I gotta support the guy from my home state!
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12-13-2008 @6:51AM malmostoso said... Quick survey: what do you think of Fabio? Is it really cute the whole italian accent thing going on? And can someone tell him that "pull out" is different than "pull off"?
Disclaimer: I am italian and share the same name... so he IS my favourite :D
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12-13-2008 @12:11PM lauren said... i just feel like the soups they were testing were things that EVERY chef (and pretty much anyone who...well, eats) could name five ingredients out of. and being able to claim vegetable oil and salt? no good.
good idea, but poor execution. still waiting for a star this season.
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12-15-2008 @4:27PM Dean said... I agree that the ingredient tasting challenge was dull. If they were going to allow people to say salt and oil, then there should have been a minimum threshhold of say 8 incredients.
As for Daniel going.. good riddance.. he was clearly a buffoon. Adding the shitake mushroom's to Carla's salad was sabotage at worst, and inconsiderate at best. The fact that he didn't get it, shows why he had to go. Also, kudos to Carla for not making an issue of it when in front of the judges. Despite her sometimes giddy attitude at time, she showed some class in not pushing Daniel further under the bus.
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1-24-2009 @3:47PM Eric said... No, there is not 15 minutes of more Top Chef. The only thing added was more commercials.
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