Jehangir Mehta. Photo: Food Network.
Picking from among the nice ones is hard -- Garces and Freitag are constantly offering up help to the others and downplaying their talent -- but the heart of banal evil of "TNIC" is a little easier to pin down. Sure, former A16 and soon-to-be Pulino's chef Appleman is your average aggressive, tatted-up, overly confident young chef. And yes, his quote during last night's Indian-themed "pressure" challenge was enough to make us hurl: "I'm a white boy who never cooked Indian before and I just cooked 5 dishes -- I think I've pretty much won this."
But if it's the devious grin, the glint of sabotage, the air of smug condescension you're looking for, there can only be one choice: Mehta. We're sure Graffiti's wunderkind is, as its Web site puts it, "truly a nice guy." But if you've been watching the way "TNIC" editors slice-and-dice Mehta's reaction shots -- not to mention his own proclivity for undermining his co-contestants by hoarding ingredients and gadgets whether he needs them or not -- he's the leading candidate to be the show's mustache-twirling bad guy. And judging by the voting, he'll continue to be.
Sunday's episode took a little luster off of Mehta's own sense of self-importance. Despite highlighting the cuisine of his homeland, these challenges proved tougher nuts to crack for him than most. After weeks of bizarre experiments with ice cream makers and vacuum cooking, the chef employed a minimalist approach -- which in other hands might have seemed like back-to-basics cooking, but with Mehta seemed more like a diabolical mind game.
Grabbing little more than an eggplant for this one-bite Indian face-off, Mehta couldn't resist using a tiny square of jute for his "plate," a decision which just confused more than delighted guest judge Suvir Saran. In fact, for the entire hour, Mehta couldn't catch a break -- or was he being unfairly handicapped because he was seen as having an innate advantage?
If so, at least the judges were equal-opportunity critics of cultural experience. Appleman, the winner of the one-bite challenge, earned no points during the main challenge for his admitted ignorance of Indian cooking. Did he really think it would put him in grumpmiser Jeffrey Steingarten's good graces? Worse, his attempts at innovating on saag paneer looked misbegotten: Instead of the usual cubes of cheese, he replaced them with impenetrable, gnocchi-inspired cheese "dumplings" that the judges described as "hard."
Mehta offered up an attractive, traditional platter of sweets and spices, including a goat palau and a honey and fig halva, but was ultimately faulted for not bringing enough of himself to the dishes -- ironic for a chef whose previous challenges have shown almost too much personality, if that's possible. Freitag was a hard act to follow with her crispy potato-bottomed dish of saffron rice and her tender chicken mughlai -- adorned with a creepy roasted chicken head -- even if she didn't ultimately win the evening.
In the end, the "nice guys finish last" rule was both proven and disproven: Garces, despite some ambiguously presented judges' comments, squeaked by as winner for some "creamy" coconut prawns. Trevino was sent home for an aubergine with mushrooms that looked like vomit and was politely described as a "trail mix hybrid."
But the big surprise was the elimination of bad-boy Appleman -- in large part for a roasted banana that had an off, chemical taste to it. Experience isn't everything -- just ask Mehta -- but at least with these judges, it counts for something.
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