Top Chef, S13E02.

If you’re looking for the episode one recap it’s here. Unrelated to Top Chef, but there’s a big boardgame sale again today on amazon, including half off Splendor, Flash Point, Dominion Intrigue, and more big discounts on Ticket to Ride and others.

Back to Top Chef land … Ludo Lefebvre, whose website bills him as an “impresario of pop-up dining,” is the guest judge this week, so you know the challenge will revolve around pop-up restaurants – typically a one-day experience where a chef or team of chefs opens a restaurant with a very small, focused menu for a single meal or an afternoon. The contestants split into four teams of four and have to open four popups around LA, each in a distinctive neighborhood. Meanwhile, Ludo says that he’s sick of pop-ups, so why exactly is he here?

Each team gets an address but doesn’t learn the type of food until they reach the restaurant.

* Philip says the part of Venice they’re going to is “white people town.” Isn’t “white people town” where most restaurants are located? How many high-end places open in highly non-white neighborhoods? I’d love to see that change – the area in downtown Wilmington where La Fia and sister restaurant Cocina Lolo are has noticeably improved since those two restaurants arrived – but it’s certainly not common.

* Isaac, Marjorie, Angelina, and Amar get Persian food. Isaac knows nothing about it. I’m not sure any of them know much about it. When I think Persian food, I think rice and saffron and pistachios and tah dig. There’s no discussion around any of that stuff, although they do eventually incorporate a lot of pistachios into the menu.

* Karen, Carl, Jason, and Giselle get Korean. They’re at Sang Yoon’s place; he was on Top Chef Masters but is probably better known for his gastropub Father’s Office, with a burger that’s been named one of the best in the country and a big craft beer selection. Sang Yoon says Korean food in LA compares to Korean food in Korea, but that Korean food in New York or other cities doesn’t. This is as stupid as people who say you can’t get good pizza outside of New York. If you have the right person at the helm, you can get good ethnic or regional cuisine anywhere.

* Giselle has eaten wings but never cooked them, and is sort of freaking out a bit in front of the team, saying, “you guys aren’t going to let me fail” … I mean, yeah, they probably would. If the ship starts sinking, they’re not letting her in the lifeboat.

* Even better, her description of Korean-spiced fried chicken wings includes “something makes them red.” Yeah, that’s gochujang. I have a tube in my fridge right now. If you’ve ever eaten Korean food at all, you’ve had it, and I don’t know how a professional chef wouldn’t know what it is: a paste made from fermented soybeans, red chilis, “glutinous” rice powder (sticky rice – not rice with gluten, which would be weird), salt, and often some kind of sweetener. It’s spicy but balanced and is high in glutamates from the fermented soybeans, making it a powerful way to add umami to a dish. I put it in a fresh mayonnaise I served at Thanksgiving with roasted Brussels sprouts.

* Philip, Grayson, Renee, and Frances are at Seed in Venice, a vegan restaurant. Philip’s wife has been an “on and off raw vegan,” which is extremely California. It’s not mentioned till later in the show, but the couple runs a vegan restaurant in Studio City called The Gadarene Swine. As for the team, this seems like a much harder challenge than the other three teams got, although they can make their budget go a lot farther since they don’t have to spend big on meat or fish.

* Grayson says “God put animals on this planet for a reason: to eat them.” Well, I’d argue they came from natural selection, but they can be rather delicious.

* Chad, Wesley, Kwame, and Jeremy get Mexican. Chad and Jeremy have cooked Mexican, while the others haven’t.

* Grayson wants to do a charred bean salad, but Whole Foods doesn’t have the wax beans she wants, which is fine because wax beans have absolutely no taste whatsoever. Grayson is about as bitter as burned garlic this season and I wonder if she’s just a ringer, brought back to stir shit up.

* Frances says she cooked Indian food for the royal family in Dubai, which is ironic since homosexuality is illegal in Dubai and punishable by death. Anyway, she can’t find fresh chickpeas, so she buys canned chickpeas, and around these parts we refer to this as “foreshadowing.”

* Giselle accosts a Korean customer and grills her on how to cook chicken wings. I kind of like that – I’m hoping she didn’t just pick an Asian woman at random but perhaps saw the woman buy items with Korean labels? – although she could also have just asked Sang Yoon.

* What isn’t clear to me in this episode is whether the pop-ups are supposed to be super authentic or merely inspired by each restaurant’s regular cuisine.

* Frances says Philip has gone from being a leader to being bossy … but we see one brief example, if that, and nothing else to support the claim. Plus, he has an actual vegan restaurant; if I were cooking vegan with no experience, I’d want his direction.

* Is it just me or has Gail’s wardrobe changed for the better? I’m loath to make too much of the physical appearance of anyone on the show, but that’s two straight episodes where she’s wearing something that at the very least flatters her more than looks in previous years, where what she wore was often a huge target for criticism (much of it unfair – she’s not there to be ogled) among viewers.

* The judges start the orgy of eating at the Persian place. Amar made grilled heirloom carrots with cilantro pesto, cauliflower hummus, and vadouvan spice (which I think is Indian, not Persian). The judges like it and the host chef, Saghar Fanisalek, says it’s “very Persian,” so there. Angelina serves chicken with a crispy fennel-coriander crust, yogurt with fresh herbs, and lemon confit. Tom says it’s really nicely cooked, loves the crispy skin, but says that it needs a little salt and more aromatic. Isaac makes lamb kofta and chile-spiced beef kabob over smoked eggplant, which even one or two diners say is spicier than “real Persian food.” Marjorie is the only chef of all sixteen to make a dessert, usually the kiss of death on Top Chef (well, that or risotto), making a yogurt mousse with pistachio sponge cake, saffron orange syrup, candied pistachios, and poached orange supremes. Everyone loves it, Ludo especially. As someone who loves to make dessert, I’m thrilled when a chef says “screw it” and makes one on Top Chef anyway. I’d love to know how that sponge cake came together.

* The Mexican pop-up is next. Chad makes a “carrot asado” (uh, you mean roasted carrot?) with banana yogurt and carne seca with hot sauce. The carrot is undercooked and the judges all agree it’s not Mexican enough, which is weird since Chad at the time had two Mexican restaurants, one in Tijuana. (He’s since shuttered them and moved back to Spokane.) Kwame made a chipotle and raisin-glazed shrimp over masa porridge, avocado lime crema, and chicharron and almond puree. This seems like a big hit although I’m imagining a sickly sweet note from the raisins. Jeremy served potato confit poached in “pork lard” (is there another kind of lard?) with charred skirt steak and a poblano-almond puree. This sounds good, but while Tom loves the dish he says it’s also not Mexican. Wesley serves an orange and tomato stew with chorizo, hominy, mint, and cilantro. Ludo says he doesn’t taste the chorizo, which is surprising because I can taste chorizo if my neighbor down the street eats it. It emerges afterwards that the chefs here didn’t ask their host chef, Ray Garcia for much if any direction or advice.

* The vegan pop-up comes third, and we see the food served on sustainable paper plates. Philip serves a dish of cauliflower done three ways, cleverly titled “Cauliflower cauliflower cauliflower,” which I assume is just an homage to the band Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat. Frances made chana masala (chickpeas in curry) with tofu chips and saffron. Renee made a stuffed beet (misspelled as “beat” on the Bravo site right now) with toasted cashews and tofu. Grayson’s salad ended up a mixture of charred haricots vert with pickled red onion, frisee, mint, pepper. She says, “I know it could have been better with a little pork fat.” Sure, but that’s not the only option for flavor or umami, right? A little miso in the dressing, a splash of soy sauce, a poached eggoh wait scratch that last one. All four of these fall a bit flat: Philip’s cauliflower puree isn’t very good, Frances’ dish was good but used canned chickpeas with fresh produce everywhere, Renee’s appears to have sucked in every way but especially in texture, and Grayson’s was just boring. But isn’t cuisine vegan extremely limiting compared to the other three pop-ups’ cuisines?

* The Korean place is last. Carl made a cuttlefish and shrimp salad with avocado. Jason served chilled noodles in radish broth with fried anchovy, cucumber, Asian pear, and egg. Karen made grilled kalbi (marinated, grilled, flanken-cut short ribs) with nectarine kimchi. Giselle’s Korean chicken wings are glowing red and served with cuke salad and cabbage. The cuttlefish in Carl’s dish gets dinged for lack of any real flavor. Giselle’s chicken wings came out well, while Karen’s dish had the most overall flavor and Sang called it the most Korean dish of the four.

* Judges’ table: The Persian team wins. The four chefs said they asked Chef Saghar a lot of questions. Tom really loved Marjorie’s dessert, which means she wins – perhaps breaking the Top Chef Dessert Curse? Chef Saghar wants to put the dish on the menu at Taste of Tehran. If anyone’s been there I’d love to know if that’s actually come to pass.

* The bottom team was the vegan team, although Gail says Kwame’s dish saved the Mexican team from the low spot. Frances admits she used canned beans, which is one of those things you shouldn’t say at judges’ table unless they ask you about it. Grayson’s salad was too ordinary and she’s doing that whole “I’m not sorry I cut your stupid class” act again. Renee’s beet was a good idea (really?), but the beet was dry, there wasn’t enough sauce, and Ludo says it was very mushy. If the beet is that soft, why not finish it on a grill to get some caramelization of all of those sugars? Philip’s dish needed more flavor and there wasn’t enough on the plate, although if they crushed him over the bland puree we didn’t see it on the show. Padma says the vegan team’s task was the easiest because they “could have gone anywhere … just had to omit animal products.” So, cooking is easier with no butter, no cream, no bacon, no eggs, no cheese, no honey, no duck fat, no anchovies, not even ground grasshoppers? I think Padma is out of her mind on this one. There’s no way that’s easier, not with tons of ingredients out of the pantry – you can’t finish a dish with a bit of Parmiggiano-Reggiano for salt and umami, you can’t thicken a sauce with an egg yolk base or finish with some buerre monté.

* Renee is out. Her “dish just didn’t eat well at all, and didn’t have a lot of flavor.” Plus apparently it had the texture of baby food. She looks crushed. Meanwhile Bad Attitude gets another chance.

* “I arrived sassy and I’m leaving even sassier.” You keep using that word, Renee. I do not think it means what you think it means.

* Last Chance Kitchen: Garret has to cook with Renee’s losing ingredients, and Renee with Garret’s. Garret hates tofu and finds “some really dirty beets” in his ingredient box. They grew in the ground, genius, what the fuck do you expect? He doesn’t seem to be pressing any moisture out of the tofu and he’s not using the beets at all, although on the latter point I’m not sure how he could cook them fully in 30 minutes. Pressure cooker?

* Garret makes a coriander- and white pepper-coated tofu with coconut and tea-braised mustard greens, lemon vinaigrette, and roasted cashews. Tom likes the tofu, says he wishes Garret had used the beets, and that the sauce came out too salty (Garret says he reduced it too much … season last!). Renee made a pan roasted chicken with sauteed dandelion greens, poached eggs, and a chicken skin chip. She burned one side of the chicken so she cut that part off before serving, and didn’t use the garlic, ginger, lemongrass enough. Garret wins, perhaps by default with Renee botching the dish. Either way, I don’t think Garret’s around for much longer either.

* Way too early top three rankings: Kwame, Amar, and since she just won the challenge, Marjorie. Sounds like Kwame might have won or been top 2-3 had they done the dishes in this episode by chef rather than by team first. Jeremy did win the first week, but it was with a crudo dish, which seems to always give chefs an advantage here as long as they cut the fish properly. Bottom three would be Grayson, Angelina, and Wesley.

* So far, by the way, this is not the most inspiring group of chefs. Maybe a few of the stars haven’t had enough screen time to show off what they can do, but I’m not blown away by either the dishes or any effusive personalities. There may be a tremendous amount of talent on the show – certainly by resume there is, and I’d rather judge someone on the resume than the interview, so to speak – but through two episodes the season feels a bit, well, underseasoned.

Comments

  1. Agreed on Grayson. The eye rolls and open contempt for the judges are curious and way over the top.

    It always takes a few episodes to warm up to a new cast, but I have the same feeling about this group. I think they’re too accomplished as a whole, so they’re almost robotic or in a box. I see celebrity chefs trending like the poker craze – started off with all of the old school gregarious personalities and now it’s a bunch of 20-something bros wearing sunglasses and headphones sitting there doing nothing but math. The cast needs more underdogs with some semblance to real people.

  2. Thanks for these always-great recaps. Couple thoughts…

    1. Grayson is adding nothing. Did she even actually want to come back, or did they recruit/convince her? Because her attitude is terrible.

    2. Spirited debate last night re: the limitations of vegan cuisine. On the one hand, you lose a lot of ingredients. Vegan cooks/chefs know how to compensate for a lot of them (though cheesy flavors remain difficult), but this is specialized knowledge and also often requires long lead times. On the other hand, vegan cooking can be of any ethnic cuisine. I had great vegan traditional German food in Berlin last year (sauerbraten that must have been made with seitan, rotkohl, and kartoffelkoesse). You might worry about a cohesive menu, but on the other hand the chefs at the vegan place had a lot of opportunities to explore any sort of cuisine. On the other, other hand, the judges seemed to put a premium on fresh veggies, so that might have limited their options somewhat, as well.

  3. “Orgy of eating” — love this. That made me think of Louis CK’s “bang bang.” How does stick-thin Padma find room to eat 16 dishes in one evening? She must not eat more than a bite or two of each plate, in which case I hope Colicchio is not letting her leftovers go to waste.

    Great recap as always. I think Sang Yoon’s point about Korean food wasn’t that you can’t find great Korean food outside LA or Korea, but rather that LA’s overall quality and quantity of Korean food offerings is unmatched outside of Korea. I’m only one person who’s eaten where I’ve eaten (including stints living in Korea, LA and NY), but my experience definitely backs that up.

    And Grayson has got to go.

    • I’m sure all the judges only eat one or two bites. It’s not like they get the dishes one right after the other. It’s probably spaced out over a 3 or 4 hour period (especially if they have to drive to 3 or 4 different areas) and if they eat more, they would be full by the time the later dishes were served. Once it’s down to 5 or 6 chefs, then they probably eat more but not when there are 16 chefs cooking.

  4. Great recap as always. Few thoughts:

    –Something’s up with Grayson being on this show. We’re two episodes in and she’s complaining about the rules already. She was on this show before – is she surprised by how the game is played? And she just seems genuinely unhappy to be there. Either she’s a ringer there to stir some shit up or she’s just psyched out and can’t get her head in the game. I can’t believe she’s still on the show though.

    –Did Marjorie break out the dessert too early? Contestants should always keep a dessert in their back pocket for a team challenge where they get stuck with dessert, or even if they get a dessert challenge. Maybe Marjorie’s a great dessert chef, but if not she’s going to wish she had that dessert to fall back on. Feels like she brought Rivera in with a five run lead – there wasn’t a need to fire that bullet this early in the contest. (Unless she felt that with her teammates’ lack of familiarity with Persian food she needed a bulletproof dish in case they ended up on the bottom. I may be totally overanalyzing and giving her too much credit.)

    –It’s early in the season (SSS!), but Renee’s may be the quickest fall I’ve ever seen. I thought after Wednesday night she was one of the top competitors, but she just fell flat on her face last night.

    • I think you answered your own question. She needed an iron proof dessert in case the team was on the bottom. That’s also why that one dude made the triple cauliflower dish. He serves it at his restaurant and knew that it wouldn’t be the worst dish on his team.

  5. Grayson seems like the kid who got sent down from Varsity to JV and just thinks she’s too good to be there and shouldn’t have to try very hard. Very disappointing that I wanted to go home after initially being happy she was back. Amar seems like the strongest cook to me with Isaac being a close second. If I recall correctly the judges were underwhelmed with Kwame’s dish the first day.

  6. Slight correction – White only closed his San Diego restaurant. His Tijuana restaurant is open and per reports doing well.

    I also have to call bs about the judges critique of the Olvera St. team’s food not being Mexican enough. White has embraced a style of cooking called, for want of a better term, Baja Med. Led by chefs Javier Placencia, Diego Hernandez, Jair Tellez, and Miguel Angel Guerrero. Baja Med cooking (Baja ingredients prepared simply in a Mediterranean style) is giving northern Baja a distinct culinary identity. (see Bourdain’s last Baja episode)

    I’m sure the Mexican team’s dishes (except Kwame’s) were lacking in execution and/or taste, but to criticize them for not being Mexican enough is just ignorant.

    Keith, the next time you are in San Diego give yourself an extra day or two and go to Valle de Guadalupe (about 2 hours south of downtown San Diego). The culinary scene there is exceptional.

    • is that a safe drive? My understanding from living in AZ was that driving across the border put you in some dangerous highway territory.

    • It’s not particularly risky. Just make sure to buy Mexican insurance, which is sold for about $10 a day by all kinds of places right at the border crossing.

  7. I spent NYE in a rented house near Ensenada last year, Keith, and had some similar concerns about driving down (especially as I had a brand new car with only dealer plates), but it was honestly better than even the most optimistic guides I saw, at least on the toll highway 1 that runs down the coast. Fenced on the sides so no worrying about goats on the road at night, road condition was fine, didn’t see any federales. I’ve had some surfing buddies that go down and do more driving on the local roads tell me they usually keep a cooler of american beer and double A batteries on hand for the cops to take as a little bribe ready to go, however.

    Also Tijuana has a budding food and beer scene, as long as your’e passing through.

    Also, as for Korean food in NYC – maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but while there can be good ethnic food restaurants anywhere, of course, the overall critical mass of Korean (and Thai) people in LA means that the overall average quality is much higher when you’re randomly sampling. For example, Pok Pok, the much lauded Portland and Brooklyn Thai restaurant, to me was no more delicious OR authentic than a handful of places that have been in Thai town for years, but WAS twice as expensive. Same with the Korean food I had in Brooklyn – good, but not amazing, and expensive. Obviously I root for LA food, but this same dynamic also means that Cuban and Indian food here is kind of mediocre for the most part, much to my deep sadness.

    I know it doesn’t seem like you’re in LA much for work, but if you’re at Dodger Stadium something and want to try some good, non-KBBQ Korean food, I’d recommend Kobawoo House (for the bossam) and Ham Ji Park (for the pork neck stew and shortribs). Also the recently opened downtown location of Little Sister was excellent I thought – an elevated take on Thai/Vietnamese cuisine, think Animal or Bestia for comparable vibe and pricepoint.

    • Thanks, i’ll definitely keep those recs in mind. I wish I got to LA more often but since moving back east we (me and my editors) try to limit the cross-country travel due to cost and time lost in the air.

      Appreciate all the comments, folks. Keep ’em coming, even the corrections and “no you’re wrong” remarks.

  8. Keith, the perception that Baja is dangerous is indeed pervasive, but the reality is that is exceptionally safe.

    I believe Javier Plascencia will be a guest judge on the San Diego episode. If a visit to Mexico is out of the question, Placencia has opened a restaurant in San Diego called Bracero (very close to Juniper and Ivy). The food is excellent and very representative of northern Baja cuisine.

  9. Having eaten at Jason’s restaurant in Seattle (Spinasse) and devoured his signature dish (tajarin), I’m particularly interested in how he performs. Thus far, it seems he’s doing very well (witness the judges’ comments in Ep. 1), and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when the challenges are a little more free-flowing and allow the chefs to go in more of their own direction.

  10. Dunno if you’ve actually had the Father’s Office burger but, in my view, it is grossly overrated. I can easily name half a dozen burgers in LA alone that are better. Plan Check, for example.

  11. Keith:

    As a preface. Love your work on ESPN. Love your blog. Love your commentary on TC. I’m not a huge fan of Sang Yoon. I think both Lukshon and Father’s Office are overrated and overpriced. The two times I’ve met him I found him to be quite rude.

    Your reaction to Sang’s comments on Korean food is wrong. In theory, you are right. I was born in Baltimore/DC/Northern VA. I lived in Seoul for my time in high school. I lived in NY for 8 years. Boston for 3. I have now lived in LA for 8 years. The commenter above is right. You can find good Korean food in DC/Northern VA and NYC. However, nothing in the US compares to LA in terms of quality, quantity, breadth of offering, and most importantly — price. You won’t find the specialization of specific regions or types of Korean food anywhere else in the US. There are too many restaurants here to know them all. Many of them offer superb food; comparable to Korea. Given the emphasis on regional products here in LA, the taste differs and not in a bad way. And most really good places in LA won’t set you back a fortune, unlike in NY.

    I don’t know the reason. Even the Korean food scene in Northern CA lags behind LA. I want to say that it’s most likely the fact that many of the produce and products indigenous to Southern CA and Mexico translate well to Korean cuisine and it’s cheaper to buy those products here than it is elsewhere. Further, as the commenter above noted, the sheer mass of population of Koreans in LA and in Orange County probably contributes to the depth of quality of food here.

    There are too many places I can recommend – but if you’re ever in LA, I’d be happy to take you to any of these places or send you a list of places to try.

  12. As others have posted, thanks for the recaps. I hate the early episodes of each season to it’s tough to keep track of all the chefs. So I really wish they would eliminate one of the brunettes, preferably Grayson. Living near DC, I’m glad to see the remaining two DC chefs have been doing well. I may need to check out their restaurants soon. Love the show since it focuses on skill, unlike most reality shows.

  13. I definitely agree that vegan is a challenge, and it’s not a diet that I would voluntarily pick, but I think it truly gives a chef a chance to shine and show creativity much more than, say, Mexican cuisine. One of the best meals I’ve had all year was at Semilla in Brooklyn, where about half the dishes were vegan (and almost all the rest vegetarian) and showed amazing creativity and an explosion of favors. Instead of saying “man this is boring,” the chefs should have said “how can I take a limited range of products and make something memorable?” That’s what wins on this show.

    • I think that’s completely fair. In many cases a harder challenge on this show means more opportunity to blow the judges away – Paul Qui taking the hottest chili pepper in that challenge comes to mind. And I am still flummoxed that none of those four chefs went for common flavor boosters that are vegan to begin with, like miso or soy sauce or our new friend aquafaba. Would the judges have been pleased or pissed if they’d used Hampton Creek’s vegan mayo?

  14. Spencer Persson

    Keith,

    I don’t think Sang was trying to say that you can’t have a great Korean restaurant in other cities, but just that Korean food in LA is generally considered to be second to only that in Korea. As a general statement, it makes sense since Los Angeles has a very large Korean population (I believe second in number to only Seoul). I live in Los Angeles, my wife is Korean, and we’ve been to Korea together twice. She is of the opinion that some Korean cuisine in LA is actually better than that in Korea, largely because the quality of some ingredients is better in LA (including the quality of beef). Ultimately I think Sang was just being proud of his city, and not attempting to denigrate Korean chefs elsewhere.

  15. I’m surprised no one has mentioned the appearance of another recent really star who appeared at the Mexican pop-up. I’d swear on a stack of Le Techniques that Project Greenlight producer Effie Brown was there. Seemed such an odd cameo to not be referenced by the show (though they did show her being served, sans face). Tell me I’m not crazy.

  16. Thomas, that was Effie. I spotted her, too. I’m surprised they didn’t have her saying, “I liked this dish, did you know I’ve produced 17 films?”

    Keith, sorry if you addressed this elswhere, but any idea why Grayson is even back on the show? I thought they might offer some sort of explanation in the first episode, but they treated her essentially like she was a new contestant.