Sorry I skipped last week’s episode, but I’ll do my best to blog each week from here on out.
* Not discussed enough in the debate over purchasing cooked shrimp (which was an obvious reason for an elimination) is the idea of serving shrimp cocktail at all on Top Chef. I fail to see any way in which that could be turned into a potential winning dish, and it absolutely screams 1970s cocktail party – or bad hotel buffet. And it’s not Mexican. The fact that the pink team never thought, “Hey, this is probably a terrible idea for a dish,” is disturbing.
* Store-bought tortillas. You knew that was going to come back to bite someone, right? Have these chefs watched the show before?
* Given how unattractive the tres leches cake was, and the history of early eliminations for chefs who make dessert, Heather just got her ass saved by the rest of her team. Not only was it leaning – she blamed the heat in the kitchen, which is possible, except aren’t chefs on this show always complaining about the heat in the kitchens? – but it was decorated like an Easter bonnet (I think Hugh said that), not for a quinceañera. They didn’t love Dakota’s cake, but at least it looked the part.
* Was it odd that we didn’t get an individual winner? I haven’t seen enough of the early seasons (I jumped in halfway through the Voltaggios’ Shermanesque march through season 6) to know if this is unusual. Potential winners for me included Chris J.’s green chile, mushroom, and oaxaca empanadas, Beverly’s short rib taco with kimchi (recipe is kind of missing the part where you cook the short ribs), Chuy’s braised goat birria, and Paul’s shrimp ceviche in yuzu with corn salsa. I’d love to try that last one with a firm-fleshed white fish. (One note on Chuy’s recipe: The peanut salsa calls for 3 cups of peanuts, 8 guajillo chiles … and 1/8 tsp of cumin. Really? A good three-fingered pinch of cumin is really going to make a difference in two pounds of spicy, crunchy peanut butter? Come on.)
* Slightly surprised Chris C. – who is Anthony Dinozo from NCIS – didn’t get called out for a dish that was a little simple for Top Chef. I guess it was extremely well done.
* Did any chef actually believe they’d face a live rattlesnake in their quickfire boxes? They’re poisonous. Bravo is not going to risk a fatal snake bite on Top Chef.
* The whole “…, bitches” meme needs to die a quick and painful death. Not only is it incredibly derogatory towards women, just about everyone sounds like an idiot saying it. You are not Rick James. Stop it.
* Contrast Chuy’s leadership style – not loud, but clearly in control, leading through advice and example but never by scolding or patronizing anyone – with Sarah’s. Sarah seemed to want to be in control yet totally uncomfortable being assertive without talking down to her teammates (and Lindsay was 1A to Sarah’s 1 here). I didn’t see accountability for the shopping errors anywhere, which should come down to proper menu planning and clearer directions to the other half of the team. You can’t run a team of eight anythings without someone taking the lead. If Sarah had gone home instead of Keith, it would have been fully justified.
* What a huge boost Hugh Acheson is to judges’ table. He’s hilarious and oozes common sense; Tom Colicchio can be funny, but his humor often comes off as dismissive, whereas Hugh can be just as critical but his delivery is far more good-natured. His blog on the show is a must-read – he’s just as funny in print, with his post on this week’s episode poking fun at maybe half the chefs in the competition, and even a fellow judge or two. (“Padma double dips. There a lot of innuendo.”) Gail Simmons might be better-looking, but she doesn’t bring half of Hugh’s humor or insight to judges’ table.
* I skipped the first Last Chance Kitchen, but watched this one to see how my namesake made out. Interesting to see that the chefs didn’t know of LCK’s existence. I thought the concept might be dumb, but this challenge was very straightforward – no gimmicks, heavy emphasis on the food. I won’t spoil who won this face-off, but one comment is that the winner’s dish follows a structure that has, at least over the past three seasons, proven very successful on Top Chef when it’s executed properly.
“Really? A good three-fingered pinch of cumin is really going to make a difference in two pounds of spicy, crunchy peanut butter? Come on.”
In my experience it actually might. Every time I’ve made a dish that had cumin in it, you could instantly identify it in the finished product. That true of reductions that had alcohol and/or soy and/or vinegar. So, while that small amount does sound a little bit sketchy, it wouldn’t surprise me if the cumin still added something to the dish.
i can’t get too upset at keith’s departure… he chose enchiladas because of how easy they’d be to make. a lot of this show is about really trying to showcase how good of a chef you are, and his entire performance just screamed “lay-up.” as hugh noted in his blog, and as his LCK showed, he’s fully capable of making elegant dishes.
he was guilty of both not doing his homework on Top Chef and of a lack of ambition. so it goes, i guess.
Oops, hit submit before I finished my responses/observations. I totally agree about the leadership point. I also think that Keith’s numerous comments both during and after the challenge about the lack of a true spirit of teamwork were dead on and put the differences between the teams’ performances in this area into stark relief. All I can say is that I hope that Keith went home solely because of his food because while buying premade tortillas was silly, the other team did the same (albeit they charred theirs so they at least altered the premade ingredient), and the precooked shrimp was a team failure rather than a personal one, imo.
One final comment I’d make is that I am very intrigued to see which part of Beverly’s personality comes out most on the show, the heart-felt emotional side that she displayed when talking about her bond with/need to prove herself to her father or the unbelievably rude and condescending side that she showed while shopping at the Mexican grocery store. I’ve always thought that one good indication of a person’s character is how they treat people whom they don’t have to be polite or nice to. So to see her be so obnoxious to other customers (who she wouldn’t see most likely would not encounter again) or to the employees serving her (who are unlikely to retaliate given that they are working a service job) was a pretty bad sign in my book.
I can’t listen to any of what Hugh Acheson has to say without looking at the unibrow. He may be hilarious on the show, I just never noticed.
” Not discussed enough in the debate over purchasing cooked shrimp (which was an obvious reason for an elimination) is the idea of serving shrimp cocktail at all on Top Chef. I fail to see any way in which that could be turned into a potential winning dish, and it absolutely screams 1970s cocktail party – or bad hotel buffet. And it’s not Mexican. The fact that the pink team never thought, “Hey, this is probably a terrible idea for a dish,” is disturbing.”
I think this is what they had in mind for the shrimp cocktail.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/mexican-shrimp-cocktail
Gabe: OK, let’s assume that is it. Still not much of a Top Chef dish, is it? It’s boiled shrimp with a simple sauce.
Jesse: Great point on Beverly. Her behavior in the store was embarrassing – like shouting at someone whose first language isn’t English.
Hey Keith/dish universe:
This is a little off-topic, but I’m a fan of Top Chef and cooking in general – so I thought I’d throw it out there: I enjoy cooking, but I’d like to get better at cooking without a recipe. Which would you recommend: Ruhlman’s Ratios or Alton Brown’s I’m just here for the Food?
If a TC worthy dish consists of adding some avacado and cilantro to some cocktail sauce then I guess you guys will be seeing me in Season 10.
I actually grow tired of the judges expecting the chef’s to make everything with such little time to prepare. If one chef made the tortillas, he/she would’ve been crushed at judge’s table for not doing enough. At least they didn’t have to cook insects…yet
I am not a fan of Acheson…if SNL was doing a Top Chef parody, I could see Jim Carrey playing Acheson perfectly…
It clearly wasn’t shown on the episode, but according the website the winner of the “Green Team” was Chuy Valencia. http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef – scorecard about half way down.
Not sure if they use him because he was the team leader or not. I think its clear he doesn’t get immunity next week or I have to believe they would have indicated that on the show.
Jesse,
While I agree Keith wasn’t 100% at fault for the precooked shrimp, he still came up with the idea to buy them. No one who is expecting to win Top Chef should ever expect that precooked shrimp is a good idea. Thus, to me, the burden of the shrimp purchase is on Keith.