My Insider post on the Markakis, Torii Hunter, and Saunders/Happ deals is up, and I’ll be chatting today at 1 pm ET.
Here on the dish, I rewrote my annual gift guide for cooks from scratch this year, covering just about anything I own and find useful in the kitchen, as well as a fresh list of my favorite cookbooks.
Now, to this week’s episode … it’s Restaurant Wars! This is always the best episode. I still fondly remember the Restaurant Wars of ’09, which left four chefs and a judge dead among several other casualties.
* Barbara Lynch is in the house. She’s the queen of the Boston restaurant scene … but in all the time I lived there I don’t think I ever went to any of her restaurants. My loss, apparently.
* The chefs draw knives to see which two will get to draft the teams. Melissa and Katie make the selections, with Melissa going first. She takes Doug, a mild surprise but perhaps a reaction to Gregory scuffling last time out, after which Katie takes Gregory. Melissa takes Mei and Adam; Katie takes Katsuji and ends up with Keriann by default. Lynch: “Stay focused and less is more.” Her cliché per minute ratio is quite impressive.
* Doug volunteers to be exec chef of his team. Mei wants the job too but says “we all know women are better line cooks.” I’m just going to leave that there. Meanwhile, Adam volunteers for front of house, which makes sense because he’s second only to Katsuji in the never-shutting-up department.
* Katie volunteers to be executive chef, saying that because she owns a pop-up restaurant business she knows what’s required to get a restaurant off the ground quickly. Keriann is front of house. Katsuji says Katie’s good at … “somebody help me to fill in the blank.” Not that I thought he was any kind of gem, but Katsuji reveals himself to be a complete pig in this episode, like saying Keriann’s a good choice for front of house because of how she looks in a dress.
* Katie’s team decides to do an “international menu,” which sounds a lot like “we each want to do whatever we want to do.” Katsuji worries about cohesion on the menu, but neither he nor Gregory (who admits to playing it safe after last episode’s mistakes) puts up much of a fight here.
* The chefs go shopping for furniture, décor, and flatware … which is boring. I’m sure it matters, I know it matters if it sucks, but it’s boring to watch. Let’s cook already.
* Whole Foods has no pork shoulder. How is that possible? I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a Whole Foods that didn’t have one. And I’m pretty sure every pig has two.
* Katie’s team takes their global menu concept and names their restaurant Magellan, apparently unaware that he was hacked to death by Filipino natives before he could finish circumnavigating the globe
* Doug’s team calls their restaurant 4 Pigs because they found four quirky piggy banks while décor shopping. There had better be a lot of pork on the menu, right? I’d expect a restaurant with that name to serve barbecue.
* Katsuji says of Doug’s role as head chef, “good for you little thing.” Later we hear him saying, “thirty minutes left … bitches.” And when Keriann has to make her crepes ahead of time because she’ll be front of house, Katsuji says in the confessional that he could offer to make them for her, but won’t because “I only care about myself.” That’s probably the wrong way to approach a team challenge. I’m just saying.
* Doug braises his pork shoulder in PBR. Wouldn’t you want to use a good beer for that?
* Mei freezes the butter for Melissa’s biscuits with liquid nitrogen, so now my own attempts at biscuit-making seem woefully inadequate. I need to make friends with some local chemists.
* Somehow, a whole hotel pan of cleaned clam shells to be used for serving Adam’s starter has gone missing. It’s probably with the pea puree. Meanwhile, he shucks another 130-plus clams to use … but are they really tossing all that meat just to use the shells?
* Team Magellan is already on the rocks. Keriann is training the servers, Katie doesn’t like the way she’s doing it, but she won’t take charge or even speak up. Around here we call that “foreshadowing.”
* Kristen Kish and Stephanie Cmar are there … but I don’t think we get more than two or three words total out of them the whole episode. That seems like a waste, since Kristen actually won her season and Stephanie was extremely funny in hers.
* I admit I had to look this up, but in the argot of the kitchen “all day” means “in total.”
* The server at 4 Pigs didn’t recognize the judges. Really, Padma Lakshmi walks in and you’re like, “oh, there’s an attractive woman I’ve never seen on my television a hundred times?”
* The food starts coming out, finally, with 4 Pigs serving first. Adam’s starter is salt-baked clams with ramps, bacon, and sunflower seeds. Mei’s is chicken liver toast with plum puree. Tom thought Adam’s was a little dense but otherwise strong. Mei’s is good, with some comps to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (attention Ken Tremendous), which I think may have been the idea – it’s the same concept of a smooth, savory spread with a sweet-tart complement.
* Magellan, meanwhile, is racked with service problems, with dishes going to the wrong tables, servers not knowing the table numbers, and the kitchen badly backed up. Gregory says there’s “no sense of unison” between the front of the house with the back – but he doesn’t speak up either. No one on this team seems to be willing to say anything to anyone else that might seem like taking charge. Katie at least goes to the front of house to try to clear it up, going right to the servers to try to troubleshoot – but really, at this point they’ve taken on too much water to save the ship.
* Doug’s braised pork comes with baked beans, pickled red onions, pickled mustard seeds. So it’s basically a grown-up pork and beans dish, and everyone loves it. Melissa serves seared scallops with radish salad and grapefruit. But the scallop is way too salty and Padma’s face does that thing that cartoon characters used to do when they would accidentally eat alum. Mei’s second dish is fried Brussels sprouts with an anchovy vinaigrette. The judges seem to be picking apart some of the details – maybe a little too much acid – but I just think that’s a dish I’ve seen on lots of menus in the last two years.
* Mei compliments Doug on his expediting skills. Every season one of these restaurants hums and one is a dumpster fire. That may just have been evident a little earlier than normal this year.
* Melissa’s dessert looks unreal – buttermilk biscuit cobbler with apples, mixed berries, and cardamom cream. That is fall in New England all the way. Did Magellan serve a single dish that was really creative, though?
* Back to the circus, Keriann seems to pin the blame for all the trouble on the kitchen. Stephanie Cmar gets some screen time, but it’s just her looking miserable. Meanwhile the judges are left waiting out front because Keriann is busy putting out fires, which always goes over well with Padma.
* The next disaster – I know it’s hard to keep count – comes when Katsuji tries to plate Keriann’s dessert, but finds the banana mousse unspreadable. Gregory and Katsuji do chip in here with ideas to fix it, so there did come a point where they abandoned their me-first stances this episode. Ultimately, Katie takes Gregory’s suggestion to warm the dish up and has Katsuji reheat the crepes in a skillet over simmering water while they also warm the mousse.
* The edit was a little jagged, but we see Katie being completely indecisive between Katsuji and Keriann when debating how much food to send out to the judges at once. You can’t be a leader of any team, even one of four people, if you let everyone push you around, but that’s what happens here – she accedes to any argument she’s given.
* Katie’s starter is roasted beets with Sri Lankan curry, toasted coconut, and pickled cauliflower. The judges all agree that nothing worked together – and you can even see it on the plate. I’m also not sure I’ve ever had a good beet dish without some kind of citrus involved. Katsuji’s hamachi sashimi with roasted poblano, blistered tomato, garlic chips, and citrus-habanero (there’s no tilde over the n, Keriann) salsa seems to just not be awful, while his dry “posole” with chilis, dungeness crab, and chicharrones at least gets points for a creative concept.
* Gregory’s seared haddock with spiced tomato, garam masala, and pickled mushrooms is cooked well, but Tom says should have stopped at fish and tomato. Has Mos Chef hit a midseason slump?
* Gregory’s second dish is better – a hoisin-glazed pork tenderloin, with bay scallops, xo sauce, and broccolini. I just don’t get the love for pork tenderloin. I do eat it, but it’s among the least interesting cuts of pig for both flavor and texture, and the shape means you’ll never really get the whole piece to cook consistently.
* Meanwhile, the grey team barely breaks a sweat as they finish their service. I’m not surprised by Doug, Melissa, and Mei all executing and working well together, but this is two straight challenges where Adam, who was all mouth while Aaron was around, has been a consummate team player.
* Keriann discovers her dessert is hot, not cold. It’s the same components – a vanilla crepe, burnt banana mousse, macerated cherry, ginger, and pistachio – but the temperature change alters the whole dish. There’s no color on the crepes, which is also odd, because color means flavor. Barbara says “you could play hockey with this.”
* Keriann is furious and tries to confront Katie, but Katie just wilts and avoids eye contact. Katsuji, of course, can’t redirect the blame to Katie fast enough.
* 4 Pigs faces the judges first for an entirely positive review – even Melissa’s scallop dish, which may have been their only subpar offering, doesn’t earn a mention. Tom basically says he likes things that are great and good things are fantastic.
* Magellan, on the other hand, might as well have left judges’ table in flames. Tom just starts with two words: “Rough service?” Katie nods and you can see everyone hanging their heads. Padma asks where Keriann was all night because she didn’t see her enough on the floor. Keriann is answering all of the questions, not Katie, even when the latter clearly should be answering if only to say she abdicated her responsibilities. Her beet dish never came together. Keriann’s crepes were soggy, which prompts her to explain that that wasn’t her original dish. Katsuji drops his new catchphrase, “it’s not my call,” at which point Katie at least makes an actual statement, saying “this was not mousse in my opinion.” She didn’t call Keriann for a consult, and Keriann didn’t run back to demand they fix it.
* Keriann didn’t train the staff well, showed no sense of urgency, and her dish was hijacked. Katie tried to fix a bad dish, didn’t hold the team together, wasn’t a leader, and was in over her head. Barbara Lynch just says, “I had a problem with her,” without really elaborating, but it seems like she’s just angry to see a leader fail to lead.
* 4 Pigs win, and the individual winner is Doug for his dish and running the team well. There isn’t much surprising there – Adam could have won for front-of-house service, but usually it’s the team leaders who win or face elimination in Restaurant Wars.
* Magellan loses, and here’s where it gets interesting. Keriann is eliminated for failure to train the staff properly or run the front of house well, but Tom also says she had the “worst dish on the team.” Is it fair to send her home when her dish was altered without her approval, and when she wasn’t the team leader, who, by acclamation, didn’t lead and prepared just one dish that the judges also didn’t like? If front of house is a problem, isn’t the responsibility shared between Keriann and the chef who was, for the purposes of the challenge, her boss? I thought Keriann was the weakest contestant remaining, but based on what we saw on the episode and the history of Restaurant Wars challenges, the decision to send her home rather than Katie seems inapt
* Rankings: Gregory, Mei, Doug, Melissa, Adam, Katsuji, Katie. That top three seems pretty solid at this point. Next week we get both the return of Last Chance Kitchen and the possibility of the return of a previously-eliminated chef (anyone but Aaron, please).
Maybe the editing did not show it enough, but having worked front of house for years as I went through college, I agreed 100% with ditching Keriann. Katie was a limp noodle as exec, but Keriann was just abysmal. Katie at least TRIED to fix the problems she saw – Keriann didn’t. The staff was trained poorly, got confused with table numbers, and sent the wrong food to the wrong place as a result. And instead of fixing the root problem she went back to Katie to blame her expediting when it all started with the front of house confusion screwing up the tix being fired.
With regard to Mei’s comment, not sure if you saw it this way Keith, but I thought that was pure deadpan snark – she was pissed about a guy (once again) taking charge/asserting male privilege, but also didn’t want to lead badly enough to overrule him or get in a fight about it, so she let fly with that little arrow, knowing it would make the air.
I did see Mei’s comment that way too. It was perfect, if that was her intent.
I agree with David, it seemed right — obvious even. Katie and Keriann were both terrible at their roles, but Katie’s dish (while not harmonious) had delicious elements; Keriann’s was completely terrible. Yes, the dish was altered, but the judges ultimately seemed to determine that Keriann was at least equally as responsible for that, because she saw (or should have seen) the dish as it was coming out and could have gone back to try and fix the problem. And the judges were served last, so there was an opportunity to take charge of her own dish and make sure it got done right. Also, even if it was done “right,” the consensus seemed to be that the dish would still have been bad.
Don’t feel bad Keith. I had to look up the word argot.
Gail’s Q&A on Bravo also pointed out that the judges didn’t think Keriann’s dish would have worked at room temperature either. She said they were totally baffled by the whole thing. She also pointed out that Keriann should have showed the other chefs how to plate her dish beforehand, which kind of explains the tinkering they were forced to do on the fly when they all saw the mousse wasn’t working. All in all, I think Katie got lucky, but I agree that Keriann’s was the bigger failure.
Sadly, this was a little predictable when you get 4 of the best 5 chefs on one team. The mistake by Katie was really picking Katsuji over Adam (I believe that is how that went down).
Katie seem really, really unprepared more than just meek. It may be editing, and maybe her style could work, but just her table with the different tickets laid out seem far more hastily planned than Doug.
I too think Keriann was the obvious choice. I think the judges immediately saw through her plea that her dish was sabotaged noting that it was probably lousy to begin with. The front-of-the-house was a giant disaster that added to many of the problems (if not outright causing them) that Magellan had. And she probably could have taken a little time to learn the correct pronunciation of the ingredients and parts in her dishes (habanero was more obvious, but she butchered garam masala as well).
In a way it was a letdown since it was obvious basically from the time of team selection, but for the first time in a while I think we’ve reached this late into the season and there no obvious weakest link (Katsuji probably comes close) and a stable of worthy, interesting competitors.
The comment from Mei ruined the show for me. I literally rewound the show to see if she said what I thought she said. I know the producers are trying to make it the most interesting show possible, but to hear a woman on TV say that was offensive. Are they trying to turn her into the hated person on the show to get our attention?
Keith,
I had the same thoughts as you going into the elimination. Typically, we would see Katie sent home since she was the “leader” of the team. However, I can’t help but think Keriann’s dish was going to be awful no matter what. It seems like cooking the crepes ahead of time was a terrible idea, and the spread was not going to work. None of the complaints from the judges (at least that we saw) had to do with the temperature of the dish. It was just bad. I do think Katie should have consulted Keriann prior to making the decision, because now it leaves me feeling strange about the elimination.
Also, the way they made it look in editing, you could have blamed either Keriann or Katie for the awful service. Did Keriann train the waiters poorly, or did Katie mess up the tickets? They never seemed to make that clear, though Keriann got the brunt of the blame at judging.
Wasn’t the orange team pretty much doomed as soon as Katie drew the “second choice” knife? That guaranteed that the two worst chefs remaining (her and Keriann) would be on the same team.
I was wondering if maybe Katie survived because of Kristen’s unfair elimination back in Restaurant Wars? I think Tom remembers the dust-up from sending Kristen home when it was really the other chef’s fault (don’t feel like googling that chef’s name). This time, they knew that Keriann had been a weak link (just like the other chef in Kristen’s season), and they just went ahead and sent her home instead of repeating the Kristen mistake. Maybe a silly theory, but I though it may have explained why Katie is still around despite a disastrous showing.
Hi Keith,
I know this is a bit off topic, but the comments on your last Sherlock post were closed, and hey at least it’s a TV post.
As a Sherlock fan and someone with children, I highly suggest that you check out Doctor Who, also produced by Steven Moffat. It was originally restarted after a long hiatus by Russell T Davies, creator of the original (British) Queer as Folk. The writing and acting are tremendous; Neil Gaiman has actually written two episodes. It’s a tremendous show enjoyable for both children and adults, where the hero – The Doctor – resolves conflicts by being intelligent and kind rather than the usual “build up justified righteous anger and kill everything” that is seen in most TV shows. It’s on Netflix if you want to check it out (and have Netflix :P). It’s also aired on BBC America.
I agree with your top 3 but I don’t think Gregory deserves to be the front runner any more. I was surprised that he didn’t take any heat for just watching the ship sink (Katsuji did the same but I would think they would expect more out of Gregory). It’s a complete 180 from when he was all team first for the Revolutionary War challenge. He’s still probably the most talented one but I have serious concerns on how he turtled after getting one mediocre review (were he was on the chopping block more because everyone did awesome rather than him doing terrible). I’d put the top 3 as Dougie, Mei, Gregory. I definitely agree there’s a big gulf between the top 3 and everyone else. Adam and Melissa could be darkhorses. I think Katsuji becomes the also-ran that somehow makes it to like the top 4 (seems to happen every season) because he has more outside-the-box flavors than the others.
Keith’s recap brought up a question I’ve has before. Is there any way for a normal person to get their hands on liquid nitrogen?
@Ben: You forgot “…Asking for a friend.”
Ha. I’m perhaps not entirely normal, so it’d definitely be for a “friend”.
I just don’t think they could let Keriann off the hook.
Did anyone catch when they did an extended shot of Kerriann’s legs when she walked through the kitchen? Totally gratuitous and something they’ve never done for a male.
@Kazzy: Yep. Debated whether to mention that, then left it out. She’s got some strong calf muscles, though.
I know I’m way late here but three thoughts.
-I thought this was a very poorly edited episode. As Keith said, too much time on furniture, décor, flatware and with Adam and the Grey Team in general considering what occurred with the Orange team. It was really hard to tell how things broke down and with whom, and instead of focusing on that, a lot of time was spent with Adam in the front of the house (did you know it was far between the kitchen and table? Did Adam mention that at all?) instead of thoughts from Kristen and Stephanie and what ever wasn’t going on with Orange. Therefore, by the time we get to judge’s table, it’s unclear who should go home and why. And then during the Q&A process of judge’s table, there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion/input from team Orange. Maybe the producers had little to work with, but I’m at a loss at how things went so poorly for Orange. Maybe it just happened?
-On that note, isn’t the service staff one of the great non-equalizers here? Isn’t it possible that Orange got a few poor servers? Or did Keriann train them very poorly? I lean towards poor training, but one server could mess up and it lead to confusion (which thanks to editing can become a much bigger deal than what happens when anyone eats out and there is a mix up).
-Am I crazy or did it seem like the food from the Orange team was better? Other than Doug’s pork, the judges, in the moment, were fairly unimpressed with every other dish. That said, it’s clear Keriann’s desert was the worst dish of the night. I think they made the right choice in sending Keriann home, but it’s hard to say because I feel so much was left out/unexplained.