{"id":3740,"date":"2014-12-04T12:24:29","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T17:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2014-12-04T12:25:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T17:25:41","slug":"top-chef-s12e07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/04\/top-chef-s12e07\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Chef S12E07."},"content":{"rendered":"

My Insider post on the Markakis, Torii Hunter, and Saunders\/Happ deals<\/a> is up, and I’ll be chatting today<\/a> at 1 pm ET.<\/p>\n

Here on the dish, I rewrote my annual gift guide for cooks<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, to this week’s episode \u2026 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.<\/p>\n

\"Top<\/a><\/p>\n

* Barbara Lynch is in the house. She’s the queen of the Boston restaurant scene \u2026 but in all the time I lived there I don’t think I ever went to any of her restaurants. My loss, apparently.<\/p>\n

* 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: \u201cStay focused and less is more.\u201d Her clich\u00e9 per minute ratio is quite impressive.<\/p>\n

* Doug volunteers to be exec chef of his team. Mei wants the job too but says \u201cwe all know women are better line cooks.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u2026 \u201csomebody help me to fill in the blank.\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

* Katie’s team decides to do an \u201cinternational menu,\u201d which sounds a lot like \u201cwe each want to do whatever we want to do.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

* The chefs go shopping for furniture, d\u00e9cor, and flatware \u2026 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.<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* 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<\/a>\"\". The name turns out to be a perfect choice for the ensuing disaster, though.<\/p>\n

* Doug’s team calls their restaurant 4 Pigs because they found four quirky piggy banks while d\u00e9cor shopping. There had better be a lot of pork on the menu, right? I’d expect a restaurant with that name to serve barbecue.<\/p>\n

* Katsuji says of Doug’s role as head chef, \u201cgood for you little thing.\u201d Later we hear him saying, \u201cthirty minutes left \u2026 bitches.\u201d 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 \u201cI only care about myself.\u201d That’s probably the wrong way to approach a team challenge. I’m just saying.<\/p>\n

* Doug braises his pork shoulder in PBR. Wouldn’t you want to use a good beer for that?<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u2026 but are they really tossing all that meat just to use the shells?<\/p>\n

* 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 \u201cforeshadowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Kristen Kish and Stephanie Cmar are there \u2026 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.<\/p>\n

* I admit I had to look this up, but in the argot of the kitchen \u201call day\u201d means \u201cin total.\u201d <\/p>\n

* The server at 4 Pigs didn’t recognize the judges. Really, Padma Lakshmi walks in and you’re like, \u201coh, there’s an attractive woman I’ve never seen on my television a hundred times?\u201d<\/p>\n

* 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 \u2013 it’s the same concept of a smooth, savory spread with a sweet-tart complement.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u201cno sense of unison\u201d between the front of the house with the back \u2013 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 \u2013 but really, at this point they’ve taken on too much water to save the ship.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u2013 maybe a little too much acid \u2013 but I just think that’s a dish I’ve seen on lots of menus in the last two years.<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* Melissa’s dessert looks unreal \u2013 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?<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* The next disaster \u2013 I know it’s hard to keep count \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u2013 she accedes to any argument she’s given.<\/p>\n

* Katie’s starter is roasted beets with Sri Lankan curry, toasted coconut, and pickled cauliflower. The judges all agree that nothing worked together \u2013 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 \u201cposole\u201d with chilis, dungeness crab, and chicharrones at least gets points for a creative concept.<\/p>\n

* 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?<\/p>\n

* Gregory’s second dish is better \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* Keriann discovers her dessert is hot, not cold. It’s the same components \u2013 a vanilla crepe, burnt banana mousse, macerated cherry, ginger, and pistachio \u2013 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 \u201cyou could play hockey with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

* 4 Pigs faces the judges first for an entirely positive review \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

* Magellan, on the other hand, might as well have left judges’ table in flames. Tom just starts with two words: \u201cRough service?\u201d 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, \u201cit’s not my call,\u201d at which point Katie at least makes an actual statement, saying \u201cthis was not mousse in my opinion.\u201d She didn’t call Keriann for a consult, and Keriann didn’t run back to demand they fix it.<\/p>\n

* 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, \u201cI had a problem with her,\u201d without really elaborating, but it seems like she’s just angry to see a leader fail to lead.<\/p>\n

* 4 Pigs win, and the individual winner is Doug for his dish and running the team well. There isn’t much surprising there \u2013 Adam could have won for front-of-house service, but usually it’s the team leaders who win or face elimination in Restaurant Wars.<\/p>\n

* 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 \u201cworst dish on the team.\u201d 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<\/p>\n

* 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).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[442,306],"class_list":["post-3740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-top-chef","tag-tv","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3744,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions\/3744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}