Top Chef: New York

http://www.observer.com/files/imagecache/article-teaser/files/20bayard0907.jpg

lol williamsburg high-rise

pretty good first episode I thought. I liked the main challenge. gave the outer boroughs some shine!

bald grouchy Euro dude seems set up the be the villain

is this on hulu by any chance?

http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/_images/bios/stefan.png

Vinaigrette is NOT an emulsion. End of Story!

xpost looks like it will be
http://www.hulu.com/videos/search?query=top+chef

Great episode! I can't get enough of knife skill challenges, and I love the face off thing. Guest judge was too nice, though.

I thought this was great. Maybe my favorite series of cooking challenges. I am betting someone punches Stefan out by the end (probably Daniel.)

they usually only put 1 or 2 eps on hulu

yeah there is only a recap on here

i'm rooting for the dude from Hawaii for sure.

So far I am rooting for the Absinthe lady (whose food I've actually eaten) and the Big Cuddly Bear Dude.

wonder who will be on as a guest judge besides the usual suspects of Rocco, Bourdain, Wylie

David Chang? Mario? (feel like he woulda been on by now if he was game.) has Thomas Keller ever been on? maybe April Bloomfield (oh yeah she was on last season), Zak Pellacio ...

I honestly think Chang would turn it down.

I was curious if they threw out the CIA student as a lesson to all the culinary school types who are probably trying to get on the show - like "wait until you've actually worked for a while, dumbass".

Martha Stewart will be a guest judge is the previews are any indication.

Yeah it's weird I don't know how the determine the 17 contestants, but just looking at the two that got sent home I was like "okay they are fucked" (Colichio seems to rabidly had chefs NOT cooking stuff ya know.)

had = hate

I was curious if they threw out the CIA student as a lesson to all the culinary school types who are probably trying to get on the show - like "wait until you've actually worked for a while, dumbass".

I don't know if it was a lesson so much as it was a perfect illustration of how underprepared your average student is. No knife skills, no knowledge of cuisine, no creativity ... amateurs with no kitchen experience and little practical ability. Both of them failed in almost every task they were given. It was really quite stunning, especially after all the good vibes of them running into each other and etc.

But what I don't understand is why they were picked to begin with. It's nice to have attractive people on the show, but it doesn't help if they get eliminated immediately!

I liked that, whether through editing or just out of sheer obviousness, it was easy to pick the quickfire and elimination loser and winners at a glance. I mean, spinach salad with bacon and apples? As everyone on my couch said at once "WTF, _I_ can make that!" And while rainbowkinder might've made for good television, it was clear that he had no idea what he was doing.

Bald vinaigrette Euroboy seems like both the bad guy and the guy to beat.

I wish I had TV so I could watch this. But primarily I was thinking that guy in the white jacket is super, super hot.

The student was kind of lucky to go home early -- most of the challenges are built around exactly the kind of stuff (like snap-preparing unusual meats or running a serving station) that you're only going to learn through having worked for a while.

I was sad to see cute Chicago Indian girl struggling, though.

"It's nice to have attractive people on the show"

Yeah this is getting crazy. Chefs are not this attractive really.

Miami guy with the perfect hair is really annoying.

Also I was really hoping the "vinaigrette is not an emulsion" argument was going to be backed up by some kind of cagey semantic thing like "technically it's a nanoemulsified suspension," but he went the other direction -- "vinaigrette is not an emulsion, it's just vinaigrette."

"I'm not annoying, I'm just a guy whose way of relating to other people bothers some of them"

Actually he's just annoying looking (although his little "I've got to check my hair before I leave the kitchen" tale was kind of annoying just on its own I guess.)

But primarily I was thinking that guy in the white jacket is super, super hot.

not to taunt you further Laurel but him and the italian guy were already talking soccer in the first episode

Note: I can't believe there are two Coloradans in this. I don't particularly care for either of them, but two Coloradans is kinda cool.

i was half-watching this and was being driven crazy by the frankenbiting, like i am with every reality show. pretty obvious setups imo: the dude not knowing about indian food coming out with something awesome, the dude who was slow on the plating beating the douchey italian guy. good work on the reunion pals both being knocked off on the first episode though.

You it's interesting mix of places this time. Weren't there like 4 SFers/4 NYers/3 Chicagoans last time around?

not to taunt you further Laurel but him and the italian guy were already talking soccer in the first episode

I think I have to call my boyfriend now; my boyfriend who, luckily for me, looks a lot like that guy in the white suit jacket and will whisper sweet exceptions to the offside rule in my ear.

well at least there are no faux hawks this season.

there's a weird semi-reverse stache on stefan's rival

There are exceptions to the offside rule?

Wait, I guess that mostly revolves around what you consider an "exception" and what you consider "part of a complex multi-faceted rule"

But what I don't understand is why they were picked to begin with. It's nice to have attractive people on the show, but it doesn't help if they get eliminated immediately!

I guess this is what I meant as a "lesson" - pick one of the (probably thousands) of current culinary school people to get on the show, knowing that they will probably be way over their head and have to go home early. Let them know that, no, they don't know everything and experience in a real kitchen is huge.

I thought it was kind of amazing how many of the people had never cooked Indian / Middle Eastern / Chinese / whatever food before. Most people I know who love to cook love to find and try different cuisines and have probably tried to cook most of these at some point. But I can see working in a couple of different restaurants for years and getting one particular thing down and never having time to learn other stuff. I've never worked in a restaurant so who knows.

Also... hey, you are about to go on the most famous, most grueling reality show in the world. Might as well learn to prepare one dish in every style with every protein before you show up, right?

"most famous, most grueling reality show"

Haha uh no. Still you'd think would practice more, wouldn't you. And remember not grab something they've NEVER cooked with on a challenge.

And learn to make a couple of really good pastry items too, cause inevitably they end up having to and 90% of them can't and bitch about it. It's the fifth season, you should know this by now.

You know, an alien watching this show would probably conclude that North American humans eat WAY more scallops than we actually do.

And that scallops cannot be cooked in a mediocre fashion. Either good or terrible.

And yeah, you would certainly think at this point that folks would do some goddamn research. Seriously, you've NEVER COOKED CHINESE FOOD?

Oh the freezing cold looks when teary defensive 40-something mom said at least she had books to refer to at her restaurant, if someone wanted middle eastern food. Also, blonde woman from Colorado - did she say she wasn't familiar with italian food? Really?

Haha uh no.

I meant 'reality cooking shows' but I guess you think Iron Chef is harder?

Colorado is just awesome like that, Jaq

If you narrow it cooking shows, yeah I agree. I thought you were claiming this was more well known/harder than like Survivor or the Amazing Race or whatever.

americans top idol

Survivor is easy, their food is always cooking 101.

Which is more grueling: a jungle island being forced to eat grubs vs. a living in a loft apartment Williamsburg being forced to interact with Gail Collins?

You may have a point.

did she say she wasn't familiar with italian food? Really?

yeah that was pretty lol

Colorado is just awesome like that, Jaq

Aw now, Macaroni Grill started there, right? though, um, okay, I see your point...

Haha no, I have no point, I'm just making a joke. I'm from Colorado, we have plenty of Italian food over there, like anywhere.

Gail Collins is so goddamn boring.

I also liked the guy who said that "Latin is like a whole different continent"... what was that quote again?

It's actually Gail Simmons. Gail Collins is the Times editorial writer, I think haha.

I actually think BOTH of them are boring.

also: actually

no faux hawks, and nobody who's yet stated that they're all about molecular gastronomy.

And I was all ready to support the NJ mom with a place in Montclair, and when they started going on about how they can learn about food now they're in "diverse" NY I wanted to yell at them and tell them NJ is where everybody from those diverse neighborhoods of NY live now but then she said that stupid thing about learning about middle-eastern food from books.

I have a crush on Gail Simmons.

Ick how can you listen to her voice, Dan?

I also liked the guy who said that "Latin is like a whole different continent"... what was that quote again?

I balked at this one for a second but it made perfect sense. Was it the Italian guy who said this? The thrust of the full quote was something like "I know a lot about X Mediterranean cuisine, but Latin is like a whole different continent" -- i.e., Latin America is a different continent from southern Europe, which is true. (Though it doesn't explain why he made the comparison in the first place.)

Gail is like that most underseen of mystical creatures, an unskinny elf: I am very pro-her.

I dug Gail a lot more before she started to look more and more plasticine over the past few seasons.

Gail just seems like an afterthought to me. They should replace her with someone with more personality.

I wouldn't be surprised if she's the most animated Food & Wine magazine editor.

personality like that Andrew douche-bag from Gourmet? I'll stick with Gail.

I would prefer someone with an engaging personality.

Second the Gail-crush--she's super geeky and seems to really like food. And I really liked her dress on the premiere.

I was amazed none of the chefs peeled their apples on the cutting boards rather than in the air--less risk of cutting themselves, I'd think.

oh man my sister just hooked me on this shit

Foo Fighters episode was great!

i like gail

basically just makes me want to quit life and become a chef

college bro is cookin at chez panisse and he's loving life

I wanted the "al dente" potato guy to go. What stressful conditions to have to cook in - Eugene should have gotten extra credit for building that smoker.

i watched a top chef season 4 marathon with the sound off on my flight last night. everything's so exaggerated on tv that it's not hard to figure out what's going on. stephanie and antonia were my favorites.

this show seems overrated to me, but it's a nice middle ground between the mastercheffery of iron chef and the amateur hour of the next food network star or whatever it's called.

2nd on "al dente" potato guy. That guy seems like a complete jerk too.

He'll be gone soon enough.

i've really tired of the dumb soundbite interviews, endless telegraphing and audience-submarket-shout-outs, not to mention the foo fighters, but it's still a decent show

Yeah he seems like he's being kept around just to see if he inspires someone else (*cough cough* exec chef lady from Absinthe *cough cough*) to go batshit crazy.

Yeah he seems like he's being kept around just to see if he inspires someone else (*cough cough* exec chef lady from Absinthe *cough cough*) to go batshit crazy.

His beard is admissible in court as proof of justified homicide.

There really are an awful lot of jerks on the show this year (Miami RC guy, both Euro dudes, al dente potato beardman.)

I kinda like al dente potato beardman!

What are you having your period or something? That's crazy!

Eugene should have gotten extra credit for building that smoker.
this dudes a sleeper and i think he will be there for awhile.

It's weird -- New York Beardguy is sort of this particular NYC-area dude archetype that I'd have been annoyed by before living here, but have now grown to either (a) tolerate and understand the general harmlessness of, or (b) find kinda charming, for short periods of time. Maybe it's a little of both.

But Tall Gay Beardguy was the most likable reality-show contestant I've seen in ages -- dude came off as strikingly pleasant and genial -- so that was sad to see him axed.

i just like watching food be prepared

xpost I 2nd that as well with the caveat that Tall Gay Beardguy didn't seem to be a particular interesting chef.

It's been downhill since S3 - the one w/ the two Dallas chefs+Dale+CJ+Hung+Howie's sweat dripping into every dish

I'm enjoying this one quite a bit. They still have to weed out all the losers, and that's always the boring part.

It's weird -- New York Beardguy is sort of this particular NYC-area dude archetype that I'd have been annoyed by before living here, but have now grown to either (a) tolerate and understand the general harmlessness of, or (b) find kinda charming, for short periods of time. Maybe it's a little of both.

i've also worked in a kitchen with this guy for a few years; he's nice enough once you get to know him. Lotta anger, but it's not really about you.

I assume you mean this archetype and not NY Beardguy himself?

i didnt like this episode

otm. shit was pretty weak

i like this cast but idk about the challenges - the last two were pretty weak imo. a little too gimmicky

like if i wanted to watch this id watch "how to be a real food network star" or w/e

more straight up cooking challenges with different ingredients is the best. it's cool to put some twist in there but you're right the gimmicky stuff doesn't make the show more interesting.

ya my favorite episodes are the ones where they are kind of creative but when it comes down to it they just have to cook normally for normal ppl - like the episode last season where they had to cater that zoo party and they had to pick ingredients that their animal would eat. that's a really good top chef challenge

i'm kinda crushing on Leigh though. that one dudes gonna hit that.

tell me more about that challenge! xp

i might be misremembering it a lil but basically they were grouped into like four groups and they all drew knives and on the knives were four different animals. so if you pulled a bear you basically got gamey meats (i think) and so on

they were provided w/ lists of each animal's diet so they picked from there

here we go

Elimination Challenge: Five teams of three are selected by drawing knives, each assigned a specific animal (Bear, Gorilla, Lion, Penguin, and Vulture). The teams must prepare a series of appetizers based around their animal's diet for a gathering of 200 guests at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

probably would have been better if they used actual gorilla and lion meat though.

btw rocco was a huge dick tonight. like i get that he's got a bruised ego cuz he didn't pan out to be the male rachel ray or whatever he thought he was gonna be but he could do to lighten up a bit. an undercooked egg isn't "UNACCEPTABLE" - she just mistimed a dumb challenge by like 15 seconds so chill out

rocco went from one of the best young chefs in the country to a tv laughingstock with a failed restaurant in ny.

this is the best cast since season 2.

i'm kinda crushing on Leigh thoug

leah. she's one of my faves.

i like fabio too

fabio is awes, as is the animal challenge

like i am now thinking that an animal-themed dinner party is in order

animal challenge? they have to prepare a souffle while entertaining a tiger or something?

oic

I liked last week's quickfire - just kidding we want soup! Curveballs like that that make them think creatively are better than "OK, cook outdoors in a snow storm using only a Mr. Coffee and some tin foil."

I totally would eat that habanero shrimp deal and love it because I'm not a big baby.

Kathie Lee is so awful. Ariane is exactly who would make food a harpy like KL would enjoy.

Every season has dumb challenges. Like last season they had to cater like EIGHTY times or something.

Beardo loves Howard Stern, surprise surprise.

Jamie's dish would have been finished like 15 seconds later, Rocco needs to chill the f out.

i agree, but here's the thing about top chef. they usually don't do those really dumb curveball challenges late in the game (a la proj runway). this makes sure that talented chefs aren't getting knocked off on some bullshit. i think in the first few challenges those gimmicky challenges are alright - ppl who lose those aren't especially that great anyway and they make them more fun until you can kind of differentiate b/w everyone and before storylines begin to emerge.

that said, i think they are getting to the point where they don't need those foo fighters-type challenges anymore

xp to milo

i'm not a big fan of the jersey girl, but there's nothing wrong with watermelon, tomato and feta, however simple

There's nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that she didn't do anything to them apart from slicing them.

Fabio was robbed. Stupid Today show...

the stupid under-cooked egg business was just to give jamie a close call---she's a Contender, I think

yeah, the watermelon, tomato and feta dish was actually beneath the today show's standards of "dumb easy shit that gets made so lazy housewives and kathie lee can feel like they've learned something" food cooking.

also? kathie lee spitting that dish out? that is so insanely unprofessional for a tv hostess -- how does her obnoxious ass keep getting employed?

actually, she made the basil oil

http://recipes.mt.bravotv.com/top_chef/season_5_1/episode_4_2/beefsteak_tomato_salad.php

the challenge basically told you to dumb something down, and she did

kathie lee is one of the most disgusting...well you know.

i am aware of what went into her dish, gabbneb, and i still feel it is beneath even the today show's dumbed-down level. she won because it was the least exotic/complicated of the three but not in the way you're implying with your insistence on pointing out she was told to dumb things down. the other two made quick dishes that translated to television as well; but they were serving said dishes to the abject morons who host the final hour of the today show. that was kind of a gross gimmick IMO.

i do honestly, sincerely think it is completely fucked up to have allowed this challenge to be decided, basically, on the premise of "food least likely to be spit out by kathie lee." i can't be the only person who used to watch regis & kathie lee with my mom (well, i mean, with your own mom -- you know) when i was younger on this thread! she was always rather famously disdainful of food, disdainful towards chefs, unwilling to try new things, against spice, against this, against that...it's like asking a three year old who only eats cheerios to judge iron chef.

ultimately, i'm expressing the same distaste as almost everyone else on this thread: it's bullshit for chefs to be kicked off or, conversely, to win, on really bs premises.

i'm sure you'll find some way to keep arguing tho gabbneb!

btw i dislike feta cheese but will often eat watermelon/tomato combo, and it's too early in the season for me to give a shit about milf, dr. chase, or antonio banderas so i'm not arguing this on any of those merits. i just think the episode was full on retarded!

it's bullshit for someone to fail to win a tv-cooking contest on a tv show by decision of a bullshit tv host

if you dislike feta, then perhaps you are unaware of the classicness of watermelon+feta

To be fair, the judges also liked Ariane's salad and presentation enough to put her in the top three. But Fabio should've won.

I'm sure Fabio is bummed out about not getting Rocco's favorite kitchen tools, but he'll live.

fabio seems annoyed about everything, all of the time.

fabio's intentionally and unintentionally hilarious

his lil rant about his mom and tuna/carrots/asparagus reminded me of something i would say on the show

i love how he says words that end in "-ed" "sear-id scallops"

I was clowning on the middle eastern roll guy for being all condescending about "unsophisticated palates" but then I had to take it all back after Kathie Lee spit-take

as soon as that dude said "bababooey" I thought "stfu" quickly followed by "oh hey I wonder which contestant is from Long Island"

I was clowning on the middle eastern roll guy for being all condescending about "unsophisticated palates" but then I had to take it all back after Kathie Lee spit-take

i felt like this too - it wasnt the idea it was the smugness

can't decide whether blond w/ bangs is hot or not, leaning toward yes but sometimes she looks kinda mannish

the shrimp might have been good but in any case she shoulda known habanero was a red flag for something geared toward home cooks

my friend richard referred to blonde w/ bangs as "meth head" in a piece he wrote about the show.

dammmmn

I was lolling at the final representative of the ill-fated Team Rainbow, still ridin for the cause with rainbow t-shirt and rainbow bracelet

i thought they were foreshadowing her elimination

lol Colicchio can't hang with spicy food.puss!

i thought they were foreshadowing her elimination

― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Thursday, December 4, 2008 1:41 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no way; she's going to be final three. i can't decide if i like her.

my friend richard referred to blonde w/ bangs as "meth head" in a piece he wrote about the show.

my wife calls her "ugly starbuck"

i thot colicchio's reaction to 'bababooey' was funny

bowl-cut flyover-country girl (actually she's from Maryland) seems on the ok side of out-of-her-depth annoying gunner

Colicchio probably has an ulcer or something.

The salad was dumb but it was a smart choice. At least she made the dressing. I think the entire challenge was lame though. This isn't Food Network's Next Food Network Star (a show which makes Top Chef look like Ingmar Bergman) but these challenges should be about food, not about how well you adapt to live TV.

my friend richard referred to blonde w/ bangs as "meth head" in a piece he wrote about the show.

That piece was pretty funny, props to your pal Richard.

yah srsly that was better than the other ones that mr. stein did the last several weeks. i used to like his top chef pieces but he seems to be a little distracted these days. i do not understand the padma zombie thing but it is hilarious anyway.

"Meth head" kind of perfectly sums up the blonde bangs girl to me. Maybe not actual meth head, but like some actress made up to look like one in a movie.

I was kind of pissed about the dumbness of the TV challenge but Colicchio summed it up pretty well on the Bravo site:

It's amusing to me how so many of our cheftestants said, in response to this week's Elimination Challenge, that they did not want to "do TV" in their careers as chefs ... while they're doing TV to advance their careers as chefs. As I recall, they were saying those words directly into the lens of a television camera.

Still, Kathie Lee should have no say at all about anything, anywhere.

i wonder if bravo.com is still selling team rainbow shirts

fabio: quite possibly my favorite contestant in the history of reality tv

"a little splooge of this" <-- i like this guy too

in the foo fighters episode he said "my guess is that it's gonna be donald trump because he's the richest and powerfulest man in the world"

I'm expecting a curveball summary dumping of a top competitor in the next few weeks just to shake up the status quo. Maybe Stefan?

I was irritated by Ariane not giving Radhika any credit for the lamb, esp. since "tastiness" was mentioned and Radhika made the marinade. And Carla should've stabbed Daniel in the hand with a fork when she caught him subverting her salad.

he got his

He still needed stabbing.

I was looking up vadouvan this morning, thinking it was a particular spice, but finding all sorts of recipes for the blend, some with fried shallots, garlic, and onions and some just spices.

i just liek the way vadouvan sounds. would season

fabio: quite possibly my favorite contestant in the history of reality tv

Yeah, he's fantastic.

I'm so glad Gene didn't go home, because that dude rules. I guess he probably won't last very long though.

Was anyone else kind of annoyed by all their advice about throwing out rice? I am willing to bet anything that if he'd thrown out the rice and complained about it, they'd have been telling him that a good chef rolls with what he's got, and that if he'd "fixed" the rice in a dish that worked out really well, they'd have commended him on being flexible and ingenious.

Well I suppose the argument is that he should have known when the ingredient is salvageable and when you're just trying to pass it off as ok.

They probably would've commended him if it had tasted like anything other than bad rice.

Yeah, I thought that seemed like a catch-22 - I also wondered if rescuing it by making it like idli would have gone over with them.

Yeah at one point it did looked like they salvaged it with a workable sushi concept. I'm not sure what prompted them to go with the deconstructed mess they ended up with though.

xpost - Yeah, that's kind of what bothers me -- they were kind of proposing a "just throw out the rice" rule, when the problem was maybe more that a reasonable attempt at a quick-thinking save just ... didn't work.

Deconstructed mess = result of Eugene sitting around on the balcony all night overthinking things, evidently. (Thank god, though, that this gave us those wonderful shots of Daniel lifting weights out there.) So technically Stefan was 50-50 on his meddling, even though the focus was on his getting whipped on the sorbet.

the look in Stefan’s face when they were praising Jeff for his savory sorbet was classic.

If they made idli with the rice it would have been the last straw for the insane overcrowded plate the put out and would have been awesome because someone's head would have exploded.

I can't believe that not one of them stepped back and thought, "seriously, what the fuck is this shit doing together on plate?". Instead Daniel though, hey, mushrooms, don't have those yet.

XP: Daniel pumping iron was top notch hilarious to me. I want an animated gif of that.

He was, like, practically leaning on the edge of the balcony while doing it, too, which seemed ... bizarre.

I can't believe that not one of them stepped back and thought, "seriously, what the fuck is this shit doing together on plate?".

Joan Clayton knew shit was messed up.

^^ hahaha you are not the only one with that mental connection going on at times

LOL yes she reminded me of her as well

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4BB6GB20081212

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former employee sued "Top Chef" TV show judge Tom Colicchio in federal court on Friday for allegedly not paying some of his restaurant workers minimum wages, overtime and tips from customers.

Colicchio, well known for his role on the "Top Chef" reality show, opened his flagship Craft restaurant in New York in 2001 and has expanded the chain across the United States.

Nessa Rapone, who worked at Craftbar in New York in 2007, filed suit in Manhattan federal court on behalf of other hourly paid workers seeking to recover "minimum wages, overtime compensation and misappropriated tips" from Colicchio.

I'm not loving this season as much as the others, but it's still my number one priority on the DVR.
The whole Kathie Lee Gifford thing still pisses me off. Just another example of her hijacking a segment and making it all about her. Whoever called her "insanely unprofessional" is absolutely right. And the Foo Fighters thing was seriously gimmicky. The show is/was perfect the way it was. It doesn't need dopey gimmicks to keep it fresh. It reminds me of when another wonderful reality show, The Amazing Race, started messing with their formula, adding completely unnecessary gimmicks, like where the last team in a non-elimination round loses all their money, and, in the process, their dignity.

I did love Stefan's face when Don Johnson's sorbet was the toast of the group. :) And his crush on Jamie is priceless!

haha don johnson

this bitch is stilllllll hawking bedazzler shit on tv? jesus crimney

this episode sucked.

leah cohen: ws

I would bet money that the producers left that fridge open; not that it shows any brilliance on my part, but I called a "xmas miracle no one gets sent home but several are browbeaten" at the moment they found the fridge and Started Workin' Together YAY!

I love loosey goosey nashville big eye lady. She's good teevee and a sweetie! HOOTIE!

It was pretty miraculous how there was a shitload of pork just sitting around and the leftover duck parts happened to make it.

michelle bernstein is really annoying. please do not return as guest judge.

fabio kinda rules

"thees big vein in my neck was like a booooossssshhhhhh .... bboooossssshhhhhh .... "

theyr too predictable with the editing. hosea got so much confessional-interview screen time you knew he was either gonna win or get cut

Yeah, the foreshadowing often makes it obvious.

i actually liked this episode - i thought the challenge rules were fun and not dumb. i like bernstein too, though not as much as gail

gene sucks btw

yeah the foreshadowing at the grocery store was a major giveaway with don johnson last night, although i definitely thought they were foreshadowing a disaster and not a (mild) success

maybe it's just bernstein's voice that bothers me. i was doing an excellent drunk impersonation of her last night.

The only reason to watch this episode was Fabio's great line in the preview for next week: "It's Top Chef, not TOP SCALLOP!"

yes that line has already become an irl meme for me

first of all...what part of ONE POT cooking didn't those people understand, and how did Arianne win with that. Before Tom's admonishing I was saying how lame this episode was and how lame the season's been. I haven't been excited by anything since Fabio made those nitrogen olives. I don't need a lot of chemistry but Tom was right, these dishes have been sooo boring.

ive liked this season but yeah these ppl really need to step it up. i thought last night's challenge was a pretty good one but no one made anything even remotely interesting (like, was stephan's pot pie an amuse bouche? how did don johnson get into the top 3 with his glorified cheese plate? hoshea made pork).

btw the blonde chick with the bands whose name im forgetting is truly bad at cooking. last night they were all like "we could only taste the cheese!" and in the today show challenge they were like "it was so spicy that it was inedible and my face went numb" and both times she was like "oh well you know i thought it was great". clearly she has no idea how to season anything at all

with the bangs*

the meth head you mean. She's my vote for next off the island, but I think they're gunning for eugene unfortunately.

both of them pretty much deserve to go for repeated failures

This year's contestants are preemptively crushed under the weight of the show's frankly lame editing.

I think the biggest problem so far is that the elimination challenges have (since the first one at least) consistently SUCKED. Lame catering and lame team challenges and the fucking Today Show and insane time constraints. Strangely I've liked all the Quick Fires this time around (even if the winners have occassionally been somewhat baffling--I mean once you completely clean the pot isn't that basically the same as using two pots?)

this season is fine because of Fabio and lols4days CARLA -- when Sammy had to feign terror for "A Christmas Carol" I whispered "Carla-face" to him and he shrieked quite convincingly

I think the biggest problem so far is that the elimination challenges have (since the first one at least) consistently SUCKED. Lame catering and lame team challenges and the fucking Today Show and insane time constraints. Strangely I've liked all the Quick Fires this time around

otm. this word-association-game shit is ridiculous.

this challenge was really pretty open-ended, people could have done anything with their theme. no one zinged Fabio for being all ladies dancing ... legs ... crab legs ... I'll make a crab cake. he coulda made anything. (but yeah the catering part is what made everybody's food suck ... making 300 of everything)

hopefully the next elimination (as seen on the next-on) will improve things (no weird rules, make your best shit, GO)

then I guess we'll see what's up

So Top Scallop it is then.

Honestly, you could tell Eugene and Methhead were out in the first five minutes. Both new judges are massive cocks. Kind of an eh episode.

Fabio is basically saving this season for me.

toby young was pretty lame. I can deal with zingers but his have like a tortured four-sentence windup to make some not so clever joke.

the right 2 people got cut though

Eugene lacks self-awareness to a crazy degree. "I guess I was too avant garde for them" ugh stfu.

I hope I never see a fucking scallop again. Ridic!

Fabio is basically saving this season for me.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, January 8, 2009 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Well there is more to like than Fabio. Even he gets tiresome in the 'I know I'm hot because I have a cute accent' sort of way. He acts a bit dumber than he really is.
I agree that this season has some of the worst food critiques, and probably the most bad food critiques of any season. But I pretty much like all the 'characters' for some reason or another. Leah has big boobs and Carla is probably the worst of who's left (maybe Stefan, he does get annoying).

Gail ain't really leaving is she? She is pretty hot too.

She's having a life right now. She'll be back after the divorce. ;)

"But I pretty much like all the 'characters' for some reason or another."

I couldn't stand Daniel, Melissa or Eugene frankly so I am hoping it gets better now that their gone. The food has been generally weak as well.

Fabio is pretty bad. He tries and fails at everything except pasta.

That sous-vide lamb still had a pulse when he pulled it out of the water, I can't believe he served that and didn't get crucified.

here is my favorite contestant: myspace.com/marcelvigneron - I never saw the season he was on... just specials that had him. And all the girls love him.

Eugene was fine with me, but "But I pretty much like all the 'characters that are left' for some reason or another."

Fabio is pretty bad. He tries and fails at everything except pasta.

and comedy

thank god they got rid of the two most (as edited?) annoying, not-getting-it contestants left. i pretty much like everyone still standing.

I like Crazy Eyes Carla. There I said it.

I liked that Carla hit all the right staples of a good self-defense:

- identify conceptual source of problem judges had
- point out way you should have solved it before Colicchio does
- "agree" that this was sole misstep in otherwise-flawless dish

Carla's all bgawk bgawk and I love her.
How many seasons can they put an angry butch chef in the antagonist role before they catch shit for doing it?

Wha? If you mean Jamie, I don't really feel they've set her up as an antagonist thus far.

Who is the angry butch chef? Jamie?

GAIL! GAAAAAAIL!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v376/atomica/missprissy.jpg

And somehow I suspect that by "angry butch chef" you don't mean Stefan.

you mean Stefan?

Yeah she seems relatively likeable to me. Esp. compared to Lisa. Glah that woman was unpleasant.

lol xp

yeah, Jamie's clearly being set up as the angry, self-absorbed character. You don't agree? Seems like her and Stefan are totally gonna bang heads in more ego idiot stuff next episode.

Well she's going to come out looking good in that contest. Stefan's a complete tool.

They'll bang heads, she's presented as a little cocky and self-serious (haha back when she was like "I'm always second, it's so irritating"), but she comes off as basically decent, whereas Stefan is constantly set up as bullheaded, ten times as cocky, snobby, comically competitive, etc.

Although Stefan, uncharacteristically, was kinda hilarious with the whole "Finns invented chocolate mousse" thing!

"NONONO JUST KIDDING"

Interesting; I see that relationship in total vice/versa: I think Stefan cooks well, stays focused and is generally kind of knuckleheadedly charming, whereas Jamie consistently bores me with her cooking (soup, again?), has a broad sense of entitlement and self obsession and seems to me to be edited into being a whiney, teary harrumph.

I predicted after the very first scene in the very first episode that Stefan would win. Personality aside, he's the best chef on the program.

A dude cuts an apple fast and you're just over the moon for him, huh

I'm with Shasta. I continue to hold that there's going to be a surprise upper-tier dumping of a "coulda-been-a-contender", maybe next week, in keeping with the shows year-in-year-out formula. Maybe Jamie.

"Personality aside, he's the best chef on the program."

I'm not sure I see much evidence from the show which indicates this to be clearly the case.

Eugene lacks self-awareness to a crazy degree. "I guess I was too avant garde for them" ugh stfu.

― dmr, Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:23 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah seriously. it's like bitch plz you only made sushi

even though i think he's totally boring - it seems like don johnson has been pretty successful, even with his more risky choices

i think forks is otm too although they usually knock out a contender around restaurant wars (trey from whichever season that was)

Further suggested proof of editing Jamie into a bad corner: she hasn't gotten "so sorry to see you go" huggy with bounced competitors at the end of the show since way back when team rainbow got shitcanned in short order. Last week she was doing victory chuggin' out of a red frat-boy cup while Eugene was giving man-hugs behind.
I dunno; I think they're gonna wicked witch of the west her in short order.

I love that don johnson works at the dildo cafe.

i have been to that island, dildo island

Don Johnson is way way too good looking to be allowed to win.

I love that don johnson works at the dildo cafe.

otm

bitch plz you only made sushi

it was DECONSTRUCTED sushi DO YOU SEE the avant gardity

I love how who you guys call Don Johnson I call Tom Petty.

A dude cuts an apple fast and you're just over the moon for him, huh

― nabisco, Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:42 PM (14 minutes ago)

(1) he cut the apples perfectly
(2) he followed the instructions to a T
(3) he finished in 1/3 of the time allotted
(4) he didn't hack a finger off like one dude did

i was also v. happy to see the baba-booey guy go, right?

5 years late to this,
SS

LOL @ the pinoy dude's sushi was that hawaiian fusion style... similar to his "daikon fettucine alfredo" disaster... too much, too often. i love da island folks but this guy was on borrowed time for the last three eps.

My prediction: Karla next.

out on a limb

i like jeff a lot - he's almost as pretty as leah. you guys don't like hair on men, huh.

i was also v. happy to see the baba-booey guy go, right?

bigtime, I think I posted some schadenfreude upthread

carla is one of the top 3 weirdest ppl in the history of reality television

all her facial expressions are like a bug's life type shit or something

If she says "A MAYYYYUN!" on air just once, I can die happy.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3648/1150/320/missprissy-tn.jpg

carla is about as 'weird' as jamie is 'butch', i.e. if you've lived your whole life inside a television

it's interesting that the stand-ins for this fairly calm, humble, professional guy are a put-upon rock 'n roller and a guy who played a hotshot hothead, but at least Don Johnson equals South Florida rather than North

she's not "weird", she's deeply lovable. HOOTIE
and jamie is about as butch as lisa was.
I'm just finding it weird that they're following last year's script so religiously.

Yeah, she seems pretty normal to me, she just happens to be really gawky and have an alarmed facial expression. I felt bad during the TV challenge when someone said she had a "nervous energy," because as much as the perception's accurate, I honestly think that's just the vibe you get the body she happens to be in, not so much anything she's doing.

idk she seems kind of crazy to me, like if you met her in real life you'd really like her (which i do) but you'd immediately think something was off. maybe she's just over enthusiastic

The eyes are not necessarily the window to the soul; sometimes they're just a little alarmed-looking for extraneous biological reasons

i felt bad for the chick that did fish tacos...it's sorta like...um...fish tacos? really? and they didn't look better than like the grubbin' fish tacos i get at my local place

seriously, that chick's whole demeanor and look suggested she's a strawberry.

I want to show Coloradan solidarity with her, but I will admit that when someone on here described her as "methhead" I giggled in recognition

Not recognition of all the methheads I hang out with, the other kind

do i wanna know what a "strawberry" is?

hint:

There's a another girl in the Dopeman's life
Not quite a bitch but far from a wife
shes called strawberry and everybody know
strawberry strawberry is the neighborhood ho
do any thing for a hit or two give the bitch a rock
she'll fuck the whole damn crew
it might be yo wife and it might make u sick
come home and see her mouth on the Dopeman's dick
strawberry just look and you'll see her
But don't fuck around she'll give you gonorrhea
if people out there ain't hip to the fact
strawberry is a girl selling pussy for crack
to the DOPEMAN DOPEMAN

ah okay sorry everytime i see a term i don't know on the internet i assume it's some weirdo sex shit

It's a fair assumption!

This has gone too far. Leave Melissa be.

nachriscrocker

(1) he cut the apples perfectly

Um no he peeled them. He didn't cut anything.

(2) he followed the instructions to a T

So did everyone else as far as I could tell.

(3) he finished in 1/3 of the time allotted

You can tell this how? Cuz he seemed to finish just before Hosea in TV time. Not sure how that compared to everyone else.

(4) he didn't hack a finger off like one dude did

I didn't see anyone hack a finger off.

omg you should start TopChefProspectus.com

Haha don't get pissy just cuz I called on bullshit on your defective memory.

i'm seriously lol, not pissy.

Haha okay my original joke was that yes, he seemed to display winning knife/apple skills in the first challenge, but this doesn't seem like much on which to hang a prediction that he'd be the best chef of the bunch

I don't think Stefan's APARC (Apples Peeled Above Replacement Chef) is all that. </TopChefProspectus>

Finishing order: Stefan, Fabio, Hosea, Ariane, Jeff, Melissa, Carla, Richard, Jamie.

Defective memory what?

Somebody... maybe Bababooey? cut their finger pretty good and bled all over dem apples. how you like dem apples eh?

I think it was the really nice-seeming tall gay guy who cut himself and bloodied the apples. I was mostly afraid Radhika was going to wind up cut, which for various complicated reasons would have disappointed me.

do tell?

I forgot about Richard cutting himself. And the exact order haha. At least I remembered they were peeling the apples!

"various, complicated" = "in favor of cute Indian girls from Chicago"

She'd be cuter if she wasn't always wearing shawls.

that sir, is neither various nor complicated.

radhika is v. pretty but she is so nervy! i wish she would calm down. it was sort of lame how she bad-talked stefan's dish in the last episode just because he had bad-talked hers. she hates him.

Weird -- I felt the opposite about this week's episode. Mostly because when she won she was like "I'm so very excited" in this entirely calm, considered way. She has some poise.

i think maybe i am just remembering some episode where she cried? am i making that up? maybe i'm being too hard on her.

I think she cried when they had the refrigerator problem and all her stuff was ruined, which I can't hold against her too much. (If that happened to Jamie or Stefan or something they'd probably be throwing much more annoying fits than a few tears.)

I mean, I don't think she's going to be around for too much longer, but she has (to me) a calming vibe and is kinda cute and is from Chicago, so I say good luck, etc.

I think it's kind of unfair to judge reality show contestants by normal emotional standards since most of them are so intentionally sleep deprived.

That said she doesn't seem to have a calm vibe to me at all.

Ha, I keep considering this, and maybe I'm just in favor of repression, or something -- she doesn't strike me as "calm" as in "totally relaxed and at ease," she strikes me as "calming" as in "thinks about what she's saying and seems unlikely to get intense or yelly about anything." Yeah, TV-wise that is possibly a weird thing to go for, but it's possible I like it better than people who seem naturally themselves on camera? I dunno.

But for all we know she's doing lots of freaky diplomatic-sounding rambling that just can't be edited into presentable sentences.

she is my favorite this season

Arianne got shagged. Leah or Latika next?

i think radhika kind of sucks you guys! i mean, she seems nice enough, but it's kind of shady how small the amount of cooking she did this past episode.

leah is an asshole, also.

who is "latika"?

yeah leah is an asshole. i feel bad for arriane because even tho she did get fucked up she was basically matched up w/ a couple.

LOL @ me 4 thinking all indian names are the same slumdog millionaire on the brane/

genuine sorry to those offended.

the chef at the barns was almost in tears after tasting what is probably the highest quality ingredients on the series yet get fucked up by this gang of incompetent mini-mall chefs.

i know; he looked like they'd punched him. why do they suck so bad?

i'm assuming the final 4 are Stefan, Jeff, Hosea and Jamie, and Jamie may be the first eliminated, but Jeff doesn't seem to get a lot of love from the judges (or the producers? because he doesn't make for as good tv?).

he's pretty, though; doesn't that automatically mean good tv? i feel like sometimes he makes really good things and sometimes he makes messes.

Barns-chef was great at the judging table -- there is a certain kind of grin you can use to say really critical things to people in a friendly way, and he totally has it.

I have to admit that I like the way Leah is a jerk, in that she sometimes has this teenage-girl WTF-ever vibe that is entertaining to me; she will cut you.

I have this suspicion that Radhika's non-involvement is related to a strategy where she's just trying to hold out as long as possible at this point -- note also that she won a Quick Fire with a bread pudding and then was all "oh, umm, I'll make a bread pudding for this one, okay?" I don't know the psychology of the dawning awareness that you are totally not going to win a reality show, but trying to duck under the radar seems like one possible reaction.

note also that she won a Quick Fire with a bread pudding and then was all "oh, umm, I'll make a bread pudding for this one, okay?"

yeah i noticed this too but jamie did this last week w/ scallops

i guess the difference is that her scallops quickfire was a disaster but still. also we didn't get a THIS IS TOP CHEF NOT TOP BREAD PUDDING soundbite :(

Not a fan of Barns chef not picking one individual winner either...

Jamie made scallops like 3 eps in a row duder.

"This is Top Chef, not Top Scallop"

xpost - Well, not exactly -- Jamie got nailed on the scallops, right? And then tried to come back and prove her Top Scallop steez. Whereas Radhika got praised for the bread pudding and seemed to be sticking with it for safety's sake.

^^by far the best line of the season

i predicted and was a fan of the collective win

by far the best line in the history of top chef

very dan barber

fabio's narration of radikah's first hour was great too

yeah i loved that

By the way, this:

'm assuming the final 4 are Stefan, Jeff, Hosea and Jamie

Calls for a prediction: what mistake will Fabio go out on?

Leah's a jerk, but she actually seems pretty decent. She seems to have produced consistently better food than oh lets say Fabio.

sucking? xp

yeah, leah could fill the hosea spot in the final 3-4, but he's won more than she has and gets more screen time

there could also be a nice guy (hosea) v pretty boy (jeff) battle

I think Fabio will outlast Hosea to be honest. Or are you thinking once Leah gets curbed that Hosea will step up his game?

leah is basically like everyone i went to hs with and i don't get the jerk thing with her at all other than the throwing ariane under the bus, which she didn't actually do

Jeff actually seems nicer than Hosea than me, but that may be editing.

yeah i was going to say, jeff seems pretty nice and hosea is passive-aggressive thinks he's nicer than he actually is.

hosea's kinda inexperienced, but the judges generally seem to like his food more than fabio's

I will admit that I find it hard to fathom at this point that Stefan (with Jamie a possible dark horse) won't win this.

Oh c'mon, Gabbneb, just call it! There are a limited number of narratives that Top Chef eliminations are edited to be a result of* -- assign one to Fabio!

(* e.g., technical disaster like poorly cooked meat, conceptual disaster involving ingredients/flavors, conceptual disaster of not meeting challenge properly, "you're only showing us one thing you can do," not working well in group challenges, etc. etc.)

top 3 is easier for me: stefan (winner) with either jamie or jeff as runner-up.

P.S. If I am ever on Top Chef and I have an ingredient, no one is borrowing one drop of it, even if it is Spam

gabby, have you been to the Barns? my bro went last year and said it was awesome.

Stefan just seems (so far) incapable of falling prey to the kind of existential crises that usually befall folks on these reality shows. Unfortunatly for him, he is also profoundly dislikeable in a way that now amount of editing can hide so he may lose just cuz he's a ass.

btw, there was a note in the times a while back that leah had been promoted from sous-chef at her (woman-owned) nyc italian place

i think stefan's biggest weakness yet was when they had to do the live TV cooking segment and his personality took on the quality of a wet blanket in the corner of a dark, dusty garage.

Yeah, but to be fair they all pretty much sucked at that.

i still haven't been to the barns, but the village blue hill is maybe my favorite restaurant. i mean to get up there some late spring/early summer and do the tour and lunch or at least the cafeteria.

Yeah, but to be fair they all pretty much sucked at that.

― Alex in SF, Thursday, January 15, 2009 4:49 PM (26 seconds ago)

...except for lolllllll BaBaBooey!

Oh hey, I just reread this thread:

You know, an alien watching this show would probably conclude that North American humans eat WAY more scallops than we actually do.

― nabisco, Friday, November 14, 2008 5:46 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Can anyone who cooks confirm the reason I expect this is -- because scallops cook quick and easy and don't taste like much and therefore you can use them to do showy chef stuff with interesting accompanying items and sauces and plating?

Scallops are tasty and they seem to do consistently well on Top Chef competitions (unless you are dumb enough to use frozen ones.)

don't taste like much

!

Yeah I was a little o_O at that too.

i think stefan's biggest weakness is that he's a big, annoying euro on an american television program

Jamie has made "scallops crudo" TWICE on the show.

TWICE!!!

i'm not gonna say he won't win, but it seems much likelier that he's the 2nd place

Really? I can only remember three scallop dishes she made, but my memory is imperfect.

Regardless that Fabio line is pure gold.

Dudes, I like scallops a lot, but you can sear them FAST and they're pretty flexible in terms of the different flavors you can serve them with or on! They seem to give you a whole lot of space to do some fancy stuff around them and not have to worry about or spend tons of time on your protein, you know?

fabio's scallop line was borrowed from another one (that wasn't as good) in an earlier season, right?

That's fine, but to say they don't taste like much is a bit. . . I don't know, I just don't see it. The space thing, fine.

"don't taste like much" = "have a pretty mild flavor" -- I dunno, I think of sea scallops as having a mild flavor, but whatevs

I think what we're witnessing is an atlantic/pacific divide in flavor.

Atlantic scallops are mild and semi-sweet.
Pacific scallops tend to be more creamier, almost nutty at times.

scallops here taste nutty rather than mild imo

i think we're just witnessing nabisco not being otm

Calls for a prediction: what mistake will Fabio go out on?

― nabisco, Thursday, January 15, 2009 6:37 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

it seems like every dish of fabio's has one thing wrong with it. this week it was too much pesto, but they liked the ravioli. last week it was undercooked lamb but the mushroom sauce was good. i think that's a successful way to trudge along for a while but eventually that one thing (and it will be one thing) will catch up to him.

btw for all you who think you've got the final three or four pegged, a favorite usually always loses during restaurant wars iirc

Radhika's bread pudding safety net is kind of like her "I'm not gonna make just Indian food" to "oh shit Indian food is totally safe for me" moves early on. She's going to go soon.

I though Hosea was cool and Jeff would be a dick early on but they have swapped places pretty hard for me. But both have done some bonehead shit food wise.

I've been to the barns TWICE. The first time with my sister who's in "the industry" and had previously worked with one of the chefs. Barber came out and said hello to us twice. We had like a 1,000 extra amuses and deserts and afterwords the friend took us on a tour of the kitchen, the wine cellar, the charcuterie, etc. Before eating my sister and parents did the whole walk around the farm thing, so in all they spend 7+ hours there. I showed up just before dinner.

Went back for gf's graduation dinner. We walked around before hand but got lost. You see the farms are part of a MUCH LARGER reservation and seriously, we're like, are the pigs over here? then suddenly we're coming across people in full on hiking gear while we're wearing sports coats and leather shoes!

Anyway, it's great, and there's a really cool lunch cafe/take-out kind of place so there's no reason why people shouldn't just go up there, walk around the farm, walk around the woods, get some food, even get some stuff at their greenmarket, and not need a reservation.

yeah, the land it's on was formerly part of the rockefeller estate, which has miles of hiking trails

Radhika gives me an irreducible boner therefore I am blind to any potential flaws in her cooking.

Hosea: not leaving any time soon.
Stefan and the other one (Mario? Stefano? whatever): both too comedic to leave.
Jamie: good fun, very feisty.

Jeff: inconsistent, occasionally good food, but he always looks like he's about to break down in tears. Why not finish the job?
Carla: nice lady, bad food.
Leah: EVIL COW! I SEE YOU! I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING! LEAH OUT!

i would not want to eat at any of these fools restaurant.

stone barns is v good. went there once for brunch. great day trip. best thing I had was a soft boiled fried egg on a salad ... man. feels kinda dumb being that excited about an egg but I guess it helps that a chicken probably pooped it out like 5 minutes ago

I thought jeff was a major puss for expressing disappointment that they didn't get to go to whole foods and would have to change the menu (altho in the end he saved his team). anybody who wasn't excited about that challenge can gtfo

stone barns is way good.

"I thought jeff was a major puss for expressing disappointment that they didn't get to go to whole foods and would have to change the menu"

Yeah I thought it seem like that too, but too be honest he always seems kind of exhausted in his interviews.

I love how Jeff took the 'board room meeting' so seriously when I knew, and I bet he knew, that there was no way he was going home. Man he looked like a drama queen in there with his mouth hung open.

stefan was miles above everybody in this one

maybe carla shoulda got the boot, but damn, radhika didn't do ANYthing .... no menu planning, no cooking, no waitering

She seemed very beat down in the team challenges.

The fact that Carla, Leah and Radhika have all made multiple critical errors in the past few episodes is kinda trainwreck ridic. At least Ariane could have done a decent front of house or back of house in this past ep.

"The fact that Carla, Leah and Radhika have all made multiple critical errors in the past few episodes is kinda trainwreck ridic."

To be fair to them, this happens every single season of the show. At a certain point stress/sleep deprivation/lack of confidence just take their toll and people begin to fall apart (or fancy editing makes it look like all these things happen, whichever.)

Yeah, I think the concensus on Radhika was that she looked defeated and had given up (to be fair, so had Leah... that cod dish was embarrassing).

Jamie's entree last night looked amazing.

Radhika made Indian stuff a lot.

Carla seems like she's probably a good caterer, but I don't think her strengths play well to this format.

Radhika got booted not for cooking but for being a lousy administrator, kind of Pyrrhic loss, to coin a term? At least any restaurant or investor she goes to won't think she's a bad cook.

I love that Carla was so sure that she was out the door that she was getting mouthy and crazy to the judges. She was giving her exit speech while they were judging her! It's her or Leah next goround and I think Carla's gonna finally get chopped.

The pretty good looking lunch tasting menu in the quickfire and "We can serve monkey ass and clamshells and we will win!" means that I would patronize a Fabio restaurant.

Again, I kinda like Stefan! He's playing the show like it's a competition!

Return of the bisexual hat brothers next week! Looks like they're picking fights with Fab!

I think my problem with Fabio is that he lives in Moorpark, CA which is probably the most generic, least interesting suburb (60+ miles outside LA) in Southern California... I mean how the hell do you go from Firenze to a city that spelled backwards is KRAPROOM. Disturbing.

Fabio is basically the anti-Stefan in that I find his personality charming, but nothing about his food looks particularly appealing.

Also, Jeff's "magic" bullshit in the interstitial was CLEARLY him looking at the reflection in his watch.

Return of the bisexual hat brothers next week! Looks like they're picking fights with Fab!

― i wanna roll stuff UP, i don't wanna NOT roll stuff up!!!! (forksclovetofu), Thursday, January 22, 2009 6:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

are they really bisexual or were you being smug?

I'm being smug. They liked to take baths together as I recall.

Where is that loft? I'm assuming right off Bedford but wheresies...

it's more north than that

it's really in greenpoint .... like up by the pool, mccarren park looking over the soccer fields

http://curbed.com/archives/2008/07/09/top_chef_contestants_going_to_karl_fischer_rows_20_bayard.php

Okay guys I forgot my whole gripe I was gonna lay down on y'all yesterday...

As Alex indicates, Stefan may not be the coolest bro to chill out with...

BUT WHY THE FUCK WOULD NEITHER RADHIKA NOR LEAH PICK HIM UNTIL HE WAS THE LAST ONE LEFT IS BEYOND ME. Are you trying to win, or are you trying to have a siiiick time in the hottub bros?

Dude is the only one on the show who can (capital C) Cook.

He singlehandedly saved Leah's "Sunset Grill" (um, barf?) with his trio of desserts, including one that was bordering on disaster but he had the foresight and ability to save unlike Radhika/Carla.

So yeah, that was stupid on both Radhika and Leah's part...

I am pretty excited to see what Stefan cooks in the finale.

"BUT WHY THE FUCK WOULD NEITHER RADHIKA NOR LEAH PICK HIM UNTIL HE WAS THE LAST ONE LEFT IS BEYOND ME. Are you trying to win, or are you trying to have a siiiick time in the hottub bros?"

^^^ OTFM. Esp. since a huge part of the restaurant challenge is prep which he's clearly shown himself to be best at. I thought that in general the order of the picks showed a lot to be desired.

It's another season like Hung's season where there's a clear favorite, and everyone is afraid of being outshined by that person.

Leah vs Radhika was a really crappy Restaurant Wars leader group since I can't really imagine either of them actually opening a successful restaurant.

My picks:
1) Stefan
2) Jamie
2) Jeff
4) Fabio
5) Carla
6) Hosea
7) Leah

Carla is going home before Hosea. She already looks like she's checked out.

yeah, but don't they try to maintain some sort of gender equilibrium?

oh btw:
http://www.betweenchicago.com/
looks really bad.

http://www.centrovinoteca.com/centro_dinner.html
boring

Terrible looking websites.

Stefan is great for getting picked last, saying that he's just going to do desserts which everyone dreads, and still making the best food.

I probably would chill with him, honestly, cause he'd tell your your plans were shitty and make you do something else and it would be fun in spite of having to hang out with him.

"Sunset Grill" (um, barf?)

haha otm. actually it was Sunset LOUNGE (even worse)

ugh the worst...

Haha well Stefan came up with the name.

sabotage?

Did Fabio's suit remind anyone else of mid-70s Travolta?

Hah I thought that was intentional on his part.

His "monkey ass on a clamshell and we'll still win this thing" line was great.

I had never seen this show until this season, but during the holidays I watched the previous seasons and am convinced that there is no one in this group that could hold a candle to the best of the chefs from the first 4 seasons. Even some of the S3 chefs that went home before the finals (Tre, CJ) or hell, even Mikey, line cook from a Lodi Applebee's could compete with this crowd. The thing that's surprised me is that the talent pool has seemingly narrowed (they're only getting executive chefs/owners now) but that these guys make some of the blandest looking stuff yet seen. I don't really have a favorite--mostly Fabio for lol value.

As these shows go on the talent pool generally widens (i.e. more executive chefs, more professional designers, etc) but that doesn't mean that you'll necessarily get the best chefs or designers (and getting great ones is kind of a luck thing anyway) but you will get fewer really weak chefs or designers. Watch the first couple of episodes of Seasons 1 or 2 and tell me that virtually anyone whose got eliminated in the first 7 or 8 episodes of those seasons would even make it to the show these days.

- monkey ass and an EMPTY clamshell

- I can understand nobody picking Stefan, just as a way of avoiding the headache and distraction. But the way his team dealt with him was the obvious solution: let him do one thing, knowing he'll do it well, and don't bother arguing with him about any other element.

- It seemed kinda obvious Radhika was going down as soon as she had the misfortune of winning that quickfire -- she's been kinda hiding toward the back of the pack for weeks already, and was pretty much the last person there you'd shove into a leadership role. (This only got more obvious when no one else wanted to host, and she stooped to pick up the job she was absolutely least suited for.)

- Was this the second time Fabio has explicitly stated that he puts on a thicker accent to charm people?

- Kinda feel bad for Carla that her judging responses were made to seem nuts, because they made total sense to me: she was just flat-out admitting that she knew her shit was a total wreck, and there was nothing left to do but dole it out with a smile. I mean, what else is she going to do, try to convince them it was actually amazing?

- Would kill for footage of Hosea / Leah watching the first episode of this season with any significant others they still have, if only for the moment where said significant others say "THAT guy?" and/or "oh, so is that the bitch?"

Yeah the reunion show should make for some yuks.

she's been kinda hiding toward the back of the pack for weeks already

dude, she spent 3 hours making corn last week.

w/r/t Carla's screed on sending out the love... kinda borderling cray-cray and genuine. I think she handles criticism well, almost to the point where it's her survival instinct to cover up for her frequent misfires. for instance she's much better at handling real talk than Fabio and Jeff with their pained, defensive looks of shock when the judges say their dishes are missing salt or something.

Fabio is pure schmaltz (esp. with the Dance Fever/SatNiteFever get-up) at least he can talk to people rather than hide in the kitchen. I almost expected Fabio to pull something out of that SNL "Bellissima" skit.

I think Carla's really funny. I think she realizes how crazy her schtick sounds and the fact that she can laugh at it makes her like a million times more endearing.

Yeah, when she said the love thing "really was her philosophy" it just seemed kinda sweet and intentionally fun, and the judges' reactions seemed more like they were so contractually beholden to the Serious Drama of judging that they couldn't just chuckle about it like normal people. I guess the format of the show means no one can just come in and say "yeah, I know my dish sucked, nothing left to do but laugh it off."

THAT IS MY PHILOSOPHY TOM
NOW GO BACK TO SCOWLING ABOUT YOUR MESSY DIVORCE AND BALD BRAND BUILT EMPIRE
HOOTIE BGAWK

hootie bgawk otm

yes i love carla she is a doll. these people cannot cook, though.

final 3
1. Stefan
2. Jeff
3. Fabio

haven't checked this thread because i just watched this week ep. WTF RADHIKA...NOOO! nice reward for winning the quickfire! FUCK A RESTAURANT CHALLENGE !!!

Just got caught up on the last two episodes and it was so WTF that neither Radhika nor Leah could see the wisdom of choosing talent(Stefan) over friends/lovers. Seriously?! This was the least interesting Restaurant Wars of all the seasons. This season has gone all topsy-turvy for me: I started out loathing Stefan, Fabio and Don Johnson, and liking Leah and Hosea. Now I can't wait for Leah and Hosea to be gone. Top Scallop needs a teeny tiny bit of humbling. I'm hoping for a Don Johnson upset of Stefan in the finals.

shocked how much Jeff has come up, considering I thought he was clueless and awful at the beginning.

i'm behind a week, but yeah jeff and stefan and fabio are def my faves

Fabio Viviani's wife's Yelp profile:
http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=LOfVORlvwbHS9thOwQ6ANg

What a scumbag.

from Jamie Lauren's Absinthe menu:

Grilled scallops
sunchoke puree, slow cooked artichokes, baby fennel, wilted chard - $30

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey if it works. . . that said a friend of mine at Absinthe recently and had the scallops and said meh.

$30 for scallops is some fucking next level shit.

that's like Time Warner bldg/Columbus Circle prices....

That's for the slow cooked arty-chokes.

sorbet is the new scallops
but if you know your strengths....

"I'm really beaten up over this ... this loss will stay with me for at least a decade"

lololol

headcase

gotta say fabio's stuff did not look good on those packer plates

'over cooked' vs. 'less flavorful'

over cooked sounds much worse

In a way randomly tossing cheddar cheese with wilty salad and overcooked meat pretty much nailed the upper midwest / green bay cuisine mindset so maybe Fabio deserved to stay just for that. Had there been cans of Old Mil he'd have clinched it.

hahaha otm

yeah fabio's looked worse especially that salad

that was bullshit. sure, i'm not tasting the stuff, but fabio consistently fucks up one or more elements in his poorly-conceived-in-the-first-place dishes, while jeff is just guilty of overreach. i admit he's my favorite personality in the group, and i'm not tasting the stuff - his food isn't even my style - but that seems pretty clearly a choice for good tv first.

nice that carla won. i like her style even if her food isn't refined enough to go all the way. basically rooting for hosea from here on out.

also, doesn't look like i missed anything last season, tho nice to see josie again.

Fabio's looked terrible but man was he ever on tonight.

did i mention i'm not tasting hte stuff?

his ott contest performance redeemed him, but he was on thin ice with that 'monkey-ass' reprise

i havent finished this episode yet but carla being obsessed w/ andrew makes soooo much sense

also, i'm a little tired of toby's unamerican palate

I'm a little tired of Tody's sense of humoUr, though I think it's been toned down recently.

toby young's horrible! i remember on that first episode where he said 'the fennel had a sort of... aniseed taste'. wow fennel tasting like aniseed, crazy

his comparisons of food to popular culture (didn't he make a crack about "elvis' career" last night?) are woeful

yeah, it's always this dish reminds me of....

ugh next week he refers to the guest chef as obi wan kenobi out of the blue during judging. toby young should just be drowned.

lol at his super sporty oakley style eye glasses.

he's like a less-funny elton john who can't sing or play piano.

so all american football sunday and the Finn picks Dallas, the Firenzian picks Green Bay and the all-american boy picks his hometown.

i can see how the judges could have held that against Jeff.

Also, hey what's up Camille? Love the Holly GoLightly look for reals.

The only thing I didn't like about this challenge was the voting power invested in the young culinary students, who, I'm afraid, tended to vote personality over palate. On the other hand, there had to be a way to break the ties that occurred between the four judges more than once.

yeah, get rid of Toby

Also -- Top Chef All-Stars? It might be a stretch to say so: Some didn't make it more than half-way through their season's competition. Andrea was eliminated not once but twice, and not one of the members of the "All-Star" team made it to their season's finale. Still, they're all solidly good chefs and having already weathered prior seasons, they had the advantage of having been through the stress of the competition before.

ie it was total bullshit. Fabio and Jeff were the only ones not matched against non-entities. Camille is the Melissa of Season 3.

btw, EW's wrap-up wins the Jeff-doppelganger award:

Yes, thanks to an uninspired, watery ceviche, it seems the time has come for our ab-licious chef to bring his knives home to Miami — or at least back to Princeton-Plainsboro, where House & Co., lovingly await his return.

those first two quotes are from Colicchio's blog

the sponsor-quickfire was ridiculous, but i liked the regional challenge with super bowl patina

Firenzian

???

sorry "Fiorentin"?

Florentian?

Florentine

EW's wrap-up wins the Jeff-doppelganger award:

Yes, thanks to an uninspired, watery ceviche, it seems the time has come for our ab-licious chef to bring his knives home to Miami — or at least back to Princeton-Plainsboro, where House & Co., lovingly await his return.

― double bird strike (gabbneb), Thursday, January 29, 2009

i already posted this, earlier on this thread, MUCH earlier on this thread actually. there are also multiple ppl all over josh stein's wrap-ups on gawker who also have made this amazing connection which has amazed you. omg ew was also able to state the obvious about someone's appearance. a bigger consideration: ppl still read ew?

the episode was weird and annoying, their scoring system didn't follow the rules of football at all so why bother making it this way? guess what guys: when both teams deadlock and neither gets a touchdown, the ensuing field goal is not worth 10 points. also this was ridiculously orchestrated -- i don't believe the students were voting based on personality, i think they were voting based on what producers prompted them to do to increase drama and ensure the last battle would be "meaningful". every episode is orchestrated and modulated by the damn producers but this was so transparent.

i'm sad dr. chase had to leave the show because i think that poorly cooked food is worse than under salting or whathaveyou. fabio's performance at the judges' table was borderline shameful -- he admits on camera that he overcooked that damn meat and was upset about it but then rages in front of the judges' that the problem was that it took them too long to get to their food? even if that was true, if you had COOKED IT CORRECTLY to begin with you would've allowed for the concept that human beings generally do not just take an entire venison steak and show it into their maw the second they see it and that it might sit a minute or two?

but then jeff had to come in and rage about how whatshername football player lady did not actually make a ceviche (which was true, and i was getting really pissed at her for continuing to call it one) when, you know, he cooked his shrimp so his wasn't exactly authentic either and sigh.

i really dislike leah and i want her to be gotten rid of but she seems to keep hanging in there in the middle or lower-top. she's so insanely vague and dumb and her food seems so stunningly dull.

lol, sorry for reading google links or not reading your brilliant posts or lol gawker lol

lol at caring about football rules too

Florentine, in Italian, is fiorentino/a, Steve. </pedant>

How's the lady from Absinthe doing, btw? I haven't been following the show closely at all but I always enjoy dining there.

she's definitely in the mix, but rarely at the very top. she's likely 2nd or 3rd place.

Last time I watched, I liked the Finn a lot.

3rd or fourth. No way she's beating Stefan or Jamie, and probably not beating Hosea.

um, 'she' is Jamie

oh yeah, mixed her up with Leah.

also, best moment, when Carla won, and Stefan's like "you've GOT to be fucking kidding me, no way!"

I love the guy. He has zero tact, is a selfish asshole, but also pretty charming and silly, and he can mostly cook circles around everybody else this year.

I mostly can't watch 'cause the British judge makes me want to hone my cleaver skills.

also, best moment, when Carla won, and Stefan's like "you've GOT to be fucking kidding me, no way!"

i think this was in reference to the super bowl tickets, and not him just being a dick about her winning.

guess what guys: when both teams deadlock and neither gets a touchdown, the ensuing field goal is not worth 10 points.

^^lmao i was going insane about this last night

also, a serious question: has fabio correctly cooked meat once this season?

guess what guys: when both teams deadlock and neither gets a touchdown, the ensuing field goal is not worth 10 points.

^^lmao i was going insane about this last night

― jordy (J0rdan S.), Thursday, January 29, 2009 12:50 PM

alex wouldn't shut up about it and then at one point says to me "what about safeties, why isn't there a safety, or a two point conversion" and i was just like "maybe the tie should be a safety"

also i can't recall a single thing fabio has cooked

Hahaha the problem with Toby Young's old similes was that they had these overlong setups where everyone had to sit back and groan and wait for the punchline, like a really bad late-night monologue -- like "this dish reminded me of Arsenio Hall in Coming to America ... (wait for it) ... it would barely work in a fast-food restaurant"

Fabio's complaint confused me: it's always looked to me like everything they cook, all season long, rests forever and gets photographed and waits in line for tasting, so . . . kind of bizarre to act like you weren't expecting that, right?

He said something last night that was actively funny, but I can't remember what it was. But it was funny.

I appreciated that the winner's group was basically "if you are wearing a headband or have ever made out with anyone here who is wearing a headband, please step in"

lol, the headbands ruled

also, fuck fabio's 'who needs vegetables when you have meat or fish'

^^ haha but that mentality is a perfect match for WISCONSIN

I thought Jamie and Leah were goofily rallying behind Carla's green headband (who rocked the red bandana earlier)...

Fabio's wife is a former vegetarian, currently pescatarian according to her Yelp profile.

http://videogum.com/img/thumbnails/photos/top_chef_5_10/padma.gif

also why is padma always seeming like she's half in the fucking bag during judging periods? is she flasking it?

fabio's quickfire dish also looked nasty

And poor Carla, she's all like "I don't know about football but my husband and step-son love football so I'm like yay" and they're a happy family of three and the judges are like, "hey carla, good job, here's TWO tickets".

^^ haha but that mentality is a perfect match for WISCONSIN

fair enough (tho he wasn't exactly making brats), but then why did he include a stupid mache salad? because he is a big euro, that is why.

http://eater.com/uploads/2009_01_stefanthrow.gif

a few episodes ago fabio really fucked up lamb iirc

I appreciated that the winner's group was basically "if you are wearing a headband or have ever made out with anyone here who is wearing a headband, please step in"

― nabisco, Thursday, January 29, 2009 12:43 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

also xp w/ally and padma's in-the-bagness: i think that the judges always seem a little tipsy while actually judging, and that when they render judgement the contestants themselves are usually lit

im watching restaurant wars right now - i'm fully on the carla bandwagon

btw i am not suggesting that schef is in the bag w/padma

in that post

oh i see how it is

"this dish reminded me of Arsenio Hall in Coming to America ... (wait for it) ... it would barely work in a fast-food restaurant"

None of his one liners are this good.

The judge who picked a fight with Fabio also picked a fight when he was the guest judge last time he was on the show. He's a real piece of shit.

I love him (as a chef) and he is arguably (btw. him and Boulud) the best chef to ever grace the show.

wait, am i an episode ahead?

why yes, yes i am.

Eric Ripert is awesome. Like when he was in the kitchen with Richard and he wanted to learn about Richard's gastro techniques. I thought that was so cool.

went for a soto-esque speed-rescreen of last ep, and cringed again at Jamie's butchering of the pronunciation of "Cioppino"... she may live in SF but she's obviously from far away. east coast right?

i was wondering about that

wait, who you calling a pos, conant or ripert?

the former... i jumped the gun on the next epi in my excitedness.

"east coast right?"

New York she's said.

i don't think you need to be from SF to know how to pronounce cioppino, just have heard a little Italian

had the tasting menu at Craft tonight. excellent food, lives up to the hype unlike so many, though it doesn't quite speak to me the way Blue Hill, say, does. i also laughed once or twice thinking of Colicchio saying 'needs more salt' at judges' table - they're as fond of it as they are of braising.

that's good to hear (no sarcasm)

I've really enjoyed Craft, Craft Bar and 'wichcraft.

Craft Bar is actually in the space that used to be a graphics service bureau called Typogram where I worked one summer during college. Next door to Tommy Boy records.

Amusingly Jeff bad-mouthed Craft and Colicchio in his exist interview. "Boring", he sez.

it's not super-adventurous food, but boring is not the word

i really enjoyed craftbar in the old space as well

And poor Carla, she's all like "I don't know about football but my husband and step-son love football so I'm like yay" and they're a happy family of three and the judges are like, "hey carla, good job, here's TWO tickets".

Suggest Ban Permalink
― dan selzer, Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:26 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark
OTM, I was wondering if they would let her send the two of them without her or would she be tied to one of the tickets for a promotional appearance?
HOOTIE!

I worked as a backwaiter at Craft for about nine months about a year after they opened. Some of the best food and wine I ever had.
I would occasionally gorge on leftover desserts. Really developed a love for jerusalem artichokes and venison there.
I was an unhappy waiter though and it showed. Not my bag.

http://gothamist.com/2009/02/04/eric_ripert_will_have_show_on_pbs.php

hey, i could spend $220 on dinner at Le Bernardin and have $1 donated to City Harvest.

or, I could, you know, donate $200 to City Harvest and order some pizza.

And poor Carla, she's all like "I don't know about football but my husband and step-son love football so I'm like yay" and they're a happy family of three and the judges are like, "hey carla, good job, here's TWO tickets".

This might also have been bad news for her husband, because obviously the correct first response to this is "you won the tickets, you should take our son and have a wonderful time with him."

I can't remember: they were Superbowl tickets, right? For this year? I find it funny how Padma starts off the time-sensitive episodes with this over-the-top nudge in her voice, like "As you know, it's currently -- wink wink -- Thanksgiving/Christmas/the Superbowl ... everybody with me?"

Well so much for your spoiler, Shasta. ;)

bummed about jamie getting the axe even though it seemed like the right call.

the time sensitive ones are so funny, i think it was like they had the xmas one + then the next week it was the one where they went to blue hill farms and kept on telling them 'you have to make sure the food is SEASONAL' which = summery.

i'm surprised only because so many people here seemed to think she had something. i like her/her food, but she's generally made pretty boring-sounding dishes, comparatively-speaking.

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/01/jeff-top-chef-s.html

"but she's generally made pretty boring-sounding dishes, comparatively-speaking."

Compared to the other contestants this year? No, I don't think that's true at all.

haha i liked jeff, but that makes him sound like this ridiculous girl i knew who was totally paranoid that people didn't take her seriously because she was hot. she insisted on it so much that it naturally led to people thinking, "dude, you're not that hot."

I mean I think she's way more interesting/talented than anyone remaining with the exception of Stefan (and possibly Carla.)

I though Leah should have gone - fucking up a dish but knowing exactly how you fucked it up shouldn't be as bad as fucking up a dish to a lesser degree but having no idea how or why.

i was hoping for that (still hating leah), but it seemed like jamie's dish just tasted the worst. i think she's better than leah, but given the dishes prepared, i don't think they could avoid eliminating jamie.

leah doesn't seem to have a lot of self-confidence, but her food, while simple, usually sounds pretty good to me

she doesn't lack self-confidence; she just pretends to because she thinks it's cute. /hate

Mostly I just hate Leah and her constant Eeyore whining.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/projection-tv-rear-projection.jpg

maybe, but she sucks

leah is like the sanjaya of this season.

also, could eric ripert be any more adorable? no he could not. he seemed laudably uncomfortable with colicchio and that ridiculous british dude kissing his ass.

and also with jamie telling him one of his dishes kinda sucked

i couldn't tell if that was a legit reaction shot, though. they only showed him for a second, expressionless; that could have happened at any point during the judges panel.

she's only still on the show because she was willing to drunkenly half-make-out with an annoying dude, on camera. i'm sorry but accidentally oversalting your food in the reduction process <<<<<<<<<<<<<< adding a ton of butter to a dish that never had butter in it. there's something to be said about her complete inability to understand anything that's going on at all. i'm tired of her donkey braying and i'm kind of pissed that the producers are keeping her on over dr. chase and the lesbian and almost actually anyone else they kicked off at this point (and i'm sorry but it is so obvious this week--the judges were all harping on the fact that it is indeed worse to fuck up because you can't understand flavor or process than it is to fuck up but to know what you did wrong, and then boom, sorry jamie tattoos, go home? i know it's edited but come the hell on). ugh tho jamie came across like such a bitch throughout the entire eating portion, "oh i hate this kind of food, this dish is just terrible" etc so it'd be hard to sympathize with her IF LEAH WASN'T STILL THERE.

if you're going to keep someone on for their drama aspect then please make them at least interesting (ha ha i said that last night and my bf said "or even actually hot would be fine too").

i'm so happy at this carla resurgence tho! i kind of think she and fabio got a little hosed last night because their dishes were a lot harder to recreate, and despite this, stefan still fucked his up a little too...eh.

yeah i am super-happy for carla. she seems like such a nice lady.

also i have to say we were both kind of shocked at how inattentive and surprised all the chefs were -- they get invited to an exact-#-of-courses-as-contestants meal at le bernadein and they couldn't see something like this challenge coming 10 miles away? how retarded are all of these contestants? srsly!!

okay i can't tell if i'm just being a bitch and also kind of sexist, but i also thought leah was being super-flirty with stefan in this last episode. maybe hitching her wagon to a more successful star than hosea? this is probably total fabrication on my part but i dislike her a lot.

lol i didn't notice that...i just dislike her because she seems exceedingly stupid. the butter thing just made me throw my hands up in the air -- she is irredeemable.

"also i have to say we were both kind of shocked at how inattentive and surprised all the chefs were"

This is all the wonders of editing. Both Stefan and Jamie have said in interviews that no one was surprised, that in fact people were surreptitiously taking notes.

also i have to say we were both kind of shocked at how inattentive and surprised all the chefs were -- they get invited to an exact-#-of-courses-as-contestants meal at le bernadein and they couldn't see something like this challenge coming 10 miles away? how retarded are all of these contestants? srsly!!

actually, they could. check jamie's exit interview.

okay i can't tell if i'm just being a bitch and also kind of sexist, but i also thought leah was being super-flirty with stefan in this last episode. maybe hitching her wagon to a more successful star than hosea? this is probably total fabrication on my part

yes

Apparently Jamie's dish was really really bad. Like really bad. It was no shocked, no matter how huge a dope Leah is, that she was going home.

It was no shocked! I am turning into Fabio!

lol

Hosea took a lot of heat for his seafood background, but dude is in colorado... sardinias, freshwater eel or even monkfish are probably pretty exotic to his distributors and clientele.

Jamie didn't say that the black cod (?) dish sucked, just that it was her least favorite... when you're tasting 6 dishes, even at LB, I think it's fair to have a least favorite.

Also: once I saw Jamie's in-episode interviews even in the beginning I could tell she got axed. She looked like she'd been crying for a good day or two.

Leah has zero technique, she critically falters on at least one or two dishes per episode, she has "given up" on at least the last 4 episodes... maybe 5?

Leah's the only contestant yet to win an Elimination Challenge, and I think the only time she was ranked high were when she rode in on the coattails in team play. In comparison, Jamie won two Elimination Challenges and was criticized negatively in the final judges table once or twice, whereas Leah has been in that position for almost every episode over the past 2 months.

also (LOL), escolar (aka "waloo" or "butterfish") is pretty nasty... the more i learn about it and hear about experiences with chefs in the kitchen and customers on the toilet post-meal, makes me very :-\

I expect Leah will probably be the next to go.

The last time I saw Ripert on TV was on Anthony (then known as Tony) Bourdain's first TV show called A Cook's Tour... Tony brought Eric Ripert to SF and they eat Durian ice cream @ Pollyanna's, dungeness crab and then they go to The French Laundry for a 18 course tasting menu with Thomas Keller... the tasting menu was quad-prep meaning that each diner got 18 distinct courses (with a couple exceptions)... so basically the four of them ate ~70 different tastes from Keller. My friend was working in the kitchen at the time and he was able to present some dishes to the table and got about 20 seconds of air time.

This was about 8-10 years ago... I tried to find episodes online to no avail.

actually, they could. check jamie's exit interview.

i have better things to do than watch her full exit interview on the poorly-designed and slow bravo website...? check the actual interviews with three of the contestants that were shown in the episode.

steve shasta is 100% correct re: leah. like i said earlier, fair enough to kick jamie off if leah hadn't been there still. tho that quickfires challenge was so fucking weird -- who expects even a very good chef to necessarily know what to do with an exotic fish like eel? haha i feel like 80% of the quickfires are being designed to stefan's strengths. this was easily the most entertaining part of the show though.

I though Leah should have gone - fucking up a dish but knowing exactly how you fucked it up shouldn't be as bad as fucking up a dish to a lesser degree but having no idea how or why.

Given that all the judges nodded over exactly this statement right before calling everyone back in and cutting Jamie, I kinda felt cheated of some explanation of the decision -- even a brief "at this point, it's all about whose dish tastes better, whether it's a simple mistake or a big one," or some kind of rationale.

I have to admit that in TV terms I kinda like Leah, because she acts like she's approximately 16, and stoned, and I find that hilarious.

Enjoyed Ripert's politely awkward responses to Young, especially the "coming from you..." bit.

i have better things to do than watch her full exit interview on the poorly-designed and slow bravo website...?

^^ p.s. part of me wants to file this in my head as a form of challop

actual lols

the judges' decision made lots of sense if you were listening without a leah-must-go filter

I think you're the only one on this thread who thinks so, but that's not very rare so...

he's a unique and special bird. do not cage him.

my bf said "or even actually hot would be fine too"

well his taste is questionable, you know

i just love all of the SUGGESTions on this thread and even though i don't watch the show, the BANter on this thread is great.

opps, Caps LOCk is going haywire

yeah, it quit on that "k" there :\

I have to say that I was impressed with Karla (Carla?) and Fabio. The pressure of this grueling (1 month? 6 week?) competition must be incredible and they really stepped it up with some confidence; whereas Leah and Hosea are servicable chefs, they are just clearly outclassed.

"servicable"

I'm surprised that Hosea is still around-hes a total mediocrity-but Jamie clearly had to go.

Leah should have gone! srsly, if you figure out a dish and know where you fucked up but only really fucked up because you had never done it before and you're on a very strict time limit, i mean come on. Fuck that noise. And Toby is still annoying.

I love that resurgent BGAWK seems like she might somehow sneak into the top three with Stefan and Fabio; Hosea and Leah both appear to be sneaking out the door.

I gotta say, this is the first thread I've ever noticed being stuck on with Gabb and I know KIP and everything, but is it always like this?

This was about 8-10 years ago... I tried to find episodes online to no avail.

I saw that episode on TV pretty recently. I think Keller made Bourdain a dish with tobacco in it or something along those lines.

Jamie probably should still be around, but I just don't think anyone left has a chance of beating Stefan. And I am not too upset about missing the opportunity to see Jamie make scallops four more times.

wkiw eric ripert.

http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/02/05/top-chefs-jamie-stefan-had-a-real-crush-on-me/

If Stefan won this, they're going to need to spend the next few episodes working really, really hard to endear him to the audience. (Which seems like something we'd really see coming, right?)

"If my 150 comments that I got on Facebook last night mean anything, I think people are really, really bummed that I got kicked off."

Clearly the best metric of excellence there.

Not really. Hung was basically a dick and he won. I think Stefan's more charming than he is.

They are going to have a hard time NOT giving it to Stefan actually since he's so clearly out-classed everyone else so far.

I want Carla to take it in a surprise upset. She is apparently the most classically trained, perhaps all future challenges can hinge on that.

I stopped watching so I didn't know Carla was still in the running! I kind of love her.

Also, unlike Hung, Stefan makes a lot of "soul" food with big flavors and earthy components, whereas Hung was obsessed with ideas like "classical," "refined," etc.

Like Hung, he is a prep wizard. I think he's won every skills challenge so far, right?

He finished second in the tasting challenge, I think.

Yeah... he is a technical expert.

We've seen him cut apples with precision, breakdown a crown roast, a leg of lamb, several large fish, the coup de grace being last episode's freshwater eel... as I was watching I said to my viewing companion "in japan they nail the head to the board and then rip its skin off..." and then what do you know, he comes out with a hammer and nail and skins that puppy alive while hosea was just "floundering" (apologies to Toby on that one).

Stefan lost the tasting challenge to Hosea on a Mole sauce (Stefan is from Helsinki and Hosea is from Santa Fe...)

Stefan also lives in LA. That's a weak excuse.

In Stefan's defense, it's not like he didn't know what was in a mole, he just didn't get as many components right as Hosea did.

I didn't say his performance was indefensible, just that he didn't win ONE skills challenge.

This is where I know I must be a jerk because Stefan seems totally likable and reasonable to me.

I'm right there with you. Actually I could give a fuck about personality and charm, the whole point of this show is to prep, cook and plate the best food.

I'm talking less about whether dude's actually likable and more about how the show presents its narrative -- for a while they were definitely presenting him as a "problem" character, kind of smug and difficult (which I get the sense he really is). But thinking back, once they're down to 4-5 people, they invariably switch to making you feel good about all of them.

"This is where I know I must be a jerk because Stefan seems totally likable and reasonable to me."

I wouldn't say totally likeable. I wouldn't want to have to work with him frankly. I would def. eat his food though.

Hung was awesome from beginning to end. Stefan is kind of a "dick," but he's too boring to care about either way, afaic.

Hung sucked hardcore, almost as badly as the elf with Wolverine hair from the season before him

(mind you he deserved to win but was still a giant douchebag)

hung was very charming

Hung was an insufferable know-it-all

He is a very tiny douchebag, in my opinion.

But I love him.

almost as badly as the elf with Wolverine hair from the season before him

yeah I thought Hung was ok, it was this ^^^^^ season where I hated everyone. eventual winner (Ilan) was even worse than Marcel

i just ahem rescreened the last episode and noticed an error:

the second dish at LeBernadin presented is mahi mahi with miso sauce... there is a mushroom in the sauce that the caption says "Matsutake" but in reality is "Maitake". Not a huge error, but I, a mere amateur, thought it was a pretty noticable mistake.

"Top Pussy"!

Also, good riddance to Leah. Let's dump Josea next and make this a thing.
Carla was fuckin' awesome tonight in every way.

i really like carla

fab's chicken did look really good actually

i really like carla

― happy house of representatives (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, February 11, 2009 11:36 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm!

also, her saying that she used to be a model made me realize that she reminds me a lot of a woman i used to be in grad school with, who used to model. this woman is both the sweetest person ever and kind of insane, like carla.

"jacques pepin and i are two peas in a pod!"

*holds up fingers to signal that they are in a pod*

there was so much Stefan-hubris in the in-between segments that I was starting to think he might be out

carla sometimes crosses a line wherre I'm like "no really you're pretty weird" but yeah she is mostly cool

would love an animated gif of her tortoise-and-hare looking over shoulders "schwwwww ...... scchwwwwww" speech

LOL, I said the exact same thing when I saw her do that!

http://www.maxsilvestri.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009_02_carlafraggle.gif

http://www.maxsilvestri.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2009_01_pizzazz2.gif

OKAY tonight i was thinking about how gifable she is... like on some tyra shit

http://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpghttp://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpghttp://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpghttp://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpghttp://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpg

I should say that the double revelation that Carla is classically trained and an ex-model both explain a lot. I kind wish she hadn't straightened her hair, but she still look good.

would also love one for THAT IS MY BELIEF, _TOM_

i like how transparent tom's hate for toby young is - i'm sure all the other chefs at the FINAL SOLUTION DINNER tonight rolled their damn eyes at him

So totally and completely wkiw Jacques Pepin. Holy shit do I love that dude.

Pepin and Carla made that a spectacularly enjoyable episode.

i like how transparent tom's hate for toby young is - i'm sure all the other chefs at the FINAL SOLUTION DINNER tonight rolled their damn eyes at him

I don't know how anyone could be in the same room with him and not roll their eyes at him.

I think he's a great addition. A little friction at the judge's table can only work to the viewer's benefit. TY is perfect for that.

He'd be a better addition if his comments were remotely interesting. Agree the contempt part is fun!

I find his comments interesting, but I am totally unschooled and ignorant about gourmet food, so he may be totally talking out of his ass. I have liked watching the show since he came on. I don't necessarily like him, but I like disliking him, if that makes any sense.

Friction's fine, but his tortured analogies are just painful to sit through. They should have gotten someone like Jeffrey Steingarten instead.

Good episode last night.

1. Pépin = what a nice old man! He was so nice to everybody about their food!

2. I tried hard to construct a joek about Toby Young's predilection for "runny egg whites," but subsequently decided the joeks write themselves.

3. Leah ... should have gone before Radhika as far as I'm concerned. Leah was incredibly inept at describing the thinking behind her own food as well as being charmless in her description of its preparation. Bye bye!

4. We're all big Stefan fans over here.

lol obvious i know, but padma looked crazy beautiful in that pink dress.

Radikha really fucked up the contest when she got booted, so I had no problem with that.

I imagine Padma looks awsome even when she's stuck in bed with a 100 degree plus fever for three days.

Red dress.

Show would have been way funny if Samuelson had asked for a last meal of Ethiopian food

so did carla model bags for people's heads or what?

P.S. I feel vaguely suspicious about the fact that Fabio drew an Italian chef, Stefan drew a Scandinavian one, and Carla drew a French one. (And to be honest I think Leah wound up with a dish that was bound to eliminate her: making something as common and "uncomplicated" as Eggs Benedict is just ... it involves doing basic things in a technically perfect way, right, so it seems somehow bound to eliminate anyone who's not like a technical pro at "poach an egg" or "make a Hollandaise.")

^^ That's not sticking up for Leah, or anything, it just seemed like a task that would inevitably point a flashing sign at anything technically less-than-perfect about her cooking

"exit benedict"

yeah nabisco i thought that was a little fishy as well but then again stefan did fuck his dish up so it wasn't like it was totally in the bag

btw someone explain to me the allure of peas... the whole time i was sitting there feeling non human watching those two rave about peas

Holy Christ, yes, I just wanted them to shut about those peas.

also stefan's dill thing seemed pretty in character, dude knows his ins and outs of random european cuisine

"Swedes put dill on salmon" isn't really rare knowledge, though, right

"btw someone explain to me the allure of peas... the whole time i was sitting there feeling non human watching those two rave about peas"

That might be the point-the peas us mortals eat are so bland, tasteless and boring that someone with the ability to successfully make them the focus of the meal deserves props. I admit to being bewildered.

http://eater.com/uploads/2009_02_leahnsfw.gif

http://

http://eater.com/uploads/2009_02_boyz.gif

edited in such a way that you can never be sure, but it felt like stefan only stayed in because he's been far and away the best cook this whole time. if fabio won over carla just because he broke his finger, i'm cool with that. the chicken looked amazing. and awesome chicken >>>>>>>> awesome peas. though those must have been some bad ass peas.

They kind of pretended that stefan might actually get sent home over leah but only for a second or two before laughing heartily and realizing that nobody would buy that.

Also, how did Fabio break his finger? I assumed he cut himself which I can understand, but they never really explained how he broke it.

I hope Carla takes the whole thing. Her dishes tonight looked k-OMG

i really love her

hey btw

http://i41.tinypic.com/ivxz5c.jpg

I was rooting for Jeff to make it into the finale until he said "chipoLTe." What the fucking Christ, Jeff?

I was too drunk for this episode. Can anybody sum it up for me?

quickfire gave jeff, leah, and jamie a chance to win their way back into the finale and jeff won. elimination challenge they had to cater a 100+ person masked ball for a new orleans krewe using at least one creole dish .... carla won with oyster stew and something else I can't remember, jeff did well but he had to *win* the challenge to stay on so he went bye bye again, hosea was probably second best with some gumbo that emeril went nuts over (oh yeah emeril was guest judge). stefan pulled his arrogant-stefan-is-arrogant act, kept going for smoke breaks and almost got cut but in the end they axed fabio.

fabio's gone? :(

like monkey ass in an empty clamshell

his mohawk-shaved-sides thing was not a good look btw

it's top chef not top fauxhawk

I have this whole mental set of complex and pointless predictions about being able to guess who'll win based on the first 15 minutes of the final episode, but I'll save myself the embarrassment and just make the obvious guess that it won't be Stefan.

How could you not be happy about Carla making the finale? With a head of steam even. America loves her; I was cracking up at the Nawliners shoutin' hootie at her.
Fuck a Hosea though; I would've much preferred Fabio. RIP lil buddy.

if carla doesn't win it's a fuckin travesty

altho the way they've been setting it up this season, i wouldn't be surprised if it was a HOSEA VS STEFAN showdown battle finale royale

^^ this is the nugget of my "can tell by editing of first 15 minutes" idea, like ... if it's all about how charming Carla is I will guess Hosea wins, and if it's all about how charming Hosea is I will guess that he either loses with great dignity (or maybe still possibly wins)

This is basically a pointless attempt to try and sort out their narrative-building patterns

Thanks for that excellent synopsis, dmr. I am now able to piece together some memories of what I saw.

continuous lols at Hosea in his interviews saying "I'm not letting Stefan get in my head ... I'm not letting Stefan get in my head ... I'm not letting Stefan get in my head ..."

news flash dude, he is all up in your head! you're kinda obsessed with him

xpost ha no problem

I said the same thing...Hosea kept saying "Stefan tries to get under our skins" and I was like, "nope, it's just you!"

I dunno, that dinner bit where Hosea's talking about something you wouldn't find in French cooking and Stefan goes "no, that's classic French" -- I dunno who's right, but I will say that Stefan has that clipped way of saying things, really dismissively, as if he is really, really not going to listen to anything you have to say about it, and that would certainly bug the fuck out of me.* Hahaha also he greeted Hosea by saying "did you learn how to cook?" !!

* he took that tone long ago with saying "vinaigrette is not an emulsion," and he was wrong about that and appeared to be doing it just to bother people

Hosea's kind of a dickish guy and he's not wowing me with his cooking. The big beef with Stefan's gumbo was that it wasn't dark enough? And we should be impressed by Hosea's slow cookin'?
It seemed clear that Jeff was the #2 after Carla and that Hosea beat out Stefan and Fabio by inches, not miles. Let free to do his own thing, I don't think he's gonna be in the running. I honestly think Carla has a shot at winning though! Now that she got some dumbass mistakes out the way and seems to be working with as opposed to against her classical training, she may find a way to torpedo S.S. Stefan.

i think i missed this whol classical training bit

Hosea seems like he's good at making recipes - like the gumbo - but his ability to come up with his own shit seems to be kind of lacking.

Carla first said something about her classical training, what, last week? They kind of played her off like a goofball until the last minute.