Previously on “Top Chef”: Our season started in
Boston, where everyone bragged about their awards (as you do) and Padma
introduced both Richard Blais as a new judge, and the Sudden Death Quickfire,
where someone can be sent home in the middle of the episode. I like this. It
turns out it’s technically the CHANCE someone will be sent home, as George was
the slowest in the mise in place relay race, but he got the chance to battle
Gregory by cooking the mise in place ingredients. Had he won, he could have
stayed, but Gregory won so George went home. I couldn’t bring myself to care
that much because we just met him 20 minutes ago. Then everyone had to cook for
the Top Chef Food Festival. You have to make a dish based on the first thing
you learned to cook. Or something. I wasn’t paying attention. Mei made congee
and won, while Michael made corn soup with salmon roe and was sent home. It
didn’t sound that great. (click for more)
Everyone applauds Mei in the Stew Room. They all
stood around at Judges’ Table so everyone already knows who won and who lost
and what everyone said. They also laugh at Katsuji for having like, 27
ingredients and saying he had tacos. Also Blais hates olive oil powder, which
seems pretty rich coming from someone who made banana scallops on multiple
occasions. Keriann is upset because everyone else LOVED her olive oil snow.
Aaron is quick to point out that to a “real” gastronomy person it’s a rookie
move, so of course she got blasted. They have a really stupid argument about
it. Like, doing molecular gastronomy doesn’t make you a chef. Except that is
Keriann’s argument so…I’m not sure what point she’s trying to make.
In the morning everyone’s in the apartments,
which are nice but crowded as usual. James walks around shirtless but it’s not
that great. Plus his tats border on dumb. I mean, he has Patrick Swayze on his
shoulder because he “respect[s] his craftsmanship”. What does that even mean?
Padma introduces everyone to Todd English,
although it seems like most of them know who he is. She then talks about Paul
Revere and the lantern thing. One if by land, two if by sea. The Quickfire is
to make a surf and turf dish. If one lantern goes on in the middle of the
“cook”, they have to grab an ingredient from the land table. Two lanterns, sea
table. Also first come, first serve, so they’ll have to watch the lanterns. The
final dish has to be cohesive. No immunity but the winner will get $5000.
45 minutes. One lantern goes on so everyone goes
over. Keriann pushes Katsuji, who still manages to snag sweetbreads. Doug does
not get them which is too bad for him. Stacy is lost, because she doesn’t know
what surf she’s going to get. The “land” light goes on again. Mei grabs ramps
and she’s thrilled. 15 minutes gone and everyone wants to figure out seafood.
Katsuji makes some sauce, then Katie slams into him and he scalds himself. Plus
the sauce is on the floor. She sort of asks if he’s OK but he’s really pissed.
Now people are standing next to the sea table. As they get bored and go back
their stations, that’s when production turns on the lanterns. Ha! There is
shoving but I’m not sure who did it. Adam is oblivious and is stuck with “dried
crab snack”. With 10 minutes left the land lantern goes on again. No one likes
what they get stuck with on this round.
Adam: shoyu marinated flank steak with pretzel
dashi and dried crab snack. Hee. Gregory: grilled lamb chops with aromatic soy
dressing and bluefoot mushroom salad. Melissa: frito misto with mushrooms, pollock
& razor clams. Joy: marinated buffalo strip steak, veal cutlet with warm
slaw and sea salt. Stacy: grilled pork chop, fried skate cheeks with black
radish and arugula salad. James: sautéed mussels with boar bacon broth, sautéed
fiddlehead ferns, sauerkraut & tosaka. Aaron: smoked bacon and shiro miso
dashi with pork meatballs, fishcake and nori. Mei: pan seared haddock with ramp
tomato nage, wasabi tobiko and shaved fennel salad. Katsuji: poached
sweetbreads, quail egg, uni, and caviar with hot pepper jelly. Tosaka and nori
are types of seaweed, and tobiko is fish roe.
Various people got comments, but none of them
seemed that terrible or great so I left them out. Joy’s steak and veal were
weird together, and Stacy’s pork chop wasn’t seasoned or cooked well. Katsuji
pulled it off seemingly because Todd English likes uni. James used the boar
bacon really well. The winner is James. He’s thrilled to have money because of
course he had a rough childhood. I think everyone on reality shows has a rough
childhood or some other kind of backstory.
Elimination challenge! They will be cooking for
some Boston police and firefighters. Padma carefully explains how the police
and fire departments work together. We know, Padma. Team challenge time. Each
team will make one cohesive dish, which is nice because it’s less work for me
to talk about. But not nice because team challenges always spell drama. I get
that you have to work with others in real life, but let’s be honest. You just
want at least one team to fight. Stacy says she’s honored because she’s from
Boston. 2 hours tomorrow to prep and cook, but no time to shop because each
team must “respond” to sets of ingredients in that kitchen. Everyone draws
knives for teams. Team 1, the Red team, is Mei, Katie, and Katsuji. Mei is not
terribly pleased. Team 4, Yellow, is Joy, Ron, and Melissa. They are
high-fiving. Team 5, Green, Keriann, Aaron, and Stacy. OF COURSE because
Keriann and Aaron had an argument yesterday. You can’t tell me that was random.
Team 3, Gray, is only Doug and James,. I guess because there was a chance
George wouldn’t have gone home in that first Quickfire so they could have had
all teams of three. But as Padma points out, this might be better. Team 2,
Blue, is Adam, Gregory, and Rebecca. Your team number also tells you the order
you are serving in. And picking the “ingredients” in. The police guy says not
to make donuts. Heh.
They send everyone home to try to plan without
having any idea what they will find in the kitchen tomorrow. Ugh. Plus they
will be at a restaurant they are unfamiliar with, so there is the question of
equipment. Adam brings up 9/11, because his mom worked at the WTC. But she wasn’t
in the towers that day, but he didn’t know about it. On the one hand, he’s
upset and that must have been terrifying. On the other hand…I am sure the
producers encouraged him to bring that up to give him a storyline. Red team
plans to not make something really heavy because they’re first. Katsuji has
some weird idea but the girls remind him they won’t know what they’ll find.
He’s annoyed because he says he’s a good chef. Mei decides she’ll be in charge
but I’m not sure she’s told the other two that yet.
Green, a.k.a. Team Drama, knows they’re going to
end up with whatever stuff no one else wanted. So they will not have any
choice. They suspect it will be dessert items for some reason, which is
probably not a bad guess. Keriann drops that she went to pastry school, but
when Aaron asks her what she thinks will be in the basket she has no idea. Just
because she went to pastry school doesn’t mean she knows what will be in the
basket. I’m not sure why he thought that. Also he’s been a jerk so I’m not
inclined to take his side. Keriann is talking about stepping away from
molecular gastronomy, but then Aaron is like “what if there’s gelatin? Gelatin
is a [some technobabble term], so are you not familiar with gelatin?” Shut up,
Aaron. There are probably a million things to make with gelatin. He finally hollers
he doesn’t want to do anything molecular. UGH. YOU AGREE. Shut up and listen to
her. Then he invents the word “hypothetics” and does that super annoying thing
where you make a big deal about taking a deep breath to calm down. Don’t be so
concerned with being condescending and say you agree. Keriann says he’s being
an asshole, and Aaron says “no, you’ll know when I’m being an asshole.” Oh you
mean like right now?
The boxes don’t look terrible. I mean, they all
look fairly equal in terms of having proteins and veggies and no weirdo
ingredients like on “Chopped”. Mei wants to make fennel and pickled rhubarb,
but Katsuji is like “guacamole with fish sauce.” They fight over the sauce, and
Mei gives some epic side eye, but she eventually lets him do it. But not
without ordering him to hurry up because she wants to taste it. See that’s the
danger in deciding you’re in charge without telling anyone else. Blue team
takes some scallops and filet. They quickly get going. Gray team is making pork
chops, Yellow wants to take veal, salmon and kale. Joy talks about how veal
should be at mid-rare, and these chops are huge, and she wants to cut them down
but her team does not. So I guess there will be more drama about the chops
later. She doesn’t like some of the things they’re doing, but she is going
along with the team. Ron wants vanilla in the celery root puree. Team Drama
gets chicken and short ribs. Keriann is bored with chicken. Stacy offers to
cook it, while Aaron says something about agar and setting sauces into
marmalade or something. Did the box have agar in it? Keriann is really pissed
about the “gastronomy” but making thick sauces doesn’t seem that fancy. Katsuji
lets Mei taste the sauce, and she admits in confessional that she was wrong and
it’s really fucking good. Aaron tells Keriann not to put onions in the corn
salsa because he’s making onion jam and that’s too much. Plus he’s all
“acidity, that means more acid”. Stacy interviews that she’s just keeping her
mouth shut.
Tom is here with Gail and a bunch of people. No
Blais and no Hugh. The cops and firefighters mock each other about donuts and
sitting around. Red team up first: pea coconut purée with sautéed halibut,
pickled rhubarb, cherry and grilled fennel slaw. Everyone comments on the dish
while the chefs stand there. I don’t know if I like this. I think I liked it
better when no one knew how they were doing and sometimes Padma would call up
the losers and everyone would be confused. But now you know right away if the judges
liked your dish. Eh. Anyway, everything works well together and they like it.
Blue team: filet mignon, parsnip puree, pan-seared
scallops and marcona vinaigrette. Everything is cooked really well and it’s
restaurant-quality. Gray team: grilled pork chop with grilled stone fruit
salad, morel mushrooms and walnuts. The pork is well-cooked and they like the
fruit salad. Someone tells them they’re two awesome guys and they totally agree.
Joy is pulling veal chops off while they are
rare, and then she says they’ll come up to where she wants them. Melissa says
she can see some of them are rare, but they don’t have time to fix them.
That’s…probably not going to go over well. Yellow team: maple and vanilla
wood-roasted veal chop with vanilla-scented celery root puree and citrus kale
slaw. That is two vanilla things in a savory dish. Too much vanilla plus it
seems people are having problems cutting the chops. All the veal is rare.
Commercial interlude: Gail asks about Boston
after the marathon bombing, and the first responders talk about how moved they
were. The woman at the table actually was there and saved some people. Awesome.
Stacy is confident about the chicken, but both
Keriann and Aaron are hovering. So it’s not like Keriann is so great. However
she’s just moved on to putting everything else on the plates, while Aaron is
giving orders and being passive-aggressive. Aaron’s marmalade is too watery so
he’s decided to warm it up? With under 5 minutes left? He and Keriann fight
about it, because of course he’s just doing whatever he wants. Somehow they get
food on plates, but only after a lot of petty bickering. Green team: pan roasted
chicken breast with bourbon onion jam and fresh corn salad with serrano chilies.
Gail loves the chicken. Everyone loves the chicken. They do not like the raw
onion in the corn salad, plus the corn is raw so what? Why is the corn raw? Tom
doesn’t know what the jam thing is and it’s not good either. Tom tells Stacy
the chicken was perfect so she should be pissed because her team fucked up the
rest of the dish. The relish was especially horrible. Keriann tries to pretend
they came together in the kitchen, which is a crock. Aaron starts out OK by
saying he and Keriann see things differently and that caused conflict, and then
he goes off the rails by saying Keriann was “erratic” and made bad decisions.
Pff. The dish is not cohesive. Plus then he throws her under the bus for raw
onion in the corn. Keriann brings up how the relish should have been cold or
something, blah blah.
Back in the kitchen Aaron pretends to be
reasonable and says something about placement of things, like his hot relish should
not be on cold salad, and Keriann is all, yes, you were wrong, but the dishes
got out so the day is over. She leaves, and then Aaron is all “She’s such a
bitch”. Yeah I’m pretty sure Stacy is not going to side with you on this one.
Also Keriann was trying to be vague on this, and you were the one who started
it with the judges. Then they rejoin the other chefs and Keriann calls Aaron “a
lying sack of shit”. They have a stupid argument, because Aaron can’t let that
comment go, but Keriann is like “It’s done!” Dude, you can’t hide behind that
when you could have walked in and said nothing, or “They liked the chicken”, or
“They hated the garnishes”. Aaron thinks he showcased technique, even though
everyone hated it.
Judges’ table. Everyone comes in again, and I
don’t think I like that either. Even for the simple fact that can’t they sit
down? They have to cook and then stand around here for hours? Weak. Red team
and Blue team are tops. All the components for the Red team were perfect. They
have praise for everyone! All the proteins on the Blue team were well-seasoned
and cooked. Tom also says the leek vinaigrette was not brown, which is what
happens when you put the vinegar on too early. Important technique. Blue team
wins, and they get a group hug.
Yellow and Green teams are bottom. LOSER GONG
GOES HERE. Sorry but I miss it. Yellow team had problems with conception and
“cookery”. Green team was doomed to fail from the start. Well, sure, because
you set them up that way. Come on, Tom. Tom says they had two hours, and Aaron
could have reduced his relish the old-fashioned way. Keriann smirks. She gets
hers by admitting the corn was starchy, but she served it anyway, which is a
thing everyone always gets slammed for. The Yellow team had way too much
vanilla, plus the chops were raw. They also didn’t taste the dish all put
together, with all components. They worked well, but as we know that doesn’t
always matter.
Padma tell Aaron and Keriann that they should
worship Stacy and her chicken for saving their asses. Joy is eliminated, for
not cooking the veal properly. Aww. She’s sorry she didn’t speak up because she
was trying so hard to be a team player. That’s her one regret.
Next week: Sudden Death Quickfire, someone burns
something, Fenway Park and serving on the field. Hugh! Aaron fights with
Katsuji because he’s an equal opportunity asshole.
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