Top Chef:All Stars 3/26/20--"The Jonathan Gold Standard" summary

Previously on “Top Chef”: We started with a mise en place race, where of course you have to cook with the ingredients. The first team to finish won, in spite of Hipster Joe's terrible pasta. The team members were each were a team leader for the Elimination challenge, which was to cook seafood on the beach over a firepit. Gregory cooked perfect salmon and won. Both Hipster Joe and Lee Anne made mistakes in both the Quickfire and the Elimination challenge, but Hipster Joe was eliminated. But of course, Last Chance Kitchen. (click for more)

So we start right where we left off, because Padma said at the end of judging last week that their Elimination challenge was starting immediately. No Quickfire this week (aww) because everyone will spend all day tomorrow “exploring the city”. I don't know why they can't also have a Quickfire but whatever. They'll be using Jonathan Gold's 101 Best Restaurants. It's Jonathan's last restaurant guide before he died. He seems to have made sure to hit random neighborhoods, and probably those little out-of-the-way restaurants that no one has heard of. The ones that you know of, and on the one hand, you love to see them packed because it means they're succeeding and you want them to do well, but on the other hand now it's always crowded and you can't eat there. So they'll drive around all day, and then create a dish “inspired by all [their] experiences”. A story, a dish, whatever. The dish is for 200 guests honoring Jonathan Gold. Gail tells them that he won a Pulitzer, even though he was not really critical, he wrote about things he loved. Guest judge will be Ruth Reichl, a former editor and someone people recognize.

Back at the mansion, everyone drinks wine and hangs out. Kevin gets an interview about how he came back to prove to himself he's not dying. He is recovering from cancer and having a tumor removed from his kidney. I love Kevin. Also there was absolutely no reason for the “your next Elimination challenge begins now” drama.

In the morning, there's a basket of restaurant guides and group instructions. There will be four groups: East LA, West LA, Downtown, and Hollywood. Then we have a short car commercial, which is whatever, except interestingly they let them drive themselves. Or at least they're shooting plenty of in-car footage with contestants in the driver's seat. Nini talks about being the baby. Melissa's group is near Chinatown, and she says that's where she grew up. Top Chef helped her be proud of being Chinese. OK so each spot they go to, they have a graphic onscreen with an excerpt of what Jonathan Gold said about it which is cool. Karen is in this group too, and since I remember her for always insisting on doing Chinese food, it's pretty fitting. Also this food looks amazing. Kevin's group is getting a whole fish, smeared with turmeric paste and deep fried. Angelo looks excited, while Kevin is telling the group that Jonathan wouldn't want you to exactly replicate anything. That's probably true. Bryan's group is getting Filipino food, beef tartare and plantain chips especially. Lee Anne, Stephanie, and Jen are getting Indian. I love that everyone got ethnic food, because while I don't know anything about Jonathan Gold, it sounds like he's the kind of guy who loved to find a hole in the wall being run by immigrants. You know? Anyway, none of these chefs are people who will balk at fish curry.

Round two. Melissa's group has moved to a taco truck, which has to be legit. Lisa used to own a food truck, which she makes sure to mention as she's giving props to these guys. They get seafood tacos with octopus. Amazing. Kevin's group is at Ethiopian. You guys, I almost cried. For years Kmanpat and I would go to our local Ethiopian place on a Friday during Lent, because you could get a vegetarian feast for two with like 7 or 8 different dishes, and it wasn't overcrowded like the sushi place or Red Lobster or whatever. Then we stopped going (I suspect because he got tired of it) and of course this year it's not happening. But I miss it and I hope that place is open when this is all over. Eric is thrilled. The owner gets emotional talking about Jonathan Gold and Eric gives her a hug. Aww. Bryan's group is at...Italian? Gonna guess that based on whatever dish they are having with Parmesan dumplings. Nini says it hits her craving for pho, though. Last group, sashimi.

I think there is a round three, but they're kind of blending them together. Melissa and group are having biscuits. Bryan and group are having tacos, looks like fusion tacos. They don't really spend any time on it. Kevin and group are...somewhere. I don't know and the dish is not immediately recognizable like tacos. French, apparently. I guess we don't get to see where Lee Anne's group went for their third plate.

Shopping at Whole Foods, which is as ever. Give me Chris Morocco riding his cart around while he side-eyes Red Leicester cheese any day. If you don't get that reference please subscribe to Bon Appetit's YouTube channel and watch all of it. Anyway, Bryan talks about working on a cruise ship and the family meals they'd get sometimes, and the short ribs he had at the Filipino place. Nini is making “masa” ball soup, but with a coconut ginger broth. Eric is back to his East African flavors, which I think is great. He's making scallops, because Lisa “had” to take all the duck. Figures. I mean, first come first serve, but that's the Lisa I remember. Angelo wants annatto seed, but he can't find it and he hopes he doesn't need it. Foreshadowing.

3 hours to cook. Karen is “just really inspired” by the Chinese food they had, because of course she is. This is a woman who had to pick a world cuisine, and despite several options, picked Japanese because someone else already picked Chinese, and then made a Chinese dish. She's making dumplings, which means rolling dough and cutting 200 wrappers. Lisa, after asking for all the duck breast at Whole Foods, apparently hung around and got whole ducks also, just because. Eric has to work next to her and he's not particularly happy about it. But I trust him to adjust properly. He has a mountain of shredded red cabbage. Kevin is making a terrine and praying it sets. Stephanie is making flatbread, and now she's worried she won't get it done. She admits she hasn't tasted everything. Karen announces to the room that she's a stupidhead, and it really annoys me for some reason. Her whole cutesy, “I decided to make 200 dumplings by hand, look at me, gosh I'm so silly” just bugs me. Either do something easier or just make your dumplings. You've been here, so you know what a dumb idea this is. Angelo is nervous about his broth. Malarkey yells that if anything goes wrong, he's already at the train station. Heh.

Time for the event. Lisa doesn't want to disappoint any of the famous people and restaurateurs there today. 1 hour to prep. Melissa is making beef tartare, but she discovers Malarkey is also making tartare. But she says he's so ADD maybe he's got too many things going on. Meanwhile Malarkey says he's in his element. Angelo has Jen taste his broth, and she says it's not right. You can tell by the face she makes. She says in interview that it needs more sour, but at the event when Angelo says spicy, she says spicy will bring it all together.

Jonathan's wife is here for extra pressure. Of course also the chefs at the places they went yesterday are here too. Gregory: halibut, tomato and turmeric broth with chiles, lime, and pineapple. Very nice. Nini: “masa ball soup”, so dumplings made with masa, and a coconut ginger chicken broth. That sounds amazing. Gail raves about it. Lisa: pickled chili salad with spicy caramel duck. No one says anything about Lisa's food, but Padma drags the taco truck owner over to say nice things about her. Melissa: mala beef tartare, anchovy aioli, and five spice potato chip. Tom hits a chili pocket and Melissa immediately freaks out. (A chili pocket is when you're eating something moderately spicy and then one bite is just ridiculous because you didn't stir it up evenly or something.) Ruth is OK though.

Eric: Ethiopian braised red cabbage and seared scallop with kitfo oil. Eric says that kitfo oil is “the mother sauce of East Africa”. All I can find is it's the name of an Ethiopian dish similar to beef tartare, but smothered in chili. Eric tells Tom and Ruth that he's always going to cook African when he can, because not a lot of people can do what he does. I am sure he means professional chefs, which is certainly true, but they do a dramatic pause and then Tom is like, lot of East African women would disagree with you and they all laugh. Ruth doesn't like it, because it doesn't meld or something. Angelo: crudo of tuna with chilled turmeric coconut broth, jicama. He tells them to feel free to drink the broth, as if they weren't going to. Out of balance, and Tom and Ruth both seem to agree. Karen: cumin lamb dumplings with roasted chili oil and pickled cucumbers. See, she's like “I wanted to take all these things and wrap them up in love, so a dumpling” and it's just not necessary. “Wrap them up in love” get out of here with that. Also, Bravo, fuck you for putting white chyrons on your all-white backgrounds. Whatever outline you think you have on there, just no. You could put literally ANY OTHER COLOR.

Jamie: duck mole tacos with lime crema and fire roasted chili salsa. Malarkey: fried rice beef tartare with kimchi vinaigrette, “peanut crack” and fermented egg yolk. When describing the dish to Padma and Gail he just says cracked peanuts, so who knows what “peanut crack” is but that's what the chyron says. He is very cocky and then Gail calls him Malarkey which makes me happy. Jen: chickpea and navy bean stew with hominy, herb yogurt, cashews, and pickled red onion. Bryan: short rib with charred eggplant puree, fermented radish and butternut squash vinaigrette. Lee Anne: “end of summer” hiyashi with black plums, tomato seaweed gelee, mozzarella and king crab vinaigrette. So if you google “hayashi”, which is what the chyron says, if you can manage to get to a page about food, it's a heavy sauced beef dish, like a beef curry. But if you google “hiyashi” with an I, you get a ramen dish served cold with various toppings. I mean, Lee Anne definitely didn't make beef curry, so maybe learn to spell, BRAVO, at the same time you're fixing your shitty chyrons.

Stephanie: grilled naan with curried peas, crispy lamb, carrot relish, and cheese. Padma confirms that it's “Indian nachos”. Stephanie inwardly freaks out because she never really thought about the fact that she would be serving Indian food to Padma. It's missing something tart. Kevin: roasted pork, mushroom and black currant terrine, with “Granny's” apple butter. Deep fried of course, because Kevin. Montage of everyone tasting the other dishes, talking to various restaurateurs, and so forth. Tom fucking with people because he can. Melissa has been adjusting the spice because Tom said it was too spicy. Ruth tells Tom that she liked Melissa's beef tartare, but Malarkey's was a “showoff” dish, the kind of thing people hate about restaurants.

Judges' Table. Overall everyone gets praise for making great food. Nini, Kevin, and Bryan are the top three. Nini's soup was delicious, and Tom says he's not feeling well and he wants a bunch of soup to take home. Everything blended together. Kevin did something classic, but it was a great version of something classic. It looked clunky, but Ruth says it turned out amazing and he needs to bottle the apple butter. Gail tells Bryan his short ribs were something she's never seen from him before, but it was also his dish because it was refined and had pristine technique. Tom loves that the broth added sourness, and they insert a shot of Malarkey in here, nodding like he tasted the broth and he agrees. It's weird. The winner is Kevin. He looks like he teared up immediately. He tells the table (and everyone else) about being sick and having to prove to himself that he'd cook again.

The bottom three are Angelo, Stephanie, and Eric. Boo. Stephanie tells the table she bit off more than she could chew. Padma says it didn't taste like anything. It really needed something, and all the judges seem to agree that it was lacking. Eric starts off by saying he wanted to do duck but it was all gone (shot of Lisa), and also the cabbage was cooked how he wanted it. They didn't like the cabbage, and also Gail says that the scallop and the cabbage didn't talk to each other. Angelo's broth/sauce was way too sweet, and Padma says the tuna didn't make sense with the dish. Ruth says the tuna died in vain. Choice quote. Padma kicks them all out.

The bottom three chefs just overthought their dishes. Angelo's dish was too sweet, but Padma says at least she liked the tuna. Ruth tells them the restaurant he said he was inspired by is very rustic, and this is a terrible inspiration. He didn't get the point of the challenge. Back in the Stew Room Angelo is telling everyone he thought it was fine. Eric needed to cook his cabbage more, and Gail says it was timid and didn't go together. Stephanie's dish was tasteless, and it could have been fine with a chutney or something. Gail says she forgot there was lamb on the dish. Ouch. Ruth says the bottom three forgot food should be delicious, and Padma overreacts in agreement.

Tom tells them Jonathan never wrote critical reviews, and it's hard to send someone home with that in mind, but Angelo is eliminated. He didn't think his broth was overly sweet. This doesn't define him. It's too bad because he knew the broth was off.

Next time: interpreting works of art on the plate, Ludo Lefebvre, some generic comments about bad sauces.

Last Chance Kitchen: Hipster Joe vs. Angelo. Gonna be ridiculous and overly complicated. Angelo is not wearing a chef's jacket, but a weird button up dress shirt with a band collar and pleats down the front like a tuxedo shirt. Tom reminds them that three winners have come through Last Chance Kitchen, and then he says let's go. They drive off with Tom, who of course won't tell them where they're going, aside from “my friend Mike's”. It's the restaurant Providence and Mike who is the owner. So of course they're intimidated, and Tom says they both went home for poor seafood. And Mike actually tasted both dishes. Hipster Joe made a decent flatbread, but there was too much going on. Angelo's broth was too sweet, even for dessert. This challenge will involve geoduck, oysters, caviar, celtuce (a variety of lettuce with a thick stem like broccoli), and yuzu. Geoduck is that huge clam-looking thing that looks like a penis and is pronounced “gooey duck”.

30 minutes to cook. Hipster Joe needs to not overthink. He says he's familiar with geoduck and it's “safe”, but he's intimidated because Mike has a dish with geoduck and celtuce. Angelo is making soft scrambled eggs with caviar and yuzu cream. Is this really a seafood dish? I don't think this is really in the spirit of what he was supposed to make. Hipster Joe is making foam with the celtuce. Angelo wants super hot eggs and very cold yuzu cream. Hipster Joe jokes to Angelo that he's doing too much, and then Mike and Tom roll in and give him shit for making a mess. Angelo says that geoduck is finicky, but if Hipster Joe can cook it properly then he (Angelo) is in trouble. Mike asks Hipster Joe if he ever thought of doing just a simple, cold, seafood-forward dish? Ouch. Hipster Joe says this is seafood-forward and Tom is just like “OK sure” and leaves. Angelo describes his eggs (he has to shout because Hipster Joe is running the blender and grinning). They discuss the timing of the eggs and it sounds like Angelo is using more butter. He's plating in a shot glass which bugs me for some reason. That shit is hard to eat out of. Hipster Joe worries about his flavors.

When Angelo is serving, he really is freaking out because you can hear the shot glass rattling against the plate. Scrambled eggs with caviar and yuzu cream. It's a shot glass with eggs in the bottom, and then cream and I think jalapeno on top. I guess the caviar is in between the layers. I'm sorry but it looks like a blowjob shot. Tom asks if he's accentuating caviar, which he is supposed to be because he was supposed to make a seafood dish, then why are there more eggs than caviar? Oops. Angelo says the eggs are like a surfboard and the caviar is the person on the surfboard. Sure. Hipster Joe: grilled geoduck with celtuce puree. The puree is bright green but you can't see anything underneath it so it's just a weird green lump. The geoduck is good, but the puree is not necessary. Maybe put it on the bottom. Except it was warm and needed to be put on last.

Tom says both dishes were much more edited. Angelo's dish was overall a good dish, it was simple and nuanced even though maybe the temperatures weren't perfect. Hipster Joe cooked the geoduck perfectly and it was sliced well, but then covering it with the puree ruined it. But Hipster Joe survives. Angelo's dish was too much about the eggs. He says he knows there's a bigger plan for him.

I was gonna talk about What Would Tom Do? But there's still just the one episode from last week up there.