Top Chef:All Stars 5/14/20--"Cabin Fever" summary

Previously on “Top Chef”: Restaurant Wars happened, with Gregory and Kevin facing off. Gregory made a Haitian grilled menu, while Kevin's menu revolved around one dish (the country captain) and a ton of side dishes. Even though on paper Kevin's team was stronger, Gregory had smoother service and better food. Kevin's dishes weren't stellar, and the service was not good. Karen is not a server. In the end Kevin agreed the failure was his fault and was eliminated. (click for more)

On Last Chance Kitchen, Kevin and Nini were asked to revamp and update a childhood dish. Unlike last week, where I felt Eric was just eliminated with no explanation, Tom had many excuses for why Nini's fried chicken wasn't as good as the original braised version. Kevin won.

I saw some online backlash last week about Kevin's statement that he was falling on his sword. Mainly it was that the restaurant failure was his fault, so he didn't really sacrifice himself—he deserved to be eliminated. That's fair, I think.

There's a montage of Kevin? Is Kevin really that great? I like him, and he was a strong competitor, but a montage?

In the morning Bryan finds a letter that says they're going to summer camp. Everyone groans. I love how it was just on an end table and we're acting like no one saw it until everyone was awake and had coffee. Various people do not want to cook outside, like Lee Anne, who had to quit last time she was on the show because of cooking outside. Karen was a cheerleader and talks about going to cheerleading camp, which somehow is obviously true.

Camp is up in the mountains and it's very nice. There do seem to be a bunch of adults about doing archery and things like that. Padma and Kelsey are here. Kelsey who won Kentucky. The Quickfire is to grill something and feature [product placement] canned beans. You know, I'm fine with stupid product placement being in a Quickfire. Winner gets $10,000, which is the same amount the winners of Restaurant Wars won.

30 minutes to cook. Stephanie has no idea what to do. Gregory drains his beans and fries them so they crisp up. Karen is making soup. Why? There's no stock in the pantry because it's a grilling challenge. Melissa has some dough. Stephanie finally decides on a bean burger, which is better for a grilling challenge than soup. Lee Anne is making hand pies. Bryan is of course doing a weird thing, and he throws his brother under the bus by saying Michael would never go camping. Michael needs a spa. Malarkey grabs a handful of pine needles off a tree to throw on the grill. It's like Philip and the grass. Stephanie continues to flail, and she thinks that maybe she just can't cook if she's not in the Top Chef kitchen.

Malarkey: cannellini beans with bacon, char roasted carrots, herb mostarda and pine grilled jalapenos. Karen: Tuscan white bean soup with rosemary and thyme, flavored with ham hock, parsley, parmigiano reggiano. Stephanie: black bean veggie burger with sweet potatoes and bean salsa with corn. Bryan: pinto bean marinated skirt steak, southern style white bean puree and brussel sprouts. Melissa: white bean, bacon, and poblano fried dough with charred mango salsa. Lee Anne: Cuban black bean empanada, purple hull pea slaw with mango salsa fresca. Gregory: crispy hickory smoked bean salad, grilled vegetables, and white bean vinaigrette.

Stephanie's burgers fell apart, but she knew that. Bryan had a good idea, but it was a steak dish and not a bean dish. Melissa's dough was dry and the filling didn't have enough beans, but she knew that too. Karen had flavorful broth (I still argue that they asked for a grilled dish). Lee Anne had a good dough, and it was delicious. Gregory had a great idea because frying the beans worked really well. The winner is Lee Anne. Nice. She needs that money for her wedding.

So this weekend there's a “mom's group” at the campground. I guess you pay to go camping and have a kid free weekend doing games and stuff? The Elimination Challenge is to make a Sunday brunch buffet for 200. Including Kelsey and Brooke is here too. Kelsey flat out says 7 items is not enough, so everyone has to make two dishes. Four hours to prep and cook. Oh also it's brunch so service is at 9am. No shopping, just whatever the camp has on hand. Padma says since they can't prep today she's got some fun activities for them. Oh they could prep today, you just want to force them to get up at 4am.

Everyone heads to drop their stuff at the cabins and then do like, a ropes course and ziplining and stuff. Axe throwing. Archery. So far no one has complained about not being able to prep tonight so that's good. Everyone is just hanging out. They do get their own grill, instead of eating with the moms group, which is interesting. Malarkey tries to tell a ghost story, because Malarkey. But it's just about a missing chef? I think? Who knows. But everyone had a nice time and some relaxation.

It's 4am. Lee Anne says she didn't sleep because the moms were up into the wee hours doing karaoke and stuff. Everyone gets into the kitchen and there's not much left. It's the end of the camp, I think. I think it's the last day. So it's the dregs of whatever's left in the kitchen. Everyone tries to brainstorm a menu and they fight over ingredients. Melissa says she'll just make a salad with whatever's left. Malarkey wants to make shakshuka, which is delicious. It's eggs poached in tomato sauce. The onscreen chyron says he's also making steak and potatoes. Karen has grits with a pork ragu, and that's it. Bryan has his usual fancy food. Karen complains that she's in the weeds and his dishes sound amazing. Remember that. Melissa is indeed doing a salad, but there's not much left after everyone else has taken what they want. Karen still doesn't have a second dish, because everything she thinks of has eggs and there are already two egg dishes. Finally she decides to make corn cakes. Malarkey has discovered there are like, four cans of tomatoes in the pantry. The big cans, but still not enough for 200 people. Why he didn't check that before deciding on shakshuka, I'm not sure, but whatever. So now he's doing shrimp and chorizo soup.

Tom Time! And Brooke is here too. Stephanie is making “breakfast salad”, something she already makes. Lee Anne has clafoutis, and donuts. She has a brunch restaurant, so she knows you can't make pancakes for this many people. But a clafoutis is basically a pancake with fruit. Gregory has some kind of mushrooms, under egg. But it has to be half eggs, or they won't have enough.

Malarkey discovers that everyone already claimed buffet stations, and there isn't room left for him. He bitches about it and declares he'll cook out of the hot box. I guess he needed steam trays, but there's only cold stations left, so he's just going to put sheet trays down and serve off them. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, or if this is a situation where there are too many cold stations in the first place so someone would get screwed no matter what. Or if Malarkey didn't speak up and he should have. It looks like Bryan and Stephanie offer to move but I think he's busy being a martyr. Gregory is absolutely out of time, and can't shell his eggs in time. So he just dumps a bunch of spinach in a pan to replace the eggs. So that's zero egg dishes today? Lee Anne takes her clafoutis out, but she says the oven was on 100% steam? I'm not sure how that's supposed to work, but it sounds like they are too dense.

Time for service. It's very loud in this cafeteria. Malarkey is somehow in the first station? He is being Malarkey, which leads Karen in confessional to complain about how he's pimping himself out. It's just Malarkey. Melissa: romaine salad with grapefruit and maple buttermilk vinaigrette. Also ham congee with fried shallots and fresno chile. Stephanie: “breakfast salad” sweet potato, hard boiled egg, avocado, cranberries. Also buttermilk biscuits with fresh whipped ricotta and banana bacon jam. Gregory: fruit salad of pineapple, berries, marinated with habanero and vanilla. And marinated mushrooms with roasted tomatoes and wilted spinach. Brooke tells all the judges that Gregory was going to have an egg instead of spinach, and they seem to agree the spinach is a better choice. Also his fruit salad is spicy which is interesting. Stephanie's salad looks terrible but it tastes good. And the biscuits are excellent. Melissa's romaine salad is sad. Her congee is good, although it does have a lot of ham.

There is some shrieking because of course some moms are Top Chef fans and they love Lee Anne. Lee Anne: mixed berry clafoutis with lemon, thyme, maple, and whipped cream. And cinnamon nutmeg donuts with coffee crème anglese. Malarkey: spicy shrimp and chorizo soup, goat cheese, citrus, cilantro. Also fennel crusted steak, leeks and potatoes with horseradish dijon hollandaise. Gail says the chorizo soup is flavorless, but the steak is well cooked. Gail doesn't think that hollandaise tastes good either. The clafoutis has too much fruit, and Gail says it must have been steamed. The donut is dense and someone says it's stale. Tom makes a face.

Karen: corn cakes with feta cheese, hot and sweet syrup. Also white corn grits and braised pork and Parmesan cheese. Bryan: coriander roasted carrots with salsa verde. And potato shallot cake, Gruyere fondue and braised bacon gravy. Kelsey says the bacon is delicious, but it could overall be crispier. The carrots take forever to plate, which is hilarious and 100% Bryan. But it's amazing. Some random moms flirt with Bryan, as you do, and Karen is salty about it. Mostly she's salty that he made a better dish than she did? Who knows. The show is half over, you know he's always going to be extra, pay attention. Karen's grits are actually good, and the corn cake is actually well cooked. Some moms ask her for seconds so she can shut up about Bryan. The judges scatter to sit with random people and ask their opinions.

So the Stew Room is relocated to a nice balcony somewhere. Malarkey is still upset about the stations. Lee Anne says she had to have her fryers in a certain place, which makes sense. He just wanted someone to say something, because he didn't have the station he wanted. Lee Anne apologizes, and then he says “you guys just weren't being nice to me” and then everyone laughs including Malarkey. So was he not mad? I don't know.

Judges' Table. Tom knows the ingredients weren't the best, and this was a hard challenge. Brooke was shocked no one made eggs except Stephanie. Karen fills them in that everyone scrapped their egg dishes or she would have done one. Karen, Bryan, and Gregory are the tops. Karen starts crying because apparently she needed external validation that she deserved to come back from LCK. Or technically it's possible she's been pissed at everyone all morning but now that she's winning it's all fine. Lots of people loved her corn cakes, and asked for more than one. Bryan cooked his food, which is elevated food with meh ingredients. Gregory's mushrooms were perfect and no one missed the egg. Brooke says the winner is Bryan.

Lee Anne, Melissa, and Malarkey are the bottom. Lee Anne admits the clafoutis was steamed, the oven was set wrong. They all knew. Tom goes in for the kill and says she's done this before and he's shocked she wouldn't check the oven. Lee Anne is embarrassed, but then she's like, but did you like the donuts? No they were terrible too. She's not doing well. These are mental mistakes and not cooking mistakes. Melissa's congee was a great idea, and was good, but the salad was terrible. She wanted something light, but this salad was not worth it. Malarkey's soup was overcooked, but then even though he cooked it for over three hours, it didn't have any flavor. He says that because the shrimp were frozen, they thawed and thinned out the soup. But the steak was cooked really well.

They're not making cooking mistakes, but mental mistakes. Lee Anne had perfect brunch buffet items, but they were both terrible. And they were both baked/pastry, which take more technical concentration. Gail says at least she had two dishes that tried, unlike Melissa's romaine salad. Malarkey should have known not to try to cook frozen shrimp in the soup, you have to cook them separately because of the extra liquid.

To no one's surprise, Lee Anne is eliminated. She yells about Last Chance Kitchen, and hugs everyone and has a decently positive attitude. But it's time.

Next week: a six course progressive kaiseki meal for Olympic athletes. Someone didn't shell the crab. I think a rice failure. For a Japanese meal. Kaiseki is a detailed set of dishes that are always seasonal, and must be beautifully presented. I looked at Wikipedia and there is a list of courses. I'm not sure if they're just going to say they each have to make a dish, but this would be hard even if they don't make the contestants cook Japanese food.

Last Chance Kitchen: Lee Anne is ready to go and not surprised to see Kevin. Kevin says he hates brunch so he's not sorry to miss this challenge. It turns out that Lee Anne blamed Bryan for putting the oven on steam. I couldn't understand her when I watched that clip the first time. To be fair, during judging she didn't try to blame anyone. Tom is then shocked there were no eggs, which is shocking. This challenge is to make 3 perfect egg dishes. One perfect over-easy egg. Then a french omelette, then eggs Benedict. You have to finish one dish before you can start the next one, and the over easy egg and omelette have to be plain. Eggs Benedict can be creative, though. You don't have to wait for Tom to eat them, just make them and then move on. Kevin claims he doesn't cook eggs a lot, but Lee Anne will be very embarrassed if she fails.

30 minutes. Kevin runs into a cameraman and drops at least one egg on the floor. He knows Lee Anne is better at eggs than he is. His plan is to get the first two dishes done as fast as possible, to have as much time for poaching and hollandaise as possible. Lee Anne drains her fried egg on a towel, which Tom says is risky. They both turn in the over-easy eggs at the same time, after about 3 minutes. Both eggs have set whites, but part of the edge of Lee Anne's is dried out. But both yolks are still runny. Tom doesn't really say anything else.

A French omelette shouldn't have any color, but still be a little runny on the inside. That's Kevin's opinion anyway. Lee Anne actually makes a second omelette because she doesn't want any runnyness. Kevin turns in his omelette with 26 minutes to go. It maybe needs salt but is cooked well. Lee Anne's second omelette is very rich, possibly because she rubbed it with butter. It looks nicer than Kevin's.

When the peanut gallery asks Kevin what he's doing, he says eggs Benedict because he heard that's what Tom wanted. Nini says it was a fritatta. Heh. He doesn't eat a lot of bread, so he's making English muffin croutons. Then asparagus and prosciutto to go with the egg and hollandaise. Nini tries to ask Lee Anne what she's doing, and she completely ignores her. It's kind of rude? Because that's how LCK works and Lee Anne has been in LCK. She knows. Luckily Nini and Eric and Tom just laugh about it.

Tom Time! Immediately upon trying to get Lee Anne to answer questions, she cuts her finger and asks for a bandaid. But does not talk to Tom aside from that. Actually she keeps cutting things so I hope she's not getting blood on the food. Oh, she says she's throwing out her mise en place. Tom tells the peanut gallery it's because her knife wasn't sharp. Oo. She appears to have asparagus and pancetta. Interesting. There's also toasted nori on the...bacon? She also rolls her eyes at Kevin's deconstructed food because that's very 2006. Lee Anne has Hawaiian rolls and she's making her hollandaise with whole butter, so it's not really a hollandaise. I wonder if Tom will notice. Meanwhile, Tom has a basket of soft pretzels for the peanut gallery, and as he's fetching mustard Nini says that what they really need to go with these pretzels is a poached egg. Nini is really embracing the peanut gallery role and it is very fun.

Lee Anne poaches her eggs, and takes them out with seven minutes to go. So early. Tom thinks they'll get cold. Kevin is doing things more last minute. Lee Anne: asparagus, pancetta eggs Benedict with nori and miso hollandaise. Tom does asks what's in the sauce and I'm pretty sure he says “it's not hollandaise.” Kevin: roasted asparagus, prosciutto, poached egg and fried English muffin. Also a truffled mustard emulsion.

Kevin's fried egg was better, but Lee Anne's omelette was perfect as opposed to almost perfect. Kevin was creative with the English muffin and the egg was poached beautifully. Lee Anne left her eggs out too long, but turns out Tom doesn't care that it wasn't hollandaise. It comes down to the eggs, and the winner is Kevin. He's thrilled he beat someone with a brunch restaurant. Tom says the nori made the egg taste weirdly fishy. Kevin has one more chef to beat before he can get back in.