Previously on “Top Chef”: somehow contestants were required to make elevated comfort food but also use canned soup. It's a dumb gimmick but it did get me points in trivia this week for knowing about chicken tikka masala. Chris made panzanella with grilled cheese croutons and tomato vinaigrette and won (this was actually creative). For the Elimination challenge, the chefs went to an orchard where they picked fruit fresh off the trees to use in savory dishes. This was also the only produce they were allowed. Gabe won with fall spices and a ton of fruit and fruit flavors. Kiki served all the judges raw chicken and was sent home. (click for more)
On Last Chance Kitchen, Kiki and Sasha had to make raw dishes, and they both made very similar raw seafood plates. But in the end, Sasha had a little too much sauce so Kiki survived.
Nelson and Shota talk about how they're lucky they didn't go home. One of them says something about not going home for “not your food” which is some foreshadowing I am sure. Maria is mad she's been in the middle for basically this whole competition, and maybe she's not good, maybe she's too Mexican. Honestly early in the season the middle is a good place to be. There's so many people.
Padma is waiting for the Quickfire with a ton of roses. Amar is here too. Portland loves roses? “City of Roses”? Sure. The Quickfire has to do with Mother's Day. Maria seems to be the only mother in the room? Weird. Anyway, make a dish to pay tribute to the “mother figure” in your life. Also it must have roses or “rose flavored ingredients”, whatever those are. Other than rosewater. Winner gets immunity and an advantage.
I'm not sure how much time they have. There is a lot of shoving at the table for ingredients. Oh there's tea, that might be OK. Everyone talks about their moms which is sweet. Avishar has rose sugar? Maybe? He says he hates the taste of roses and has banned rosewater from his restaurant. Heh. Maria is making shrimp but is allergic to shrimp. Why. Sara is making salad, and of course is putting yogurt in there. Gabriel is upset because he doesn't have a good relationship with his mom. Fair. He's thinking of his sister who just gave birth. Chris is making Haitian porridge. It's a risk because the last time he made Haitian food it was terrible, but it does remind him of his mom. No one seems particularly thrilled with what they're making, but that is probably because most of them don't use rose flavored anything.
Chris: labouyi: cornmeal porridge with rosewater and candied pistachios. He also brings Padma a rose which everyone laughs about. Byron: crab salad with rose and pistachio agrodolce. Jamie: “Mama's imperial roll”: pork, shrimp, and mushroom spring roll with rose salt and vinaigrette. Sara: “fancy salad”: grilled romaine, rose yogurt vinaigrette and pistachio rose crumble. Avishar: sole, hollandaise, and asparagus infused with rose. Gabriel: cured snapper with hibiscus rose juice and rose pickles. Maria: arugula salad with rose vinaigrette, crusted shrimp and rose sugar papaya. Nelson: “Puerco Criolla”: sweet plantains, butterfly pea flour beans. It's roast pork. Shota: rose mochi ball with rose syrup and rose water yuzu fruit. Dawn: fennel and rose fritter with macerated peaches and rose cream. Gabe: rose of turbot cured in rose and smoked in rosebuds.
Of course some people screwed up. Maria made a heavy salad. Sara's salad had too much rose. Nelson only put rose in his beans and it wasn't enough. Byron had a good balance, Chris made porridge in a short time and it was creamy, Gabe also balanced everything perfectly. The winner is Chris. Nice. He says his mom would be proud of his dish.
Elimination challenge. Time for Blais. Drive-ins have seen a resurgence, since you can stay in your car and not breath other people's germs. True. The contestants have to feed 50 cars of “movie buffs”, only they don't get to watch a movie. They will, however, be watching footage of the contestants cooking. Interesting. You have to be able to eat your dish in the car. It's a team challenge, so everyone will be drawing knives except for Chris. They get into two groups. Jamie immediately pegs Gabriel as a problem. The menu is inspired by different film genres. Someone paid for a marquee to drop from the ceiling. What a waste of money. Anyway, each team has to have one person make a dish from each of these categories, to be served in the following order: comedy, drama, action, sci-fi, horror, and romance. It will be head-to-head battles, and if there is a 3-3 tie, then the best dish overall will decide the winning team. Shota complains that it's too complicated, which is funny. Has he not seen the show? Chris gets to pick the team he wants, and he takes the team with Gabriel, Shota, Nelson, Sara, and Jamie. You'll notice that this means the other team (Dawn, Gabe, Avishar, Maria, and Byron) only has five people so someone has to make two dishes. Bravo you really need to learn to count and plan your challenges. I will never forgive you for having a 12 Days of Christmas challenge with only 11 people.
45 minutes to shop and plan. Everyone tries to discuss who wants what courses. On the Green team we have Byron doing comedy, Dawn with drama, Maria action, Gabe horror, Avishar sci-fi, and somehow they'll all do romance. They decide making Korean fried chicken and calling it “KFC” is enough comedy. Sure. Horror will be some kind of seafood cocktail, and action is a Sonoran hot dog (Maria says she can make 65 sausages). Sonoran hot dogs are wrapped in bacon and topped with beans. Yellow team is Jamie comedy, Chris drama, Gabriel action, Shota horror, Nelson sci-fi, and Sara romance. Shota wants to make a black corndog and put red cheese inside. Sara suggests a milkshake. Avishar wants to make astronaut s'mores, like astronaut ice cream. Aw yeah. Dawn is making a duo of popcorn? Sure. Churros for dessert. But churros with pate inside? Maria says she thinks it's not good, but maybe other people like it. Somehow ribs are dramatic and pupusas are sci-fi. I guess because they're UFO-shaped? Gabriel is definitely taking over and questioning everyone. Jamie suggests something, and he asks how that's funny, and then tells her that chicken wings are funny because you can make a funny bone reference. She doesn't want to make wings but they have like a minute left so she just agrees. Gabriel has been so concerned with everyone else that he doesn't come up with his dish until the last minute, and then decides that cauliflower tots are good for action. Dipping is an action. Sara doesn't buy it. Yeah, neither do I.
Back at the hotel Maria gets the call home this week. She immediately bursts into tears upon seeing her wife and son. She's been doubting herself, and she's here to prove female Mexican chefs are good, and by the end of the call she seems to tell herself to get it together.
2.5 hours to cook at the Top Chef kitchen, I think. Dawn says her popcorn will be rich and sweet and spicy and that's drama. There is some minor trash talk between teams, and Dawn says that Chris is making ribs but ribs are maybe too messy for a car. Gabriel is acting like the executive chef, but no one asked. It'd be one thing if he was asking “Chris how are those ribs coming?” because it's possible the producers want Chris to talk about the ribs and they forced someone to ask. But following that with “Make sure you taste all of those shallots and make sure none of them are bitter” is just being bossy. They don't need your help. Sara says he can pretend to be in charge but she's going to do whatever she wants anyway. Gabe thinks they're underdogs. Avishar has what looks like a tray of marshmallows in the wood burning oven, and the entire tray is just on fire, and he's completely calm like “Now we have s'mores”. You gotta light the marshmallow on fire for the best s'mores do not @ me. Gabriel knows his cauliflower tots are up against hot dogs, but he says some garbage about how the movies have all this unhealthy stuff you “have to” eat so this is healthy. OK first of all no one is making you eat anything at the movies and secondly the point of the movies is to eat popcorn with too much fake butter and candy. Come on. This is reminding me of the Chicago season where they had to tailgate and Ryan made like, poached pears or some shit and insisted that's what he thinks is tailgate. OOHHHHHH. He's a former fat kid. Still. You either eat junk at the movies or you don't eat.
Tom Time! Blais is here too. Jamie is at least able to act like she thinks chicken is funny. She's giggling a lot anyway. Tom and Blais just kind of leave. Gabriel tells them his “dipping is action” concept and they look just as skeptical as they did of Jamie's connection. Avishar has burnt marshmallow ice cream, and then he says he's from outer space. If anyone will love this concept it's Blais. Then Avishar reveals he's worked at wd-50, which is Wylie Dufresne's place so of course he's used to this wacky kind of stuff. Maria is both making sausages and baking bread which is a lot of work.
Gabe says his seafood cocktail looks like body parts. Shota thinks his dish fits the theme better. At least the two comedy people are both chicken. Byron says he's worked fine dining for a long time, and now he's able to make what he wants. Lots of running around to pack for transport. And it's raining.
They're outside in tents, in the rain, trying to light kettle grills and stuff. Maria was planning to bake her bread on site and there are only two little ovens. Jamie likes her chicken super crunchy, but “my team” (aka Gabriel) tells her to fry it less, and she's just going to go along with it for the sake of the team. Padma comes back onscreen and says their first genre is—and then she let people pie her in the face. Heh. Jamie: sticky fried chicken wings and fish sauce glaze. Byron: Korean-style gochujang fried chicken. He does not call it KFC. The wings are limp and messy, but Byron had like, bites and skewers and it was actually crispy. I think everyone is voting with their phones. Byron wins the point.
To introduce drama Padma puts on some aviator shades and yells “You want the food?! You can't handle the food!” as she sweeps a bunch of stuff off a table. Hee! Dawn: duo of popcorn: duck skin furikake popcorn and spiced caramel popcorn. Chris: harissa BBQ ribs with crispy shallots and pickled celery. Some rando says “who eats ribs at a movie?” but who eats any of this shit at a movie? You're on TV, dumbass. Amar says the ribs have a good coating but inside they're bland. Also it's hard to eat ribs in the car. Dawn did take 4 hours to make popcorn, but it's delicious. Tom eats all of his and what's left of Padma's. Dawn wins.
Padma comes out in a tracksuit, makes a “Mission: Impossible” pun, and cracks a whip. Padma the internet is going to lose it. Gabriel: cauliflower tots with vadouvan curry yogurt and calabrian chili aioli. Maria: Sonoran dog with homemade bun. The hot dog is excellent and the tots are gummy and bad as we expected. Maria wins. Padma lets Tom announce the winner and he says “woof woof” which is why he's not doing the announcements.
Yellow team has to win all the rest of the rounds. They made Padma put a garbage alien mask on. Nelson: “Unidentified Dominican Object”—UDO: jerk pork, corn, and candied yams, in a pupusa so a round puck. Avishar: OK Avishar says something about space and how here on earth his name is Danny? I don't know. Anyway: star s'more: burnt marshmallow ice cream, liquid graham, and milk chocolate. Tom and Padma yell for more s'mores. Nelson's dish was also good, tasty. Tom says that the ice cream was the most appropriate dish so far. Of course somehow Nelson wins with 2/3 of the vote because otherwise Green team wins and who cares about the rest of the dishes. The audience voting all knows if they vote Green then the competition is basically over so I'm sure there are some shenanigans going on.
Shota: cheesy bloody dog: Japanese bechamel with cheddar cheese. Gabe: Mexican campechana, oysters, scallops, dungeness crab, and charred shrimp. Campechana is a seafood cocktail. Gabe really hams it up but the dish is not good. Shota's dish looks terrible and no one wants to eat it. It tasted OK? Gabe's dish didn't have a good flavor. Shota squeaks out a win. Of course, so the last course will matter.
Sara: “Your Place or Mine Milkshake”: chocolate hazelnut milkshake with strawberry miso whip. Green team: churro with chicken liver mousse, strawberry sauce, and dulce de leche. The shake is cute (Sara talked about sharing a milkshake with your sweetheart) and it's easy to eat in the car. The churros are too weird. Melissa says she liked them though. Sara wins, which means the Yellow team wins and ties it. So the overall best dish will decide, and they won't tell them until Judges' Table.
We actually see everyone walk into the Stew Room so you can see it's actually a covered patio. So they're outside. Padma collects everyone, which no one is surprised by.
Judges' Table. The favorite dish of the night was made by Byron. He's clearly surprised. So that means Green team wins after all. Padma says there's another twist, and Byron asks if he gets immunity. She says no, but you do get $10,000. Sweet. Tom tells Avishar he matched his theme really well, and I think that was Tom's favorite dish of the night. Dawn's popcorn was delicious, and Maria put in a lot of work. Blais says he never would have dared to try that much work. She says she's wanted to get feedback, she didn't go to culinary school, and now it's like she's in 14 schools at once. Tom says you don't come out of culinary school able to make sausage and bread like that, so don't doubt you are good at what you do. Padma tells Gabe his dish fell flat tonight.
Time for Yellow team. Padma says they lacked imagination. Gabriel sort of says something about dipping action, but everyone knows it's lame. The tots weren't good and the sauces were even similar. Chris would have put more flavor in his ribs if he could do it again, which the judges agree on. But he has immunity. Jamie's wings were messy and they weren't bold. They ask why she even did wings at all, and she nobly does not say it was Gabriel's idea but just says some shit about funny bones. The editors insert a shot of Gabriel looking uncomfortable here. Sara wasn't super creative, but her milkshake was delicious. Shota really embraced the challenge, but it didn't taste that good.
The judges agree Nelson and Sara both won their head-to-head, and since Blais liked her dish so much she's probably safe. But overall the team was not creative enough. Shota was creative, but the dish was bad. But he tried. Gabriel's tots were so boring. Jamie's wings needed more crunch. She's back in the Stew Room saying it was her mistake because in the end it's her dish and she made the decisions.
Jamie is sent home because of course. Of course she goes home and not Gabriel, who basically told her to make that dish that way. Cauliflower tots! He's not even sorry. She says she's not a soggy cooker.
Next week: double elimination, Native American food? Teams again? I'm not sure.
Last Chance Kitchen: Jamie is frustrated because she let her team tell her to not cook her wings as much and that's what sent her home. I think it was mostly Gabriel but sure. Everyone is very shocked to see her. Kiki is a little worried. Tom says that Jamie was inspired by a rubber chicken and then served them a rubber chicken. Tom continues with puns which are all terrible. We're reminded of the last All-Stars where they bid on how quickly they could cook until they only had 20 minutes. This time, they each get one chicken. There are 12 parts, and Tom wants to see how many parts they can include in one dish. Jamie picks the liver, and they go back and forth picking pieces. In the end they have liver, oysters, skin, feet (everyone yells at Kiki but Tom loves it), thigh. Kiki says she's good with this. Tom starts with 30 minutes but asks Kiki if she can do it in 25. Jamie refuses to play the game, because they need time for the feet. Tom goes to ask Kiki if she can do it in 24 minutes, and Jamie says “No he's like a used car salesman! Don't do it! It's a lemon!” Hee.
25 minutes after all that. Jamie shrieks and says she doesn't know. The peanut gallery jokes that it's like Tom wants to eat raw chicken. Jamie grabs a baguette, to spread with the liver and then dip in a curry. Sasha tells Kiki to fry the whole leg. You get the feet, the thigh, and the oyster all in one piece. I don't know if the peanut gallery should be helping that much. I think Jamie is somehow making chili oil with the feet? Kiki has been talking about frying this whole time, how she's going to fry the thighs and feet, and then all of a sudden she looks at the piece of chicken in her hand and realizes it's a foot and drumstick. She already threw the thighs into her stockpot with all the other pieces she wasn't using. Oops. She just keeps going because she doesn't really have a choice. Jamie is flailing slightly. Kiki can't find her thermometer to make sure the chicken is done. The kitchen doesn't have one? Weird. Then she makes some ranch.
Tom Time! Roscoe immediately says “Oh, shit” which is somehow hilarious. Kiki says she has herbed yogurt, and she's trying to fry him some chicken. And also making stock. Tom just stares at her for a second and she's like “you're scaring the shit out of me.” Jamie is flailing but she's basically just saying things at Tom as she works. She's worried the curry might be too salty. And then she takes a shot of brandy right at the end.
Jamie: chili chicken stock with grilled chicken thighs, liver and mousse in red curry, and baguette. Kiki: chicken drumstick and fennel, Napa cabbage, radicchio slaw with stock. It's a drumstick attached to the foot which looks crazy. Tom says this is tough. Kiki's breading is a little underseasoned. Jamie did a good job using all her ingredients so she's the winner. Yay! Yeah I think Kiki fried the foot and then everything else was just in the stock. She says she realized here how she should be cooking, which is to make what you want to eat. Tom says one more thing: whoever wins next week can come back to the competition. So since it's a double elimination, do you have one person win and then the bottom two are battling the week after? Do you get rid of them all and then LCK takes a week off? Who knows.
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