Previously on “Top Chef”: everybody was supposed to make queso, and they did, to various amounts of success. Damarr won by using hot peppers as dippers for his queso. Then everyone got into two teams to cook...on a football field. Oh and everything had to be carb-forward. Why? Who knows. There was some strategy involved in how you paired up your team members with the other team, since you were going head-to-head. No one actually won, since you had to go a certain distance to win and no one got that far. Yeah, it was that confusing. Anyway, Damarr won again, for making dirty rice but with barley. Stephanie, she of the “Midwestern” cuisine, went home for making feijoada but then taking out all the meat and serving beans and broken rice. (click for more)
On Last Chance Kitchen, Leia and Stephanie had to make weird proteins, snake and gator respectively. Leia did a better job so she gets to move on to the next round.
Sarah gets her phone call home to talk to her fiance. It's not that exciting except she says something about wondering about yourself if you graduate culinary school but don't go to a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Padma is waiting for everyone with Hung. Also there are a bunch of random people making things over to the side. He's gone entirely gray and it suits him. It's been FIFTEEN years. Jeez. Anyway, Houston is full of Asians and every so often they have a night market. I wish we had something like that here. There are ten local chefs here right now, making some of their tastes. Evelyn knows everybody.
There is no Quickfire this week. Instead just the Elimination Challenge: make a street food dish for the “Asian Night Market”. You do not get to pick which cuisine you are making. It's a knife draw. Luke admits he is not familiar with Indian food, which sucks for him. Also Sam and Buddha have Indian. Ashleigh, Jae, and Monique have Chinese; Jackson, Evelyn, and Sarah have Vietnamese; Damarr and Nick have Japanese; Jo and Robert have Filipino. Jo really lucked out. Tomorrow you will have one hour to make 100 portions. You get to shop at a specialty market though. You guys, what if Stephanie had to be here.
So everyone goes to eat and take notes. It looks so good. Sarah is allergic to shellfish, but she says only the shell. Jo knows that she could easily go home for cooking food she knows, but she's still excited. Buddha seems somewhat confident about Indian, but he has to serve Padma. He's asking good questions though, like could I fry this instead of baking it. Sam teaches kids about cooking, so he's trying to keep it simple because that's what he's used to. Ashleigh is reminded of her food by the Sichuan food. Nick is shocked to think there is fried chicken in Japan? I mean I guess. Jackson reminds us he can't taste anything. He's asking about herbs and stuff, and he talks about smells and whatnot, but he's probably feeling nervous right now. There are no teams, so there's no one to easily ask about how his food is.
We have a brief car commercial, which I am sure no one cares about, so everyone can drive to the market. The market is cool though because at least one team goes to Ranch 99 which I wish we had here. I did discover the one ethnic market that I hadn't gone to yet, that is by all the student apartments so it's got like, ready-to-eat stuff and meat packaged for one person and stuff like that. Jae says she can smell someone making soup and she's hungry. She's thinking noodles. Jo is just starting to embrace her ethnic childhood, which she didn't as a kid. Yeah it's hard as a kid to have weird food. Damarr and Nick are asking the workers in the store about stuff because some of it isn't even in English. Evelyn has actually staged in Thailand and traveled so she is feeling more confident than the other people. Sam loves vindaloo and he wants to make it more “Sam”.
So everyone comes back to the kitchen to cook, and I don't remember Padma saying how much time they have to cook today. Someone has a bahn mi with chicken heart? I didn't see who it was. Evelyn is going to try to blend Vietnamese with her Mexican. Jackson says maybe he'll make a spring roll. He loves pho but you can't really walk around with that.
Tom Time! And Hung. Buddha is making chicken samosas. Tom gives him a lot of shit for having to serve Indian food to Padma. Hey, there was a season where someone accidentally made a classic Indian dish and she was super impressed, so it's possible. Curds and rice? I think that's what it was. Luke is also making samosas, but he says his is crab so it's different. He says he understands how they develop flavors. Yeah, that's what Buddha was saying, you need time to develop flavors. Jae has noodles with Chinese sausage. She's never made Chinese food before. Ashleigh starts to describe her dish, and Hung makes a face and she calls him out on it. It's top sirloin that she's going to coat in sweet potato starch and fry, I think, and it might get tough.
Damarr is making miso soup with ham hocks. Is soup street food? You know, you can just drink miso without a bunch of stuff in it, I guess. My friend and I went to a Japanese place once and got yelled at that miso soup was for drinking. “No spoon! You drink!” I guess I don't look Asian enough and she thought we were ignorant white girls. Anyway, lots of last minute working and wrapping things in plastic wrap. When time is up there are two big pans of potatoes left on the stove. Sam has forgotten to pack them up, and they're the centerpiece of his dish.
In the morning, Jo, Evelyn, and Ashleigh hang out and Jo interviews that she really likes them and their chill vibes. Or, the fact that under stress they get funny.
The “night market” looks like it's on a roof somewhere, just fake grass and booths and tall tables artfully arranged. Everyone rushes to get ready. There are also signs with the dishes on them. Jackson has a ton of prep to do. Sam says he has more potatoes, so he's not completely screwed. But he has to grill potatoes right now which might backfire. Jae is feeling the pressure because she seems to have a million ingredients. Buddha is going to fry his samosas, even though I'm pretty sure he was told that would make them soggy. Luke is frying too? And Ashleigh. Monique's family is Filipino but she's never cooked anything Filipino professionally. Jackson is still serving others food so they can tell him if it's good or not.
Everyone arrives, and I wish we could get Top Chef here so me and Kmanpat can go and eat a bunch of creative food and attempt to get on camera. Evelyn: chilled chicken salad with rau ram, rambutan, avocado crema and sesame crisps. It's a big rice cracker with the salad on top. Rau ram is also called Vietnamese coriander, and rambutan is a fruit like a lychee. Tom says if he didn't have a bunch of other things to eat he'd ask for seconds. Nice. They all really like it. Luke: crab and corn samosa with spicy fig and tamarind sauce. They're also walking around with an Indian chef. It seemed to turn out fine and not greasy. Tom says it's the best thing he's made.
Nick: chicken karaage with pickled Fresno chiles, ginger and peach miso sauce. Tender and not greasy, but maybe not a ton of Japanese flavor. Jae: stir fried udon with Chinese sausage, Korean melon and ramen topping. Everyone eats and no one speaks, which is probably a good sign. Ashleigh: crispy mala beef skewer with red daikon. There is a lot of shrugging and faces. I think it's too chewy and the pieces are too big. Sarah: chicken heart banh mi toast with liver mousse and pickled vegetables. There's a dipping sauce too. The bread got soggy and it's just OK, sounds like.
Robert: grilled chicken thighs with peanut sauce, rice and fermented shrimp paste. It's pungent. Luckily we're talking pros and they like shrimp paste because there's a lot. Buddha: chicken karahi samosa with tamarind chutney and yogurt sauce. Karahi refers to the cooking pot (like tandoori). He admits he fried the puff pastry and it turns out it did turn out greasy and raw on the inside. They know he was told not to fry it. Monique: rice cakes with braised pork belly, fermented beans and fresh pea sprouts. She had all of the flavors but the rice cakes were bland. They weren't infused.
Jo: chicken tocino with banana ketchup and chili sugarcane sawsawan. Tocino is usually very crispy pork belly, but this is chicken skewers. Sawsawan is a vinegar dipping sauce. The condiments are good, but the chicken itself isn't as flavorful. Padma wanted her to go further since she knows this cuisine. Damarr: ham hock miso soup with togarashi hot sauce. It's very complex and honestly it sounds like a great fusion to me. Sam: “samaloo” potato curry with pomegranate chutney. Rather than admit to forgetting his potatoes he spins some bullshit about wanting people to smell what he was cooking and he just grilled them. But of course they're undercooked and you don't put grilled potatoes in curry anyway. Jackson: fresh spring roll with sausage, shallot and pho reduction dipping sauce. The sauce was flavorful and I guess he's once again gotten away with not being able to taste anything.
Judges' Table. Tom says overall he's excited about this. It's tricky to do well if you've never made Asian food before. Evelyn, Jackson, and Jae are the tops. Interesting. Jae's noodles and vegetables were very well balanced, and then the melon was out of left field but it totally worked. Jackson made his spring rolls spicy and the sauce was apparently excellent. Evelyn balanced everything. The winner is Jae. She seems very surprised. She wins $10,000 and she's shocked at that too.
Bottoms are Buddha, Ashleigh, and Sam. Ashleigh says she did her best. The flavors were fine but the meat was chewy and the daikon was cut too big. Also it needed salt. Buddha shouldn't have fried his puff pastry and the inside of his samosas was not done. Padma says the filling and the chutneys were too sweet. Sam says he doesn't grill potatoes, this is the new new, who grills potatoes? Yeah exactly. Tom asks him if he would grill potatoes again, and he says “After this? Hell no”. Hee. They were underdone. He would change it if given the chance but he doesn't regret what he did because he's learning. Still not admitting to having forgotten the potatoes.
In the Stew Room Buddha insists people were telling him that his dish was their favorite so he's surprised. Ashleigh put huge pieces on her skewer and the daikon was flavorless. Tom says it didn't go far enough. Buddha tried very hard but his flavors weren't bold enough. Also they hate the pastry. Sam didn't make a vindaloo. It wasn't spicy and then the potatoes were raw and it was misguided. Sam is back in the Stew Room insisting he's trying to push boundaries. Honestly I'm not sure why he doesn't come clean with fucking up.
Tom says some stuff about learning from other cultures, and usually you'd experiment but they don't have the luxury for experimenting here. Sam is sent home. Aww. I like him a lot. He says it's heartbreaking, but he has his two hands and that's all he needs. He says it's not about the failure, it's about picking yourself up. Someone will watch this and learn from his failure and be better than him. Aww.
Next week: Wylie Dufresne, working in pairs, double elimination. Making two dishes that look identical but taste different.
Last Chance Kitchen: Sam says his dish was great and he shouldn't have been eliminated. Then he references Bezos which is too bad because I like Sam. Leia thinks she's the underdog here.
Of course there is a huge table of potatoes because the LCK producers are trolls. There are also a bunch of ingredients like garlic, bacon, whatever. Also some tools. Tom says the game is “PotatOH No You Don't!” Someone has been watching too much Drag Race. You have to call dibs on whatever you use, taking turns, and then the other person can't use that thing. After five rounds anything left is off the table too. Leia goes first and takes the bacon. Leia: bacon, onions (that appears to be all kinds of onions, white, yellow, red, green, and shallots), mandolin, peeler, cream. She admits the mandolin and peeler are purely so Sam can't have them. Sam: fryer, butter, garlic, cheese (also taken for strategery purposes), grill. Everyone laughs at him, and he's still insisting that the grill was on purpose because he's pushing boundaries.
35 minutes to cook. Leia has all sweet potatoes, and she's making hash that she has on her brunch menu. Sam has a bunch of different potatoes and he interviews that she's making something she's made before, and do you want someone making something they've always made or someone who kicks in the door and says “this is what I made”? I mean not if “this is what I made” is raw potatoes. He's still grilling potatoes, but at least the small kind. He has no plan, but he says he never has a plan. He's babbling about diversifying. Leia is roasting her cubed potatoes in the wood-burning oven.
Tom Time! He quotes Lord of the Rings to Sam, about making potatoes every possible way. Leia has a little breakfast, and it might be safe, but she goes on about how this is who she is and she's traditional and everything will be perfect. Sam is boiling potatoes to get starch for his sauce. Also funk. I don't know. He doesn't know either.
Leia: sweet potato hash with bacon, kale, and poached egg. It's well cooked and seasoned. Sam: potatoes in garlic butter potato sauce. Some are fried, some are grilled, some I think are boiled and smashed? Many things. The sauce is silky and I think these potatoes are cooked. Tom says it's a tough one, but the winner is Leia. Sam's dish has too many fried parts and it's greasy. He says he made something original and creative. OK he's starting to get on my nerves so maybe this is for the best.
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