Previously on “Top Chef”: there was a Quickfire that involved cherries and other random ingredients. Rasika won (again) for making a balanced dish with cherries and onions. Then since we are front-loading all the stereotypical challenges, we had a cheese festival. Nearly everyone made croquettes, because the random diners were choosing the winner and I guess everyone thought they would want fried cheese. Michelle made saag paneer with collard greens (and a croquette, to be fair) and she won. Kenny got gorgonzola cheese and thought “crab rangoon salad” and then didn't save any of his relish for the judges, so he was sent home. (click for more)
Last Chance Kitchen: Kenny and Soo had to make something with limburger cheese, and Soo's “eggplant parm but with limburger” ended up winning over Kenny's “rice paper pizza with egg and limburger”.
Kristen immediately tells everyone no Quickfire this week. They are all still on the lawn from the last challenge. It's time to head to Madison along the Frank Lloyd Wright Trail. When they get there, they will get a tour of Taliesin, which was Wright's home and studio. Danny says his dad is an architect, and he has a passion for architecture. Tom talks about the idea of “compress and release”, meaning many of the rooms in the buildings start off with a low ceiling, then open up when you get to the main part of the room or building. So the Elimination Challenge is to create two dishes inspired by Wright and duality. Michelle says this is outside her realm of cooking, which is what she's said almost every challenge right before crushing it. The “duality” can be whatever: light and dark, compress and release, whatever. Oh and they have to pair up, but they can pick their own partners. Very awkward and no one is thrilled. Alisha and Kaleena (Team Chicago, Kaleena says), Rasika and Danny, Manny and Kevin (Manny says they were both in the bottom last round so they are clearly the “Power Bottoms” (lol)), Savannah and Laura, Amanda and Dan, Michelle and Charly. Kristen reminds Charly that Michelle won immunity, and he says he's not nervous, they're trying to win. Fair. Then Kristen drops a huge bombshell: Michelle's immunity extends to Charly. Woah. Michelle is also thrilled, and I can see rewarding someone who has the confidence. If your team is in the bottom you're automatically out, so you better be sure you can do it. Kristen says there is a good reason for this (aside from rewarding Charly's risk) and that is because it's going to be a double elimination. You can't send home two people if one of the pair is immune. Although you could wait an episode and tell the person with immunity they don't have to cook and get to eat with the judges. 3 hours to prep and cook, at the restaurant at Taliesin, which Wright designed. Buddha will be here, along with Dominique Crenn. Winners will get $10,000 and immunity. Kristen has “dossiers” for them.
In the car, Dan reads aloud for no reason. Alisha and Kaleena want to see everything first and get inspired, rather than having ideas right now. They're getting a suspicious amount of screen time. Burnham Block is a row of little houses that were intended for cheap housing. They are for sure Frank Lloyd Wright, but they don't look like the projects, as Charly fills us in. Laura compares architecture and cooking, using basic ingredients to cause emotions. Monona Terrace is in downtown Madison, and seems to be a community center that is a semi-circle of windows sticking out into the water, with a big courtyard on top. I'm linking everything so you can see pictures. Facing one side, you can look at downtown, and the other side looks out on the lake. Lots of circles. Inside it feels 60s. Like a 60s sci-fi movie that said “futuristic” and that's what they got. Huge windows and a ton of light and curves everywhere. Kaleena says coming up with a dish is very hard.
They end at Taliesin, which has a museum and the restaurant inside. The hallways have low ceilings and are dim, and then each room is open and has a ton of windows. Rasika loves this style. Everything is similar but different. Danny wishes they could use some of the dishes on display. The drafting studio is a huge open room with big triangular beams and supports. The chefs get to sit at the tables and get their dishes together. Kaleena and Alisha are sort of talking about a surf and turf pairing, but “land and water”, but they don't seem to agree quite yet. Laura talks about sweet and savory, but also familiar and less familiar? Danny and Rasika seem to agree on red and green curry: not only colors but heavy vs. lighter, spicy vs. not spicy. Amanda and Dan want to talk about poverty and wealth. Maybe elevate cheap ingredients. Michelle is also inspired by the Burnham Block, and I think both she and Charly are making dishes from childhood. I'm not sure how they show duality. Manny and Kevin are going for dark and light, based on their different personalities. Kaleena and Alisha come up with something. They are seriously getting more screen time than everyone.
While shopping Dan thinks he will find Amanda by cawing. I don't know. She feels they are both nerds so this is a good pairing. Then they declare themselves “Damanda” and the editors put in sound effects and a logo. Savannah and Laura are doing “comfortable and familiar” vs. “uncomfortable”. I'm not sure why ribeye with tempura maiitake mushrooms makes people uncomfortable but sure. Part of the plan is to thicken the tempura sauce with some spice called “wild pistachio” that Laura has brought from home. I mention it because Savannah says she's never used it before but she trusts Laura and it should be fine. Foreshadowing.
At the hotel, I guess they kicked everyone else out of the bar/lounge area so the chefs could hang out. Manny and Kevin judge everyone. Savannah is relaxed and Laura is a perfectionist. Rasika and Danny are the technical team. Kaleena and Alisha refuse to tell anyone what they're making. Kaleena says if they talk about it, she'll feel less about it and that will throw her off tomorrow. I mean I guess. They all laugh about how it's not going to be a croquette-off. Ha!
Time for cooking. They have three hours. Rasika is making daal (lentils) and the chyron says “similar/different”. Is that a duality? I guess so. I feel like this criteria is nebulous and will be applied in a haphazard manner, so the judges can justify whatever elimination they feel like. Rasika and Danny have a very technical dish with a lot of moving parts, so to speak. But the idea is that the dishes have to go together, that they don't work by themselves. Michelle says she and Charly have the duality of “chicken/egg”. OK I don't think that is a duality, but they have immunity so I guess it doesn't matter. Charly is making egg mousse and Michelle has fried chicken. Amanda and Dan have “poverty/wealth”, so one bougie dish and one humble dish. Dan says he's making potato mousse and setting it with carrageenan (seaweed) which I only mention because it has to set up and mentioning it means it might not. Also leek cylinders. Manny and Kevin are doing “dark/light”, with pasta in white sauce and chocolate dessert. They giggle about how Manny is kneading pasta and shaking the whole table.
Danny has a ruler to be super anal about how the vegetables will look identical. They both worked at the French Laundry, but Rasika is excited to make Tamil food elevated. Savannah and Laura have “comfortable/uncomfortable” and Laura's spice reminds Savannah of tobacco. Is she uncomfortable with it? Is that bad in the end? Laura is making this sauce with the wild pistachio because she is more familiar with the spice. Alisha knows precision is important, but she's not doing that well at cutting cucumbers straight. She and Kaleena have “land/sea” which IMHO is the most boring of the dualities. Well...OK I still feel “chicken/egg” is not a duality but you get what I'm saying. Kaleena interviews that she has fewer components in her goat cheese cheesecake (I think that's what she said) but they are more time consuming. Then she also says she doesn't have a recipe, she's going off memory. That's foreshadowing for sure. Also the part where she tells Alisha she needs “a couple of hours” for her cheesecake to set, but it'll be fine, she'll put it in the freezer. Pretty sure they have like, less than two hours and she's only now making her crust, but she's very dismissive. Dan is making cannoli, but you can see as he tries to roll things that his hands are shaking and it's not cold enough. Then they show a timer that says one hour left. I told you.
Michelle is making rectangular mushroom biscuits and she's praying they work out. Amanda helps Dan use liquid nitrogen to freeze his stuff so it can be rolled. The judges arrive and Kristen fangirls about Buddha and Dominique. Buddha says he loves double eliminations. He would. Laura says something about building a little house with phyllo dough. Danny is dipping mousse into glaze. I don't know half of what they're doing but it looks cool. Alisha tells Kaleena she has half an hour left, and Kaleena says “I need to finish getting these baked”. They're not done baking and she will have less than 30 minutes to get them cold and set. Alisha is smirking but it's the facial expression of “I fucking knew it”. Her dish is going to be more “open” and Kaleena's dish is supposed to be tight. Alisha is starting to freak out.
Danny: scallop mousse, zucchini and green chartreuse. Rasika: daal quenelle, pickled beets, carrot puree, and rasam. Each plate is a quenelle, a little football shaped thing, and then the zucchini and carrots are exactly the same size and shape. Rasam is like a soup, and I'm not sure why Danny's dish didn't have a soup too. The idea is the dishes look the same except for color, but it's scallops in one and daal in the other. There is even a tiny cube of bell pepper on each quenelle. It looks very striking. Tom liked that Rasika's dish had much bolder flavors than Danny's.
Manny is making a farce, which is a meat paste basically, and he says he's not spending the time he usually does on it. Amanda and Dan have good communication and also both say they are shaking. Dan: leek cannoli with potato mousse, potato tuile, pickle and kombu salad. So they took a layer of the leek, and then rolled the potato mousse in that. Then there is a salad, with flower-shaped potato tuiles on top of it. It looks very pretty but it's basically potatoes, leeks, and pickles. He has the poverty side of things. Amanda: angel hair pasta with scallop, caviar, kombu oil and seafood broth. It looks like a fancy pasta dish with broth. The leek is not cooked enough and the the tuiles are salty, but Tom loves the concept and the idea. Amanda's dish is great. Kristen thinks they both overthought and maybe went too far into deconstruction.
It sounds like Alisha asks Kaleena to come look at her plates, and I guess give opinions, but Kaleena of course does not have time. Alisha announces “OK! I'm gonna do me then” so that's how that's going. As we could have expected, the cheesecake has not set as much as Kaleena wanted, and the crust is too hard. So she doesn't have the circles she wanted. She tells Alisha to get out of her way so she can finish plating, as Alisha tells her that the whole point of their dish was precision and these plates don't have precise knife cuts. Is that the whole point of their dish? Alisha won't drop it, and honestly I get her but they have 15 minutes left until they have to serve and there isn't a lot they can do. She's mad Kaleena wouldn't look at her plates and Kaleena is mad Alisha won't help I guess. They're just doing their own thing. Now the argument has degenerated into “I need you to breathe” vs. “I need you to stop stressing me out”. Suddenly they have precise cuts and unclean plates.
Alisha: aguachile with shrimp, cucumber, and lime. Kaleena: mushroom and goat cheese cheesecake, sesame tuile, candied mushrooms, and spruce syrup. They do look nice. No one can get through the cheesecake crust. Also no one is impressed with Alisha's dish and Tom says it's “first year culinary student trying to make a fancy dish”. Everything clashes, and within each of their dishes it clashes. Buddha also confirmed in a blog post that he didn't get salmon roe on his plate, which is not good considering Alisha didn't technically cook anything and only had to make six plates.
Manny is worried about his pasta. Manny: chicken and mushroom fiori with sauce poulet au vin jaune. It looks like he made a long narrow ravioli and then rolled it up and stood it on end so it looked like a flower. “Poulet” is chicken and “vin jaune” is a type of wine. Kevin: warm praline chocolate mousse, bitter chocolate tuile, and Mexican vanilla ice cream. The story is great but the dishes are not as good. The farce pasta filling has a weird texture, but Kevin's dessert is actually great.
Charly is filling eggshells with mousse and the canister runs out of charge, so he has to spoon sauce into the eggs because there are 40 seconds left. Thank God for immunity. Charly: djon djon, egg mousse, chicken skin, pickled mushrooms, and peas. Djon djon is a rice dish with black mushrooms. Michelle: mushroom biscuit with chicken liver mousse, sous vide chicken, and stewed apples. The first bite of each dish is great, but then they kind of fall apart. Also Tom thinks it's not an egg dish but a rice dish.
Savannah: dry aged ribeye, mushroom tempura, beet and daikon oroshi, and wild pistachio sauce. Laura: filo pastry, pistachios, pistachio foam, and raspberry sauce. The savory dish is supposed to be weird and uncomfortable, and the dessert is familiar. The judges feel like without that long explanation you can't understand. Also Savannah's dish needed acid and Laura's dish is very sweet.
In the makeshift Stew Room, everyone is a fan of Dominique because she was trying to understand them and they wanted to just talk to her. She tells the other judges she's proud of the next generation. Kristen says they have a clear winning team and a clear losing team, and the other judges agree.
As people are talking about dishes and whatnot, Kristen asks for Danny and Rasika, and Kaleena and Alisha. Yeah that tracks. Rasika is freaking out for no reason. They let them set up Judges' Table in the studio which surprises me. Kristen says they had the best and worst dishes today, and then says “Kaleena and Alisha, please pack your knives and go”. Damn. The story didn't come together and the technical issues were numerous in both dishes. They weren't a team. Kaleena doesn't think she's showcased herself enough. Alisha knows they weren't a team.
So that means Danny and Rasika won. Rasika is thrilled the judges noticed how into this challenge they were. Gail says some days it's close but not today. Kristen confirms it's $10,000 total, not each, and then they reveal that only one of them will get immunity, and that's Rasika. The sauce put her over Danny. She's extremely excited the judges understood her Tamil food. Kristen and Buddha go back to the Stew Room so they can explain why the elimination happened. You have to be pushed and take the opportunity to get better. Be inspired. Do whatever you need to do in order to stick around long enough to tell your story.
Next week: shop at the farmers' market without knowing the challenge, cook for a supper club.
Last Chance Kitchen: Alisha knows she and Kaleena were not a good team, but also her vision for her dish didn't come through. Kaleena doesn't want to be defined by one bad dish. She seems convinced she will win everything. We have to harp on how no one knows who Soo is. Again. They had decent ideas, but the execution was not there. Tom talks about architecture and great foundations. He says he will provide the landscape and they will build on it. Valentine and Kenny roll a table in and wave their hands around. The chefs will need to pick a plate and then use it as inspiration for a dish. There are normal plates but also like, a glass house, a slice of a log, and so forth. Alisha picked a scallop shell (so she can redeem herself with seafood), Kaleena has a long plate with three compartments, and Soo has a box. So this is the third time someone has come to LCK and tried to redeem their bad dish that got them eliminated. And the other two times they made the same mistakes they did the first time. One of them will be eliminated.
30 minutes. Alisha wants to do scallop ceviche, but magically there are no scallops. So she's making shrimp ceviche again. Soo is making lamb carpaccio but also halibut, and he grabbed strawberries for some reason. Eventually he makes a sauce. Kaleena is making a trio of beef. One tataki style (just barely seared), one tartare, and one medium-rare. I think. Kenny and Valentine start yelling to avenge them. Heh. Soo isn't really offended. Alisha makes aguachile out of cucumber and jalapenos.
Tom Time! He gives Alisha shit about making the same dish again. Kaleena is frantically working and Tom doesn't really say much to her. Soo does not impress Tom but I don't think he cares. Kaleena admits Soo is coming up with stuff she wouldn't. He knows he is doing a lot here. I think he's got one thing in the box and one on top of the lid.
Alisha: aguachile with cucumber, jicama, avocado, poached shrimp, and cilantro. Kaleena: beef tartare with mirin, ponzu, fish sauce, and soy; beef tataki with kimchi, pear, and fennel; charred ribeye with miso and cauliflower puree. Soo: lamb loin carpaccio with aged balsamic, mint, basil, and fennel; glazed halibut with strawberry bisque. Tom says Alisha did better than her last dish, but the proportions of ingredients are off. Kaleena had a good progression of the three bites. Soo managed to not make his strawberry bisque too sweet. Alisha is out. It just wasn't as good. So now we have two people here for next week.
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