Previously on “Top Chef”: Kristen had her first season hosting, and it went very well. The show was in Wisconsin for whatever reason, which was odd. This season is in Canada. “But wait! Isn't there already a “Top Chef: Canada”?” Yes, there is a whole version of Top Chef in Canada already. I don't know. (click for more)
We start in New York for no reason, so we can meet Corwin and let him brag about how he's worked everywhere and grew up in South Korea and whatever. We're really reminded of how everyone on this show is now very good at what they're doing. No more sous chefs and line cooks. Also Kat whom I know from the internet. As people arrive in Toronto, they already are faced with the knife block to divide them into product placement cars.
The winner of Top Chef this season wins the usual things: $250,000, a spot at the Food and Wine festival, but now you also win $125,000 to use on Delta, and the chance to serve a dinner at the James Beard House. Which would be super impressive except for the fact that one of the chefs already bragged about selling out her dinner at the James Beard House. Still impressive. The title card says “Top Chef: Destination Canada” because of course you can't say “Top Chef: Canada” because that's already a thing and we haven't explained why we are here instead of some other random ass city in the US.
Everyone arrives at the Top Chef Kitchen which of course is decorated with a maple leaf-shaped set of shelves with nothing but glass jars of maple syrup. Kristen, Tom, and Gail are here. Gail is from Toronto, and then some random guy is like “I'm from Montreal”. No one cares right now, dude. Massimo says if he fails, he won't be able to go back home, but I am wondering why he is on this show and not actual Top Chef Canada. Kristen says they've all worn their “Canadian vests”. What does that even mean. Gail is in a strapless jumpsuit, Kristen is wearing what looks like a suede tank top and matching pants, and Tom has a denim jacket. And I assume jeans, because he says this is one tuxedo he can rock. A couple of chefs tell him he has rizz. Tom doesn't know what rizz is, you guys, come on. He acts like he does though. Mimi says she'd like the money to buy pots and pans (that her ex took when they broke up). Kristen lists the other prizes, and she adds that you will also present at the James Beard Awards. Nice. You know what, it's possible Kristen's outfit is a light denim wash. No immunity for Quickfire wins. Tom jokes that he's gonna compete for the money. You can get immunity from winning Elimination Challenges.
Time for the first Quickfire. Go in the pantry and get one ingredient. You have 30 seconds. Once that's done, go stand next to the people you rode here with in the cars. That's your team. Hilariously Henry interviews that both he and Corwin got corn. Vincenzo, who was bragging about apples, hopes apples, portobellos, and corn will work together. Shuai went right for maple syrup, and Tristen says it's a bold statement to go straight for maple syrup in Canada. Toronto is called “the six” because it's made up of six neighborhoods. The Quickfire will ask each team to make a dish with six ingredients. The teams have three already, and the other three will come from the judges. Heh. Kristen picked tomatoes, Gail took chives, and Tom picked clams. $15,000 for the winning team.
30 minutes to cook. Kristen has to prompt them to start. The Henry/Corwin corn pair has Kat, who took Fresno chilies, so they're probably fine. Kat offers maybe put their corn sofrito on some grilled bread, but Corwin only wants the sofrito. Maybe having one less ingredient will help them. Shuai's team has bok choy and king oyster mushrooms, in addition to his maple syrup. So of course that's the weird ingredient out. Maybe caramelized tomatoes with some maple? Zubair says acqua pazza soup. Someone on his team picked dried black olives for some reason. Acqua pazza is a poached fish broth? Sure. Anya is feeling it because the rest of her team (Zubair and Bailey) are both from Chicago and she feels left out. A lot of people have corn. Cesar's team is making soup and he's worried about having enough time to develop flavors. Paula's team is also making soup, and she says she's the one cooking it and they're confident. I just include that in case it's foreshadowing.
Shuai is hoping he's put the right amount of maple syrup. Vincenzo wants to serve his team's soup in apples. Like hollow out half an apple. That sounds pretty dumb. Zubair and Bailey argue briefly about if the soup is too brothy. Katianna puts curry powder in their corn relish. She talks about embracing diversity and “Korean-Americana”. Vincenzo also wants to get the smoke gun out, and Lana tries to say they should just make good food, but Vincenzo is steamrolling his team. He's outnumbered but he's also insisting they have to go big, even though there's no way he will go home for this Quickfire. “I didn't leave my family and come out here to make soup.” Then don't make soup, genius. Make something else. He knows his team doesn't agree but he straight up doesn't care, and sadly his team gets tired of arguing and lets him have his way. Vincenzo brags that he worked at “the Nomad”. “The”? This guy is already on my last nerve. Corwin tries to argue that a soft dish is good and you don't always need texture.
Green team (Shuai, Tristen, Massimo): steamed clam, preserved king oyster mushroom, baby bok choy, with tomato and maple syrup nage. Nage is a stock you poach things in, usually seafood. Blue team (Zubair, Anya, Bailey): acqua pazza with clams, cabbage, cured black olives, and grilled bread. As Bailey describes the dish, I guess she doesn't say there's cabbage in it, so they subtitle Anya saying “and cabbage”, although it's not clear if anyone hears her. Yellow team (Mimi, Cesar, Katianna): apple and fennel soup with clams, corn and chorizo relish. In the background, Anya is telling Bailey she should have included her because cabbage is a Russian ingredient and they're a team or whatever. I did notice Bailey talking about her own culinary background, and Zubair's, but not Anya. Purple team (Kat, Henry, Corwin): butter poached clams with charred corn sauce and corn sofrito, pickled Fresno chile, and potato sticks. Red team (Vincenzo, Lana, Paula): corn and clam chowder with andouille, apple, and chive relish, and roasted mushrooms. Served in a hollowed out apple. Tom says “very cool” about their presentation and Vincenzo has the most irritating smirk on his face. Gail asks an EXTREMELY pointed question about how they did working together, which I have to believe a producer told her to ask. You just happened to ask the one team that had an actual argument how they worked together? Come on. Vincenzo, because he's an ass, says they had their disagreements on plating, but “plenty of chefs in the kitchen”.
Tom claims to not be Grumpy!Tom. Yellow team had a great flavor and the texture was perfect. Green team highlighted each ingredient, and they used the right amount of maple syrup. Sadly Tom liked Red team's dumbass plating. Only because you could scrape the bottom of the “bowl” and get fresh apple which was important. The winning team is the Yellow team. Good, Vinny didn't win.
Elimination Challenge. “We want you to take us across Canada, through food”. A bunch of chefs come in, and I don't know three of them, but I remember Dale and Nicole from Season 20, the “international All-Stars” season. AKA, the season I found out there was a Top Chef: Canada. The five chefs represent the five “regions” of Canada: The West, Prairie Region, Central, Atlantic, North. Each one has a selection of ingredients from their region. There are a lot, and it's a good variety of proteins and produce. Vinny has worked with one of the chefs and I hope he is biased. Each team will get assigned one of the pantries. Yellow team gets to pick first, and they pick Central. They also get to pick who goes next, and they pick the Purple team who takes the Prairie region. Red team takes The West, and Blue team takes North (I am kind of glad since Anya wanted that one due to being from Russia). So Green team has Atlantic. I think everyone is pleased with what they got. Each pantry has six ingredients, and you must use three of them in your dish. However! Not a team challenge! Good in that I don't need to see more fighting, but bad in that now there will be 15 dishes. It'll be head-to-head-to-head. Each team of three will have a top, safe, and bottom dish. Bottoms up for elimination. I assume tops up for the win, although Kristen doesn't say. Shuai says friends have become frenemies. Two hours to cook tomorrow. Tom reminds them to put themselves on the plate, as if someone wouldn't. As everyone leaves, David (one of the judges) says he just realized Tom, Gail, and Kristen are all wearing Canadian tuxedos, and Kristen laughs that it took him this long?
$150 at Whole Foods. Massimo is from Quebec, so Atlantic Region is not far away. He's making potato-scale cod, and he's buying mussels. Shuai needs to showcase ingredients but also do Chinese cooking, and as he shops I notice the editors have blurred some of the shelves, but only part and what clearly is an endcap display of one item. I bet it's a display of bottled water but not “The Official Water of Top Chef”. Rumor is it's San Pellegrino which is hilarious. Bailey wants to make risotto, and she seems to understand how dumb that is. But she's still gonna do it. Paula is originally from Ecuador, but now lives in Kentucky. Bailey asks a random worker for wood chips. Kat says she was the private chef for Billy Corgan and has run through a Whole Foods many times. I know Kat from internet cooking shows, which involve dumb gimmicks and things like, explain over the phone how to make baked Alaska, to someone who has no cooking experience. I feel like she can roll with stupid restrictions and gimmicks. Anya spends all but five cents of her money.
The chefs are staying in a penthouse? A couple apartments? They all drink champagne (or product placement water) together in one of the kitchens. Kat says, to the last time we'll all be together, and someone says “Party foul!” Vinny and Corwin seem to know each other already. Apparently Vinny was Corwin's sous chef at one point. Kat and Katianna are talking and it sounds like they live across the street from each other . Katianna interviews that she was adopted when she was three months old, and grew up in upstate New York with a Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father. She's only started exploring her Korean roots when she married a Korean man.
Everyone meets at the restaurant, which looks very nice. Lana tells herself not to eat anything. Paula talks about mole, and I notice she's getting subtitles even though I feel you can understand her just fine. Mole takes more than two hours but she's going to get as close as possible. Someone asks her what's in her hair, and she says she braided the Ecuadorian flag in there. Lana tells her to get her flair, and then Vinny pipes up that he only brought his dimples today. Ugh. Vinny is making confit salmon, but also clarifying stock and hoping he has time. Looks like a staggered start so each team is coming in slightly later so they still get two hours and no one's food sits around. Henry is going to try to make lentil crackers. Kat is originally from Wisconsin, so she's using walleye even though it has a lot of pinbones. Mimi is making something French. Cesar says his dad used to take them camping, and they would bring nothing but mirepoix and a pot. If you don't catch anything, you get mirepoix soup for dinner. Nice. Shuai is making cod and egg drop sauce. Tristen says something about the Atlantic region's islands giving him a connection to the Caribbean and Trinidad. Sure. He interviews that he had these foods together in a big curry. Massimo says a bunch of French words, and then chops up his fish with enough force to split the plastic cutting board in two. Jeez. Anya is making beet caviar. She had the unfortunate timing of opening her Russian restaurant two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. But luckily it was well received and she got a James Beard award. Bailey is making carrot risotto, and she says she used to work for Sarah Grueneberg. You'll remember Sarah from Top Chef: Texas where she took over being terrible to Beverly when Heather left.
No one knows where things are in this kitchen. Paula is searing lamp chops and she says part of the grill is on high, so some of the smaller pieces are more seared than she wanted. Hopefully the lamb will cook properly in the oven. Vinny uses liquid nitrogen to cool his consomme so he can clarify it. Mimi curses and realizes she's left a pot of potatoes boiling for way too long. Now they are gummy but she has to use them. The judges arrive and Kristen welcomes everyone and tells Gail “Welcome home.” Massimo's dish involves punching out circles from slices of potato, and then attaching them to a piece of fish like scales. There are several steps and they all have to be perfect. Everyone kind of chuckles at how hard he has made this for himself. A very classic dish, though. Paula's lamb chops all have different temperatures which is not great.
West is up first. Lana: seared salmon with dawadawa cream, lamb fat roasted mushrooms, and hazelnut gremolata. Dawadawa is a spice from West Africa. Gremolata is parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. If there are ever words I skip definitions for, let me know. I have a skewed idea of what culinary words “everyone” knows. Vinny: confit salmon with miso-hazelnut butter mushrooms, and consomme. Paula: grilled lamb with mushroom mole, hazelnut pipian, and plum salsa macha. Pipian is a sauce usually made with greens and pumpkin seeds, and salsa macha is sauce with dried chilies and garlic. Lana had good texture and used the dawadawa with great restraint. Vinny's fish is cooked perfectly but is still full of flavor. Paula lacked spice, although the hazelnut is nice. Also everyone's lamb is cooked differently.
Mimi hasn't done anything with her pork and she has half an hour left. Jeez. Kat tries to smoke some cream and ends up just dumping embers directly into the cream. Henry's crackers look great. Kat is shaking terribly and in the end, one plate doesn't have fish. I think she knew there was an extra but was panicking so bad she couldn't see which plate was lacking. As we see later, she didn't get all the tomatoes and cherries on all the plates either. When they serve her dishes, Kristen ends up cutting her fish in half so everyone can have some. Kat: pan-fried walleye, wild rice with tomatoes, and smoked sour cherries. She is up front about the mistake. Henry: ribeye tartare with toasted lentil aioli, sour cherry chimichurri, cumin and lentil cracker, and egg yolk custard. Chimichurri is usually mostly parsley. Corwin: grilled ribeye, red lentil puree, with tomatoes and sour cherries. If you got all of Kat's dish, it was great, but a lot of people were missing cherries and/or tomatoes, in addition to her missing a fish portion. Corwin had good Caribbean flavors in the puree, but it doesn't really go with the beef. Henry made a “juicy” tartar and the cracker is great.
Cesar is worried about overcooking his fish. Mimi is done with everything, but it's not as good as what she wants. Cesar: corn butter poached trout, grilled radicchio with corn and pea shoot dressing. There are about two bites of fish en papillote (parchment paper packets) and all the guys at the table say “Aww!” in a condescending manner. Mimi: grilled pork loin and potato puree with corn beurre monte and peach relish. Beurre monte is a butter sauce. Katianna: pork loin katsu with miso, corn, and pea shoot gravy, and kimchi peaches. Cesar did pull off a good bite. Katianna's peaches are wonderful, but there is disagreement about the gravy. Mimi's dish is bad. The potatoes are like instant mashed potatoes and the pork is dry. “Elevated hospital food”. Oof.
Someone breaks a plate. Tristen was reheating his curry sauce and it's still on the stove when time is called. Oops. Tristen: poached cod with snow crab and dulse mousse, butter poached snow crab with potato and dulse crumble. Dulse is a type of seaweed. Tom asks about the curry (they have menus so they know it's missing), and Tristen says he was happy with it but he didn't have time to “get it on there nicely”. He didn't have time to even slop it on but whatever. Shuai: steamed cod with braised daikon, snow crab and egg drop sauce, and crispy dulse. Massimo: cod “en ecailles” with beurre blanc and smoked dulse. It is little rounds of potato on top of fish in a butter sauce. For some reason, when he starts talking, he's half again as loud as everyone else has been. Why though. You went third, you know no one is yelling. Shuai had a very cohesive dish. Tom is glad there was texture that wasn't crunchy. Tristen's dish was delicious, and the curry might have overpowered everything if he had put it on there. You never know. Everyone laughs at Massimo being loud and they decide he was paying a cheeky homage to tradition. His fish isn't perfect. It sounds like compared to everyone else today, he'd never be in the bottom, but compared to Tristen and Shuai he might be.
I think all of the North group gets done in time. Anya: ukha with arctic char, potatoes, beet caviar, and rye cracker. Ukha is a fish broth with dill. Zubair: meen moilee with turbot, beet and crowberry achar. I think meen moilee is a type of curry, and achar is a pickle. Bailey: carrot risotto with confit arctic char and pickled beets. It's not clear if this is rice with carrots or if she cooked the carrots risotto style. Anya made a beautiful connection between her homeland of Russia and northern Canada, which is exactly the kind of thing the judges always love. The cracker was very crunchy but I don't think they're that mad about it. Zubair overpowered the fish with the curry sauce. They do seem to agree that Tom said “put yourself into the dish” and he did. Gail says that Bailey's risotto isn't the worst risotto they've had on the show...(Nicole snickers)...but it's not a good risotto. Tom complains that risotto is about rice but this dish is not about rice. That's fair. Kristen declares this a successful day.
So for Last Chance Kitchen this season, there are two chefs already there. I don't know that having Soo around last season was the amazing twist the producers clearly think it was. Also this means I have to recap LCK today probably and I've already spent almost 2.5 hours on this recap. And I still have Judges' Table. Either cast people or don't, don't do this “oh you can come to LCK and maybe get on the show” bullshit.
The Stew Room is a real room with real furniture and a real bar. Not the back storeroom with racks of product everywhere. Everyone has to come out for Judges' Table and I don't like it. I want only tops and bottoms. Vinny, Cesar, Anya, Henry, and Shuai are called out first. These are the tops. No one really reacts which is interesting. Everyone's personality came through. Shuai learned from home cooks so you never know. Everything came together. Vinny's dish had layers of flavor and was impressive for the time he had. Henry used ribeye for tartare, which is unusual, but it all worked together. Cesar took a risk with en papillote but it was perfectly cooked. Anya made a simple dish but she did it extremely well. The winner is Vinny, because the universe likes to thwart me in this manner. And he gets immunity.
Losers are Paula, Kat, Mimi, Massimo, and Bailey. However! They only want to talk to Mimi and Kat. Yikes. Kristen asks the other judges if they are still in agreement, and they are. Then she tells Mimi to pack her knives. So we're not going to talk about it? They decided this beforehand like they decided the winner? I feel unsatisfied. Mimi knows she screwed up. Tom tells her to get back with LCK. Kat also screwed up but Kristen says not to overcorrect. Mimi is ready for redemption.
This season: poutine of course, very fancy food, being tourists, setting shit on fire, Gail telling people the Top Chef kitchen is not the place to work out your baggage.
Last Chance Kitchen: there is a very long intro from Tom which I don't care about. Mimi can't believe she was first out. Tom says any chef can have a bad day, but hers just came early. Tom is starting LCK early this season. They aren't waiting for anyone else to be eliminated. Is it going to be Mimi vs. Tom? That would be amazing. Tom says some nonsense about “wanting to see more of what Canada has to offer” and we cut to a couple of product placement cars with two more chefs, Sam and Ying. Just cast more people. I don't like this “oh surprise more random contestants” thing. Were they not good enough to get on the show? Alternates? Someone said there aren't enough Canadian chefs on the show but first of all, when they're in the US they don't cram the contestant pool with locals, and second of all, THERE IS A WHOLE SEPARATE TOP CHEF SPINOFF FOR CANADA. Why are we acting like no one knows about Canada.
OK anyway, Sam and Ying walk in and Mimi doesn't know who they are, of course. They do introduce themselves to Mimi I guess so she can freak out. Today's challenge is a repeat of the Quickfire: pick one ingredient to make the star of your dish. Ying gets mushrooms, Sam takes eggplant, and Mimi has acorn squash. Oh just kidding, all three of these ingredients have to be the star. So a mushroom, eggplant, and squash dish. No one is happy, especially because squash takes time to cook.
30 minutes to cook. Ying doesn't like that she doesn't know the space. She's making mushroom panzanella salad. Sam is going vegetarian, which makes sense with three vegetables. Berbere spiced squash? Sounds great. I think Mimi is making soup with eggplant croutons. Ying moved to Canada from China when she was 23. Mimi is worried about finishing and getting everything on her plate. Ying can't find any butter, so she renders some bacon. Mimi's squash is cooked, thankfully.
Tom Time! Sam is very calm. Tom makes fun of Mimi's pronunciation of “scallop” and then goes to bug Ying. She apologizes to him, I guess because she's still running around and she feels rude, and then interviews that Tom looks scary on TV but he's very sweet. This is said over a shot of Tom tearing off the end of the baguette on her station for a snack. Heh. Ying is frantic about plating. There is a lot of last second freaking out but I think everything gets plated?
Ying: mushroom panzanella salad with warm crispy bread croutons. I was wrong, Ying didn't get the squash OR the eggplant on her plates. Mimi: squash soup with bacon, sauteed mushrooms, crispy eggplant, and seared scallop. Tom straight up tells her he doesn't see any eggplant in the dish. She says it's in there, and I kind of thought Tom was going to demand she point it out, but he just says “OK” and moves on. Sam: squash and berbere puree, eggplant nibitashi, and sauteed berbere mushrooms. Nibitashi is a Japanese dish where you braise the eggplant in dashi.
Ying served a good plate, even though it doesn't have all the components. Mimi's soup is also nice but maybe about the scallop and not the vegetables. Sam had good balance and is the clear winner. All three vegetables have to be in there and the other two didn't do that very well. Ying is eliminated, which is also not surprising. She knows she's doing something right, because she's here. Mimi for some reason thought she wasn't moving forward? I don't know. Now there's two people still. Mimi and Sam are ready to win.
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