Previously on “Top Chef”: we started Restaurant Wars early, as in immediately after the end of the last challenge. Everyone picked teams by sort of standing around and then shuffling into groups. We have Jenn, Oscar, and the twins, and then Anthony, Duyen, Laurence, and Sherry. As the teams came up with menus and concepts and who would do front of house (FOH) or executive chef, Jenn left to go to the hospital, and then stepped out of the competition. Justin was offered the spot, but he declined, to stay with Jenn, so Sieger returned. As we predicted. Oscar's team decided on Latin flavors with a Southern bend, and named themselves Tierra Reina. The other team almost fell for a “global” concept, but Laurence was genre-savvy about it and they went with Carolina comfort food and the name Carolina Queen. Each team had to serve 100 diners, plus judges, plus do takeout. None of the judges sampled the takeout (although they did get reports) and I feel this is bogus. If you make them have takeout, then a judge needs to eat the takeout. Also there was no reason for them to spend an hour immediately making menus, unless it's so they can be there when Sieger returns, because the rest of the timeline seems as usual. Duyen and Carolina Queen had an extremely smooth FOH experience, with a welcome drink and a small wait but nothing crazy. They did forget some stuff on takeout but fixed it quickly. Food here was good but Anthony made rice with bernaise sauce and okra so it was stringy. Over at Tierra Reina, we had the classic “the waiters are not writing tickets correctly and food is going to random tables”. Also the judges waited nearly 45 minutes for their first course. Oscar did do a good job at FOH and had the best dish of the night. But Carolina Queen (and Duyen) won. Brandon made one dish, and it was not cooked properly, so he was sent home. (click for more)
Last Chance Kitchen: apparently it's the finale! I know! Did they not want to move the LCK space to South Carolina? Anyway, Rhoda and Brandon had to come up with concepts for their own restaurants, then make three courses, but each course would be one bite. Rhoda had good dishes, while Brandon said he was doing a seafood restaurant and then served scallops and two courses with only caviar, no fish anywhere. So Rhoda is going to return.
After the elimination, everyone mopes in the Stew Room. Jonathan wants to be happy but his brother's gone. Gail and Kristen appear, to say how Brandon is in LCK but whoever wins, that's it. I thought Last Chance Kitchen won Emmys and it was so amazing so why did we kill it this season? It's just so abrupt. And they told Duyen no more immunity either.
Kristen says they are going to Greenville, South Carolina. Anthony knows that can't be all they wanted to announce. Gail says hitting the road is cause for celebration, Southerners like parties, blah blah. Someone comes in with a big easel, carefully hiding behind it, and it's Shuai from last season. I have to be honest, I recognized him but I couldn't come up with his name. He's from South Carolina so he's the guest judge today. Both the Quickfire and Elimination challenges will involve hosting The Ultimate Dinner Party.
The Quickfire is the cocktail hour before the party. This will involve Duke's Mayonnaise. Listen I know normally I don't say who the product placement is, but this is a well-known brand that people fight about. This isn't a random credit card. Also they've cleared a shelf in the Stew Room to fill with jars of mayo. Shuai has a tattoo of a jar, which is weird. So you will have to make an appetizer (“passed app style”, which I guess means not plated) and it has to have Duke's mayo in it. “Featuring” Duke's? For 12 people. They're going to sign up for dishes, so that there is variety and there aren't like, five dips or something. Winner gets $10,000.
Duyen gets to go first, for winning Restaurant Wars. She says she's making a croquette with aioli. Then she picks the next person, and so forth. Everything sounds pretty good, and the only drama is Laurence says he's doing shrimp toast, and then Anthony goes up and says “you took my dish” because HE wanted to make shrimp toast. Not the most exciting drama. The last slot is empty because they won't tell them who is coming back from LCK yet. So I guess they have to pick something that's not already up there.
For the Elimination challenge, each contestant will take one dish for the dinner party. Duyen goes “Oh Jesus Christ.” Heh. The service times are staggered: raw and salad course at 5pm, soup and seafood at 5:30pm, etc. “Mains” will be grain, poultry, and red meat, and then dessert. It's an individual challenge, but the menu has to go together. Now it's reverse order, so Duyen will go last. Anthony shouts “Plot twist!” which is funny. They don't have to write a specific dish right now, just sign up for a category. If you serve earlier, you get less cook time. So it's not that the raw and salad course people get to start earlier than the rest of them. Jonathan takes the raw course, Anthony has salad, Laurence takes soup, Sherry takes seafood, Duyen takes grain (her options were grain or dessert and she did not hesitate), Sieger has poultry, and Oscar has red meat. So Rhoda is stuck with dessert. Duyen says if Brandon comes back, then he gets redemption. If it's someone else, then it sucks to suck. Heh. Tomorrow they have $1200 for the whole team, for BOTH challenges. That seems unnecessary. After one hour of prep, they have to leave the kitchen to do the Quickfire and pass apps. After the judges leave, Oscar says the budget makes him wish he had picked salad and not red meat. They're going to have to plan. Not only because of money but it has to all go together.
In the morning, everyone hangs out and talks menu, and Rhoda knocks and comes back in. Everyone cheers and hugs her. Sherry reminds us Rhoda won the first two Elimination challenges so pressure's on. Jonathan is a little sad but not super devastated. Rhoda has brought the sign-up sheets. She loves this episode because she loves dinner parties. But making her do dessert is fucked and she tells everyone so. Sherry says some BS about “if anyone can do it, it's you” and Rhoda looks skeptical but doesn't start a fight. They all came up with the theme “Sunday supper” so Rhoda can think of something to go along.
There is generic road tripping footage to show they drove to Greenville. Not that exciting but it's pretty. They're going to split the budget evenly, meaning everyone gets $150. Laurence interviews that red meat is going to cost a different amount than salad. Today is the kind of day where you discuss with your teammates how many eggs they need so you don't all buy eggs and end up with a ton of extras and no money. Rhoda is going to make Eton mess for dessert, which is meringue and berries all mushed up together. She says she will need 18 eggs, which I note in case she gets screwed on the money. Rhoda also does not want to make dessert.
At shopping, Oscar says he has a list of what he needs and then also a wish list. Laurence is buying prepackaged chicken, but then Sherry is buying lobster. Actually she only spends $30 or so on lobster. Anthony has the salad course, and he is making tomato and watermelon salad. If he has money, then he might add a protein, although I don't know if I've ever seen tomato watermelon salad with a protein other than feta cheese. He'd like to put some crab, which I guess wouldn't be that bad. He buys Dungeness instead of king crab. At the cashier, Laurence is in charge. I guess they're making them buy everything all together, because they're having to do math to figure out if they're in budget. Like, rather than everyone ringing up $150 they have a running total. Oscar only got one pack of short ribs. They end up at $1199.98 which is super impressive.
In the morning for some reason they all talk about the competition, and how there's no more LCK. Rhoda says it's like you already died, and then someone says “That's what happened to Sieger!” Except for the part where Sieger returned without having to do anything. But there are no more chances. Sieger gets some emotional backstory about his niece with cerebral palsy, which hasn't come up yet and makes me assume he's going to win this week. Or I guess he could go home again. The theme is officially “Sunday supper club”.
One hour for the Quickfire appetizers. Rhoda is making hot oyster crackers with oysters in them. Jonathan mentions how she won the first two Elimination challenges, and Rhoda claims not to remember that. Jonathan and Anthony are like, oh we remember that. Sherry is making twice-baked potatoes for an app, and she thinks it will take like 20 minutes so she's doing prep for dinner. Oscar is going to put pimento cheese on tostones. That sounds fantastic. Rhoda is also doing dinner prep. Sieger chose gribiche, which is like aioli but with hard-boiled eggs. Fancier than deviled eggs. Anthony wants his dumplings to gush. He says that in confessional and then giggles. Honestly I think most people are hoping they can get the apps done in under an hour so they can do more dinner prep. Jonathan is grinding meat for tartare, which I feel like is not the way? Aren't you supposed to dice it? Anyway, he tells the camera the way to clean the grinder is to put ice in it, and then the grinder dies immediately. He pivots to working on his Quickfire, which is a BLT deviled egg. Are he and Sieger going to get in trouble for having similar dishes? I guess a deviled egg with bacon jam is different enough from a crab hard-boiled egg sauce.
Rhoda fries crackers and it seems to be OK, if not perfect. Jonathan I think gets oil splashed on him from somewhere, and he vaguely whines and then says “I burned myself, can I go home now?” which is a weird thing to say when someone has gone home this season for an injury. Duyen is making the base of her croquettes with 20 minutes to go. Sherry is realizing twice-baked potatoes take longer than 20 minutes. Anthony is folding dumplings and when someone asks him if he'll make it, he's like, that's a great question. Jonathan burns part of his bacon jam so he has to pick out the parts that are good.
The judges arrive and start drinking. Kristen says this is all about a Southern dinner party, so thank you to the other diners for being Southern and being here. Hee. There is a lot of frantic working in the back, and what looks like at least two pressure cookers releasing steam. Kristen also tells everyone it's eight apps and then straight into eight courses, so it's a full meal. Anthony and Jonathan are up first, and they have the first round of dinner courses so I guess that's the order they're doing apps in. Jonathan: BLT deviled egg with bacon jam and pimento. It's cut crossways, and not the long way like most people cut their deviled eggs in half. I think that's the better way to get more filling maybe? I don't know. Anthony: crab dumpling with chili crunch and mayo. It's a little fried beggar's purse. Back in the kitchen a chyron tells us these two have 90 minutes until they have to serve. They won't know anything about who wins the Quickfire until later. Anthony's is delicious and crispy, and Jonathan's is a classic deviled egg.
Laurence usually makes his own bread for shrimp toast, but they don't have time for that today. Sherry: twice baked potato, aioli, steak tartare and crispy potato. The steak is stuffed in a hollowed-out little yellow potato, with a fried potato chip on top. Laurence: shrimp toast with shrimp salad. The shrimp paste is in the middle of the toast, instead of like toast with shrimp on top. It's not too greasy or heavy, which is hard to do. Sherry's aioli needs more mayo? That's what Kristen said. It needs more pop but other than that it was good. It's possible if it wasn't for the part where she was supposed to feature Duke's mayo, she'd be ranked higher. They don't say how much time is left, but the courses were staggered by I think 30 minutes, so probably they have just under two hours. Less assuming they didn't serve apps immediately? I guess it doesn't matter that much.
Sieger talks about chalky egg yolks and his apps look a lot like deviled eggs. Oscar: pimento cheese tostone. Duyen: pancetta croquette with Carolina gold aioli, and horseradish lemon aioli. Not sure how you make aioli out of rice. Also her croquettes are huge, three or four bites at least. Sieger: deviled egg crab gribiche with fried capers. Duyen has maybe too much mayo and that's mostly what the croquette tastes like. Tom jokes about deep fried mayonnaise, and that maybe would have been enough for this challenge. The tostones are great. Sieger's is very salty and the texture of the filling is grainy or soupy or somehow not good.
Rhoda comes out by herself. Rhoda: oyster cracker with trout dip, crème fraiche, mayo, and cornichons. Cornichons are those little tiny pickles. It's good but maybe a little salty.
Time for everyone to switch over to dinner courses while the judges drink. See this is the weird part of this season, is that they seem to constantly be in a hurry and the time limits are horrible. This challenge is not bad, in fact I like the idea of the Quickfire being apps and the Elimination challenge being the main course. But going from one to the other with no break and also having 90 minutes to do the first courses is tight. And seemingly for no reason.
Now that Brandon is gone, suddenly Jonathan is really getting screen time and talking a lot, and it seems kind of annoying. I'm not sure if I just didn't notice before now, or if Brandon was doing more talking, or what. But there's a lot of talking to the crowd and joking and other nonsense. Laurence is making soup based on a soup he used to have as a kid. Sherry is also doing something based on a childhood dish. I guess there are worse inspirations. Sherry has stuffed peppers, with lobster, but she's also putting some chicken in the filling to stretch it. Sieger tells Duyen “I'm not gonna tell you what to do but you might want to give this just a little stir just so it cooks a little more evenly.” Shut up Sieger. “I'm not gonna tell you what to do” then be quiet. Honestly I think I'm more irritated about that than the suggestion itself. Duyen is making seafood rice, and she mentions in confessional that she never ate rice with seasonings growing up, being Asian. I mean, there are Asian dishes with rice with seasonings. But this isn't really an Asian dish, it doesn't sound like. She bashes some lemongrass with a pot, and says “smash that shit”, and then Oscar is like “don't bring Dwayne out here, just thinking about Dwayne stresses me out.” Heh. Not today, we're friends today.
Sieger wants a homey chicken vibe. Oscar has short ribs, and he's trying to make it to the end of the day energy-wise. His dish is usually soupy, but he wants to make it thicker. Sieger yells, “Is the inspiration me, chef?” as if anyone has ever described Sieger as thicc. He's not, come on now. Rhoda hasn't gotten that much done yet, but she's sure she has plenty of time. Foreshadowing. Jonathan remembers his crostinis are in the oven, and he says they're too dark. I think they look OK, they aren't burnt, but sure. That was all of his bread, so he asks Sherry if he can have some of her baguette. He can, so he's lucky. Lots of tasting other people's dishes, and Sherry saying only her own food earns the description “fucking good”. Rhoda missed some of the challenges the other contestants went through so she kind of has survivor's guilt. She gets her meringues in the oven and says she doesn't want them to have any color.
The judges mill around, and Kristen asks Gail if she wants another drink. Gail says it's going to be a long day, so she's good, and then Kristen says she should just get loaded. Heh. Gail is like, no but can you imagine how good that would be? Kristen says that's what the fans want: Gail, Tom, and Kristen smashed at a bar. True. Champagne Padma was the best Padma. Anthony couldn't find a really sweet watermelon so he's compressing what he has with a little sugar. Duyen spreads her rice out on a sheet tray to cool it, I think. Oscar puts more seasoning in, and manages to get turmeric all over himself.
Judges seat themselves and joke about how the kitchen will look after this. Shuai loves this side of the table, as everyone always does. Rhoda's meringues are soft but not drying out. She didn't put enough sugar, she thinks. Back into another oven, and they're already a little bit tan so I'm not sure that's going to stay that color. She really wanted to fight back into the competition and now this might be a disaster. Actually she takes them out of the oven and puts them in a dehydrator. She doesn't have more eggs so she's hoping this works. Jonathan is plating his tartare in the walk-in, and he frames this as commitment to making a good dish. I guess.
Jonathan: steak tartare, egg yolk emulsion, cornichon chimichurri, crispy shallots, and toasted baguette. Anthony: heirloom tomatoes, compressed watermelon, pickled rind, and Dungeness crab. They start commenting immediately. The tomatoes and watermelon are great, but Kristen feels the lettuce and the crab are out of place. The tartare is good and the chimichurri goes over well. Once the contestants are gone, they keep on critiquing. The crab was delicious, but there was only a tiny bit and it's not balanced. The tartare gets nothing but praise.
Oscar is worried he doesn't have enough food, because he only got the one package of short ribs, so he borrows some rice from Duyen. She used the Carolina Gold, but also bought a bag of jasmine rice for some reason, so Oscar can have that no problem. Sherry and Laurence plate but they don't seem super rushed which is nice. Very calm plating.
Laurence: “Long's Tang” chicken and corn egg drop soup with marinated bok choy and grilled corn. “Long” is Laurence's Chinese name, and “tang” is “soup”. Sherry: stuffed peppers with lobster mousseline, corn ragu, and salsa verde. One of the guests is also Brazilian so she's thrilled and says she can see the flag right here. A different diner doesn't normally like corn in her soup but this was good. The lobster mousse had a perfect texture. Laurence's soup really came together and had a ton of layers.
Duyen is searing scallops and she's going to fold them into her rice. Rhoda wants to macerate her berries, which isn't weird but the comment feels like it's going to fail in a minute. Sieger says everyone gets some chicken breast and chicken thigh, “so they get a taste of Chicago”. Not sure why that is Chicago but sure.
When these three dishes are served, Tom makes a big deal about how there are two rice dishes and “you just don't know what they're thinking”. Calm down Tom. Duyen: seafood rice with herb salad and dashi beurre monte. Sieger: chicken vesuvio, pea and Parmesan puree, chicken jus and potatoes. Chicken vesuvio is a “Chicago Italian-American dish” with white wine and garlic so I guess that's where the Chicago comment came from. Oscar: short rib sancocho with yuca, butternut squash, carrots, and rice. Sancocho is a stew. Kristen asks Oscar if he and Duyen talked about both serving rice. Oscar is like, “huh, you're making a good point right now, hey what's up with the rice dish?” Duyen points out she had grains, not him. It's a tiny bit of Dwayne, just because she's exactly right. Duyen's rice was “very seasoned”. The chicken is perfectly cooked. Oscar had too much going on and the rice was bland. Kristen says the rice muted everything, I guess by just being there and not having flavor. The judges think maybe Oscar's dish has too much turmeric and it's bitter. There's a lot going on.
Rhoda says her meringue is softer than she wants but everything else is good. So hopefully smaller pieces will help. Rhoda: Eton mess with whipped crème fraiche, berries, and lemon pith. She specifically says it's soft meringue, but Kristen clocks this immediately and Rhoda has to admit it's not what she planned. Everything is soft, so it needed the crispy meringue. But the lemon pith has a good bitterness to contrast the rest of the dish. Tom says the rest of the dish isn't sweet enough for the pith.
They all head to whatever makeshift Stew Room they've got, to complain about not having a break between the Quickfire and Elimination challenges. Fair. Oscar knows he's in trouble. Rhoda says she would have loved to remake her meringues, and Sherry out of nowhere says oh I had extra eggs! You should have said something! Rhoda is like, ...anyways... and I can't tell if she's mad at herself or at Sherry. I think she's mad at herself because she didn't say anything to anyone until just now.
Judges' Table. Apps were good and that overall went well. Anthony's dumpling had a good filling ratio and it was crispy. Oscar's tostones were delicious and not messy. Jonathan got a lot of flavor in one bite. Shuai says the winner is Anthony. He thanks Laurence in confessional for claiming shrimp toast and making him do crab dumplings.
Oscar, Jonathan, Laurence, and Rhoda get called out. These are the tops and bottoms. Well we know who the bottoms are. Jonathan knows his dish was good. Everyone loved the chimichurri. Laurence says his soup is traditionally one note, but he put layers in it. Very complex and a lot of flavor and different textures. He managed to have chicken with crispy skin, in a soup. In a unanimous decision, Laurence is the winner. He gets an advantage for the next challenge.
Oscar wanted to make a dish that was not normally well-represented. Kristen appreciates that, but there's a lack of technique. The short rib wasn't seasoned, and it didn't absorb any of the cooking liquid. And the rice was bland. Oscar knows he shouldn't have served any rice. Rhoda knows she probably didn't have enough sugar in her meringues so they didn't get crispy and dry out. Turns out she had four hours to make dessert, so Gail asks why she didn't remake it, and she says she didn't have the eggs. I mean we now know there were probably enough eggs left in the kitchen, but she didn't know that. Oh, I spoke too soon, Rhoda immediately mentions that Sherry had like six eggs left. You could have just said you ran out of eggs, I think Gail was prepared to accept that answer. Now Tom is like, you didn't think to try to do something with those six eggs? Rhoda has to explain that she only just discovered there were extra eggs at all. She didn't know during service so she didn't try to pivot.
Kristen is mad Rhoda wasted four hours. Yeah I feel like even if she had pulled it off, she made meringue and whipped cream and berries. It takes time to dry out meringue, but it's a pretty basic dessert for that amount of time. The judges are really irritated Oscar served rice, even though putting rice on the plate doesn't make it “a rice dish”. But I can see having two plates with rice on them would be an issue, especially when they all had to sign up so they wouldn't repeat themselves. Plus it was bad and underseasoned, and then Tom is like, well the meat was also bland. And it was supposed to be a red meat dish. There was too much going on and it didn't come together. Rhoda had a pretty basic dish and then on top of that it didn't work. I think they wanted her to take a bigger risk. Tom calls Kristen out for being quiet, and she says she's thinking and needs to sit with her thoughts for a second. It's a tough decision.
Tom says this comes down to basics and screwing up basic skills. Oscar is eliminated. Aww. The beef was not cooked correctly, and adding rice didn't make sense. Kristen says it was great getting to know him, and gives him a hug. Oscar tries to tell the group it's Rhoda, but immediately folds. Duyen is like who will I bully now? Aww. Oscar says it sucks right now, but it was a great experience.
Next week: mise en place race, someone gave Tom a whistle, actual fishing so I guess the “you can cook what you catch” challenge.
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