Previously on “Top Chef”: Laura returned from LCK and promptly got into the Quickfire, which was to guess what Tom had made based on yes/no questions and the look and smell of the empty plate. People did not pay attention and tried to ask the same question more than once. In the end, Savannah won, partially by noticing the kitchen had woks in it for the first time and knowing that must be important. The Elimination challenge was to serve a dish directly on the table. I don't know. Laura won, because her dessert was impressive but also because it makes her narrative work better. Even though Manny screwed up the cooking on all of his elements, Michelle was boring I guess so Michelle was sent home. (click for more)
In the montage of people getting ready they sneak in a shot of Danny doing morning prayers. Did they mention he was Muslim? I feel like I missed that. There is a clip of Manny talking about how he wants to make the finale. It doesn't look likely.
For the Quickfire it's just Kristen. It's the last Quickfire in Wisconsin. Blindfolded taste test. Savannah has watched a ton of these but not actually practiced it. You get five minutes to identify as many ingredients as you can out of a total of 26. Then you will have to make a dish using whatever you guessed correctly. Supposedly because this is a two part Quickfire there will be money for two people: $5000 for the person who gets the most ingredients correct, and $10000 for whoever makes the best dish. I guess the same person could win both.
I believe you have to make a guess and then say “next” to get the next sample. In the past that's come up but this season it does not. Manny seems to do well, at least according to editing, and Danny is freaking out about touching everything. Laura spits out everything which is kind of gross. Dan doesn't do well, although he brags in confessional about how good he is. He guesses oregano instead of rosemary! Hilariously once they're done, Kristen points out the ingredients were in alphabetical order, one for each letter of the alphabet. Savannah didn't even get it. Dan and Savannah both only got 9 (aww, Savannah), Danny had 13, Laura had 15, and somehow Manny got 23 ingredients. Impressive.
There is a limited pantry, I think like flour and eggs and so forth. You don't have to use everything you guessed correctly. Kristen then reveals (in a line that is clearly dubbed in later) that this will be the last Quickfire that will be factored into Elimination judging.
30 minutes to cook. Savannah can at least fry pork loin, there's eggs and oil in the pantry. And bread crumbs. Dan doesn't think any of his nine ingredients go together, and Danny says the same thing. Laura is rolling something out, to bake. Dan mixes olives, watermelon, soy sauce, and red wine vinegar as a sauce for steak. It is terrible. Danny roasts him about it, but he doesn't know what he's doing either. Laura makes escabeche, which is fish cooked and marinated in acid.
Manny: salmon crudo with edamame-jalapeno puree, parsley, and gooseberry relish. Dan: grilled flank steak, scrambled eggs with cheddar and horseradish, red wine and sour cream sauce. It's a specific brand of cheddar. Savannah: fried pork chop, faux Caesar with cheddar, and horseradish-Kalamata olive sauce. Danny: grilled flank steak with watermelon and gooseberry jus, okra with parsley, anchovy and horseradish gremolata. Laura: mussel escabeche with umeboshi, anchovies and herbs, rosemary cracker, watermelon, and gooseberries.
Savannah cooked her pork well and the sauces turned out good. Laura got a good contrast with her flavors. Danny somehow whipped up steak sauce out of watermelon. The winner is Savannah. She has lots of money. Manny made crudo so he didn't really do anything to the salmon, including seasoning. Dan knew his dish was trash. He's freaking out that this will end up sending him home.
Elimination Challenge: make a dish that shows how you've grown as a chef this season. Hmm. Kristen knows they are freaking out about not having very defined parameters. $150 to shop at a specialty store, and $200 at Whole Foods. 3 hours to prep tomorrow and serve “a table” of local chefs. Sounds like they invited some people back. Laura gets an extra 30 minutes because she won last week. First though they will get a dinner out.
They drive to dinner in a boys' car, a girls' car, and a judges' car, which is boring. Dinner is some Italian food, which looks great. People discuss how they've learned about themselves or how much they want to win or whatever. You know. Main course is several plates of meat. Tom talks about making simple dishes, in that way that feels like he's telling the contestants what to do. They also make a big show of Tom paying with the product placement credit card, which is very dumb.
The specialty store looks like a big farmer's market space. Remember when Manny screwed up one of the challenges and said in the Stew Room there were like five other dishes he could make? He specifically mentioned one so he's going to make that. A dish he bragged he could make with his eyes closed. I guess technically he's going to make seafood to redeem himself, but other than that I'm not sure that making a dish you already knew how to do before this show is going to prove you've grown. Danny knows the hardest part of this challenge is to come up with the story. He wants to keep doing well. Dan is smoking walleye again, mixed with a different challenge. He is also having a hard time with the story, which just proves that in a challenge like this, no one is really reflecting on what they've learned so much as they are making whatever they want and then coming up with some kind of justification. Savannah is roasting chicken. Whole Foods doesn't have lemongrass somehow, so Dan freaks out because that's the basis of his sauce. He finds lemongrass and turmeric paste, which seems like maybe a bad idea. Laura knows she tends to have too many components in her dishes.
At least with only five people the kitchen has plenty of room. Everyone is cooking already so I'm not sure when Laura's extra time is going to happen. She's making manti, which are filled dumplings. Dan likes the smell of the paste he bought. Savannah is making potato pave. Basically you slice potatoes thin and layer them with cream, and then bake it like a casserole. Learning takes time. That's also going to be the star of her dish so hopefully it turns out. Manny says you have to remember where you came from, no matter what you learn. Savannah nails that he just made whatever and then shoehorned the story in. I'm not that mad because Savannah did at least go back to the first challenge for inspiration. Danny also straight up says he's just making good food. He's at least using tea, because he did that weird tea service at Restaurant Wars.
Savannah is realizing making a huge pan of sliced potato casserole is going to take a very long time. Laura never uses Mexican flavors, so she's trying to use some now. She's making tiny dumplings and that seems tedious. I always thought manti were like, potsticker size, but these are maybe an inch long. The judges arrive, and Kristen explains the challenge. Everyone has had their moments. Savannah unmolds her pave and somehow it has set up. Dan's got gnocchi but he admits in confessional that he is just making things he was good at and he has no idea what this story is. Dan has so much confessional time this episode it makes me worried he's eliminated.
Savannah: potato pave, burnt onion and cherry jam, chicken sauce reduction. Potatoes have what they need to make pave, they just need heat and pressure. Just as the competition adds heat and pressure to the contestants. Yeah that's a good story. It's delicious and everyone loves the story too.
Manny tells us one pan was too hot and that fish is maybe a little burnt. He finishes the fish in the oven, and they act like he might not get everything plated in time because the fish is not cooking. But he gets in on there. Manny: snapper a la Veracruzana with creamy potatoes and saltines. He wanted to reach back to his roots, which is when he felt most comfortable in the competition. Someone gets perfectly cooked fish, but several people have raw fish. It's a simple dish and all the details matter. Gail knows that he just made whatever, and one of the other people at the table says it has nothing to do with the competition. Tom says this (raw fish) is a major flaw, but you would think overcooking all of your proteins and screwing up risotto would be a major flaw also and that didn't stop them from keeping him last week.
Dan gets some fire going and smokes his fish. Danny is pretty satisfied with what he's made. Danny: soba cha mushroom broth, mushroom puree, and cod. It's served in a bowl with the cod on the bottom, and on top of it several circles of what looks like raw mushrooms, laid out in a flower. He wanted to redeem himself, but also subtle dishes get lost in Top Chef. He wanted to make “a subtle dish with a lot of nuanced flavors”. As he's saying this Tom is making faces. Gail is like, so you think this is subtle. “It has restraint”. Everyone laughs. This dish is not subtle at all. You can taste the mushroom, but the fish is sort of there and there isn't enough tea flavor for tea to be half of your story. Tom calls it “a good miss”.
Dan discovers he's lost track of time and the fish might be smoked too much. Dan: smoked walleye and potato dumplings with lemongrass, turmeric, and brown butter emulsion. He's learned to cook “from a sense of place”, but also he doesn't want to put himself in a box. Therefore smoked fish with Asian flavors. Hilariously he mentions the turmeric as if he picked it out, rather than being fixated on lemongrass and the only way he could get any is in a paste with turmeric. It's a lot. Kristen can only taste smoke. It's heavy, and maybe could have used something fresh or a vegetable or something. Gail feels his story was muddled. Tom likes it, but for sure is not tasting lemongrass or turmeric. The dish is confused.
Laura I guess had her extra time? She's resisting adding more things. Laura: lamb manti with barbacoa sauce. She has learned to be more focused and not do too much. The manti is delicious. She did manage to focus, and it has an obvious high level of technique. It's a beautiful plate.
In the Stew Room Manny admits he knows some of the fish was “rare”. Judges' Table. Some chefs had a much better story. Everyone has grown but one person had a great story and demonstrated their growth perfectly, and that is Savannah. She immediately tears up. Her story was perfect, and they're all impressed she pulled off a pave. She's gotten the most wins this season. Really? Nice. Laura is also moving on. Yeah, she put a lot of work into her dish, but it was still restrained.
Danny wanted the soba cha in his dish, but because it all mixed together no one tasted any tea. He also insists he wanted restraint. Tom says that was so intense, that if his point was that he learned subtlety, he's not there. Oof. It's not great when Tom says “you haven't learned shit”. Dan oversmoked his fish, and he knows it. His Restaurant Wars dish had the same ingredients, but was much better. So is he moving backwards? Manny claims he had some portions of fish that were bigger and therefore not cooked as much. Tom says his fish was raw: not rare, but raw. It was a simple dish so everything had to be perfect. Gail calls him out on his story. If the story is “this is a dish from my heritage that I've mastered” then that has nothing to do with the competition. Kristen tells them the Quickfire “could” come into play and kicks them out.
Danny's dish was good, but it doesn't match the story and it wasn't perfect. Dan's smoke lingered and then the fish was dry too. Manny had layers of flavor (of course they are coming up with excuses for Manny) but he chose to do a dish he knows and then he fucked up the protein. An excellent point. Danny's Quickfire was good, but Manny and Dan both did poorly. Gail asks if Dan's terrible Quickfire dish was a bigger flaw than Manny serving raw fish in the Elimination challenge. A good point.
Tom says you can't make these mistakes at this point. Manny is eliminated. Finally. He says in confessional that he takes ownership for fucking up. He shakes everyone's hand and leaves so the final four can celebrate and curse. The finale is going to be on a Caribbean cruise. Nice. Kristen says they will see them in Curacao, and Dan doesn't seem to know that's a country? Only three challenges left before someone becomes Top Chef.
Next week: my recording cut out really early but I assume it will be good. I have plans next week and the week after so things will be delayed. Sorry about last week, I had hoped to get that up sooner.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment