Previously on “Top Chef”: we began season 23 with NASCAR and cooking outside in a team Quickfire but only for as long as it took to circle the track 23 times. Just go with it. Jennifer (who is part of the couple), Jonathan (who is one of the identical twins), and Laurence (just here) won the Quickfire and some money. The Elimination challenge was to make something with a variety of sweet potato, but you only have an hour to cook. Rhoda made a street food dish, and the judges enjoyed the meaning and the dish so much she won. Even though Nana had a panic attack that Kristen talked her out of, in the end Tom thought her dish tasted good. Day undercooked both her fish and her sweet potatoes, so she was sent home. Not to Last Chance Kitchen, since she and whoever loses tonight are not eligible. (click for more)
In the Stew Room, Nana talks to everyone about how that was so scary, and the fact that everyone had sweet potato on their plate must have saved her. Yeah, that's probably true. The plates were a mess, but if she left anything off some plates, it was garnishes. She says she can't wait to prove herself. Rhoda's got immunity for winning, so she's relieved. She's guaranteed to make it to LCK now.
Everyone arrives at the Top Chef Kitchen, which says “Charlotte” with a crown, and “Carolinas” in the hallway outside. Is the crown a thing? Whatever. Kristen says they're going to “loosen things up”, and introduces Mei as the guest judge. Mei comes in wearing a schoolgirl type outfit with a shirt and tie and pleated skirt, with a tray around her neck (like a cigarette girl, you know what I mean). Time for [product placement] gelato. Dumb, but at least it's the Quickfire. Oscar admits he's lactose intolerant, and then in confessional says his family is dairy farmers, so he would spend all of his summers sick and hallucinating. Ironic. Mei walks over and everyone takes a flavor. I believe there's sorbet in there, if the lactose intolerant people want it. Someone else did that thing where you waggle your hand in the universal gesture of “sort of”. Although, famously, lactose intolerant people do often have dairy and just suffer later. They do all open the containers and taste.
On the counter where the judges sit, there are a row of round...displays? Trays with backs? Kristen turns each one around, and there's a thing of gelato and then a bunch of ingredients, and at the bottom there is the name of a country. Or region, I guess. Naturally, the flavor they have will force them into some kind of restriction for this Quickfire. Justin and Jennifer have the same flavor, ha ha. Get it because they're a couple. Jassi got mango which he's just fine with. You will need to make a savory dish highlighting the ingredients from the region that inspired your gelato. So make the main course to your dessert, because your dish will be served with the gelato to make sure it goes together. $10,000 to the winner.
30 minutes to cook. Each flavor has two contestants, who will serve side by side. Laurence interviews that chefs don't think about pairing with desserts, just with wine or within a course. I'm sure some people do. Nana has the other mango sorbet, so she has to use an “Indian pantry” along with Jassi. She says Ghana has curries so she's not completely lost. Jassi yells that it's all about the spices, and it feels like he's trying to help and not brag. Nana is planning on cauliflower, and Jassi is making paneer tikka. Both of those sound pretty good. “Caramel cookie crunch gelato” is “Argentina” for some reason. I don't know. This is Sherry and Oscar. See, Oscar took gelato and not sorbet. Sherry talks about not overdoing it with sweetness, so she's trying to make acidic gastrique. Pistachio = California, which makes some sense. Someone tells Oscar when they win the money they'll bring him to Argentina with them. Heh. Laurence is making Turkish food again, with the pistachio which is probably a decent idea. Someone says something to Jassi, and he says he's representing his country so he can't fuck up (basically). Nana says “He said 'I'm representing my country' I'm dead”. Heh.
Duyen and Brandon have “Southern Butter Pecan” which means “Southern US”. Sure. Duyen has pork loin because it's quick, and Brandon also has pork because...the same reason I guess. “Coffee Chocolate Chip” means Colombia. So basically both chefs are using coffee which makes sense. The couple of Justin and Jennifer got “Mediterranean Mint” which means Mediterranean. Justin had said something about mint chip, so I actually looked it up and it is mint chip. It just doesn't say so in the name. Naturally they are making almost the same dish for maximum drama. Jennifer says recently she's been doing a million things in their restaurants, almost everything but cooking. Justin tells us in a dual confessional that that's why he pushed her to do this, to remind Jennifer that she's an amazing chef. Jennifer does say she's glad he pushed her to do this, but the whole thing makes me make a face. It feels kind of condescending and like he couldn't get cast by himself? He needed her for the gimmick? Why did he have to pressure her into applying if she didn't want to, you know? Also there are easier ways to convince your partner they're a good chef?
Brittany's meat is on fire, and everyone hollers at her to go get it. The vanilla people got “Madagascan” which I can't even place. What even is that. Jonathan says vanilla is used in “a lot” of savory dishes. Is it? Sieger is making a heavy stew so the gelato can cleanse the palate. Sure. Oscar is making corn pancakes, like arepas. He's thinking late night snack. Oscar used to be a DJ with the name “Buenos Diaz”. Heh. Brandon has abandoned his sous vide idea to just use the grill like a normal person. Lots of frantic working. Sieger puts some gelato in his stew. Duyen slices her pork loin and it's raw. Like completely raw. She's searing it on the grill, as others are done plating and celebrating.
Caramel Cookie Crunch is up first. Oscar: polenta cachapa, brown sugar and butter caramel, Fresno chili, almonds, and crispy skin provolone. Not sure what “crispy skin provolone” is, unless he means he just let the cheese get crispy and made a frico? Sherry: polenta crusted grouper, kabocha crema, guava gastrique, champagne grapes, and bitter chocolate. Kabocha squash looks like small green pumpkins. Mint chip next. Jennifer: marinated fennel salad with oranges, cured black olives, figs, feta cheese, chocolate, and lemon puree. Justin: oven roasted fennel, vinaigrette with feta, roasted pine nuts, fig, and olives. It looks like Mei and Kristen are eating the dish, and then there's just a pint of gelato between them they're taking spoonfuls of. Pistachio next. Laurence: lamb borek with apricot jam, pickled tomatillos, and pistachios. Lamb borek is filo with lamb filling, rolled into a long sausage and then coiled and baked. Then he reveals his wife is from Madagascar and she's gonna be mad he didn't look at all the flavors. Heh. Anthony: crispy artichoke with pipian sauce, candied apricot, and pistachio. Pipian sauce has pumpkin seeds in it.
Coffee Chocolate Chip next. Brittany: coffee spiced lamb tartare with crispy plantains, and aioli with chili pepper and plantains. Rhoda: coffee and chili rubbed pork loin chop with pan jus, tostones, and dragon fruit salsa. Mango next. Jassi: malai paneer tikka with kachumber salad and spice mix. “Kachumber” is cucumbers and tomatoes and other veggies. I think “malai paneer” is a variety of curry? Nana: curried cauliflower steak with chunky tomato salsa and spinach. Vanilla is next. Sieger: strawberry snapper with cracked coconut and uni. It is very brown, and he says there's uni in the sauce but it's hard to see. Jonathan: charred eggplant, tamarind, miso, and vanilla sauce, with lychee and coconut. Southern Butter Pecan is last. Brandon: pork loin medallion with peach mostarda and crispy mustard leaf. Brandon used whole cloves in his marinade and Kristen just got a big mouthful. Oops. Duyen: pecan crusted pork tenderloin, braised mustard greens, peach and grape reduction. Mei asks a pointed question about what temperature Duyen was going for, and then Duyen gushes about how much she loves Mei's side eye. Stop kissing up.
Brittany didn't get any coffee flavor in her tartare, Sieger overcooked his fish and had muddy sauce, and Duyen did manage to get her pork cooked “okay”, but it was underseasoned. On top is Oscar (not sweet and a successful late night snack), Laurence (also balanced, the gelato functioned like a yogurt dip), and Nana (spice paired well). The winner is Laurence. And he won last time so he's at $15,000.
For the Elimination Challenge, it's time for Carolina Reapers. They were created nearby (based on the name) and they are hotter than ghost peppers. Oh also Ed Currie then beat himself by creating Pepper X. If you watch “Hot Ones” you know this already. Jassi admits he's not a fan of super spicy food. I'd say “likes spicy food” and “likes Carolina Reapers” are not the same thing. Also why isn't Sean Evans here? Anyway, Jassi says his heat tolerance is maybe 2 out of 10. Team challenge time! Two teams of seven, to make a seven course meal that gets progressively hotter. Interesting. I kind of like this idea. Knife draw for teams. Sieger says he'd like Oscar or Rhoda, Oscar because he can crank out food, and Rhoda because she's confident. As they divide up, someone says “Dammit I wanted Oscar!” but I'm not sure who it is. Everyone is responsible for one dish (you could have guessed that). Oh also field trip to the farm now. 90 minutes to prep and cook tomorrow. They really are limiting the cooking times this season.
Well at least Ed's here at the farm. They get inside and there is a big prep counter with fresh peppers, dried peppers, powders, etc. He then realizes there are twins, because Jonathan and Brandon have worn the same shirt, and that's some kiddie stuff. Don't do that shit. Sherry asks where this passion comes from, aka “Why are you insane?” and Ed says that heart disease and cancer run in his family, and he believes hot peppers can help prevent those things. They all straight up slice peppers and eat them raw. Lots of coughing and sweating and people drinking water like that will help. Mei is here just chilling so I choose to believe she didn't have any peppers. Mei's smarter than that. She does tell the chefs that you can put more than one pepper in a dish to bring out the aromatics of the peppers. Some for heat and some for flavor. Some people declare themselves “pepper high”.
The Green Team is Anthony, Brittany, Jennifer, Jonathan, Oscar, Rhoda, and Sieger. Rhoda says she has immunity and is comfortable with any level of spice. So I guess everyone pick what they want and she'll take whatever is left? Not a bad idea with immunity. Oscar is good with spice also, so he says she should do hottest and he'll do second hottest, and they'll at least have a start. They seem to be dividing courses with minimal drama. Red Team is Brandon, Duyen, Jassi, Justin, Laurence, Nana, and Sherry. Brandon wants to make tuna tartare but with Fresno chilies and red jalapenos, so it would need to be first. Justin says fried chicken wing but stuffed with shrimp. Jassi suggests the last course be a vindaloo, which “gives you a kick in the mind”. Nana is concerned since Jassi doesn't even like spice, but he seems confident. $700 at Whole Foods. I'm not sure how many people they are serving but Sieger asks for 21 oysters. Jennifer is making she crab soup. Everyone seems to be working together to share ingredients and save money. Nana is also making soup. Oscar says he thinks they can buy everything they have. Red Team did not do as good of a job at budgeting. Duyen interviews that Sherry and Brandon are over budget and it's screwing Justin, who I guess just had the misfortune to be last in line. Green team is 20 cents under budget which is impressive, while Red team seems to have left about $90 for Justin. They all cheer in the end, so did he get everything? They walk off, and there is an ominous shot of like three carts with random stuff. I think this must be the stuff they couldn't buy because they were over? It's not clear but I don't think it's stuff they forgot.
Cooking is at the farm again, in what looks like a plastic greenhouse. So basically, shitty outdoor kitchens. It says “90 minutes until first course is served” so it looks like you can have a little longer to cook if you're going last. Rhoda tells Green team if they change their dish, they need to tell the team so they can discuss. Nana and Anthony trash talk a little bit since they are both going fifth. We get some menus, and they sound pretty good. Lots of peppers everything. Green team is laughing and joking with each other. The Red team labels themselves “The Red Reapers” and cheer. Jassi has the last course and he's putting Carolina Reapers in the vindaloo. He says something about a team tasting to check the progression. Green team is doing this with their sauces, and they seem to agree to go higher. Or at least Rhoda is getting bossy and telling everyone to go higher, to taste in order, to do this one at a time. She interviews that she's the oldest of six kids, and that she was “...I shouldn't say bully...I was very motherly”. She really is bossing everyone, but no one has an interview about how they're mad about it. Red team discovers Brandon's dish has a kick to it, which it's not supposed to. Sherry is second, but she says she can't switch with Brandon because she has too much to do. So she has to make hers spicier, and she says it's frustrating and disrespectful. Does everyone else have to adjust?
After commercial, Brandon announces that Sherry is going to make her dish a little spicier, and she immediately throws him under the bus and says it's because his dish is too spicy. She doesn't want to end up in the bottom because of what she perceives as Brandon's mistake. She also says everyone else is going to have to reseason and make their dishes hotter, which is what I thought, although she sort of says this at a regular volume and no one reacts so maybe they aren't listening. Brandon promises he's only using tiny dots of avocado puree, which I guess is where the spice is, but Sherry just says she's not reseasoning again. It kind of sounds like Brandon doesn't think he's screwed up, but everyone only thinks so because they tried the one part of his dish with the spice in it. But then he announced to everyone Sherry had to adjust so then he does think it's spicy, right? If he thought it would be fine and she didn't have to change then why tell everyone she was adding spice? But he's spending a lot of time talking about his other components and whatnot.
The judges arrive and I'm wildly pleased to see Ed is dressed exactly the same as he was yesterday, in jeans and a flannel and a trucker hat. Just giving zero fucks about it.
Hilariously the dining table is in an identical temporary greenhouse with the table and chairs, and nothing else. The CEO of Heatonist is also here, but no one cares about him, I guess. Nana is sous viding her fish, and she sort of flails but supposedly she's got it. Brandon busts out the liquid nitrogen to chill his fish.
Sieger: Kumamoto oyster, cucumber, green jalapeno mignonette granita, and reaper salsa. Brandon: tuna tartare, tomato jalapeno jelly, avocado mousse, and puffed wild rice. Brandon did well, and Sieger's dish was good but the consensus seems to be that using reapers made the dish very aggressive. Tom says the heat is gone very quickly, but I'm shocked no one said anything about this. Maybe they all were like Tom and thought it was gone quickly so it would be fine. Gail points out that compared to Brandon this is a “midway” point to start.
Brittany: charred corn and grilled shrimp salad with chili lime vinaigrette, and pickled cayenne peppers. Sherry: chilled seafood chowder with lemongrass, Fresno chilies, and Fresno lime granita. The pickled cayenne is delicious, and Tom says that this spice lingers, unlike Sieger's. Mei was bored but it tasted good. Sherry's dish had the right amount of heat so that went well.
Jennifer: pepper crab with grits and seafood gravy. Duyen: pork laab salad with jalapenos and rice crackers. Jennifer's crab is hot but they love the sauce and the whole dish. The laab spice grows on you.
Jonathan: pan seared snapper with Cara Cara orange and kumquat slaw. There is a sauce poured tableside but I'm not sure what it is. There seems to be slaw already on there, and the poured thing is for sure a smooth sauce. Laurence: Carolina-style Yuxiang eggplant three ways with rice. No word on what the three ways are. They love the eggplant. “Yuxiang eggplant” is a specific dish of braised eggplant in sauce, so I guess he's used some local ingredients or something. Mei says the Red team's progression so far is perfect. Jonathan's dish was good, but it unfortunately is going to be compared with Laurence. His sauce is maybe too aggressive, but Gail points out if it wasn't, his dish wouldn't be spicy enough for where it is in the courses.
Justin has finally deboned all his chicken wings, but he decides if he fries them, they'll shrink up and he'll serve tiny chicken nuggets, so he has them outside on the grill. Nana was sous viding her fish, but it is still underdone, so now they are opening bags and searing the filets in a pan. She interviews that she should have just done that in the first place. But she does get the plates done.
Anthony: jerk lamb, hoe cake, red jalapeno and Scotch Bonnet carrot maafe, Carolina Reaper pikliz. Maafe is a West African stew. Nana: shito marinated red snapper with fish light soup, fufu espuma, and okra salsa. Shito is a hot pepper sauce. “Light soup” is a Ghanian dish that refers to any soup that is brothy and not thick. Fufu is usually cassava and/or yams that is pounded into a dough and used to dip up soups and stews, but espuma is foam. Anthony's hoe cake gave some relief from the spice, and the rest of the dish is well seasoned. Nana's soup is good and Mei loves the dish. Tom says his snapper is “really raw”. Ed's fish is also raw, but he does say that he enjoyed the flavor of everything else.
Oscar: blue corn masa huarache with al pastor, salsa diabla, salsa criolla, and pickled pineapple. A huarache is a round of masa with toppings, like a tostada. Also my spellcheck recognizes “huarache”. But not “tostada”, spellcheck? Al pastor is pork cooked with pineapple, “diabla” means “devil”, salsa criolla is Peruvian. Justin: shrimp stuffed chicken wings with greens dressed in habanero chili oil, and yogurt ranch. Oscar had a lot of different textures and flavors, with lots of layers. Justin's spice is maybe not lingering, and Mei thinks the wings needed to be turned over and cooked more on one side.
At the last minute, everyone tells Jassi to make his dish hotter. As the judges are being served, Gail asks if she has to eat this. Heh. Rhoda: pepper braised short rib, chili pickled pearl onions, and blistered cayenne. Jassi: braised lamb vindaloo with flaky paratha, potato mash, yogurt and lime shot. It's literally a little glass with yogurt in it to either pour over or like, take as a shot I guess. Rhoda's sauce is delicious and they all love it, even though it's very spicy. Jassi's lamb was too dry, so it sounds like the sauce didn't carry through. But overall, more good dishes in this dinner than bad. Tom says he's happy with the level of cooking this challenge. Both teams delivered, but one was better. But no one really failed, I guess is the point.
Judges' Table. Tom says some of the food is spectacular. Green Team is up first, because they are the winners. Relief all around. Sieger went first, and his dish was hotter than the next one, but the spice faded very quickly and Gail says it prepared you for the next course. Tom loved Jennifer's dish, and they seem to know it was supposed to be she crab soup, even though it was presented as “peppered crab with grits”. Lots of great flavors. Rhoda's dish was what the menu needed and it was the perfect ending. The winner is Rhoda. Two in a row! She wins immunity again.
I still miss the Loser Gong. Kristen says the Red team still did a good job, it was close. Tom thinks maybe some things were out of position. Like Justin's dish was there spice-wise, but maybe chicken wings should have been earlier in the meal. Justin says something about it's too hard with plating to make that adjustment? I guess that he couldn't have gone any earlier because there was no way he would have been ready. The grilling was also uneven. Nana didn't cook her fish consistently. Jassi had dry lamb, and it turns out it was a leg of lamb and you can't braise leg of lamb because it doesn't have enough collagen to stand up to a braise. You have to roast it. And that explains why they showed a shot of someone saying they bought leg of lamb because it was cheaper than loin or chops or whatever they wanted to get. I thought it was a budget thing, which maybe it was, but they had all that drama with money so I thought that was the end of it. I guess not. Gail says she didn't get a ton of heat? So they talk about adding Pepper X powder at the end, and it's not the same as cooking with the chilies.
As everyone goes back to the Stew Room, Tom is commenting that none of the Red team liked the spice level in Jassi's dish. Kristen says they all thought Red team was doing very well, until the last three courses. The progression of spice was a problem, but then there were technical problems with execution also. Justin's chicken was not cooked enough on one side, and then when Tom said the dish should have been earlier in the meal, he was talking about the portion size. Justin served two wings per person, like not whole wings but two flats. Compared to Nana's previous course of an entree-sized filet. Tom thinks the chicken was the best of the three though. Nana fit the spice level but the fish was uneven. It looks like some people had perfect fish, and Tom's was raw. He does point out that Jassi's lamb was dry across the board. Mei doesn't know why he wouldn't have gone all out with spice from the beginning, knowing he was last. Gail asks if Jassi's mistakes outweighed Nana's mistakes.
This is a tight competition, and maybe little things will send you home. Jassi is eliminated. Aww. It was the wrong cut of lamb to braise and it wasn't spicy enough. He's pissed because Nana served undercooked fish and he thought she was out. He gets that he did make mistakes, though, and he represented himself so he's proud of that.
Next week: Emeril, Jennifer is at urgent care because she can't move her shoulder, dying your food with “natural food dyes” for some reason, Gail is grumpy and if Tom says you're grumpy then you're grumpy.
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