Top Chef Las Vegas Recap
By Jason Lee
October 15, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The other cheftestant in the house who's on the defensive is Robin. Because of her tendency to ramble on during conversations, utterly oblivious to the fact that others may not enjoy listening to her stream of consciousness gibberish as much as she does, as well as for the fact that she's remained in the competition while other more "popular" chefs like Mattin and Ron have gone home, Robin is in the sh*thouse. Seriously. Nobody likes her. Most everyone, notably Pompous Mike, treats her like an incompetent chef who stumbled into the kitchen and has miraculously avoided elimination by some bizarre twist of fate.
We enter the Top Chef kitchen with Padma standing in knee-high cowboy boots next to Charlie Palmer. I've never heard of Charlie but apparently he's the pioneer of American cuisine and has experience working with both Michael and Bryan. In fact, Bryan worked exclusively for Charlie for over ten years before finally setting off on his own.
Padma tells the cheftestants that pairing is one of the most difficult skills to learn as a chef, and that this week's challenges will test that skill. They spy a table full of Alexia crunchy snacks, which are apparently made with real vegetables (as opposed to potato chips, which...aren't?). The chefs have been snacking on them in the house for the past couple of weeks and now they will have to cook a dish that will pair well with the Alexia snacks.
Eli, whose ego has increased enormously over the course of the show for no apparent reason, is boasting about his skills. He says that since he went to culinary school, he's one of the few people who actually knows how to pair ingredients. He says that he feels that he can win this challenge, easy. "Yeah, cause you've been in the top of so many Elimination Challenges!" I yell to my TV.
Oh yeah, and he still lives with his parents. Loser.
Bryan and Michael, cooking for their mentor, are really stressing out. They clearly want to show Charlie that they've "made it" as chefs. Surprisingly, Jennifer is stressing out as well. She says that she doesn't want to mess up in front of an American icon. She decides to cook a sautéed pork chop...but unfortunately, her dish is the LAST dish tried by Charlie and by the time they arrive at her station, her pork chop is over-cooked.
DAMMIT.
On the bottom of the Quickfire, we have:
Robin, with a weird pairing between her jalapeno and sweet corn panna cotta and the chips; Ash, whose combination of chilled cucumber and avocado soup with crème fraiche weirded Charlie out; and Jennifer, who had a good idea but didn't execute it well (DAMMIT!)
On the top we had:
Eli, who had an impressive idea with his potato and clam salad with fennel; Bryan, with spot-on execution of his seared rib eye with pickled onions ; and Kevin, whose warm bean and confit tomato salad with fresh herbs paired well with the snacks.
I had initially thought that Kevin would win this but it turns out that Eli wins. DAMMIT. I hate him. I really hope Eli doesn't get immunity. *growl*
Ash says that he is surprised that he is in the bottom but argues that Eli definitely deserved to win. Yep, Ash, you're always willing to praise your competitors ahead of yourself. That's definitely a failing in a chef.
The chefs draw knives to find out what they'll be cooking in the Elimination Challenge, and it turns out that each knife has a picture of a pig plus the name of a part of a pig - leg, belly, chop, etc. Each chef will be cooking the part of the pig that's on their knife. Jennifer draws a knife that says "wild," so she gets to choose which part that she cooks. She chooses pork belly.
Charlie explains that he runs a yearly event called "Pigs and Pinot" where the chefs pair pork dishes with fantastic pinot noirs. The cheftestants head to Mandalay Bay to pick out their wines. At the bar, they watch in awe as "Wine Angels" pick out bottles from a 3-story glass wine cask. The Angels fly majestically into the air, supported by cables like Cirque du Soleil trapeze artists, select a wine and float down to earth. It's pretty damn cool.
The nine chefs try nine wines and one by one, they make their selection. Pompous Eli makes a snide comment about how there are some "amateur palettes" with certainly chefs picking out "candy wines." I really hate Eli. He's like that annoying little brother who has nothing better to do than criticize what everyone else does, even though he lives in his parents' basement.
The chefs head to Whole Foods and buy their ingredients before coming back to the house to relax for the challenge the next day. During this time, two things happen:
1) Eli and Robin get into a huge fight. After exhausting nearly everyone's patience with her jabbering, Robin makes a snide comment about having to clean up after Eli and he blows up at her, yelling that she can't talk to him that way cause she's not his mom. Robin stays in the kitchen, talking to herself, and Eli goes downstairs to complain to the rest of the house.
2) Ash expresses concerns about how to keep his tenderloin from overcooking and Pompous Mike suggests to him that he do a chilled tenderloin. So Ash junks his idea and decides not to do a polenta and goes with Pompous Mike's idea. So much for focusing on his own style of cooking.
The next day, the cheftestants start cooking. Kevin is only using three components in his dish and knows that each one will have to be spot on, Bryan really wishes he had eight hours to cook his spare rib, and Jennifer wants to make up for her errors in the Quickfire. Eli, who is also cooking pork belly, sneers at Jennifer's food, saying that his is more robust and exciting than Jennifer's, which is "more basic."
Meanwhile, Robin is motivated to win. She wants to show all these young kids that she came here to cook good food. Just like all these other reality show contestants, she's not here to make friends.
Anyways, a veritable horde of diners start to come down a runway for lunch and the chefs start freaking out. Seriously, it looks like Miley Cyrus fans at a Hannah Montana concert. Most chefs start quickly plating - but not Eli. He's so confident about his dish. He thinks that he's paired his ingredients perfectly with his wine.
The judges begin trying the cheftestants' meals and surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a single bomb in the crowd. Until the end, that is. Robin serves this brined center cut pork chop, which doesn't taste of pork and is far too slimy. Laurine has a pork butt rillette with arugula, and according to Toby, her rillette is a disaster.
Great. There are only three women left in this competition and two of them have horrible dishes. Jeebus. Weren't there any better female chefs that Bravo could have included in this season's competition? I'm sure that Jen is embarrassed for her sex.
The cheftestants head back to the stew room and Padma calls out Michael, Bryan, Kevin and Jennifer. I immediately turn to my boyfriend and proclaim: these will be the four chefs that make it to the finale. Mark my words.
PS. Haha Eli, you didn't make it into the Top Four! NYAH NYAH!
Michael's dish of root beer braised pork cheek had a lot going on but they all went together. Jennifer provided the lightest pork belly that Charlie had ever eaten – it was very good. (At this point, Toby garbles something about French wines and hairy armpits . . . he was trying to compliment Jennifer but I don't think anyone understood what he was trying to say). Bryan's dish of braised spare rib was successful, tasted of pork and could not have chosen a better wine to pair it with. Kevin hit all parts of the flavor of his wine with his pork leg pate.
It's hard to say who wins but I'm thinking it's either Jennifer or Kevin - and KEVIN ends up winning. It's his third Elimination challenge win and he instantly becomes the undisputed frontrunner to win this title. His quality of cooking and inventiveness really reminds me of Richard Blais - though we all know how THAT turned out.
The bottom three are called before the judges: Ash, Laurine and Robin. You could tell they all expected to be on the bottom. After they exit, Eli and Pompous Mike remark to the group that they hope the judges make "the right decision." Michael says that you couldn't taste any pork in Robin's dish and Pompous Mike says, "I don't care how it tasted, I just want Grandma to go home."
Yeah, I really, really, really hate fat, Pompous Mike.
Robin says that she stands by her dish, as she thought it tasted good and paired well with the subtle flavors in her wine. Tom criticizes the texture of the sauce (gummy) and Charlie says that he couldn't have ever called that dish "great."
I immediately think that she's going home because she has decided to stand by a dish that was clearly bad. That's NEVER a good sign.
Ash is surprised to be in the bottom three, saying that maybe his dish was too simple. Tom says that he needed to develop his flavors more. Padma asks Ash if he tasted his dish (to which he responds "yes") and wonders if Ash thought that it lacked flavor. Ash backtracks, protecting his ego by saying that the dish wasn't what he initially wanted to do. He describes the dish he was going to prepare before Pompous Mike talked him out of it and Charlie says "that sounds fantastic, why didn't you do it?"
"Cause I'm an idiot," says Ash.
Okay, Ash is going home. After completing ceding the floor to Michael last week (and taking a lot of criticism for it), the fact that he CHANGED his dish based on his competitor's input this week means that he's now made the "Top Sous-Chef" mistake in two consecutive challenges. He's going home.
As for Laurine, she claims that she ran out of time . . . though Toby says that it tasted like "dry hash," and Dana Gowin (Gail's boss at Food and Wine magazine) called it "cat food" at the charity event. Charlie also SLAMS her for the way she cooked the rillette, saying that it's completely wrong. She had sautéed it when she should have poached it in fat. Laurine is horribly embarrassed.
The cheftestants walk backstage and as he sits down, Ash slaps his forehead in mock surprise, exclaiming, "Oh! I forgot flavor!" No, you didn't. You forgot to cook your own food, dummy.
Meanwhile, the judges try to figure out who should go home. Robin's dish had no pork flavor, it didn't pair well with the wine, and had a gunky/salt residue at the bottom of the plate ("like instant coffee at the bottom of a mug," says Toby). Charlie admits that she probably has no idea how to flavor pork.
Ash had an amateur pork dish. Tom doesn't think he knows how to develop flavor. Toby didn't like the bitter corn. Charlie said it was not well executed. Tom further takes issue with the fact that this is the second challenge in a row when he didn't cook "his food."
Laurine had an idea that was never going to pan out. Toby didn't think it was recognizable as rillette and Tom thought the texture was terrible.
It's definitely between Robin and Ash - but I'm sticking with my pick for Ash to go home.
And he does. Ash is asked to pack his knives. He promises that the first thing he'll do when he gets home is cook the pork dish that he'd intended to cook all along and invite Tom, Toby and Charlie to eat it.
But while Ash is eliminated, Robin is the real loser. The other cheftestants are going to be merciless with her. All they'll see is an undeserving chef somehow making it through at the expense of another chef that they genuinely liked. I'm afraid to see how badly they'll treat her after this.
LEADERS AFTER 8 EPISODES:
Kevin: Five times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, three Elimination Challenge wins, two Quickfire Wins
Bryan: Five times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, three Elimination Challenge wins
Jennifer: Five times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, one Elimination Challenge win, two Quickfire Wins
Michael: Six times in the top of the Elimination Challenge, one Elimination Challenge win, one Quickfire Win