Top Chef Boston Recap: Episode 5
By Jason Lee
November 18, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Adam notes that there are only 10 chefs left. That’s pretty amazing to me. Last season, it felt like there were a number of great chefs who could get hot and win out - Nina, Shirley, Louis, even Carlos. This season so far - while parity among the chefs means that the title could be up for grabs - I’d only single out Greg and Mei Lin as frontrunners.
We’re off to the Top Chef kitchen for this week’s Quickfire and we find Jamie Bissonnette (last year’s James Beard award winner for Best Chef in the Northeast) in the kitchen with Padma. She notes that, at this point in the competition, the cheftestants have had an opportunity to size each other up. It’s time to put that knowledge to the test. Five chefs will have the opportunity to name another chef against whom to cook in a head-to-head battle. The named chef picks the cooking method and the dish. The winning chef overall gets $10,000.
Katsuji goes first and picks Aaron. He wants to show Aaron how real chefs behave and cook. Aaron chooses smoked salmon as their dish.
Doug chooses Adam. He says that Adam loves to talk, and thus he’d enjoy knocking him down a peg. Adam chooses steamed mussels.
Keriann is the first cheftestant to actually employ strategy (as opposed to picking based on personal animosity) and chooses local girl Stacy, who she deems to be the weakest in the competition. Stacy chooses trout en papiotte.
Melissa looks at the remaining chefs: Katie, Greg, and Mei Lin. Obviously, she’s not going to pick Greg or Mei Lin. Melissa may have a weird haircut, but she’s not dumb. She avoids the chefs-to-beat and picks Katie, who selects smoked BBQ.
Thus, perhaps by chance, perhaps by the Top Chef producers’ obvious intent, the class of the kitchen - Greg and Mei Lin - are paired up against each other. By leaving them as the final two chefs, the other cheftestants have confirmed that they know what we know - Greg and Mei Lin are the favorites to take home the title, even after only four episodes.
As for their dish, Greg chooses dumplings. He knows that Mei Lin has made dumplings all her life, but is confident that his dumplings will have more flavor.
After a mad dish to the pantry and a frantic 30 minutes of cooking, the dishes are served up. Greg presents steamed shrimp dumplings with ginger. Padma questions why he didn’t make a dipping sauce. Mei Lin made pork dumplings with a black vinegar dipping sauce that Padma loves. In a mild upset, Greg is deemed the winner.
In Battle: Smoked BBQ, Katie offers grilled chicken breast with pine nut beans, while Melissa has a smoked and seared scallop with charred corn. Katie wins, with Jamie impressed by the way she cooked her pine nuts a la typical beans.
In Battle: Salmon, Katsuji aims to take Aaron down with a sake-infused chipotle broth with salmon. Aaron has a lightly-smoked wild salmon with tarragon. Katsuji wins because Aaron’s dish just didn’t have enough smoke.
In Battle: Trout en Papiotte, Keriann’s trout with white wine butter sauce edges Stacy’s trout with heirloom tomatoes. She just had more texture and balance.
Finally, in Battle: Steamed Mussels, Doug comes out on top with his mussels in orange and saffron butter. His mussels were cooked properly, unlike Adam’s Vadouvan-spiced mussels with Fresno chili.
And, as the overall winner, we have Greg. Okay, so forget what I said earlier about Greg and Mei Lin being the favorites to take home the title. Greg is the clear frontrunner, and Mei is in distant second. For those counting at home, this is Greg’s second Quickfire win. He’s thrilled, as he not only won the whole challenge, but he took down “the Dumpling Princess.” Call me crazy, but that sounded just a teeny bit racist to me.
On to the Elimination Challenge. Padma unveils a poster listing five of the most critical battles of the revolutionary war: Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trent, Saratoga, and Yorktown. The five winners will cook head-to-head against the five losers. A victory in a head-to-head battle will win each team one point - first to three wins the “war.”
The winners and losers each name the order in which the individual chefs will battle. While Padma urges them to pick their chefs in a calculated fashion, each loser seems intensely keen on getting a rematch with the winner who bested them. Thus, we have rematches of Adam/Doug, Greg/Mei, and Keriann/Stacy. There’s not so much strategy, as a desire for revenge. The final two pairings will be Katsuji vs. Melissa, and Aaron vs. Katie - a rematch from the Sudden Death Quickfire two episodes ago.
Another twist: the chefs will have to cook for 1,000 guests before engaging in their head-to-head battles in front of the judges. Each team will only have $10,000 total - meaning $2,000 per chef, and $2 per guest. “Food is scarce in times of war,” Jamie tells them.
The chefs head off to Whole Foods to start their shopping. If I were one of the chefs, I’d be throwing a fit. “Let’s go to Market Basket instead!” I would scream, “it’s way cheaper!” I would then advise them to beware of slipping on the piles of sawdust that Market Basket leaves in the produce aisles to soak up dripping water from their (admittedly, very fresh) produce.
The chefs begin discussing their strategies for winning their head-to-head battles. Mei Lin knows that Greg cooks with big, bold flavors, so she’s going to incorporate a couple of her own. She’s doing Korean BBQ.
Meanwhile, Katsuji isn’t intimidated by Melissa’s fine-dining background. He’s doing a homey tostada with goat cheese. (Meanwhile, Melissa is having serious issues with the texture of her white gazpacho).
Elsewhere, Greg isn’t “strategizing” so much as assuming total control over his team. He instructs each chef to make a sample of their dish and offers critiques/instructions on how to improve/tweak the dish. His strategy for winning, it seems, is to insert himself into each person’s process.
The chefs head off to the Waterfront Arsenal to cook for the diners. Melissa is still not happy with the texture of her soup, though Mei Lin likes the flavors she incorporated. Aaron is talking shit about Katie’s chocolate cake (he certainly likes to pick on people). Then, in a moment of total karma, somehow (probably due to Adam bumping into it), Aaron’s pot of homemade dashi broth clatters to the ground. He had been planning on using the broth to keep his scallop noodles (yes, he’s making scallop noodles again) moist, and now the broth is gone. Mei Lin gives him some instant dashi-broth mix and hopes that it’ll be fine.
The judges arrive and we have Hugh Acheson and Jamie in place of Richard Blais and Gail. The former is a step up in terms of attractiveness, the latter, not so much.
Adam and Doug are our first pair. Adam has salt and pepper grits with a poached egg and bacon jam - basically, a delicious, unhealthy breakfast. Doug has a very trite beef tartare with ginger aioli. All four chefs vote for Adam and the Losing Team gets the first point of the war.
At this point, I turn to my husband and wonder aloud, “so what happens if the judges are split two to two? Who gets the point?”
Next we have Katsuji versus Melissa. Katsuji, for some unknown reason, starts to have a panic attack. Like, a literal panic attack. Greg jumps in and starts plating Katsuji’s dish for him. With this help, he’s able to serve up a tostada with goat cheese and charred cauliflower. Melissa has a white gazpacho with green grapes and Marcona almonds. The judges find Katsuji’s dish too rich and too oily, but they can’t get past the wateriness of Melissa’s gazpacho. Only Padma votes for Melissa, the other three vote for Katsuji.
We’re tied one to one.
It’s Greg versus Mei, which means it’s Greg’s shitake mushrooms with coconut milk broth and green curry, up against Mei Lin’s kimchi vegetables with NY strip loin and scallion salad. The judges are blown away by both dishes. Tom says (and really, it only matters what Tom says) that Greg’s dish was perfectly seasoned, down to a single grain of salt, while Mei Lin’s dish had perfectly cooked meat that didn’t lack a thing. Hugh declares that both chefs nailed their dish.
Well, seems like Greg nailed his just a bit more, as Hugh, Tom, and Jamie vote for Greg (we’re not told what Padma voted for some reason). Greg beams. Mei Lin is very cross. “Losing twice sucks,” she tells the camera. As Greg walks back to his team, Tom comments that Greg “has a way of balancing all these flavors, like here, with his aromatics.”
The winners are up two-to-one when Keriann takes the field against Stacy. Keriann feels the pressure, but believes that her herbed meatball with red onion jam can win. “Really?” I ask incredulously, “you think you’re going to win with a meatball?” I feel like I’ve seen this folly many times in the past. Stacy, meanwhile, offers marinated beets with pecan sage yogurt and horseradish. Neither dish seems like a hit. Tom declares that Keriann’s meatball was dry, tasted only of onion, and had a compote that was too sweet. Meanwhile, he wishes that Stacy had incorporated more horseradish flavor. Every judge gives Stacy the edge, though, so our “war” is all tied up.
It comes down to the Sudden Death Quickfire-rematch of Aaron vs. Katie. As you’ll remember, there’s little love lost between the two. Aaron knocks Katie for “copping out and making a dessert.” Katie wishes Aaron would STFU.
In front of the judges, Aaron serves up his Asian spin on spaghetti and meatballs: pork meatballs with noodles made from scallops. As you’ll remember, in the pair’s Sudden Death Quickfire, Aaron made noodles out of shrimp. Hugh asks Aaron whether he’s happy with the texture of his noodles. Tom jumps in before Aaron can respond, agreeing that the noodles lack texture and criticizing the dashi broth. Aaron, relieved to have an excuse for at least one of Tom’s points, says that his pot of dashi broth was knocked to the ground.
Katie serves up a gorgeous dish of imperial chocolate cake with smoked sour cream. Tom finds the cake “nice and moist,” and Hugh says that the dish was good but not exciting. Padma asks how Katie felt in her rematch against Aaron and Katie - now supremely confident in the forthcoming win - brings up the “cop out” comment.
“Why is dessert a cop out?” Tom asks Aaron, noting that dessert has long been a point of weakness for past Top Chef-ers. Aaron responds that this Elimination Challenge was supposed to be a war, and “no one brings chocolate cake to a war.”
“Who brings scallop noodles to war?” Hugh wants to know. *BOOM*
All four judges pick Katie over Aaron and the Winning Team wins the Elimination challenge, three-to-two. Apparently, winners gonna win win win win win. And the losers gonna lose lose lose lose lose.
So someone from the doubly-losing team is going home today. At judges table, Tom chides the double-losing team for only focusing on beating their individual opponent, and not on trying to get a team win. Only Adam and Mei on the team put forth great dishes, and thus only they are safe.
With those chefs having stepped to the side, the judges begin to really tear into the three chefs up for elimination: Aaron, Melissa, and Stacy. Melissa admits that she was concerned about the texture of her gazpacho, and Jamie tells her that if she’s going to make a classic dish, it’s got to be perfect. Hugh didn’t enjoy the “watery finish” of the dish.
As for Aaron, Padma tells him that he bit off more than he could chew. Hugh blasts him for having mushy scallop noodles. Padma wants to know whether anyone on Aaron’s team warned him against trying to do too much in his dish. Adam pipes up, saying that Aaron believed he could finish and thus he didn’t have a problem having confidence in his teammate.
Then, in unbelievable fashion, Greg chimes in from the sidelines. “I would have never allowed that to happen,” he says self-righteously. “You have to work together as a team, and we all know what each other are strong and weak at.” Who asked you? I wonder aloud. What a pompous little a-hole. This is your third team win. We get it. You do well in group challenges. So shut your trap and stop acting like a Mr. Know-It-All.
Tom turns to Stacy and says, “you’re probably wondering what’s going on, thinking ‘hey, I won my challenge.’” Stacy says she felt good about her food but Hugh brings her back own to earth. “You went up against a weak dish,” he says bluntly.
All in all, this was the most critical, chastising Judges Table I’ve seen all season. Someone needs to give the judges a glass of wine or scotch. Or maybe a bag of ice for their hands, which must be sore from all that finger wagging. Apparently, Judges gonna judge judge judge judge judge . . . .
It’s judgment time and Tom’s delivering the eulogy. The challenge really brought out everyone’s competitive spirits, but the Winning Team saw their cavalry arrive just in the nick of time, and thus one of the three will be going home today. I predict Aaron, as his dish sounds like it was pretty much a total mess.
And yep, it’s Aaron. Tom tells him that he tried to do too many things, and that he let his team and himself down. Aaron gives a little speech about being the youngest chef, and having not gone to culinary school. Wow, that boulder of a chip is still lying on his shoulder.
Aaron is treated to a couple of chilly hugs from his fellow cheftestants - which he has most certainly earned - and heads out the door. In his closing testimonial, he says that had an awesome experience, even though he “caused shit and didn’t make many friends.” He wasn’t classically trained and hopes that his success of Top Chef serves as inspiration for those who don’t think they have a chance in life. “You can come from nothing,” he says, “and achieve what you’re looking for.” Unless that means leaving as the tenth best chef on this season of the show, I’m not sure Aaron has made his point as well as he thinks he has.