Top Chef California: Episode 9
By Jason Lee
February 1, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The chefs return to the Top Chef Kitchen in Los Angeles - seriously, what happened to the promised road trip? Or even the promised departure from SoCal? - to find Padma standing next to a big flat screen television. Today's Quickfire, Padma says, is all about food porn. Over the past couple of months, an anonymous Instragrammer named Jacques La Merde has attracted over 30,000 followers. The poster's gimmick? The new Instagram celebrity posts gorgeous pictures of tweezified dishes composed of junk food.
Jacques La Merde tells the cheftestants via a black screen and voice mixer that “farm to table is dead, bro. This is the new reality.” Ughhh, I hope not.
This challenge will test the ability of the chefs to put together visually stunning good. Apparently, there's no need for any of it to taste good, it's just got to look good - the chef whose junk food dish gets the most likes on Instagram wins immunity. I worry about a show of the caliber of Top Chef asking the cheftestants to focus on looks, not substance - that it'll turn out to be the food challenge equivalent of participation in a political primary debate.
The chefs dive into the pantry, which is filled to the brim with equal parts junk food (marshmallows, chips, Cheez Whiz) and vegetables. Then they get to work making the food look as picture perfect as possible. This is the ultimate high-low food challenge, with a dash of Hollywood make-up artist thrown in.
After a frantic 30 minutes, the chefs come face-to-face with the real Jacques La Merde. It's Christine Flynn - a Toronto-based chef who says that she started the Instagram page as a way of reminding herself not to take food so seriously. That's awesome.
One-by-one, the chefs bring up their concoctions. Chad has a half-empty plate filled with sliced blueberries, marshmallows, and twinkies. It looks cool, but very empty. Christine, though, loves his use of negative space.
I absolutely love Amar's dish, which has half the plate covered with a swoosh of fermented black bean purée (believe me, it looks better than it sounds), with Easy Cheese, spam and a Doritos crumble.
Carl has the most innovative dish of the bunch, with a “garden” of junk food growing out of an empty can of Spam. It's incredibly cool and most of the chefs think that Carl's got this in the bag.
Jeremy is next with a dish that has NOTHING ON THE PLATE. There are tiny bits of food sprinkled here and there, with some cocoa powder, crème fraîche, carrot dust, and milk powder. It resembles something parodying the “dish that costs $300 but contains little to no actual food.”
Marjorie has bologna spaghetti with a Twinkie crumble and spinach purée. I bet it tastes fine, but it's visually not a showstopper.
Isaac has four bits of food splashing in from the four corners of his plate, with cheese, chocolate and fruit. Kind of meh.
Kwame's “lunchmeat special” is also a bit bland for my tastes, but Christine and Padma seem to like it a lot. Specifically, they like the fact that it looks like it could be an actual dish... which, I thought, was not the point.
Karen has a dessert made of Oreo cookie dust, Cheetos icing, and donuts. It's gorgeous, but not all that innovative. It's just a very, very nice looking dessert.
Finally, we have Philip, who turns his dish round and round and round trying to find just the right light for his Instagram picture. Kwame calls out from the sidelines, “It's go time, bro.” Padma starts counting down the time he has left. I scream at the TV, “Just use Valencia and be done with it!”
And that's that. The cheftestants won't find out until after the Elimination Challenge tomorrow which dish has garnered the most likes. Until then, the chefs are going to have to cater an event - a big event. Introducing the challenge is Neil Fraser, a very well-respected Los Angeles chef, and one who'll be familiar to anyone who's watched Top Chef Masters. He reminisces about old time Beefsteak events, where politicians and gangsters used to get together to drink booze and eat meat. In the spirit of that, the cheftestants will be asked to cook for a black tie version of the Beefsteak, each in teams of three. There will have to be one seafood dish, one meat dish, and two sides. Harkening back to actual Beefsteaks, there will be no utensils, no plates, and no napkins. The diners will be looking to enjoy a gluttonous feast with their hands.
Philip, Jeremy, and Amar (our first group) get to work planning and Philip declares that he wants to do a lamb dish on the bone so that diners can take the meat by the bone and dig in. Jeremy isn't sure it's a good idea to do LAMB at a BEEFsteak, but Philip gets his way.
A similar conversation is being had with Isaac, Marjorie, and Chad. Isaac wants to do a chicken-pork sausage, despite Marjorie's belief that beef would make more sense. Again, Isaac prevails.
Finally, Kwame, Carl, and Karen are the only team who actually is going to serve beef. Good for them.
After shopping and initial preparations, the chefs head back to the loft to rest up for what will be a long day. Philip calls his wife and reminisces about when he first met her in middle school and how they started their two restaurants together. This nostalgia immediately raises red flags for me - giving a chef any time to talk about how much he or she misses so-and-so, or how much he or she is missing home, usually portends the impending departure of that chef from the competition. It's Bravo's version of “be careful what you wish for.”
As final preparations take place in the kitchen, the diners start to arrive. I wonder aloud how much I would dislike attending a dinner in black tie attire only to be told that there are no napkins and I'll be eating with my hands. I suppose that this crowd, unlike me, doesn't usually fret about the cost of dry cleaning.
The Green Team of Philip, Jeremy, and Amar are up first. Philip says that after his “therapy session” with the judges, he feels free to be himself. Thus, at a BEEFsteak event, he offers a New Zealand rack of lamb with prune jam. The bone has been Frenched, so diners are able to take hold with one hand and start gnawing. Unfortunately (for me), everyone appears to enjoy the jam. Amar has a roasted halibut with mustard vinaigrette that most diners find too “dainty” for the Beefsteak. Jeremy finishes off with two sides: fried brussels sprouts with sweet and sour sauce, and roasted carrots and spiced yogurt. Tom declares that everything was seasoned and cooked well, but wishes that the meal had left more of a mess at the end of it.
Next are Isaac, Chad, and Marjorie. Isaac plops down a plate holding a huge coil of chicken and pork sausage, winding and twisting around itself. Imagine the excesses of Nicki Minaj's “Anaconda” video and apply it to a plate of chicken sausage and that's pretty much what's served up. The diners love the look of the dish but Hugh criticizes the taste and the fact that it lacked fat.
Chad has seared tuna with citrus and microgreens. That brings derision from everyone. “What the hell are microgreens doing here?” Padma yells as she flings her microgreens across the table.
Finally, Marjorie has her two sides: assorted pickles vegetables and milk bread, which is intended to be used as a vehicle for sopping up food, as a napkin to get food off of one's fingers, etc. I worry about Marjorie falling into the trap of doing something too modest for a challenge, but everyone loves her dishes. Whew.
The last team starts off with Kwame's peel-and-eat Cajun shrimp, which he's made before and knows will be a huge hit. The diners love the fact that the platter is piled high with shrimp, but the mood quickly turns sour. The shrimp is overcooked and far too salty-Padma makes a disgusted, I-really-want-to-spit-this-out face that says it all.
Karen and Carl collaborated on a roasted NY strip loin with romesco-the only beef in the entire meal. It's declared delicious but again, too hoity-toity. The judges want more of a “caveman” approach to the meet.
Finally, Karen has two side dishes: asparagus with chorizo, and potatoes with olives. No one offers any comments one way or another on them.
Back in the Stew Room, the chefs are all a bit relieved to hear that each group struggled with making food appropriate for the occasion-that everyone still seemed to have a “tweezified” hangover from the Quickfire.
As they approach Judges' Table, Padma is ready to announce the winner of the Quickfire. Though most chefs point to Carl as their pick to win immunity, Karen takes the prize with almost 5,800 likes out of a total 23,000 likes given to all the dishes. I guess that makes sense - her dessert certainly made the most of the junk food ingredients.
As fro the Elimination Challenge, Tom wants to know why the diners didn't get decadence in the meal. Chad protests that it's hard to produce Top Chef-worthy food in a Beefsteak. Max, the founder of Beefsteak and former competitor on Top Chef Masters, acknowledges the difficulty of the challenge, but notes that you have to figure out how to get around limitations in order to excel on the show. The essence of it is pretty much, “grow up and stop complaining.”
It's not a huge surprise to see Amar, Jeremy, and Philip be declared to have won the challenge. Padma loved that Philip chose to serve bone-in meat as his dish. Tom found it appropriate for the affair. In contrast, while Tom liked the flavor of Amar's halibut, it felt out of place for the Beefsteak. “Fish seemed to trip everyone up,” he comments.
Equal parts annoying and unsurprising, the winner of the Elimination Challenge is Philip. Ughhh, I was really hoping that the mind games he likes to play with himself would trip him up again here, but looks like we'll have to tolerate him for at least another week.
On the bottom is the team of Marjorie, Isaac, and Chad. Marjorie is clearly safe, as Padma absolutely loved her vegetables and bread. Tom calls her “clearly the best baker we've ever had on the show.” Good for her.
Things are less rosy for Isaac and Chad. Tom liked Isaac's idea of serving a platter of sausage, but faults his use of chicken. Padma says she was surprised by the blandness of the dish. As for Chad, he again takes a lot of flak for incorporating microgreens. Padma wishes he had cooked with a “wilder, freer hand.” Tom didn't appreciate the presence of such a fine-dining dish at a Beefsteak.
“A Beefsteak is supposed to be a fun, over-the-top celebration of food, and some dishes just missed the mark,” he says, in what seems like a clear indictment of Chad's dish.
And yup, Chad is going home. Tom tells him that he made great food all season long, and that he'll have another chance in Last Chance Kitchen. As he departs, Chad acknowledges that “Top Chef is hard!” He says that going from the military into Top Chef, he actually feels like Top Chef was the more challenging experience. He feels like he's grown and will be able to apply the lessons he's learned back home in his kitchen. Good for him - I hope he does.