Ashes, Ashleys, They All Fall Down

Top Chef - Season 6, Episode 7

Previously on Top Chef: Every woe in the world, from swine flu to the My Lai massacre, was Robin's fault. Kevin once again floated to the top, while Ron fell out of the bottom. Ten chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

Opening credits. Sickness is still sweeping through our viewing party, so it was a small gathering. Good thing, because LabRat had taken some of my butter without telling me, so I didn't have enough to make chocolate chip cookies, and had to substitute margarine. The results were less than stellar.

Monday Morning Quarterback session. Ash has picked up Jesse's insecurity about not attending culinary school. Not that I think schooling is the end-all, be-all approach to every career, but based on what I've seen from Ash over the past six episodes, he's right to worry. Michael prioritizes food over everything. He mentions his two children, but I'm not sure if the take-away message is that he focuses on his career over them or not. That was weirdly presented. In other news, Jenc is a bit ill.

Quickfire Challenge. The chefs arrive in the Kitchen, to be met by Padma and guest judge Tyler Florence. Padma plugs a website that is a repository of recipes for at-home cooks. I don't use the one they mention, so I'll plug allrecipes.com instead, because it's great. The Quickfire will be to pull a slot machine for three words that will give the chefs a mood, a taste/texture, and a style of cuisine to work in. I'll give Laurine's example, so you can get a sense of what things are coming up on the machine. "Romantic", "tart", and "Latin American".

LabRat: "Everything Laurine isn't."

Other terms that pop up include spicy, Asian, umami, Middle Eastern, and blue (the mood, not the color). Padma sends them off with thirty minutes to get their dishes ready. People cook. Absolutely nothing interesting is cooked, done, or said, except for Eli's laughably trite assertion that he doesn't care what people think about him, and that he's looking out for "number one". What does Kevin have to do with anything? Oh, he's referring to himself. Funny, you'd think the number one chef would win a challenge here and there. I suppose I should be impressed that he managed to get all that out without resorting to the actual phrase.

Time runs out. Padma and Tyler go down the line. Mike has no experience with Asian cuisine, but has managed to put out a raw mushroom salad with shiso and ginger. Laurine has made a crusted goat cheese salad with orange jalapeno vinaigrette, and has accented it with hibiscus flowers. Ash has thrown everything but the Kitchen sink into a pasta puttanesca. Michael is trying to branch out by making dessert. He's made a yuzu curd with whipped Greek yogurt and a seaweed cracker. Eli has put together a mushroom ceviche with marbled avocado. Tyler doesn't offer any initial feedback. Kevin, like Mike, has no Asian cooking background, but has made char-grilled pork with a Vietnamese herb salad. Bryan has seared scallops with some bok choy and beads of tempura. Robin tried to go Middle Eastern with a root vegetable hash with cumin and curry oil. Padma snipes that curry isn't really a Middle Eastern type of ingredient. Robin admits that maybe she blurred the cultural lines too much. Ashley has made feta pudding with some sumac-dusted halibut. Finally. Every plate of food I've seen so far has been incredibly dull and boring, save this one. I'd like to try that dish. Jenc has Maine diver sea scallops with pistachios and salmon roe on top.

Results. First in the bottom three is Robin, whose curry with salt doesn't evoke Middle Eastern flavors. Eli killed his mushroom flavor with citrus. He's welcome to start backing up that bluster of his any time now. Christ, Mike may be a pain, but at least he generally puts out good food. Jenc's "adventurous" use of salmon roe on top of scallops isn't new at all, according to Tyler. Now, to the good news. Mike's plate was light, fresh, and clean. Kevin overcame his unfamiliarity with Asian food. Michael's flavor profile was spot-on. The ultimate winner is Kevin, whose dominance shows no signs of slowing. This is a high-stakes Quickfire, so Kevin gets to decide between immunity and $15,000. Kevin reasonably assumes that the judges love pretty much everything he makes, so he opts for the cash. Padma wraps up by telling the chefs before the Elimination Challenge is discussed, they can go back to the Resort for a home-cooked meal.

Commercials. "Pretzels are made to be shared." Could someone tell LabRat that?

Mike, who has apparently never seen a single episode of a single reality show before he came here, has taken Padma at her word, and is looking forward to a little down time. The chefs come home to discover their place stocked with dishes and ingredients, so they catch the snap about who's going to prepare that home-cooked meal Padma mentioned. Speak of the devil, Padma comes up the walk, wearing an extremely ill-advised green pantsuit. She brings everyone outside, where she explains this week's Elimination Challenge. Tyler is back, along with a few more guest judges: Nancy Silverton, Govind Armstrong, Takashi Yagihashi, and Tom Douglas, all of who are restaurateurs. The challenge is to cook a meal, family-style, right there in their own kitchen. Each of the restaurateurs carries a bag of ingredients, and each of the chefs will draw knives to see which bag they'll get. There are five bags and ten chefs, so they'll be working in pairs, which work out to be:

Laurine/Bryan
Kevin/Jenc
Michael/Ash
Eli/Ashley
Mike/Robin

These are some hilariously mismatched pairs. Obviously, Mike and Robin are the pinnacle of dysfunction, but there's something incongruous about Michael/Ash and Laurine/Bryan, too. Really, the only one that makes perfect sense is Kevin/Jenc; it'll be interesting to see if the two golden children can retain their luster when they're thrown together.

Padma gives everyone two and a half hours to cook. The first order of business is to claim some space in the cramped kitchen. Mike bitches and moans in interview about working with Robin. Michael and Ash can't get any kitchen space, so they'll be working in the dining room with woks. They get started on a fennel ravioli. Kevin and Jenc are out on the balcony. Their bag contains mostly Asian condiments, so they can go in any number of directions. Ashley wants to make more gnocchi, since she's had success with that before. Mike and Robin's ingredients are very Asian, and while she has more experience in that area of cuisine, he's sure as hell not about to hand over any control to her. Let a weak, old, woman dictate the menu? Nevah! Jenc is feeling better after her illness and poor Quickfire performance. She throws herself with renewed zeal into a tomato chutney with chicken stock.

Meanwhile, Ash happily allows himself to be railroaded by Michael at every turn. In a team-building sense, it's very positive, but in a show-us-your-skills sense, there is absolutely nothing of Ash in the food. Which, given the track records of these guys so far, isn't a horrible idea. In a similar vein, Mike takes the dominant role on his team, which Robin is fine with, as long as she gets some input. Mike mostly ignores her. Is it me tonight? Am I just in a mood? Or is this really as tiresome an episode as it seems?

Commercials. So I guess Chevy Chase is officially back now.

Ptom drops by to Ptimewaste in as unwise an outfit as Padma had on. I know we're in Vegas, but that doesn't give everyone carte blanche to don such tacky clothes. Eli and Ashley tell him they're putting prawns on their gnocchi, and he just stares at them. Eli wonders what kind of feedback that is, and Ptom replies that it's not feedback at all. EXACTLY. I don't call it ptimewasting for nothing. Robin and Mike give no inkling of the bubbling well of resentment building up in their team. Michael and Ash (well, Michael) explains the deconstructed carbonara they're putting together. Once he's done with his walkthrough, Ptom comes outside and tells us that the chefs that are able to make things that are the least detriment to their dishes will have an advantage. Wow, really? Thanks for that stunning insight! Let me write that down under "The hard part about shucking clams is knowing how to do it," and "I want to do something quick [for the Quickfire]." I learn so much from this show.

Ash, who has nothing to do and no ideas to contribute, wanders downstairs to set the table for dinner. You know, I started this season really liking him (and that Into the Woods reference was a gem), but as we progress, I'm finding him more and more out of his league. For all the talk about how useless Robin is (some passive-aggressively coming from Ash himself), at least she's trying. Speaking of not trying, Eli pusses out on cooking the prawns, so even though Ashley was in charge of making all the gnocchi, she gets to cook the protein as well. Bad news strikes Michael and Ash, because with all the appliances running at the same time, they trip the circuits powering their woks. The fish isn't done cooking, and one sure way to ruin fish is by cooking it, cooling it, then cooking it again. Unfortunately, they don't really have any choice. The judges get seated for dinner. Mike pissily disapproves of the way Robin is cooking the tuna. Ashley tells Eli to season the gnocchi, and when he brings them out, she finds them way too salty. Time winds down, and everyone plates their food.

The judges sip wine. The chefs bring out all the food. Eli and Ashley have grilled prawns with a red beet/creme fraiche sauce, the aforementioned gnocchi, and kale. Mike describes his and Robin's food, but says "I" everywhere he should be saying "we". No surprises there. They've made marinated mushroom and a pickled Asian pear roll with seared tuna and scallops. Bryan and Laurine, who have been utterly ignored this entire episode, have made pan-roasted halibut with a sherry-chorizo vinaigrette, a yellow corn cake, and an avocado mousse. Kevin and Jenc have lightly barbecued kobe beef. Kevin's done the meat, and Jenc has made the tomato/cardamom/ginger broth it rests in. Michael has made a pancetta-wrapped halibut with egg yolk ravioli. Ash has tossed together some asparagus and fennel for a salad. Wow, complicated. Not one of the dishes presented is one that I actively want to try. The chefs are dismissed, and the diners dig in.

Michael and Ash's food is alternately undercooked (pancetta) and overcooked (halibut). Laurine and Bryan's halibut is much more successful. Ashley and Eli's gnocchi are too salty, and the prawns are undercooked. Kevin and Jenc's food is balanced and tasty. Mike and Robin did a good job, as well. The chefs begin their fret 'n sweat early. Bryan comes over to check in on Michael, who's not happy with what he put out tonight.

Interstitial. Robin talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks.

Fret 'n Sweat 2: Electric Boogaloo. Michael is especially worried. Padma comes back to the Kitchen, and summons Laurine, Bryan, Kevin, and Jenc to Judges' Table. Predictably, these are the winning teams. The judges ascertain that Kevin was responsible for the kobe beef, while Jenc made the sauce. They really liked everything about the dish. It's weird that Laurine and Bryan made it into the top, as the editors studiously avoided showing us any of the process that got them there. Laurine explains that she made the corn cake, while Bryan cooked the fish. Ptom likes how they picked and chose from the ingredient bag, while Tyler enjoyed the chorizo-sherry vinaigrette. Tyler gets to announce the challenge's winner, and Jenc's sauce carries the day. She wins a gift card to Macy's which she generously plans to share with Kevin. Back in the Kitchen, Bryan tells the remaining chefs that the judges want to see Michael, Ash, Eli, and Ashley. Once they're gone, Kevin asks Bryan about what led Michael and Ash's dish astray. He's just thinking out loud, but Bryan spits that he's tired of dissecting other people's plates, and that Kevin has no way to judge a dish that he didn't even taste. Yikes. I mean, kudos for trying to back up your sibling, but still.

Limecrete: "I can see him just snapping one day, and going completely crazy."
Tiffany: "One day?!? It's going to happen before the end of the season."

Both the Odd Asian Music and the Gong are so bored with this episode, they've fallen asleep, and neither one shows up to do its job when the losing chefs enter the judging room. Michael explains that the overcooked fish happened because of a power outage. Tyler snips that they can't accept that as a viable excuse, because he's always doing expensive meals for people in weird places, and would have to come up with something if such an event occurred. Okay, but... Tyler would have a gaggle of helpers, and he'd be allowed to rush out and buy additional ingredients or equipment, so it's not really comparable. That, and Michael was offering the power outage as a reason, not an excuse. There's a difference. Ptom offers a more reasonable criticism in that he thinks a different type of fish would have worked better in their dish.

Curiously, Ash volunteers -- without any questions from the judges -- that he had absolutely no input into their food. It's not even in a blame-Michael-for-having-bad-ideas way. It's a I-couldn't-have-done-any-better way. Strange. He compares Michael to Picasso (which, let's not go nuts), and says it was an honor to play second fiddle to him. Ptom says it sounds like Ash is asserting that he's only fit to go so far in the competition. Normally, I hate it when Ptom says stuff like that, because I feel like he should focus on food, not attitude. That said, I'm with him on this one. Ash back-pedals a bit, and says he can execute food just as well as any other competitor. Eli and Ashley's prawn was undercooked. Ashley cops to that, saying that she was fearful of overcooking them. The gnocchi was over-salted, and probably shouldn't have even been served. That would have made for a sad little plate of food. No matter how good their concept was, Ptom says it didn't work out in execution. The chefs are dismissed. Back in the Kitchen, Michael thanks Ash for being so nice in his defense of the team.

Deliberations. Ash is lazy. Michael's ideas didn't work out, and the fish was overcooked. Toby parrots Tyler's line about a power outage not being an excuse out in the real world, but back in the Kitchen, Michael brings up my previous point: In the real world, he'd have more resources to fix it. Ptom suspects Eli is the culprit for the salty gnocchi, but Ashley is to blame for part of it, plus all of the undercooked prawn. Nothing is ever made of the fact that Eli played a back-burner role, similar to Ash's.

Elimination. The judges look stern. Toby wears ugly sunglasses, like he thinks he's Bono. Ashley messed up the prawn, and made the gnocchi. Michael's concept was fine, but his execution was off. Not a word is said to Eli or Ash before Ptom gives it over to Padma for the chop. Ashley. Please pack your knives and go. She thanks the judges for the opportunity. In her final interview, she has the very healthy attitude that there's no way to make a mistake at this point in the competition and not reasonably expect to go home. It doesn't define who you are as a chef, but it's more than fair to lose this particular contest. She tears up as she gets her good-bye hugs, as does Jenc. Ashley has learned a lot from the experience, and is looking forward to what comes next. Well, I wish her luck. I also wish that this season would pick up, because that? Was tedious.

Overall Grade: C