Top Chef - Season 6, Episode 10
Previously on Top Chef: A restaurant war broke out in the otherwise peaceful kingdom. Michael clashed with Bryan and Robin, because while the word "chef" may derive from the word for "leader", cooking good food doesn't necessarily make you a good manager. Conversely, not being able to handle the dining room doesn't mean you can't cook, but Laurine still got dumped. Seven chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. As with the oink-oink-slurp-slurp episode, I'm converting the short blog entry to the full recap months after the entire season has come to a close. If you give me $100, I'll tell you what life is like in early 2010, pitiful past-dweller!
Monday Morning Quarterback session. Jenc's depression spiral is deepening, as she beats herself up about how crappily she performed in the Restaurant Wars challenge. She tells us that she'll attempt to wipe the slate clean and approach the upcoming day with renewed vigor. Robin is pleased as punch that she has survived another round.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs enter the Kitchen, where they are met by Padma and this week's guest judge, Paul Bartolotta, who Mike tells us is a well-known Vegas Italian chef. I'll take his word for it. Tonight's Quickfire is one of those weird, take-a-bunch-of-ideas-and-put-them-in-a-blender challenges. The chefs will pull knives with television shows on them, then reinvent a TV dinner to a gourmet dish in the vein of their chosen show. What a scatterbrained idea. Why not ask the chefs to cook in the style of their grandmothers, but to pretend that their grandmothers have traveled back in time fifty years, then returned to the present, but find themselves directly across the Earth from their starting point? The chefs pull their knives:
Kevin - The Sopranos
Eli - Gilligan's Island
Jenc - The Flintstones
Robin - Sesame Street
Bryan - M*A*S*H
Mike - Seinfeld
Michael - Cheers
The chefs have an hour to pull their dishes together, and Padma starts the clock. Robin tells us that she's never seen a full episode of Sesame Street. Robin needs to be slapped in the face with a raw mackerel. She manages to dredge up the names of Cookie Monster and Big Bird, so she's going to make some sort of cookie/egg concoction. Michael kind of disses his dad by saying that after his parents' divorce, his mom would cook dinners for everyone to sit at the table and enjoy, but living with his father meant TV dinners. He hopes to evoke Cheers through the use of bar food. Jenc wants to make something with a big ol' bone in it. And it should be heavy enough to topple a car. Unfortunately, there aren't any big-boned meats in the fridge, so she appears to just begin some random dish with chicken. Eli has never watched Gilligan's Island, but knows enough of the broad theme to put a dish together. Bryan is making a hearty, welcome-home-soldier kind of dish. Oddly, Kevin pulls a theme of family togetherness from The Sopranos instead of going the obvious route and making something Italian. He does realize that the "togetherness" often found in that show involved people putting bullets in their family members' skulls, yes? Jenc burns her sauce. Time winds down.
Paul and Padma have the chefs serve their dishes in those olde-tyme compartmentalized trays. Jenc has made chicken roulade with garlic cream sauce, pea salad, and caramelized peaches with hazelnuts. This food has zero association with The Flintstones. Mike has made sausage and peppers, pistachio sauce, mushrooms and cheese, and a warm fruit salad. This food has zero association with Seinfeld. He admits he hasn't seen the show (surprising, but not worth a fish-slap like completely ignoring Sesame Street). Kevin has braised some meatballs, and serves them with creamy polenta, roasted cauliflower, and honey-roasted pear. I guess meatballs sort of call back to The Sopranos, but not much. You see what happens when the challenge makes no sense? The food is all over the place.
Eli serves macadamia- and cashew-crusted shrimp, with sweet potato puree, tropical herb salad, and some cherries and bananas. Michael serves Parmesan chicken tenders with braised Swiss chard and cherry pie. Zero association with Cheers. Robin serves a hamburger with egg, crispy kale, a carrot salad, and an almond-laced cookie. Maybe a 5% association with Sesame Street. Bryan has meatloaf, asparagus, mashed potatoes, and an apple tarte tatin. OK, that makes sense. Still, I never thought I'd see the day that Eli did the best job of interpreting a challenge.
Results. The bottom two are Jenc, for her disappointing roulade and icky pea salad, and Robin, for her dry burger. The top two are Kevin, for his delightful meatball, and Bryan, for his equally delightful meat and dessert. The ultimate winner is... Kevin. He doesn't get immunity, but his dish will be featured in a line of Top Chef frozen foods. Yeah, this is a good show, but I couldn't be buying those less.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs they'll be cooking at Ptom's restaurant at the MGM Grand. They'll be cooking for four judges and seven other guests. Ptom's restaurant is heavy on the steak, which Robin says she doesn't eat much of. At least she's got a reasonable excuse for that, unlike never seeing Sesame Street. That night, Jenc's depression spiral widens, and she again tells us that she needs to focus. Less talking about it. More doing it. The chefs hang out on their beds and discuss the meat-laden menu that they'll be putting together.
The next day, they're driven to Ptom's restaurant, where they immediately take stock of all the delicious animal flesh in the place. Ptom enters, and introduces the chefs to the special guest diner for the evening: Natalie Portman. Mike's face is covered by a wide grin that hints at his obvious boner. Natalie pretends that she's an adventurous eater before dropping the real bomb on the chefs: she's a vegetarian. There shall be no meat served tonight. Kevin is thrown for a loop, for obvious reasons, while Robin is thrilled. Ptom and Natalie take off, and the chefs indecorously raid the produce shelves. Eli and Jenc flip a dehydrated orange slice to determine who gets to use the eggplant. What, you're too good for rock/paper/scissors? Jenc loses the toss, and consoles herself by getting some baby eggplants. Is the flavor any different than the big ones? Mike plans on making leeks look like scallops. Kevin tells us that during Lent, he and his wife go vegetarian, so while this dish will be a challenge, he's more than up to it.
Cooking begins. Kevin hopes to make a satisfying dish with kale, turnips, and mushrooms. Sure, that mixture sounds pretty hearty. Meanwhile, Robin is overwhelmed by the sheer availability of so many ingredients. Her brain goes in a thousand different directions, and she can't refine any ideas. Mike is flipping Fate a double middle finger by shrugging that it doesn't really matter what he cooks. Who cares? It's all good! What could possibly go wrong? Nothing can stop me now! His overconfidence sprouts (tee-hee) from the fact that he grew up with a vegan mother. Eli wants to provide a meaty texture with big hunks of eggplant. Michael plays with different textures of asparagus, and also works on a banana/polenta mixture. He shoos Robin away from his pot of boiling water. Meanwhile, Mike is finding out that when you don't put your leeks on direct heat, they won't cook fast enough. He crosses his fingers, and hopes for the best.
Jenc is still complaining that baby eggplant is harder to work with than its bigger cousin, and I still don't understand why. Towards the end of the time limit, Bryan worries that he won't get everything done. Mike is having a far rougher time of it. His leeks aren't cooked through, and don't have enough flavor. That's not even taking plating into consideration. "It is what it is," he grins. He still doesn't seem to care very much about his situation, though I can't tell if that's because he doesn't think it matters very much how vegetarian food is executed or what. Robin has issues, as well. The garbanzo beans, which I think were supposed to be the star of her entire dish, haven't made it onto three of her plates when time runs out. I'm having a hard time figuring out why people are scrambling to make sure their veggies are done on time. It's not like peppers and kale take a long time to cook. Maybe the time limit is spanking everyone because they had to conceive their dishes on the spot. Robin slides from loving the challenge to worrying about getting booted.
Out in the dining room, Padma welcomes Natalie, her friends, and the other judges. Gail is back, thank God. Robin serves first. She has squash blossom, a beet carpaccio, fresh garbanzo beans (on some), and a chermoula sauce. Padma immediately pegs the sauce as way too salty, and Ptom is one of the unlucky few to not get any garbanzo beans. Leaving the head judge hanging can't be good news for Robin. Natalie allows that it was a very pretty plate, but Gail and Ptom agree with Padma that the entire dish has seasoning issues. Eli is up next. He's got a radish salad with herbs, confit of eggplant, creamed lentils, and a garlic puree. Looks good to me. He gets mostly positive reviews. The salad is tasty, and the eggplant has a nice texture. Paul finds a big hit of lavender in his food, which overpowers everything else.
Michael has a brief moment of panic in locating his hazelnuts, but manages to get everything plated. He's taking a more conceptual, artistic approach to the dish, saying that it will confuse the diners, but ultimately that they'll love it. He presents three types of asparagus in a salad, a Japanese tomato "sashimi", and the aforementioned banana polenta. His food gets a lot of positive feedback before the judges get down to brass tacks. Gail finds lumps of banana in the polenta that are a bit off-putting. One of the diners likens Michael to Picasso, though I can't tell if she means that he's a misunderstood genius or that his work can be wildly off-kilter to either its benefit or detriment. Just as he'd hoped, Natalie is confused, but pleased. Jenc isn't loving how her plates look; they're considerably smaller than everyone else's. She brings out her charred eggplant with braised fennel, tomato coins, and a verjus nage sauce. Her frayed nerves cause her hands to shake, and she flings sauce everywhere. The diners note this when she's gone. Gail thinks "everything tastes beautifully [sic]". Ah, yes. As I mentioned in the short summary of the episode, just because no animals were harmed in the making of these Elimination dishes, it doesn't mean the episode isn't full of violence. In this case, the English language is about to be brutally murdered.
Nothing is wrong with Jenc's flavor -- the flying sauce gets particularly good reviews -- but Gail does catch that Jenc's plate isn't as substantial as the others they've gotten. Natalie pegs that as a common problem facing vegetarians; the offerings are more a collection of sides than an entree. A friend of Natalie's says Jenc's food would be a great side dish next to a steak. Heh. As a side note, he's a bigger flame than the Olympic torch. Mike mostly likes how his food has come out, but knows that the leeks aren't where they should be. He seems to hope that everyone will simply overlook that. He describes his food as simple and clean, saying that it's "got [him] this far [sic]".
He tells the diners he wanted to give the feel of a hearty protein, so he whole-roasted the leeks, and serves them with onion jus, baby carrot puree, radish, and fingerling potatoes. Padma's, like, "Um, where's the protein?" Mike says that the leek is supposed to convey that idea. Er... His plate is not a hit. It smells funny, and nobody likes how it tastes. He's damned with faint praise when people describe it as pretty, and that he may have had a good idea that wasn't executed well. Bryan barely gets his food out on time, and in fact must leave some things off. His dish is an artichoke barigoule (braised with white wine), confit of shallot, garlic blossoms, wild asparagus, and a fennel puree. The diners find the garlic quite spicy. "It's like a little prick on the top of my tongue," Padma says.
Viewing party: "That's what she said!"
Natalie catches the double entendre, too, and everyone laughs at Padma. Padma rephrases, and says that the shallot flavor is a little sharp, especially when paired with the garlic blossoms. More penis jokes are offered. Back in the kitchen, Kevin is disappointed with how sloppy his food looks. He's made a mushroom duo with smoked kale, candied garlic, and a double turnip puree. The diners immediately find the hearty, meaty richness that other dishes were lacking. Gale says that the only off-balance component she detected was a really strong smoky flavor from the kale. Flaming Friend says that it was so hearty that he didn't even miss an accompanying grain, let alone meat.
The chefs pack up their stuff. Michael tastes the food that Bryan didn't get onto his plate (not that it's ever identified), and gives him a royal backhanded compliment, saying that it's greasy, anyway. Mike knows that his food wasn't up to par, but points out that Robin didn't get all of her food onto the plate. He doesn't know whether his was worse or "not as worse". "Not as worse"? [SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC]. He tells us he's not concerned about surviving to the next round. I can't tell if he's honestly that deluded about himself or if he's trying to keep up a front of confidence. Jenc's depression spiral deepens even further. It's rough to watch such a strong contender fall apart before our eyes.
Interstitial. The chefs eat at Paul's restaurant. Kevin pigs out.
Fret 'n sweat. The chefs drink a wine called Quickfire. Heh. Padma enters, and summons Kevin, Michael, and Eli to Judges' Table. The three are pleased to be told they had the favorite dishes of the evening. Michael's dish was excessively weird, but very good. Eli's dish was beautiful, and his smoky lentils were a pleasure. Kevin's dish was delicious and rich. Of everyone, his most successfully replaced the usual need for meat. Natalie gets to announce the winner, which turns out to be... Kevin. He wins some cookware. Like he doesn't have fifty sets of it back home.
Since we're restricted to plants, Michael finds a nice, big lemon to suck on. He whines that Kevin's dish was just a plate of vegetables tossed together, which is clearly not the case when you consider what the judges said. Kevin's concept was far from: "Drop a bunch of stuff on the plate and hope it goes well." Michael is emanating almost visible waves of jealousy, and I think it stems (tee-hee) from the fact that he considers himself far more sophisticated than Kevin. And you know, he may be. But people don't want to come home and watch avant-garde opera every night. People don't wear runway fashions to work. And people don't always want artistic, conceptual food for dinner. There's a vast canyon between haute cuisine and Burger King, and it would behoove Michael to realize when to pull back on the whole Passionate Artiste thing.
Kevin gets tepid applause back in the Kitchen. Eli tells the assembled chefs that the judges want to see Robin, Jenc, and Mike. The losing chefs head out. The editors have fun juxtaposing a shot of Kevin beaming with a shot of Michael looking like he wants to hold Kevin underwater until the struggling stops. Natalie asks Mike why he didn't include a protein. He explains his idea to cut, braise, and sear leeks so that they looked like scallops. OK, but he realizes that a food resembling a protein doesn't make it one, right? Gail essentially spells that out for him. Padma tells him that his leeks were too pungent and not cooked uniformly. Mike tries to point out the things that didn't go wrong with his dish, but Ptom informs him that it didn't really matter, because his main component had gone so horribly awry. Mike rocks back and forth on his feet tensely, and offers the following defense: "Whatever, whatever." Eloquent.
Robin says she often eats vegetarian food, and describes all the ingredients she used that she's never used before. Ptom looks impatient. Jenc looks suicidal. Ptom tells Robin that her dish was all over the map, and didn't have a focal point to tie it together. Gail points out the saltiness of the chermoula sauce, and Ptom chimes in about the missing garbanzo beans. The entire dish was just kind of a mess. Jenc's food didn't reflect the two hours she had to cook, and the judges wonder why she's such a bundle of nerves of all sudden. She once again hopes for a chance to pull herself out of her death spin, though she realizes that she may not get it. The chefs are dismissed. Mike offers the following summary of the judging: "Whatever, whatever. It is what it is." I'm shocked that he's never been asked to give a commencement address.
Deliberations. Ptom enjoyed the difficulty of the challenge, and Natalie talks about the real world applications of having to improvise for specialized eaters. Jenc is falling apart, and didn't make enough food. Mike's dish was poorly cooked, and his attitude plainly sucks. Gail once again proves why she's the best judge, as she completely nails him as not caring that his food wasn't up to par, and that he arrogantly assumes that he'll be easily be able to sail by. Never leave again, Gail. The other judges say that it wasn't just his leeks that sucked, but that the entire plate was subpar. Mike drops two more "whatevers" in the Kitchen. Robin had no cohesive idea, and she shouldn't have tried a bunch of new techniques this late in the game.
Elimination. Jenc steels herself. None of the bottom three dealt with the challenge's curveball well. Mike should have been able to cook leeks in two hours. Robin's dish was pretty, but unbalanced. Jenc is coming apart at the seams, and served a garnish for dinner. None of the them rose to the occasion like their competitors, and it's time for one of them to go. Padma? Will you do the honors? Mike. Please pack your knives and go. "Whatever" your way out of that one, douche. He tries to keep a lid on his anger as he shakes the judges' hands and thanks them. In his final interview, he tells us he should have done better in this challenge, given his culinary background. A little late for self-awareness, but I guess I'll take it where I can get it. Naturally, he can't resist getting one last dig in at Robin-the-pathetic-weakling. And you know, I'd generally support her going before him, but for the fact that her outlasting him will drive him crazy until the day he dies. Totally worth it.
Overall Grade: B-
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