Meal Plans

Top Chef - Season 11, Episode 11

Previously on Top Chef: The chefs started their day with an invigorating cup of coffee, as everyone should. Shirley won the challenge, immunity, money, and a summer free of pit stains. In the Elimination Challenge, the chefs cooked the food that reminds them of home. Nicholas threw his heart, soul, and tears into his gnocchi - literally, in the case of the latter. It paid off, and he won the challenge. On the losing end, what apparently reminds Travis of home (other than homophobia) is undercooked biscuits. Eight chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

Quickfire. New Orleans has certainly offered the largest range of guest judges, and we continue that streak with Questlove, who joins Padma to explain this week's challenge. But first, a drumline busts in and does a march around the Kitchen. They sound pretty awesome, and Carrie grooves in the background. A drumline means drumsticks, and drumsticks mean...drumstick challenge! Oh, nice. Breasts get all the attention (and not just in human ladies), but I'm often happy to snag the legs out of a mixed chicken bucket. It's not just chicken on offer. The chefs can choose from a variety of poultry, from turkey to duck to squab.

The hitch is that it's first-come, first-serve, so when Padma gives the go-ahead, the chefs rush the table like it's Black Friday. And just like it's that hallowed, idiotic tradition, someone nearly gets trampled. Shirley falls, and when Nicholas goes to help her up, she helps herself to the duck legs he was going to take. Ha! Whoops. Well, at least that's the last of the indignities Nicholas will suffer at the hands of his competitors today, right? Right?!? Thirty minutes later, it's time for a drumstick feast.

Padma and Questlove go down the line. Dishes of note include Carrie's squab, which sounds a little odd (they were marinated in thyme, juniper, and cocoa powder and served with a fig mostarda), but looks good. Carlos has hacked his drumsticks to the bone, and shards of it wind up in the food. Bleh. Nina has jerked guinea hen, and has used Scotch Bonnet peppers. Ouch! Carlos' hack job lands him in the bottom three, alone with poor Nicholas, whose quail is too salty, and Justin, whose chicken drumsticks are too boring. Carrie and Nina are joined in the top three by Brian, who has managed to make a surprisingly good chicken soup in a half hour. But it's Carrie that takes the win and immunity. There's nothing that figs can't do!

Elimination Challenge. It sounds pretty rough. The chefs will be using the cafeteria equipment at Louisiana State University to serve 500 freshmen. And given my appetite when I was a college freshman, that'll be like serving 1000 adults. The winner takes home a new car. It's always strange to see how disparate the prizes are on this show. One week, the winner gets nothing, and the next week, it's a car. Odd. Nobody can plan their dishes in advance for this challenge, since they have no idea what they'll be working with, so we fill time with a tour of the school grounds. Apparently, LSU keeps a live tiger on campus, which sounds like a terrible idea for students and tiger alike.

When the chefs get to the cafeteria kitchen, there's another free-for-all, this time for cooking stations as well as ingredients. Though Shirley calls dibs on the flat-top grill (plancha), Carlos insists he needs it more, so Shirley reluctantly agrees to work with the wood-burning oven. If she were making a pizza, that'd be fine, but she's working on beef fried rice. Yikes. She changes her plan to roast beef and tomatoes with a potato puree. Carrie has no wish to work at the cold station, but takes the bullet because she has immunity. Giant vats of food are made. You could run a hog farm with the amount of grits Nicholas is stirring. As service begins, the chefs are presented with their very own lunch ladies as assistants. These remarkably good-natured women are heartily welcomed, but the meet-and-greet is cut short when a stampede of students flood in.

The kids line up for Brian's shrimp cake with spinach and chipotle aioli, and Shirley's roast beef is extremely popular as well. Nobody even wants to try Carrie's blanched broccoli with yogurt sauce and pita chips. I confess I don't like cold broccoli, either. Stephanie has made a tomato soup and toasted pimento cheese sandwich. She attempts to gussy up the presentation by serving it with the sandwich pre-dunked in the soup. Justin has a cold shrimp salad, with asparagus, cauliflower, and garlic puree. Nicholas' roasted pork with rosemary looks incredibly good, and is served with parmesan grits and bacon/brown sugar gravy. Carlos is working on tilapia, and wants to use Nicholas' oven for final prep. Nicholas needs it for his own dish, and denies permission. Because remember? When the eight chefs divided up the eight stations? And Carlos just had to have the plancha? So when the judges ding Carlos for taking too long at service, Carlos blames Nicholas for "stealing" his oven. He does it with half of a just-kidding twinkle in his eye, but that's still a pretty assy thing to do. Nina overhears this and agrees with me. I mean, not me, specifically. Although that would be amazing. Of course, the judges can't resist tattling to Nicholas about Carlos' accusation, and this does not fill him with happiness. He sits on his anger for the time being, though, as there's work to do. That's why I almost titled this entry "Saint Nicholas", what with it being so close to Christmas and all.

Fret 'n sweat. Nicholas finally has a chance to have it out with Carlos. He's direct and curt about Carlos' backstabbing, but he never gets overly angry or irrational. I like Nicholas; he's remarkably mature for a reality show competitor. Actually, I don't even dislike Carlos, either. I think he did a stupid thing, but I believe he was venting without a sense of what that would snowball into. Still, man. If you're going to snap, snap at one of the other chefs. Not the judges. Padma comes in and summons Brian, Carlos, and Shirley to Judges' Table. These are unsurprisingly the top three of the evening, but there's never any suspense that Carlos will win the challenge. The judges have been vociferously complaining about his lengthy service time since the food first hit the plate, but at least his flavors were spot-on. That brings it down to Brian's shrimp cakes and Shirley's roast beef. Brian's cakes drove the students wild, while Shirley magnificently adapted to her challenging cooking equipment. The fact that she was able to turn out stellar roast beef with a pizza oven pushes her over the top, and she wins the challenge. And a car! She sure knows which challenges to dominate.

Bottom three. It shakes down to Stephanie, Nina, and Justin, though the judges are sure to mention that Carrie is damned lucky she has immunity. Stephanie's grilled cheese included feta and cottage cheese, and it turned out too chunky as a result. Serving it in the soup only exacerbated its problems, though the soup itself was great. Justin's dish was a big ol' plate of blandness. The judges don't understand the garlic puree at all. This is Nina's first appearance in the bottom three, and unlike Justin, she doesn't look for convenient places to deflect criticism when it's thrown her way. Her fried chicken's breading was disappointing, and she didn't have enough corn puree to serve all the diners. I prepare myself for Stephanie's ouster, and am pleasantly surprised when Justin is told to pack his knives and go.

In his final interview, he does that passive-aggressive thing where he accepts his elimination because he was "unwilling to compromise on ingredients". It's like the "I'm sorry if what I said offended you," kind of apology. You heard it from him, first. He's just too noble to succeed in this sordid competition. Ugh. He certainly was a strong contender for a while. I thought he and Nina would be facing off at the end. But it seems Justin is a fierce competitor only when he's assured of his own success. Once he started to struggle, he was all but ready to take his ball and go home. I wouldn't be surprised to see him do well in Last Chance Kitchen, so perhaps this won't be the last we see of him. If it is, though, I think we've made some history here. This may be the first Top Chef season ever where I don't dislike anyone in the top seven. Sure, I have a couple favorites, but as we stand now, I'd be relatively happy to see any of these people win. It's a Christmas miracle!

Overall Grade: B