Sweet and Sour in Boston

Top Chef returns tonight. I must admit, I didn't start watching this show until the Thanksgiving episode of Season 2. (Bourdain was the guest judge and I was very curious.) Needless to say, I got hooked. Season 3 was incredible TV...it was frustrating, enjoyable, and overall a good time. Very good TV. (I got sick of Dale towards the end...he was so condescending to everyone. Him and the tall dude CJ...just a bunch of jerks in my eyes. And the whole "Hung didn't tell us how to cook the dish correctly at Le Cirque, wah, wah, wah..." Of course he didn't, and any true competitor wouldn't either. This is a freaking competition ass-hats! And to insinuate that this shows that he's not a team player in a real kitchen...how is that even relevant right now? He's not trying to make the dinner rush at Per Se (where he was a fish specialist, meaning he's pretty f-ing talented), he's trying to win a competition. Highlight from the show was definitely the mis-en-place showdown. So awesome to actually see them showoff their tools and craftsmanship. And I'm pretty sure I could chop an onion quicker than the blond from Texas with the fake boobs...but I digress.) I immediately hated Season 4. Everyone and their mother had a faux hawk. The whole lesbian couple thing was annoying. (Don't get me wrong, I like watching a good lesbian couple just like the next person, maybe even more so, but these two people in particular were just so hard to watch or root for.) I didn't watch many of these episodes...only when Bourdain or Ripert guest judged did I turn the dial to it. Also, this show is on at like 10pm! I go to bed right after Futurama ends at 9:30pm. Very tough to go the extra hour and half to watch the show pimp out Gladware and crappy Toyotas and Kenmore kitchens. Why not have Viking do all the kitchens and drive Audi R8s if you are going to product placement us to hell? At least then I could see something I wouldn't normally see. And then they got these stupid poll questions, like, "Who has a crush on Tom?" or "Who do you think is not wearing underwear while they cook truffle oil and are mid-coitus with duck breast?" Who are these people that actually text in their votes? Of course, I'm going to be interested for the first few weeks. We'll get to sift through the chef-testants. We'll have the hot chick, the overly-gay man, the foreigner, the woman that doesn't say anything on the show for 3 weeks and Abby and I go "who the hell is she?", and of course the loser that gets kicked off the first show. Should be good times. We'll post here our thoughts week to week.

Some links to get you excited for top chef:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/arts/television/12chef.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://amuse-biatch.blogspot.com/

http://bloggingtopchef.blogspot.com/

http://www.sirlinksalot.net/thetopchef.html

http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/about/index.php

And of course you will have to go here for recaps and general hilarity:
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php

(UPDATE: After quickly going over the bios, here are my thoughts. The favorites are probably Jeff (who worked with Van Aiken and who's current restaurant is called DiLido...so funny!), Radhika (who worked with Vikas Khanna), and Stefan (who helped open Bellagio...which means nothing really but I really like the Bellagio). The chefs with the best chance to be kicked off tonight are: Ariane(for some reason, I think her age is going to hurt her) and Patrick (a culinary student, so basically same reason as Ariane, just in reverse). I think Fabio is going to be the douchebag of the show. And finally, Gene and Jamie win the award for "Chefs I think might do interesting work". That is subject to change after I watch tonight.)