Sweet and Sour in Boston

Top Chef Finale Thoughts

•What a disappointing end to a disappointing season. I had only a 1 in three chance of being bummed by who the winner would be and sure enough, effing Hosea wins. What is really sad is that I was on the Hosea bandwagon in the beginning of this season. I thought he had some good skills, and could be a true contender. As the season rolled on though, I really took a disliking to him. He sucked it up with seafood time and time again, even though he is a seafood chef. The whole cheating on his significant other for the unappetizing Leah aside, Hosea’s personality kept getting worse and worse in my eyes. The whole hating on the Euros made him out to be more of a prick than Stefan. I dunno, this whole season basically blew for me.

•That being said, I thought this season had some really great challenges. Shame they were wasted on this bunch, though Carla really stepped up to the plate at times and surprised the hell out of me. Stefan clearly was the best chef of this group, he just became too consistent without wowing. I think that hurt him in the end. His stuff was good from the beginning and stayed good throughout. He just didn’t have that extra gear towards the end for the judges. Imagine if they didn’t expect anything good to great from him. He probably would have won. Tom seemed to have voted on him harshly because he knew Stefan can cook well and wanted more.

•The return of the 3 past losers was not very interesting. If I had to choose one of them for my sous chef, it would be Casey. I was saying that as they were drawing knives, and poor Carla got her. I couldn’t believe Carla and her spirits allowed Casey to influence so much of her final dishes. (Maybe Carla’s food spirits have mental blocks around big fake boobs…) Casey shown she had the ability to do as she is told and be a great teammate and while her ideas would have been nice suggestions, you do not try things that are new at this stage in the game. Not sure I would have wanted to work with Richard or Marcel, and to be honest, outside of Casey’s bad ideas, none of the sous chefs seemed to really contribute too much.

•So little input from the guest judges, why even have them there? I mean, you have some big names from New Orleans and also Rocco and Hubert Keller, use them! Tom’s reaction to some of their compliments to Stefan’s dishes was down right rude at times. And the way he only half-heartedly complimented those dishes were just as bad. “It tasted fine.” “Yeah, the flavors are good…hm..” I dunno, I guess Tom’s judging this year seemed really off in my opinion. He really picked favorites (Jamie for one) and seemed to encourage them more.

•The voodoo fortune teller bit was funny but stupid. I liked that Stefan asked about Jamie.

•Of all the cheftestants, only Jeff and Carla make me want to try their food. I wouldn’t reject a meal by Fabio or Stefan at all, but if I was in Miami or DC I’d try to take some time to find Jeff and Carla’s places.

•Jeff’s place will always be known as Dildo.

•All in all…I feel like I wasted a lot of time where I could be sleeping by watching this season. Jersey and Leah might be two of the worst cheftestants ever in terms of cooking and overall personality. One big load of meh.

Top Chef rundown:

1. First let me say, “THANK YOU SWEET JEEBUS!!!” Leah (and her non-existent great rack) is no longer on my TV screen. Yes I know Top Chef will do something to have all the other cheftestants that have been kicked off the show back, but at least Leah won’t have any chance of winning the competition. Also, I don’t think she has any chance of winning the fan favorite either. (I can think of two people who won’t vote for her or Hosea…) The fan favorite is going down to Fabio or Carla (no longer calling her Crazy Eyes because she is proving to be a great chef.)
2. Good challenges again. Love the guest judges, especially Pepin and Samuelsson.
3. The last dinner question is a great one, one that pops up a lot if you read/watch Bourdain at all. I love it. I can’t decide what my final meal would be. Pho? Steak? Mangosteen? Not sure….Ok, off the top of my head: I’d start with Biscuits and gravy, followed by chicken fried steak, with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, two crunchy tacos from Taco Bell, one chili cheese burrito also from Taco Bell, a bowl of my mom’s chau (aka congee or rice porridge), and two mangosteens for dessert. That is subject to change depending on my current mood.
4. Way to go Fabio! Roasted chicken, as previously mentioned here on this blog, is considered by many a mark of a great chef. And to break his thumb somehow (seriously, how the hell did he do that) and deliver a great dish…bravo, Fabio, bravo!
5. Stefan…damn, I was scared you were going home. Seriously…overcooked fish…that’s not good. I think the judges cheated and looked at past results to keep you instead of Leah. And boy am I glad they did.
6. Wylie and his eggs fetish is interesting…no wait, the other word, gross. But in a very neat way. (Not sure if that makes sense.) As an engineer, I respect that Wylie is a bit of a scientist and the fact that the egg is such a biological engineering masterpiece, it kinda makes sense that Wylie loves eggs. (Alton Brown does as well…nerds rule.)
7. Carla…you could damn well win this thing and I wouldn’t be surprised one little bit. I wouldn’t have said that 5 weeks ago.
8. I’m thinking of having a Top Chef watching party for the final episode, but seriously, it’s on so late that is not going to happen.

Another rundown of Top Chef:

1. Two of the best challenges ever! Holy crap did Top Chef surprise the hell out of me. First, boning and filleting fish while Eric Ripert judges? AWESOME!!! Then, they get to eat at the NYC Fish Mecca, Le Bernardin, with the rest of the judges. How they didn’t realize that a 6-course meal (which just seems like a strange number of courses) correlated to their elimination challenge boggles my mind. The minute it was revealed to be 6 courses, I would have started breaking down all the dishes because I’d have figured out that the challenge would have something to do with these dishes.

2. Jamie…I just don’t get the statement of how the food at Le Bernardin was uninspiring and boring. I dunno, I probably and too far head over heals with Eric Ripert, and maybe if I went to any of his restaurants the food wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but from what I could see from my TV, the food was incredible! Hosea said it best, the food looked simple, but you knew they weren’t easy to make.

3. They kicked Jeff off one week too soon. I just have the feeling he would have dominated this challenge. Breaking down what went into a dish…I think with his knowledge, he could have done very well. It’s a shame we couldn’t see it.

4. I, like so many out there in the inter-webs, believe that Leah could kill Padma and wear her skin like a suit and still not be kicked off. If I were Hosea, I’d be curious who else Leah cheated on her man with to get to stay on this show. It’s definitely not because of her cooking chops.

5. Hosea also needs to shut it down with the whole “Euro” trash talking. Would people be more offended if instead of Stefan and Fabio he disliked, but maybe “Team Rainbow”? If he went off and said “I’m so sick of those Team Rainbow people, I just want to shut them up.” I can’t see that as being any more different.

6. Speaking of the “Euros” they are the only reason to watch this show. And they both did very, very well. Good for Fabio, since I thought he was getting the loser edit immediately.

7. Eric Ripert is easily the greatest guest judge on any show period. He’s genuinely nice, gives good feedback, and has unlimited charm. I was so happy to hear that he’s getting his own show on PBS soon called Avec Eric. He is the Top Chef, and his looks at Toby while Toby went off on his crappy analogies were priceless.

8. Carla (not calling her Crazy Eyes today because she earned it) was incredible. It was awesome seeing her use her culinary knowledge to fully understand Ripert’s dish. Yes it was called a béarnaise sauce, but it really wasn’t a béarnaise sauce. The fact that Carla could figure that out was just mind-blowingly awesome. It is so much better to see Carla cook with her brain than her cooking with love.

9. Jamie had the worst dish. Inedible said Ripert’s blog. The show made it seem like it was close between Leah and Jamie, but it was Jamie all the way. She started to annoy me as the show got on, but Leah really, really has to go. If she makes the top four, I’m going to have to quit watching.

10. Again, it’s the guest judges that draw me back: Wylie and Pepin this week.

Work and real life has forced this blog to take a back seat. However, nothing too exciting has happened in our food-life this past week. We'll start with the last two crap-tacular Top Chef episodes.

Top Chef s5, ep 8

Restaurant Wars! More like crap vs crap wars. First you got Leah and Radhika winning the quickfires and getting to be the captains/leaders of their restaurants. Neither chooses Stefan until he's the last pick. Idiots!!!! If I could have chosen, it would have been Jeff, Fabio and Stefan. Game, set, match. Then we get a quick glimpse, with crappy porn music, of Hosea and Leah making out. Joyous! The most least interesting couple in all of food reality history. What makes it worst is their confessionals about how they cheated on their significant others and how they hope they are still together when this ends. Wow...talk about trying to suck up immedietly after getting caught. First of all, they must have done something more than kiss. I'm not saying they had sex or anything, but I'd gather Leah's hands weren't empty. I think they could have played off a kiss as something minor to their significant others (I was cooped up with nothing to do but a lot of booze and this floozy chick with this "so-called" incredible rack...it was just a kiss!) and they wouldn't have gone into defcon 5 mode. From reading other blogs, I guess both Hosea and Leah tried to make it work with their significant others, but then got dumped to the curb. Go significant others! Also, I guess Hosea and Leah are together now...good, the only person that will have the other person in a relationship...they deserve each other.

Anyway, both teams basically suck it up for restaurant wars, with Radhika not knowing how to be front of house and Crazy Eyes screwing up her first dessert for their team and the Hosea and Leah crapfest of food brought down their team. Stefan, the dude who keeps winnning yet noone wanted on their team, and Fabio won the competition, unfortunately saving Leah. Ugh...I hate Leah. Radhika gets sent home, and to be honest, her body language was basically suggesting to everyone that she wanted to leave.


Top Chef s5, ep 9

Fan-freaking-tastic...an All-Star challenge, with former top cheftestants. Now, if it was really an All-Star challenge, wouldn't have Harold, Hung and the other two winners be on this show, not the rejects that sucked? Just saying...

This episode was so hard to watch. Basically, everyone was annoying the hell out of me. Fabio and Jeff were getting the loser edit from the beginning and sadly, along with Stefan, were up for elimination. Those 3 are the only reason to watch this show! WTF?!?!?! Jeff gets sent home for once again doing too much. Whatever, he's proven to be a much better chef than everyone other than Stefan on this episode.

This show is getting harder and harder to watch each week. Luckily they have the great Eric Ripert coming on next week, so of course I'm "hooked" once again. (Get it, get it?)

Orinoco

It seems like such a crime that I have never been to Orinoco yet, even though I've lived so close to it. When I first lived in South End, I was around the corner from Orinoco. Now, I'm just a few blocks away. It seemed like a good time to try it out, so Abby and myself joined our buddy Vivek there for an early dinner on Thursday. So early, that when we arrived at 5:58, they wouldn't let us in because they don't open until 6pm.





We started with the shrimp/mango ceviche special while Vivek got some sort of salad. The shrimp/mango ceviche was good, just very acid-y. (I know it's "acidic", but saying "ass-y-dee" is fun.) We did get a lot of shrimp to start, so that was nice, and the mango was a good touch, I just wish the acid was cut down a bit. Vivek said his salad was very, very good.








I got talked into getting the skirt steak and it was very good. Cooked nicely, with this sweet and spicy sauce accompaning it. However, the steak was cut in such a way that there were lots of tough fatty strips in every piece that made the steak a bit tough to eat. Abby's salmon was very good, and Vivek enjoyed his portobello mushroom "sandwich-thingy". Though Vivek did say the dough around the mushroom was very heavy.

Overall, I was pleased but also disappointed. I was expecting greatness, but just got good to very good. I'll have to give Orinico another try one day though, maybe for brunch where I've heard their menu is fantastic. I give Orinoco a 3 1/2 out of 5.

Another rundown of my thoughts as we watched Top Chef:

- To honor the quickest chef in all of Top Chef, they let Hung be the quickest guest judge ever. Seriously, he was on for what...2 mins? I was completely wrong about this quickfire challenge too. Having Hung on, I assumed it would be a kosher/halal food type of challenge, but instead it was a pseudo tribute to him for his smurfland cereal quickfire and the chefs had to use canned goods and make a meal in 15 minutes. Well, the snobbery of the chefs come out. "I never cook with anything not fresh" "This is a mess, Jesus Christ". Look guys...the great skill of a chef is making something great from something not so great. The French took brains and other offal and made delicious sweetbreads. I'm sure if you guys wanted to be Top Chef, you can make something good out of some Hormel chili. (Which I love!)

- Jeff's dish was again majorly complex, but looked good. Him, Stefan, and Hosea were in the top 3, with Stefan winning. Hosea makes some comment about how he didn't want to give Stefan some spam because Stefan's "boyfriend" didn't let him have some artichokes or something like that. Talk about cranky pants...

- Radhika, Jamie and Leah were in the bottom 3 I believe. All there stuff looked like ass, so Hung probably chose wisely. Hung was a decent guest judge, albeit a brief one. He described what he liked and didn't like, which is good feedback.

- Jamie also calls Stefan Fabio's "boyfriend" and I have to wonder if this is cool or not. I remember a few years ago, there was this article talking about how the gay community was pissed that some sitcom (I can't remember, but I wanna say 2 and a Half Men) made some comments about the two lead male characters were boyfriends and how their reaction to it was offensive. I have to wonder if A) this group is that comfortable with each other and there is no fighting that they can joke around like that without pissing others off or B) that Stefan and Fabio being Euros mean you can call imply they are gay without being offensive. Imagine if instead of being two Euros, that Stefan and Fabio were Stereotypical American Frat Douchebag A and Stereotypical American Frat Douchebag B and the other cheftestants called them "boyfriends". They would flip out! "I ain't gay! I'll have sex with all the women right now to prove it! I like football and baseball!" The fact that Stefan and Fabio didn't even care and rolled with the jokes...I dig it.

- For the elimination they are all broken up into 3 teams: Team Pig (Jeff, Radhika, Fabio), Team Lamb (Leah, Hosea, Jersey) and Team Chicken (Crazy Eyes, Jamie, Stefan). I immediately think Team Pig is going to dominate and if Team Lamb ends up in the bottom, I will be forever happy because there's a good chance Leah or Jersey will get off my TV. Instead of going to Whole Foods, they go to Stone Barns Farm. This place was featured on a Bourdain show and I immediately wanted to go there. The fact that these chefs get to get the freshest of fresh ingredients with the "proteins" are cared for like crazy is great. The question is not what are they going to do with these great products, but how are these incompetent chefs going to screw up such great product. Dan Barber is the head chef and owner of the farm and he's a very likable guy. I'd love to eat his food one day.

- Team Pork cracked me up. Fabio's game plan was "No Indian, no over thinking, no Italian". This is hilarious. That's the major flaw of each of them, Radhika, Jeff and Fabio, respectively. They go with Fabio's ravioli with pesto, seared pork loin, Jeff's fried green tomatoes, grilled corn salad and a creme brulee desert. As they went over the menu, I thought immedietly that this was the team that was going to win. They were using the great produce they grabbed on the farm to make the pesto and the fried green tomatoes and they were lucky enough to get this beautiful pork to work with. How was I so wrong...

- Team chicken made roasted chicken, chicken cutlets, some sort of chicken soup and a tartlet made by the greatest pastry-chef in all of Top Chef history: Crazy Eyes. When they were going over there menu, Jamie did not want to do a roast chicken, calling it simple and boring...um, girl, have you never read any Thomas Keller or Daniel Boulod? A mark of a real chef, a great chef, is in making a roast chicken. It's simple, sure, but that's not the same as easy. Meaning, you don't need a whole lot to make it good, but you have to have good technique to make it amazing. I thought this was a brilliant idea by Stefan. You have the freshest of fresh chicken, why not cook it in the best way possible to showcase how great that chicken is: a roast. Hammersely in Boston is known for their roast chicken. That's not a bad thing to be known for at all. Of course the roast chicken was praised, as was Crazy Eyes' dessert. Looks like we have ourselves a winner.

- Team Lamb (or Team F Up) had...well they presented destroyed lamb and some sort of roasted potatoes and a berry trifle dessert. The lamb was absolutely destroyed. As Ariane was butchering it, I was screaming out on TV "Why are you letting Jersey butcher the lamb?!?!?!" It was painful to watch...then it was even worse to watch as she was tenderizing the poor meat...young lamb does not need to be tenderized! OMG!!!! The fact that Leah and Hosea let her do this is just as bad. Hosea even states that he can butcher really well...then do it man! Do it! Don't let Jersey ruin perfectly good meat! Hosea is starting to piss me off. I couldn't stand the whole Leah thing when that first started as one of those random clips in the middle of the show on like the 2nd episode. I couldn't stand it even more when they said that they both had significant others at home. I definitely can't stand it know that he's being blinded by the P and letting his work suffer for it. HOSEA!!! Don't put the P on a pedestal! Quit thinking about the P and think about the food! It's affecting your work when you should be one of the best cheftestants on this show, you are coming off mediocre. And let's be honest here...that specific P isn't all that worth it. Leah, I guess, is suppose to be the hot chick of this group...but it just ain't happening. Even with this so called great rack (which I'm still not seeing) the editing crew of Top Chef is not showcasing her in her bikini or taking off her shirt (like they did with Casey from season 3)...no, they are showing Jeff taking off his shirts. That's when you know there is no hot chick in this group. They'd rather show Jeff, a dude that is 120 pounds soaking wet, then any of the females. And you know the sad part? At least Casey could cook...in fact, she'd cook all of these females (and the males) under the table. So she had a great rack (albeit fake) and she could cook. This season they got ugly girls who can't cook. Congratulations Leah on being the skinniest girl at fat camp! Hoesa, quit thinking about the P and start cooking!

- Anyway, Team Chicken wins even though there were some tense moments between Stefan and Jamie. Carla deserved the win for having to deal with them both, but it's a team win. Team Pork is safe because even though they ruined the pork loin and Radhika did nothing, Team Lamb was such a disaster that it didn't matter. Now I'm happy. Ariane or Leah can go home and I won't have to see them again. It turns out to be Ariane and while I'm happy, I think she got screwed by Leah and Hosea. They totally set her up to take the fall, which isn't hard seeing as how incompetent she is, and they just come off looking like pricks. Ariane lasted a lot longer than I expected, and that shows you how bad this season's chefs are. And in class Jersey fashion, she calls out Leah and Hosea in her exit interview...all of a sudden you have a voice Jersey? Why didn't you say something to their face when it was happening? Ugh..so glad no more Jersey!

- Next week is restaurant wars and more shots of Leah and Hosea making out...egads!

Not really a recap, just a list of highlights and lowlights from the episode:

- This turned out to be one of the better shows in terms of challenges. The quickfire was to make a sweet dessert without using sugar. The elimination challenge was basically no limits what so ever...just cook your best dish family style. Awesome. Though some cheftestants totally missed the boat on this. I mean, seriously, fish tacos as a dish to showcase your work? That's horrible!

- Toby Young was introduced as the new judge since Gail is off for her wedding. He's ok. I've seen him on other stuff before. Definitely snarky-to-be-snarky. He's slightly better than Gail, but that's not saying much. A burnt dead horse could be a better judge than Gail. (In terms of adding something to the show...I'm sure Gail has a wonderful palate or she wouldn't be where she was today. I just can't stand her as a judge.) Why oh why did Top Chef have to piss off Ted Allen and Bourdain? Those two were great television!

- The guest judge was Jean-Christophe Novelli. I've seen the name before, but not sure where. I think he has a new show coming out too on Bravo, so there's the tie in. He wasn't bad, just didn't really bring much. Though the interaction with him and the Euros were cool. Not sure if the dude really cared about the World Cup as much as Fabio did though. (Football in all forms is dead to me right now...)

- Ariane...dammit...after sucking it up for the quickfire, she actually did something I'd try for the elimination. Say what you want about her (and I have) but at least the woman is confident in what she's doing. Which is huge for a chef. She's making up her mind as to what she wants to make, and she goes for it. No second guessing at all. This doesn't mean I'm starting to like her...in fact, everytime she's on the screen I want to throw my remote through my plasma so I don't have to see her ugly Jersey face. (This is also just because I want a bigger TV, but Abby won't let me get one...she thinks 42 inches is big enough...I want to fill our entire wall with a TV and that may not even be big enough.)

- On the opposite side, we got zero-confidence Bangs herself. Melissa can't seem to do anything right at all. As mentioned earlier, fish tacos are not going to win you Top Chef, especially if you can't do them well enough. She totally lacks any confidence in her cooking, not being able to see an end product and get it done.

- Eugene...dammit boy! I love whole fried fish, but you can't be overcooking that! Your presentation looked good still, but the product suffered. You mentioned how you wanted to try something new and wow the judges. Um...buddy, when you are given the challenge of make anything you want that will showcase your skills, don't go for something new! Make something familiar that you know is a success. One of your favorite meals maybe. How about that fried fish complemented with some sushi? A nice complentary dish of cooked and raw fish, showcasing your ability to cook and handle fish. I dunno, I had high hopes for you and you peaked at making your own BBQ bit.

- Leah still not seeing that great rack.

- Jamie - very, freaking smart. She understood the challenge perfectly. She knew she can cook good scallops and she did. I'm sick of the whole smugness and the fact that she has to impress on everyone watching that she deserves to win though.

- The judges were very love/hate in some of their comments. Jeff's dish was either loved or hated, same with Stefan. Do you really think Radhika (who had immunity and laid an egg with her food) knew it was Stefan's dish when she made those comments? Right on cue, Fabio defended his boy's dish. Not sure if that was editing or not. I did enjoy the fact that you got to watch them judge you.

- Crazy Eyes got lucky. But the right two people were sent home.

Hung is on tomorrow's episode. Interesting. I think they are going to have to cook Kosher or maybe Halal food, since that's what Hung's been doing in NYC.

Aight, I’ve been saying this the last few episodes: this cast of cheftestants suck! Like, they royally suck! I’m pretty sure the line cooks at a place like Intermission Tavern would do better than half these so-called chefs. Now, I don’t think all of these cheftestants are all bad though…just that the product they are placing out for us viewers (and apparently the judges) is utter crap. The Euros should be dominating! Jeff definitely has a vast knowledge of food and can clearly make complex dishes…I’m just not understanding why it’s not happening for him. I mean, seriously, how can you let someone like Ariane beat you in this sort of competition. All she has done is cooked the basic of basic foods. Granted, she has proven to do them well, but you should not be winning this competition for TOP CHEF by just cooking turkey and lamb well…especially if you weren’t the one that made the flavors for the lamb. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, so onto this week’s craptacular episode.

So in the beginning they show Jersey herself talking about how awesome she is…blah. Hey bravo, you got enough ugly middle aged women on your Desperate Housewives show, no need to be showcasing this one as well! Then there’s a little snippet of the Euros, being totally awesome. How could you not like/root for these two? Then they show Hosea (with a T-Mobile Sidekick! I need to go get one now, along with some Glad-ware!) apparently being able to talk on the phone. I didn’t know they were allowing cheftestants the ability to converse with the outside world. But then we learn that Hosea’s dad is sick and he’s allowed to chat to catch up. Look, I ain’t got a heart of stone or anything like that, but COME ON!!!! I don’t really care that you and Leah are trying to cheat on your significant others. I don’t really care that Alex is missing out on his wedding planning. And now I don’t really care that your dad is sick. I do hope he gets better and can beat cancer, but I’m watching this show to see your food and cooking chops, not learn your life history. (That’s not really fair to take this out on Hosea…I should be blaming Bravo for it all…but a part of me wonders if these cheftestants will go to any lengths just to get their story out there.) Anyway, onto the quickfire challenge: making a one-pot holiday dish that is judged by Martha Stewart. Now all the cheftestants go crazy for Martha, speaking of how great her and her empire is…and I gotta say, I don’t see it. I admire Martha for her empire completely, but as someone wanting to be a Top Chef, is Martha Stewart really someone you want to hold your candle to? I understand if you wanted to be a branded chef, that she should be a role model…but to be a branded chef, it all starts with what makes you a chef: your food! In any case, Jersey goes off and talks about how both her and Martha are from Jersey and how she’ll try to use that to her advantage (making it the first time anyone on reality TV show had tried that tactic…most others have tried to hide their Jersey roots because of shame). The other cheftestants explain what a one-pot meal is and some mention how hard it is…really? Abby and I cook one-pot meals all the time. Ming Tsai does at least one one-pot dish on every Simply Ming episode. This seems like it should be a staple of a chef’s repertoire. In any case, the losers are Euguen, Fabio and Jeff. Dammit, two of my favorites and one of my wildcard in the bottom. The winner turns out to be Jersey (god dammit!) for making filet mignon and cauliflower puree. Seriously…that was the winning dish. Now I know a thing or two about steaks, and filet mignon is the easiest of the steaks to cook. It’s all about the product. All you do is season it with some salt and pepper and some extra virgin olive oil and sear it on all sides and you are done. Let the meat speak for itself. So you gotta ask yourself, was the cauliflower puree all that great? It must have been to push Jersey above Jamie (sea scallops and kale) and Hosea (paella). Think about that…a simple steak plate (which can hardly be considered the hardest one-pot wonder meal) beat out paella? I mean, come on! Paella has a million things going on in it, plus the fact that it was cooked under 45 minutes! UGH! All this means is Jersey wins immunity and I’m forced to stare at her for at least another freaking week!

Then the Harlem Choir comes and the cheftestants have to pull from the knife block and predictably the number on the knife represents one of the 12 days of x-mas. This is a tough challenge. I could probably think of a few things for some of the days of x-mas, but some are really, really tough. Good job on the cheftestants for tying in their dish to the theme. There was some drama of a refridgerator not being closed correctly, ruining Hosea and Radhika's dishes. But in the spirit of x-mas (filmed probably in July) all the cheftestants help out to get the dishes complete. This was the point I figured no one was going home. No way the story of all of them helping out combined with the fact it's an x-mas special mean anyone's going home.

At the charity event, an AIDS fodation, the guests are given red ribbons to place by their favorite dish. Hosea and Jeff win over big, with the ladies liking them and their dishes. Hosea even flirts with a blonde that is wasted and wants to bone, which gets Leah (still not seeing that great rack) all jealous. They do realize their significant others are watching this right now...if they are still together with them I guess. Here's a list of all the dishes made (courtesy to TWOP):

Twelve drummers drumming: Stefan makes a creamy chicken pot pie
Eleven pipers piping: Hosea makes pork loin with chipotle mashed potatoes with apple brandy jus
Ten lords a leaping: Jeff makes seared Halloumi and Kassiere cheese with roasted beets and pears
Nine ladies dancing: Fabio makes sweet corn and roasted pepper crab cake
Eight maids a milking: Melissa makes gorgonzola and NY strip steak on sourdough crostini with cranberry vinaigrette
Seven swans a swimming: Jamie makes crudo of sea scallop in vichyssoise
Six geese a laying: Ariane makes deviled eggs six different ways
Five golden rings (people coming in from other rooms for that part): Eugene makes poisson cru with pineapple ring and Yukon Gold potato chip
Four calling birds: No one
Three French hens: Leah makes braised guinea hen with butternut squash on brioche
Two turtledoves: Carla makes braised chicken with duxelles and mushroom cap
A partridge in a pear tree: Radhika makes braised duck leg on brioche with pear chutney

Hosea wins and Jamie, Eugene and Melissa are all the losers. But in the kindness of Colichio's heart (and also because of his major disappointment) he tells them all that everyone is safe this week and that they all need to step it up. He calls out Jersey's Deviled Eggs and wonders aloud if they expect to win with dishes like that. I applaud Tom for speaking out to this group. As a viewer, obviously I can't eat their food to really judge them, but it really looks like they are sucking it up. This is TOP CHEF!!!! Next week Tom tells them to cook their best dish. AWESOME!!! I love the fact that this will truly show off how good (or bad, I'm looking at you Jersey) their cooking chops are.

So I know I'm getting to be an old lady when Top Chef is 15 minutes longer and I can hardly stay awake. Stupid Bravo. They totally didn't need to add those 15 minutes, they could have cut out those weird snippets they keep doing (mostly about Hosea the Hussy and Leah the Leper...as in, she's all over Hosea...). Anyway. They start off with their quickfire challenge and as Padma is standing there, Bravo conveniently edits Fabio giving her the once over :) I wish he'd give ME the once over...but only if his name was John Paul. So they do this tasting and it ends up being Stefan who loses to Hosea. Great. Hosea is around for another week. Ugh. Then they find out they're going to be catering Gail's bridal shower. They get into teams of "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue". According to Yahoo the phrase has this origin: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031027.html
JP previously wondered if I'd use the phrase at our wedding. More than likely. Oh, and the something blue can be anything (flowers, handkerchief, dundies). Anyway, they break up into teams and try to figure out what to cook. Something New and Something Blue definitely have the hardest task at hand. Something blue kept talking about the ocean and blue and I kept yelling at my TV..."USE BLUE FISH!!" but did they listen? No. Idiots. I blame Leah. Everyone goes to the kitchen to prep and we find out exactly what everyone is going to make. Honestly, this elimination challenge isn't that exciting. Booooring. The next day they head to Manhattan to Gail's "bridal shower". Seriously? Where are the presents??? Where are all the ribbons on the presents?? How will she know how many children she's going to have if she doesn't have any ribbons to break??? And if there aren't any ribbons, how will she make her fake bouquet for her rehearsal? And really ladies (read: PADMA), where is the cake?? This bridal shower SUCKS.
Everyone presents their food. Jeff's sorbet is loved. In yo face Stefan. Jamie's carrot mixture thingy is a hit, but stupid Ariane's lamb is an even bigger hit. WTF. Seriously. She hasn't proved she can cook anything. John Paul makes a fabulous turkey. I'm sure I could make a tomato salad with my eyes closed. And Joey makes fantastic lamb (or so I'm told because I hate the stuff). All of us aren't chefs. And we don't belong on Top Chef. Neither does Ariane. She really hasn't proved herself at all. Making the basics isn't going to win the competition. Kick her off already.
Team New fails miserably and for a little bit I'm scared my beloved Carla and Eugene are going to be sent home...
Team blue presents their lackluster fish (which totally would have been better if they did a BLUE FISH). Too bad Fabio's charming personality couldn't save their team from the bottom 2.
At judges table Carla doesn't throw Danny under the bus. I believe she is the ONLY person in TC history to keep her mouth shut even though she's not the one who messed up the dish. Kudos Carla. Kudos.
The judges discuss and the Blue team is safe. Bummer. I was hoping Leah would get sent home. Or that other girl with the bangs. Who is she again??
In the end Danny is sent home. He likens his being sent home to a ref making a bad call in a football game. Sadly, he is wrong; the fans will not be booing because you are gone Danny.

Oh god…they made this 15 minutes longer than usual…get ready for tons of Real Desperate Housewives and Swanson commercials. (I totally want the mom in that commercial to be like, “Wanna know a secret? You were adopted and now we are going to cook you alive in this chicken broth.” I hate child actors and actresses…they make me want to puke. And don’t even get me started on the Desperate Housewives show…seriously, if they want to make this show interesting, have it be about early-20’s hotties always in their bikini, not middle aged fat women.)

Anyway, on to Top Chef. Ariane won last week and she’s still frustrating the hell out of me. When you think of Top Chef, don’t you want an aspiring Boulud, Ripert, or Keller? Not some Jersey mom? I dunno, maybe she’s a much better chef than I’m giving her credit for, but dammit, do something to wow me. (Then again, maybe the competition is just that bad this year…in fact, I’m really beginning to believe that this year just has incompetent ass-hats pretending they can cook.)

So Top Chef can still continue to surprise and intrigue me, and this week’s quickfire did it for me. Testing your palate is a great Top Chef challenge. And I like the tournament style chalkboard. (Side note, even though the BCS has looked fondly on my beloved Sooners a few times I would love a playoff in college football.) There are a lot of clips of people showcasing how much they hate Stefan, but damn, I kinda dig this cat. Jamie knows he has a crush on her, and even wonders if he knows what a lesbian is. Um…honey, he’s EUROPEAN! Straight, gay, it’s all the same with him. Hell, he’d probably bring Fabio into the mix. Anyway, back to the tasting palate challenge. Hosea wins, and with it he gets immunity. Also, there is a confessional that both Leah and Hosea have significant others, but they still flirt a lot. To this I say: I’m still not seeing this great rack on Leah.

The cheftestants are broken up into 4 groups, “old”, “new”, “borrowed”, and “blue”. They all know this has something to do with a wedding. Do women even abide by that old saying? I mean, I’m not sure if Abby really is, and I don’t see why she would either. Who would want something old or borrowed on their wedding day…and if your wedding colors are different, why would you have blue if it might clash? Weddings are dumb…

The elimination challenge is for the cheftestants to cook four dishes (one from each group) for Gail’s bridal shower. Since Gail works for Food and Wine magazine, the 40 women who are attending will be foodies of some caliber. Throughout this challenge the cheftestants talk about their significant others and their weddings. Fabio’s wife is a hottie. Of course, I wouldn’t have expected anything less. The dude has the “Joey Tribiani” smirk every time he talks and it’s a winner with the ladies. Ariane talks about her family and they show a picture of what I would classify as the typical Jersey family. Jamie talks about how she hasn’t had this experience yet. I guess that means she never will either, what with her living in California and all that Prop 8 business. The big reveal comes when Tom does his sniff and sneer and Stefan mentions how he’s been married twice, to the same woman. This is also probably a good reason Alex was let go last week. He probably would have cried like a little bitch talking about how he’s missing his wedding planning, etc. I’m starting to believe Bravo is picking people off due to agenda, instead of talent.

So team OLD does heirloom tomatoes, something I would never have guessed of doing. I guess heirloom tomatoes are old tomatoes. Great… I guess. Stefan comes off as an insufferable know-it-all, and Jeff and Hosea aren’t thrilled. Jeff does a sorbet and it does fabulously, even though Stefan thinks it looks like crap.

So team NEW does deconstructed sushi, which sounds cool until Eugene decides he can’t cook properly anymore and Daniel…well old Danny boy goes ape-shit. Like he goes completely nuts! He adds mushrooms to Carla’s salad (a big no-no in my book…don’t touch other people’s food) and he adds way too many sauces all over the plate. Craziness. When they were discussing what they were making, I knew it would either be a complete success or disaster. There was no middle ground here. Sadly, it was the latter and they were the worst dish.

Team BORROWED, borrows from Radhika’s Indian culture and they go out and celebrate thanksgiving with all the white people, who of course then proceed to rape their women and give them rats. Oh wait…it’s the other type of Indian culture they borrowed from. They make a lamb spiced with some sort of Indian marinade. It goes all dramatic with the cooking of the lamb (of course done by drama queen Ariane) but it’s cooked perfectly and tasted great. Dammit…Ariane is safe for another week.

Team BLUE, lead by Fabio and his dream of the deep ocean, go with “controversial” Chilean sea bass (also known as Patagonian Toothfish, but if it was still named that, no one would ever buy it, but change it to Chilean sea bass and everyone including Al Gore will eat it even if it’s being over fished) and some sort of yellow and green sauce. Fabio ties it all together to the 40 horny and drunk ladies in the bridal shower, but sadly the food doesn’t match up to his charm. It’s bland. Seriously, it looked boring and like crap from where I was sitting. They are up for elimination with team NEW.

Jeff and Jamie are praised for their work by the judges, but Ariane wins again. WTF??!?!?! Is this season that bad? Where is the magic in all these chefs? I think Jeff totally got robbed, and you definitely can make a case for Jamie too. Radhika, I believe, made the actual marinade for the lamb. So all Ariane had to do was put it in the oven and take it out when her thermometer said so. That’s it! All those wonderful flavors the lamb had, was not because of her! Ugh….

Anyone from team NEW could get kicked off and I wouldn’t be surprised. While team BLUE’s food definitely wasn’t exciting, at least it wasn’t a complete disaster. I take back what I said earlier…if Carla leaves, I’d be surprised. She was quiet and didn’t speak up, but she didn’t screw up on a dish she’s known for (Eugene with sushi) or go absolutely nuts like Daniel. (That’s saying something when you out crazy “Crazy-eyes” herself.) In the end it was Daniel’s turn to go. He looked like he was about to cry when they said it, but he left with some dignity. While he grew on me as a cheftestant, his chops seriously weren’t there for this competition. He’s only 25, so he’ll get a bigger palate soon enough. Martha Stewart next week…yikes…

This is my very very brief recap of Top Chef from last week. Leah sucks. Seriously. She's just getting on my nerves. I think she talks too much and she acts like a know it all. I don't care that you know what everything is, keep it to yourself. Stop acting like a not so amuse(ing) douche. I'm still in love with Fabio. He's my number one. I'd like to see it come down between him, Crazy Carla, and possibly Jamie...although Danny is starting to grow on me. Did anyone else immediately think of Fozzie Bear when Danny yelled WOCKA after he finished his segment? I dig it. Ooh David Dust can refer to him as Straight Fozzie Bear instead of Straight Danny Bear! He's still a bear!! Anyway...stupid Arianne made a stupid salad and stupidly beat everyone else. WTF people! You're going to let Arianne beat you on TWO challenges? STEP IT UP PEOPLE! Rewind just a min, it comes down to the top 3 being Jeff, F<3bio, and Arianne. The bottom 3 are Jamie, Melissa, and Alex. So the top 3 are woken up at 2am and then brought to the Today Show. They prep their food and then their food is given to the ladies of the show. I only recognize the lady from the View and then Kathy Lee Gifford. The Cheftestants aren't allowed to actually give their presentations. I believe in my heart that if they were actually allowed to give their 2 minute shtick Fabio totally would have won. How would they not vote for him? SO dreamy. Even Jeff would have done better than Arianne. No way would they have voted for Jersey. The ladies try each piece and Kathy Lee the annoying drama queen must have felt that she wasn't garnering enough attention and totally spit Jeff's out. I'm guessing if she had met Jeff, there's no way she'd ever spit anything of his out...
Onto the bottom three...the night before they have j-table Melissa is outside with Hoseya, Leah, and I'm not sure who else. Anyway, Leah keeps telling Melissa to make sure she stands up for herself and let the judges know she wants to be there. Melissa agrees and totally says she's going to do just that. HELLOOOOO have you NOT watched the last 4 seasons??? NEVER listen to anyone who has immunity. Dumbass. Guess it works out in her favor though because she gets to stay another week and Alex is sent home to his (almost) bride. Best wishes man.

Next week...Padma is conveniently throwing a bridal shower for Gail and letting the Cheftestants cook...whatup free food?

Nothing much on the food front for us. Friday night was spent drinking way, way, way too much, mainly at Jillians, but I can say that the BBQ Chicken Pizza was damn good. Jillians is a pretty cool spot. Pool and bowling and a lot of people trying to be trendy. You got a mix of young and old. The pool and bowling are kinda expensive, but Abby's red bull and vodka was $7. That's not bad in Boston. Not bad at all. I ended up spending way more than I needed too on shots and lots of beer, which lead to me being hungover on Saturday morning.

Saturday night, following a midday drinking binge at a friend's housewarming party, we got home just in time to watch my Sooners win the Big XII championship. Bring on the Gators! About the only thing that went wrong last night was that Foodler and Gourmet Curry House really let us down. Craving some good Indian food, we jumped onto Foodler and made an order for Gourmet India. The menu of Gourmet India did not allow us to order single nan...instead we had to order catering portions, which meant 5 peices of nan. Whatever, we were hungry and we like Gourmet India. 5 minutes after I placed my order, I got a phone call telling me that Foodler was no longer working with Gourmet India until they fixed their menu...dammit! Fine, we went with the next Indian place on Foodler, which was Gourmet Curry House. Bad, bad, bad. The chicken tiki masala was bad and way too spicy. The vegatable samosa dry and had no flavor. The rice wasn't the typicaly Indian rice, more like Chinese takeout rice. The nan was good though. I give Gourmet Curry House a 1 out of 5.

Today, it snowed and was cold and we wanted some pho. Since we had to drive to run errands, we went to Dorchester for the Vietnamese food. We went to Sunrise Vietnamese Restaurant, a place we have been before. The pho was good, not great. Abby's broth was very different than mine, even though we ordered the same thing. Not sure if the combination of hoisen, sirachai and lime juice was that much different either. I give it a 2.5 out of 5. Worth giving a shot if you are in Dorchester.



Finally, my Top Chef recap. Basically...I'm not impressed. The breakfast amuse bouche was a good quickfire challenge, and while I agree with Leah that it is suppose to be only one bite, you shouldn't bring that up just to spite your competitors. Guess it worked in her favor because she won. (A note about Leah: They mention her great rack...I have yet to see it. Seriously, if you keep mentioning a great rack, you best show the audience the boys! Come on!) Rocco is a great guest judge, but he seemed off in this episode...not sure why. Probably just me though. The elimination challenge was kinda neat, but I agree with the bloggers on the interweb that that seemed more of a challenge for Next Food Network Star than top chef. Let's get back to the food people! I also didn't realize that Kathie Lee was on the Today show. (My sister Suzy said she's on the 4th hour...really? A 4th hour of Today show? WTF? Do we really need 4 hours of Today show?) Arianne, again showing nothing that would classify as being a top chef, did show some freaking smarts for understanding the time constraints of the challenge and made just a tomato salad. Jeff and Fabio both seemed to have done better dishes, and I even think Danny did a better job. I'm really sick of Arianne. And the dude who got kicked off, Alex, seriously, you are about to get married and you try to be on a competition? WTF? Either you are fully driven to win Top Chef, or you aren't. That didn't mean Melissa should have "thrown you under the bus"...but her point is valid. Alex should have been kicked off for crying after reading Richard's letter...I wonder if he was trying to apply to be part of Team Rainbow....And that brings me to the defensive Jamie. She seems like she has the chops to do something, but damn, you gotta take criticism a lot better. How many times in the past seasons did someone get kicked off earlier than they should have because of their bad attitude at the Judge's Table? Just stand up there, defend your dish and act like a professional.

Speaking of Rocco, there was an episode of Rocco Gets Real where he helped some lady make coddle (an Irish Stew). Abby's making that for dinner now. Will post pics of it later.

Not much for me to say in this one. I watched it...and wasn't all into it. If it was Pearl Jam or Radiohead instead of Foo Fighters, I probably would be watching this show on constant repeat right now.

Grant Achatz - totally cool in my book. They had to have just filmed this right after his battle with cancer. He looks way skinny (not that he was that big before hand). When they had the chef-testants grab the knifes out and the knives had numbers on it, I immediately thought they were going to make the chefs cook the recipe number from Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, just like at Achatz's Alinea restaurant. But no...almost, but not quite. They had to cook from the page number of the Top Chef cookbook, a book that probably isn't as important as Escoffier's. In any case, still a neat quickfire, made even more interesting when they had to convert their dishes to soup. As we learned in previous season, making a good soup can win you big points. Leah wins.


Ariane - congrats, you can cook turkey well...something I can do too. But, unlike you, I'm an Electrical Engineer, not a classically trained chef with my "4-star" New Jersey restaurant. Meaning: you should be able to cook turkey!

EUROS - oh man, they did nothing to separate themselves this episode.

Eugene - big props for the home-made grill!

Jeff, Richard, and Daniel - seriously, they all screwed up. Two of my favorites up on the chopping block...and they were saved because Richard couldn't do a smore correctly.

Not the greatest of episodes, but still enjoyable to watch. "Sexy Pants" vs "Cougars"...that's the best team names they could come up with? Sheesh...

Before I get into my recap of last night’s episode, I found this interview with Season 3’s leading jerk-off Dale (courtesy of Amuse-Biatch): link here.

For some reason, I really hope his restaurant tanks…he still comes off as a big d-bag in my book. I understand having confidence and standing behind your work (you are going to need that type of attitude if you want to make it in the cooking world) but how about a little humility buddy! Even the best chefs in the world will recognize others, especially one that beat your ass in a competition. To say of Hung, “I won, but he got the check”, to me is such a d*ck thing to say. I understand he’s trying to say that in losing he got the celebrity and cooking recognition he needs to start his own restaurant (at least I think that’s what he’s trying to say, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here cause I can be a nice guy) but don’t dismiss your competitor’s accomplishment so easily. The fact that he’s working with Sara Nguyen and CJ from season 3 makes me want to see them fail even more. (Ok, so maybe I’m not that nice of a guy…) I have nothing against Sara, but I couldn’t stand C “Big Time” J any more than I could stand Dale. And even though my brother-in-law Andy met him on a plane and said that he was a nice guy, I still hold reality-tv grudges. Even though season 3 was the best that Top Chef had to offer, I noticed I really only liked Hung, Tre and Casey, even though she couldn’t dice an onion. That being said, the talent level of season 3 was ridiculous. While I think he’s a major d-bag, Dale had some serious cooking chops. I seriously agree with Dale’s comment about how no cast can top season 3’s skill level. I mean, look at this year’s cast, the first show kicked off two newbies right away that had no business being on the show. If those two were better than every other wanna-be cheftestant, then you know this season’s talent level is way low.

Ok, I didn’t mean to get into that little rant. Time for last night’s episode:

Quickfire Challenge re-introduced us to a familiar face: Donatella Arpaia. She’s been on a lot of different cooking shows, but I really only like her when she does one on one stuff, like when she’s on Simply Ming. Much more engaging, seeing her work with food, instead of just being a judge. A quick interweb search of Donatella for the correct spelling of her last name gave me this link.

I guess they can’t introduce her as Donatella from the famous restaurant “David Burke and Donatella” anymore. (Side note: I like David Burke. Never eaten at any of his restaurants, but damn, he cracks me up every time I see him on TV or read his interviews. Seems like a cool guy to kick it with. I need to try his “flavor spray” on day…ok, that just sounded gross.)

So Padma, in a hideous outfit (per Abby), tells the cheftestants that they will have to make hot dogs and go against a famous hot dog stand owner. Now I really don’t understand why they had to bring this poor lady in (and I don’t mean poor like she’s a beggar…that lady and her hot dog empire is easily pulling in over $500K a year, if not more…I bet you it’s a lot more too) and make her stand there with her cart while the competitors cook up their hot dogs. Their hot dogs weren’t in competition with hers…they were in competition with each other! So strange. I gotta say, Donatella looks absolutely bored right now. So the cheftestants go out and make their own hot dogs. I’m actually impressed by this challenge and am not sure what I would have done. Would I have gone the dumb and easy route, like Jill, and use existing hot dogs and try to spruce it up a little? Or would I try to quickly make my own sausage and put my own little twist on it, even though I’ve never made sausage before? I’d probably go with the latter, but I can’t say I’d be any better than what Jill offered. (Thinking about this some more, I’d think I would have tried to make a “cheddar-wurst”. I’d have taken some ground pork and beef and seasoned it on the spicy side, encase it, and inject it with some melted cheddar cheese. Pan fry it until it’s done, and serve it on a hot dog bun with some homemade relish mayonnaise….damn, I might have to try to make that now…maybe I really can be a Top Chef!) Any way, there were a couple of “sushi hot dogs” which didn’t fare well. Both Euros made panini’s. But the major surprise was from Radhika. The self-proclaimed, “I’m of Indian heritage, and I don’t want them to judge me and think I only make Indian food”, goes against her own proclamation and makes an Indian styled hot dog. I bet you it tasted great…but come on!!!! What’s the old saying: “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s raining!”? I’m getting ahead of myself, but in 4 challenges you use your Indian traditions and did well in 2 of them. When you went outside of that ethnic cooking style, you sucked and were ridiculed and beaten up. Ok, maybe not beaten up, but verbally abused by the judges. How in the hell are you showing us that you can cook with non-Indian techniques? I had you pegged as someone to watch, mainly because of your experience with Vikas (a world reknown Indian chef, who cooks amazing Indian food) but you can’t seem to step out of your comfort zone at all and do well.

So Radhika wins, with some props to Fabio. They get their elimination challenge and they will have to perform in a real live kitchen during the lunch rush and do a 3 course menu. With Jeff’s styling skills (he has good hair, dontcha know), they all separate into 3 groups of 5, doing apps, entrée and dessert. Why some of them (Ariane) openly volunteer for dessert and not have a world-class dessert in their recipe black book, I have no idea. This show has shown time and time again that if you don’t do desserts correctly, you are going to be part of the bottom 3 each and every time.

The make up ideas, go shopping, and start prepping their dishes. Tom walks in and lays the egg on them, that they will be in his own restaurant Craft and will be serving 50 chefs that didn’t make the cut to be on Top Chef. (It would have been neat if one of the 50 was recently kicked off Lauren, who technically didn’t get to compete either…) The chefs talk, cook, then go home. In the middle of the commercial break, something strange happens. It looks like the show is back on, with Leah talking about being single or something, then it shows her and Hosea flirting, then it cuts back to commercial. All that in like 1 minute and 30 seconds. WTF? Bravo, that was just weird.

Anyway, just as I feared, having 50 chefs that weren’t good enough to be on this show (and like I said earlier, the talent level of this season isn’t the greatest) was going to lead to a few camera hogs that will go overly negative in their critiques just to get some airtime. Sore losers the bunch of them. One chef is overheard saying how he doesn’t use animal fat or butter in his restaurant…that’s a restaurant I will never step foot in. Hey buddy, maybe at your glorified Soup or Salad joint you are king, but that aint going to cut it to be on Top Chef. As lunch is being served, one chef remarks how he could make something better, which I respond, “Apparently you couldn’t or you would actually be on the show instead of hamming it up to be Bravo for 5 seconds and hoping that will lead you to your own cooking show.” They even showed some 50+ year old lady…come on!!! This is the caliber of NYC chefs that are trying to be on Top Chef? This is FOOD USA MECCA!!!! Are the real talented chefs actually in the kitchen cooking and working their way up instead of auditioning for a TV show? Must be.

Jill continues to befuddle everyone by grabbing an ostrich egg and trying to make a quiche out of it. First of all, don’t pull a Patrick and try something you’ve never cooked with. Secondly, is quiche really new American cooking? Others that also failed included Eugene, Radhika (who has immunity and it clearly showed), Hosea and of course Ariane and her overly sweet lemon something with cherry surprise. “Cherry surprise” is not something I want to see on a menu. Visions of…well, I won’t say what, but it’s gross, comes to mind. Jeff looks like he’s struggling again with time, but his dish seemed to please all the taste buds. Jamie finally comes through with something good, and her chilled corn chowder/soup whatever, was generally liked. Crazy Eyes, I mean Carla, also does well with her dessert. But it’s Fabio who takes the prize for his carpaccio dish that looked absolutely incredible. Easily the best dish tonight.

Jill, Hosea and Ariane are chosen as the worst dishes and Jill looks like an idiot trying to defend herself. Tonight’s tough to figure out. Usually you can sense who’s going home, but all 3 have made a strong case for being kicked out of the kitchen that it’s hard to pinpoint who’s getting the axe. It turns out to be Jill. She remarks that she’s surprised that Ariane is still on the show and she has to leave…and you know what, you should be surprised and pissed off. You are no better than an old Jersey lady that might go down as the worst cheftestant in Top Chef history to have lasted to episode 3. Must really suck to be you. (And right on cue, old Jersey decides to play the sympathy card to steal all the attention away from the leaving chef by crying into Crazy Eyes arms. Yikes…get her off this show!)

In summary: The Euros still seem like the ones to beat. Jeff is going to have to learn how to manage time better. Radhika…I’m starting to question why I chose her as a favorite prior to watching the shows. Eugene…come on and wow us like I know you can. Ariane can’t leave soon enough.

We start off the season in the greatest food mecca in the USA: NYC. I didn't realize that the previous 4 seasons were all in different cities. The cheftestants are introduced, but really only like 8 of them really get to talk, the others are just shown. Immedieatly off the ferry, the 17 (such an odd number) are set for their first quickfire challenge...and this one has a twist. The winner of course gets immunity, the loser gets kicked off before even getting into the kitchen. I LIKE IT!!!! Already there are some annoying people I want gone from my TV watching life. Patrick, Ariane, Lauren...they annoy me. I don't know why, but I really hate the fact that Patrick and Lauren know each other. I understand that the cooking world is smaller than it seems (yes there are 690K or so people working in the industry as Padma said, but Bourdain, Colichio, and Boulud have all mentioned in writing or in interviews how most cooks will run into each other and how small the industry really is), but I hate it on reality shows when out of a group of contestants a couple of people know each other and are friends. This was one of the reason's I couldn't stand the lesbian couple from last season. But I digress...

The quickfire challenge was first to peel 15 apples (the first 9 are safe), then brunoise the apples (the first 4 are safe), then the remaining 4 are given 20 minutes to cook an apple dish. The two friends, Patrick and Lauren really must know each other because they make freaking salads...SALADS!!!! As our friend Sarah said, that's something we can do. You are on a freaking cooking competition where you have to WOW the judges to stay on the show, and you cook a freaking SALAD?!?!?! IDIOTS! The other two, Radhika (one of my sight unseen favorites already in trouble...) and Leah make a pork apply chutney and an apple scallop dish and are both safe. I wish Padma and Tom would kick off both of these cheftestants, but it's only Lauren. (This is probably a good thing, because if Lauren stayed on the show, we would be overwhelmed by her whining about how her husband is in Iraq as she tries to play the sympathy card to stay afloat in the competition.)

The cheftestants then have to pull out a knife from the knife block and they pair off to cook a dish from the ethnic neighborhood listed on their knife. The chefs will be battling it out in pairs, with the winners being safe and the losers up for elimination. Jean George was the guest judge. This might be the first time I've seen JG without a young Asian lady (or 5) on his arm. Seriously. Every photo, every interview, every TV spot I've ever seen JG, he's surrounded by pretty Asian ladies. When one of the cheftestants remark that JG really knows his Asian...I'm not so certain they meant the cuisine. I'm not going to go all into details here, but Stefan (another one of my early choices to kick ass) wins and it's between Patrick and Ariane up for elimination. I like it when I can predict who's already going to go home before I even watch the show. Go me! Again, I wish they would have just let both of them go...I see nothing good out of either of them, nothing that screams innovation, nor great cooking skills. They choose Patrick, and we'll have to deal with the lady from a 4 star restaurant in Jersey for at least another show. (That brings up the question of what the hell is a 4 star restaurant in Jersey...just like Ted Mosby, I am not a big fan of Jersey, so obviously my bias is showing here. I do hear they make a mean fried hot dog though.)

Anyway, the good: I like the Europeans, Stefan and Fabio. I thought Fabio would be a douchebag, but I kinda like him. The accents are really what I like. These are the good "I might be straight, but I sound gay and your women will want me" European accents. Always good on TV. (Unlike the bad accent of say the Boston/New England accent. Seriously, have you ever walked around Boston or been on the T and seen an incredibly hot chick that you just want to take home and provide for? Then she opens her mouth and that annoying Revere or Melrose accent comes out and you just want to bash her head into a wall to shut her up? No? Am I the only one that feels that way about this area's accent? And I'm not advocating for abuse on women, just abuse on people that can't talk correctly.) One of my other unseen favorites was Jeff. He totally looks like he has the skills, but nearly screwed himself because he wasn't paying attention to time. My last unseen favorite was in the bottom of both challenges, so maybe her connection to Vikas Khanna didn't really translate as much as I thought it would. Gene, Hosea, Danny and Carla were very enjoyable as well. Normally someone like Danny (as Abby calls him, "Joey from Nuu Yawk") would bother the hell out of me, but he seemed pretty cool in the first episode.

Now for the bad: Team Rainbow. They already have a freaking shirt for them available on Bravo's website for you to buy. Holy crap!!! Seriously, not every season needs a freaking T-shirt! I don't ever recall CJ saying "Big Time" except for the reunion show...and they make a T-shirt for it. Reach much? Anyway, neither Patrick or Jamie did anything that I enjoyed, though I hold out hope that Jamie will wow us later. For some reason I think she has some chops and can do some interesting things. (One more thing about Team Rainbow, Bravo did the vote text again and it was basically who you liked better, Team Rainbow or the Europeans. I mean, has there been a more obvious lopsided vote since Barack kicked Mccain's ass? You know the Bravo viewership is going to vote for Team Rainbow. As Abby says, "The gays love Bravo and Bravo loves the gays." And some of you might say that being European is very similar to being gay, and you might be right, but not tonight my friends, not tonight. 70% for Team Rainbow.) Melissa...I don't like her haircut at all...that's probably not a reason to want her off the show, but it's not a good impression. And finally, Gail...I'm so sick of her. What does she bring to this show? (Abby did not like her dress, but I think it matched her face pretty well...as in UGLY!) Where was Ted Allen? Why not have that 3rd non-guest judge be a rotation of Rocco, Ripert, and Bourdain? That would be so much more enjoyable! I mean, you guys are in NYC...Ripert and Rocco have to be available, right?

Anyway, this seems to be a good season in the making. They show clips from future shows and so it seems that Rocco will be a guest judge at one point along with Martha Freaking Stewart! Anway, we'll be in for a good ride.