Top Chef: Quieting the Creative Monkeys

This week, Top Chef returned to its roots, in that it focused more on competition and less on high school-romance-drama shenanigans. And though certainly more entertaining than the last several episodes, I’m now one step closer to owing Perlow a martini. Naturally, I’m less than thrilled with this development.

But to the show! In case you’re new here, Hosea reminds us what an arrogant ass Stefan is and how he always wins everything. What a drag, man. Imagine if this was a competition. Because then Stefan should try to win everything, whereas obviously, now he should back off and let somebody else have a turn. I mean, really.

Crazy Carla realizes she “dodged a bullet” last week, and admits that the competition has thrown her off her game. Time to re-focus. We hear this excuse from people all the time, but it’s Carla and she’s my hero, so I’ll reserve judgment.

Quickfire. Brought to you by Quaker Oats. Guest judge: Scott Conant. He just opened up a 3-star restaurant in New York. The chefs must prepare an original dish by pairing whole grain oats with an assigned food group (seafood, vegetables, dairy, etc.).

Fabio lands vegetables, which he finds frustrating. “I am not excited about vegetable, guys. There is not reason to eat vegetable when there is meat and fish around.” I say the same thing at least once a week! Sometimes with the accent. Can he divorce his wife and just marry me, please?

Hosea’s cooking wiener schnitzel, and all that makes me think of is Germany and Disney. Sigh. Hosea then points fingers and laughs at Leah for scoring fish in the Quickfire, after failing with fish last week. Ouch. Weren’t you two making out, like, yesterday? Fabio says he’s tired of always landing in the middle, it’s killing him. The problem here is that Fabio’s getting a lot of interview time, and this much focus usually means the person is going home.

Chef Conant samples the food with his shirt unbuttoned because he’s the shit, in case you didn’t know. All three stars of him. He chooses Leah, Fabio and Jeff as his least favorite; he was most impressed with Jamie, Stefan and Carla, and ultimately chooses Stefan as his winner. No more immunity, so Stefan simply gloats, killing another piece of Hosea’s soul, and also wins an advantage in the Elimination Challenge. Which is…

A battle with Past Season All-Stars! Because it’s Super Bowl week, yo! Seven past seasoners arrive to challenge our chefs: Spike (Chicago), Josie (Los Angeles), Andrea (San Francisco), Camille (Miami), Nikki (Chicago), Miguel (San Francisco), and Andrew (Chicago). It should surprise no one that Andrew is Carla’s favorite, because of his “quirky image.” Andrew manages to annoy me in less than five minutes of being back, and I remember how much he irritated me last season. Fabulous.

The chefs will battle head-to-head to prepare a dish using the regional ingredients from the hometown of one of seven football teams. As the winner of the Quickfire, Stefan can choose his opponent and team. He chooses the Dallas Cowboys and Andrea, who was known as a vegetarian and was eliminated twice in Season 1. So how good can she be? The disappointing thing is that Stefan is so good, he could have picked anyone, and probably would win. Why go for the easy kill? All season he’s said immunity means nothing, because he wants to win the challenges based on merit. So…hypocrite?

Once he chooses, the chefs huddle and divvy up the remaining teams. We have: Dr. Chase vs. Josie and the Miami Dolphins; Fabio vs. Spike and the Green Bay Packers; Hosea vs. Miguel and the Seattle Seahawks; Leah vs. Nikki and the NY Giants (holla!); Jamie vs. Camille and the San Francisco 49ers; Carla vs. Andrew and the New Orleans Saints. Carla’s on cloud nine. Andrew. Andrew! Her enthusiasm is fun to watch.

The chefs will cook at the Institute of Culinary Education, and will have twenty minutes to prepare a dish in front of an audience of judges and students. The chefs who lose their head-to-head will be up for elimination.

Jamie worries about losing and going home, panicking because she can’t think of anything to prepare. Oh, if only she were in actual danger of elimination. What a really good episode we’d have then. Chase reminds us for the umpteenth time that he’s from Miami and knows the cuisine there and should therefore rock this challenge. Honestly, he’s becoming a bore. Little known fact about Josie: Also from Miami (so shut up, Chase) and used to play for the New York Sharks, an all-ladies professional football team. Not…that surprising, really.

Fabio says the challenge is difficult because of the time constraint. “That’s not cooking. That’s rushing.” But he laughs about it and takes it in stride, so kudos to his positivity. Take note, Leah. Fabio also says he’s trying to win for his sick mother to pay her bills. He’s so going home.

Andrew: “Dear Season Five: If you don’t bring your A game, you’re going to get fucking stomped. And, uh, I will be peeing on your bodies.”

As if that needs commenting on.

The competition. In each round, the judges will choose their favorite dish, scoring the winner 7 points. Then five fans from the audience will choose their favorite, which will score a 3-point field goal. A tie amongst the judges will be deferred to the audience choice, giving the chefs a chance to win all ten points in one shot. Also in the audience, but with no judging opportunities, are all of Season 5′s eliminated chefs. We never hear from them, so who cares?

And so: Leah’s steak beats Nikki’s chicken livers (duh) with the judges, but Nikki wins the field goal. Hosea’s salmon roll trounces Miguel’s cedar plank salmon, scoring all ten points. Carla’s gumbo, injected with her quick love, which isn’t as dirty as it sounds, beats Andrew’s crayfish crudo for a touchdown, but Andrew wins the field goal. Andrea’s tex mex chili kicks the crap out of Stefan’s pork and steak over salads. She wins all ten points when the fans choose her dish to break the judges’ tie. Stefan’s head shrinks about ten sizes. It’s Hosea’s turn to gloat. Only … in his interview.

Jamie’s crab cioppino beats Camille’s sweet potato mash in another tiebreaker by the fans. Josie delivers another shrunken head, this time named “Dr. Chase.” Chase thinks he should have won, mainly because his plate was prettier than hers, but her ceviche scores all ten points, winning over the judges and the fans. Spike vs. Fabio is probably the most entertaining pairing, but Fabio knows his venison is overcooked, and it loses to Spike’s venison, per the judges. However, Fabio wins over the fans, which ultimately saves his team and they win, 37 – 33.

Judges’ Table. Among the winners, Toby Young notably tells Carla he “tasted the love this time,” and even Colicchio smiles and agrees that the love was there. Hootie! Hoo! The others receive compliments, but who cares? Because Carla wins! “Badow!” She wins two tickets to the Super Bowl, which will most likely go to her husband and stepson, who she says, love football, so that’s nice. And she’s as excited as you can possibly get, so Badow!

The room grows a little stuffy when the three egos – er, three losers, enter. Fabio provides excuses for his overdone venison. He argues with Conant, who basically tells Fabio to shut up so Conant can ramble a bit pointlessly, eventually coming around to telling Fabio that he failed. Um, thanks. The judges call out Stefan for choosing an easy out in Andrea, and tell him his food could have been more flavorful. Dr. Chase blames the plastic plates for his failure, and then blames Josie’s dish, because it was, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here: lame. Colicchio flat out tells him his wasn’t as flavorful as hers, which is why he lost. Chase claims he did more work, so yeah, he should have won.

On a side note, I thought this was a fun challenge, and it was great seeing the old contestants return (except for Andrew). People genuinely had fun, and it was a great bottom three, with our strongest contenders taking some heat. Though honestly, Leah needs to go. She should not have outlasted the eliminated contestant. Which leads us to:

Good-bye Dr. Chase! Yay for Fabio! I’m not sorry to see Chase’s stuck up ‘tude pack its knives, but I am sorry to see one of my Top 4 go home. This could be a problem in my Top Chef Restaurant/Super Bowl/End of Season Martini War with Perlow. Talk about egos. I think we’ll be worse than this week’s bottom three.

Next week: Shrieking Eels and Obi Wan Kenobi!

Season 5, Episode 10: Super Bowl Chef Showdown (originally aired January 28, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Are You Ready For Some Football? by J.B. Perlow.

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Top Chef, click here.

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Photographs courtesy of Bravo