Top Chef Masters: A Top Chef With a Beef Heart of Gold

This week on the third episode of Top Chef Masters we have a new line-up of four chefs competing for a place in the championship round (and money for their respective charities): Wilo Benet of Pikayo (San Jorge Children’s Foundation), Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards Grill (Community Health Clinic Ole), Ludo Lefebvre of Ludo Bites (C.H.A.S.E. for Life), and Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill (Frontera Farmer Foundation).

Quickfire.  Kelly has the chefs draw knifes, with each knife having a color on it.  The chefs are to repeat the Season 2 challenge to create a dish based on their assigned colors.  Cindy is concerned because she’s old and Rick is concerned because he’s slow.  While I try not to read the subtitles when Ludo talks, I think this seems like an interesting group because after Cindy talks about how women weren’t always welcomed as chefs, Wilo decides to include edible flowers on his dish because the judging panel is composed only of women.  And it seems that Bravo only censors out English profanity, as we hear a big “Merde” from Ludo as he forgets a component of his dish.  After our colorful presentations, Wilod’s orange salmon dish wins the challenge, and you Top Chef fans will recall that the orange dish won the last time on this challenge.

Elimination Challenge.  Create a street food dish for Universal Studios attendees.  The catch is they must use a unique protein: beef hearts (Wilo), tongue (Rick, who says he loves to eat tongue), tripe (Cindy), and pig’s ears (Ludo).  Ludo rants about how he knows how to cook every part of any animal ever!  At Whole Foods, though, Rick questions what Ludo knows about quesadilla, and Ludo thinks Rick is copying him when Rick says he’s making tacos.  Apparently, it is on!

At Universal Studios, they have an hour to setup next to signs saying what gross animal parts they’re passing off to people.  They serve without complications, except for Ludo, who’s got a line forming because he’s so slow.

Critics’ Table.  Our usual panel is up and Gael’s gimmicky hat is front and center.  Again, they are impressed with what everyone did, even if some aspects fell flat.  Ludo is given the award for the most difficult ingredient, and with those lowered expectations, he did well.  But it is not enough to top Wilo’s winning hearts.

As an aside, I like that the judges can score individually instead of reaching a consensus.  Perhaps they can implement this system into the regular Top Chef, but then you cynics will say that then they can’t control who stays on for personality/ratings purposes.

Next week: Neil Patrick Harris!

For another opinion on this episode, check out Slipping The Diners Some Tongue… by Jaimie Campos.

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

Season 1, Episode 3: Offal Tasty (originally aired June 24, 2009)

For more on Top Chef Masters, click here.

Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Kelsey McNeal