Top Chef: Ready, Set, Restaurant Wars!

This week’s Top Chef was super sized as the much awaited “Restaurant Wars” episode finally happened. It had all the elements that made for good reality television: cursing, arguing, winning, and failing! Robin drops an f-bomb, the Voltaggio brothers verbally spar, and we see Jen go through an epic fail.

Starting off was the quickfire challenge, which I found the most interesting part of the episode. The chefs all pulled knives with Jen getting first choice and Michael getting second. First and second to what you may ask? They get to pick teammates for this crazy challenge. It ends up being Jen, Kevin, Mike Isabella, and Laurine on one team with Michael, Bryan, Eli, and Robin on the other. Robin was the last to be chosen only confirming of course that most of the other contestants don’t like her and don’t think that she should still be on the show.

The way this quickfire is set up is that each team will prepare one dish but the catch is that they can only have one person on the floor at a time while the rest stay to the side blindfolded. They also can’t talk to each other. After one person finishes they leave and the next person has to make sense of what they were trying to do and continue the job.

Jen (blue team) and Eli (red team) were first up with only 10 minutes to pick their ingredients and prep for their next team member with a total of forty minutes to do the entire dish. Laurine and Robin, Bryan and Mike Isabella, and lastly Kevin and Michael followed them.

This episode’s guest judge was Rick Moonan (who also competed on Top Chef Masters) known for his sustainable seafood practices. This basically means that he only uses seafood coming from fisheries practicing prudent fishing methods.

Rick decides that the blue team wins with their sablefish with sautéed mushrooms, shiitake broth, and radish salad. The red team created a pan roasted NY strip with whipped miso avocado puree. The winning team receives a chip from the M resort for ten thousand dollars to be split amongst themselves. But they have the option of letting it ride and win ten thousand dollars each if they win tonight’s elimination challenge. So Jen and the rest of team blue agree to go for it, feeling confident that they will win restaurant wars.

The two teams end up cooking at Rick’s RM Seafood at the Mandalay Bay hotel that has two kitchens; one fine dining and the other more casual. Team blue picks up the fine dining upstairs with team red taking the downstairs.

We first see how team red aka team Revolt does and they actually do quite well! Eli is at the front of the room seating people and seeing to their needs while Michael, Robin, and Bryan are in the back cooking. Eli’s dish is the smoked arctic char with beet sauce and horseradish cream. Michael’s is chicken and calamari ‘pasta’ and cod with mussel billi-bi. Bryan had the duo of beef, braised short ribs and chocolate ganache with spearmint ice cream and chocolate tuiles. Robin’s dish was the pear pithivier.

Overall team red had good service and good food. The customers and the judges were both happy.

Team blue aka Team Mission on the other hand pretty much failed at this challenge. Firstly their service was bad from the food taking a very long time to the bad quality of their product. Laurine as a host was also not doing well, showing the signs of stress that were coming from the kitchen. This was really blatantly obvious when the judges had to keep calling her back to ask about the dishes.

If you’re curious about what they did put out here’s a quick rundown:

Jennifer: trout with hazelnut butter and bouillabaisse with mussels

Kevin: pork three ways

Laurine: lamb with carrot jam

Mike Isabella: Asparagus and six minute egg and arctic char tartar

Team blue opted not to do a dessert on the basis that the team who did a dessert always lost restaurant wars. It turns out though this time the team with a dessert won with not just one but two sweet dishes!

In the end Laurine was kicked off.

Team red won with Michael as the winner. I had mixed feelings about this because while the judges loved his dishes the most, he was also incredibly overbearing in the kitchen. I’m sure he was doing what he thought was best to get the job done, but he constantly micromanaged his team which was really annoying. I guess the judges were basing this win at least just on the food itself, versus seeing how well he worked with everyone else as well. Michael gets a bonus ten thousand chip as the winner that he elects to split with his team.

Overall, this was a decent episode. The quickfire was by far the most interesting part of the show and Laurine getting cut was not unexpected. What was surprising was Jen’s failure in her trout dish after being such a strong competitor in the past. I guess we’ll find out if she redeems herself and pulls through the next round.

For another take on this episode, check out Restaurant Wars or … Why I Never Liked Family Feud by Jaimie Campos.

Season 6, Episode 9: Restaurant Wars (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on Top Chef, click here.

Wednesdays at 10/9C, Bravo

Photographs courtesy of  NBC Universal and Trae Patton