Top Chef Review: It’s Top Chef not Top Whiners

Last week Angelo was my vote for most annoying character, this week he is surpassed by Amanda. I don’t care how good your ribs were! Angelo definitely toned it down this week and I appreciate that. Thanks for isolating yourself because Kenny wasn’t a team player even though you probably set that whole thing up (of course that’s just my conjecture…).

This episode begins with the introduction of a new Top Chef show, ‘Just Desserts’ (hosted by Gail and Johnny Iuzzini who are both judges on this challenge as well) via issuing a pie challenge for the quickfire. Most of the cheftestants are not happy with this new task and you hear the “I’m a savory chef, I don’t do dessert” line during the cut in interviews. A friend of mine brings up a valid point that he is sick to death with chefs complaining that they don’t do pastry or dessert. It is after all called ‘Top Chef’ not ‘Top Whiner’. If you want ‘Top Whiner’ tune in to Hell’s Kitchen. I am surprised myself that newer contestants don’t brush up on this skill before coming to the show because it’s not even a surprise anymore. Isn’t it fairly guaranteed that desserts are going to pop up somewhere in the competition?

Kenny finally wins one though with his bananas foster pie with currants and Chinese five spice. That pie made me take out my coconut ice cream from the fridge and have a bite. It did deserve to win. The bottoms were Tracy, Alex, and Ed. To Ed’s defense his pie did look pretty good too but his mistake was pairing it with celery.

For the elimination challenge the chefs were to prepare food for a picnic for Capitol Hill interns at Mount Vernon, the historic home of George Washington. What I would have liked this challenge to be was something more along the lines of Dinner Impossible where the chefs would have to cook using cooking gear found in Mount Vernon’s historic kitchen. Now that would have been something really different but alas they had grills set up for them.

The winner of this challenge was Arnold with his sesame lamb meatball, tabouli salad, and gazpacho. While Angelo was also in the top four with Amanda, Arnold, and Ed I was glad that he didn’t win because I wasn’t really wowed by his dish. I was actually surprised that Arnold won but pleasantly so. As long as Angelo and Amanda didn’t win I was happy.

The bottom people were Tim, Stephen, Tracy, and Kevin. Tracy gets kicked off partially I think to her own admission that she shouldn’t be there. It was a little sad to see the show’s resident psychic get the boot (she was doing psychic readings in the stew room before judges’ table!). I didn’t mind Tracy, she was funny to watch and at least she wasn’t a pain to watch.

Speaking of pains, oh Amanda, you just keep giving it to us. During the quickfire challenge she took Alex’s stuff out of the oven because she had clearly labeled it as hers, even though there were a lot of other ones that were free. She goes on to tell Tom that’s prison rules and I love that he said he’s never heard of that because he hasn’t been to prison. She quickly adds that she’s never been either but a little while later she reveals that she used to have a drug problem.

This episode was okay. I still want to see more creative food. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Richard Blais and the Voltaggio brothers.

Season 7, Episode 3: Capitol Grill (originally aired June 30, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of Bravo and David Giesbrecht.