Top Chef All-Stars Review: Caucasian Dim Sum Sucks

Time and time again a chef will meet their doom caused indirectly by a team challenge. In this episode of Top Chef, working in a group definitely had something to do with the contestant sent packing. Initially I felt the wrong contestant went home but after some time thinking about it I can understand why the judges made that call.

But before we get into that here’s what happened:

Previously Carla won the elimination challenge with her African groundnut soup with baked sweet potatoes, adzuki beans and peanuts. Spike was kicked out for his tomato tamarind soup, olive oil poached shrimp, pineapple, tomatoes and dill.

This week’s quickfire challenge was to create a dish in under 8 minutes, 37 seconds, a time set by judge Tom Colicchio who made his own delectable dish in that time.

While everyone else ran to the pantry to get ingredients, Marcel cleverly grabbed Tom’s left over fish to save some time. While most of the chefs were able to execute a complete dish in the allotted time, some like Dale and Jamie failed miserably. Dale attempted to make Pad Thai but it looked like a single  limp noodle while Jamie got one clam onto her plate. Angelo ended up at the bottom as well because true to Angelo form, he went against the rule and made a crudo dish instead of something that was actually cooked.

The winner was Mike Isabella with his pan-seared bass with tomato relish, olives, and capers. He gets immunity in the elimination challenge as well as a new Toyota Prius. The immunity is worth its weight in gold in this next challenge as the group pretty much crash and burn.

The contestants take over a dim sum restaurant where they must work as a team to push out food as quickly as possible. Most of the chefs offer to do one dish each, with Mike Isabella is charge of expediting food, while Carla and Casey offer to be on the floor pushing carts. The only people with experience in dim sum are Dale and Angelo, who both take two dishes instead of just one. Antonia volunteers to help Jamie with one of her two dishes as well as cook Casey’s dish, which involves chicken feet.

The next day is one big disaster with people walking out of the restaurant because they were being served so slowly. Granted, it’s definitely not easy to feed a hungry crowd during lunchtime inside a dim sum restaurant, and the chefs failed miserably. At one point it seemed the chefs gave up inside the kitchen with everyone pissed off at something.

The person who really got screwed over is Casey and she got sent home. She volunteered to be on the floor and relied on Antonia to cook her dish for her. That didn’t turn out very well as the chicken feet turned out to be extremely difficult to eat.

This week’s guest judge is Suser Lee, who was also a contestant on Top Chef Masters.

Dale wins with sticky rice and Angelo, Fabio, and Tiffany D are at the top as well. Fabio incredibly surprised to be a favorite given that he’s had no experience with Chinese cooking before.

At the bottom were Casey, Antonia, Jamie, Tre, and Carla. Antonia was there because she had a hand in Jamie’s long bean dish, which was overcooked and greasy. Tre’s dessert didn’t set and was too soupy from the heat. Carla’s dish looked pretty but all you tasted were bland mushy rice noodles.

At first I felt that Casey got the short end of the stick having volunteered to take one for the team and to go out on the floor. She took the risk of having someone else actually cook the dish for her and it bit her in the ass. The night before while the chefs were divvying up duties and planning their menu, most people were unwilling to put their necks out any more than they had to and in this case it worked out for them.

In the end even though Casey volunteered for the sake of teamwork, the judges cared more about the food than the teamwork. So despite Antonia messing up the cooking, she was ultimately responsible for that dish. Begrudgingly I understand why the judges made that call. Still it is infuriating that Jamie once again skipped by having done a crappy scallop dumpling and long bean dish. At least Antonia made a good shrimp toast.

Jamie had better dazzle us soon because her luck has to run out sometime. Next week I hope.

Season 8, Episode 5: Dim Some Lose Some (originally aired January 5, 2011)

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