Top Chef Review: Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen

After two weeks of boring qualifiers, we now know who will be competing on Top Chef going forward. I am not sure if anyone from the Bravo network reads this article, but in the off chance someone does please take note: Don’t pick 29 potential characters and have two different shows to pare them down to 16 finalist if theyr’e not interesting and the challenges are as boring as mud. The only time I perked up during these two shows was when Andrew Curren called one of his poached eggs the “B” word. And that ain’t even that exciting.

This week, the third and final group of hopefuls was whittled down to the remaining finalists. The challenge was to select a “base” ingredient from a slew of choices ranging from brussel sprouts to octopus. The twist was that after each chef chose his ingredient, he or she was provided with a specific allotment of time to prepare the dish. The time allocations were 20, 40 of 60 minutes.

Not many dishes exceeded the judge’s expectations with the exception of Paul Qui’s grilled trout, Ashley’s braised veal, and Beverly Kim’s octopus (Beverly impressed the judges with her risky choice to make octopus for the first time). All three made it into the finals.

After the finalists from Group 3 completed the competition, the folks on the bubble had one more shot to prove their case to the judges. The “bubble” chefs were told to make one dish that really represents them – no other restrictions. Edward Lee’s duck and Grayson Schmitz’s bacon wrapped shrimp and figs took home the prize.

Now onto Last Chance Kitchen, Top Chef’s online web series. LCK, judged solely by Tom C., allows the chef that is eliminated in each episode to unpack their knives and stay to compete online in head-to head challenges against the reigning LCK champ (think of it as the loser’s bracket). It works like this – this week, Andrew and Janine competed in LCK. Andrew won the match-up and will stay to compete in LCK against next week’s eliminated chef and so on.

Wow Bravo, you have taken Top Chef and overcooked it. Well done (no pun intended). That said, there is some potential that LCK could get exciting if one chef starts to win challenge after challenge and eventually comes back to compete with the top 3 chefs at season’s end. One annoying thing about LCK is that it only airs online and therefore, cannot be DVR’d…the absolute horror of watching something in real time! Here’s to hoping LCK actually is a success (but as of now, it’s more of an annoying bonus).

Lastly, I must say that I like Hugh Acheson as a judge much more than I like Emeril Lagasse, probably because Acheson seems to be a more seasoned chef and is generally more likeable.  Plus, I keep expecting Lagasse to end a critique with “Bam!”

Season 9, Episode 2: The Heat Is On (originally aired November 9, 2011)

Images courtesy of Bravo TV.