Top Chef Review: An Underwhelming Bunch

It’s week 6 of Top Chef and I’m already on the verge of classifying this season as a dud. I’ve been patiently waiting for these cheftestants to become somewhat interesting but I can barely find a pulse. Where is the fire in their bellies? Where is the cutthroat drive to stand out above the rest? Where are the interesting and polarizing personalities? Most importantly, where is the talent? Now, of course, there have been seasons in the past where a majority of the chefs were lame, but there’s never been a season, until now, where they are ALL lame. Even Tom C. is re-thinking his casting decisions…as well he should. I want an annoying Marseille! I want a talented big mouth like Mike Isabella! I want a food scientist like Richard Blais! I want a sibling rivalry like the Volt Bros.! And lastly, I want a slightly evil ginger like Tiffani Faison!

I should probably climb down from this soapbox and give you some details on this episode. We start out with the Quickfire Challenge, judged by Padma and guest judge Dean Fearing (a slight weirdo). The task is to make a dish highlighting one of Auguste Escoffier’s five essential or “mother” sauces – espagnole, hollandaise, tomate, velouté and béchamel. Immediately, Bev decides to create an Asian-inspired dish that highlights soy sauce. Good listening skills, Bev. Meanwhile, Heather, whose becoming a bigger annoyance each week, complains that all Bev does is Asian food. Sure, that’s true but Heather, how about a little less talking and more shut the hell up? I don’t care for your opinion. Moving on, Pretty Chris’ seafood velouté, Grayson’s hollandaise ravioli and Paul’s quail with espagnole got top honors. Grayson ends up winning the challenge and receives immunity from the Elimination Challenge. Woot. Woot.

This week’s Elimination Challenge is to serve a four course meal that includes two steak components. The chefs are cooking for 200 members of the Cattle Baron Club and serving their creations at the famous Southfork Ranch. I didn’t get why Padma got all giddy when announcing the location of the challenge until I used my “Google machine” (thanks, Heather) and found out it’s the ranch where the show Dallas played out. Now, I’m giddy too.

In this challenge, the chefs are to work as a team. Ty-Lor takes on a decidedly big role as he promises to make 200 medium rare steaks. In the middle of prepping, he slices his finger and ends up having to wait in the ER all night to get patched up. To his credit, Ty-Lor maintains a good attitude (unlike Jaime who, during Top Chef All Stars, decided that a minor cut was enough to halt all cooking) and in the end, it’s not entirely his fault that the steaks end up bombing. Edward plays a big role in that epic fail as he decides to flash them too early, which results in many steaks that are not medium-rare. Weird Chris puts the mistake in perspective, “Flashing the steaks early is the same as when the meteor hit the earth and made the dinosaurs extinct. It’s that big of a deal.” Yep, it sure is, buddy. It’s almost as big of a deal as that half ponytail you put your hair in. Now, I’m not going to pretend like the main part of this Elimination Challenge is not difficult. Cooking 200 steaks IS hard but with a little more coordination and a lot more leadership, it’s a task that could’ve been done rather well, but apparently not for this group of rag-tags.

Interestingly enough, not one chef decides to step-up after Ty-Lor goes down. Heather chooses to continue riding  Bev’s ass…this time about Bev taking two days to peel and de-vein 400 shrimp. I have no idea why Heather is in a constant tizzy over Bev. Yes, Bev is supremely annoying but if she isn’t in your face, then stand down. Dakota sums it up perfectly by characterizing Heather as a giant obnoxious bully. And ironically enough, for as much jabbering that Heather did about Bev always putting up Asian dishes, she ends up using Edward’s cake recipe again for the dessert course in the Elimination Challenge (she used it for the first time during the Quinceanera challenge). She’s not only a bully, she’s a hypocrite.

Needless to say, between inconsistent steaks and mediocre sides (an almost-raw potato gratin from Whitney comes to mind), the judges were none to happy. Nyesha, Weird Chris, and Heather get a quick shout-out from the judges for producing good dishes. Nyesha did a compound butter (not sure what this is), Weird Chris made a carpaccio and Heather, of course, decided on Edward’s not-too-sweet cake. Much to my chagrin, Heather ended up winning for her cake.  As if she could get even more unbearable, now she’s won a challenge and probably thinks she’s all that.  Watch your back, Bev.

On the bottom, we find Ty-Lor, Whitney and Edward. All these chefs deserved to be losers but Whitney was the chef  sent packing. The judges, including her mentor, Hugh Acheson, could not get over her egregious potato gratin. Speaking of Hugh…I’ve been waiting a few episodes to ask this, but are his eyebrows connected? I think they are. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

On Last Chance Kitchen, Whitney battles it out against little Chuy. They are asked to make a classic burger. Chuy must use ostrich as his protein and Whitney is assigned to elk. Whitney comes out on top and will battle again next week on LCK.

 

Season 9, Episode 6: Higher Steaks (originally aired December 7, 2011)

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