Top Chef Review: Ogre, Thy Name Is Heather

After last week’s article, I felt a little bad about railing on Heather the way I did but NEVERMIND! She is a chump and a horrible bully. But before I get into the ugly details and my unsolicited commentary, let’s start with the Quickfire Challenge.

This week’s Quickfire required the chefs to pick from an array of different Don Julio tequilas and pare their tequila with a complimentary dish. Padma and Tim Love, a former Top Chef Master, judged the competition. Padma didn’t look all that chic in her Quickfire outfit. Weird pastel yellow jeans and some sort of boho top. It didn’t work. Anyway, back to cooking. Heather, Weird Chris and Sarah were all on the bottom of this week’s Quickfire. Heather made a rockfish dish that Tim said resembled a “new special at a chain restaurant” (applause). Weird Chris made chicken that was way overcooked and Sarah made a risotto that apparently wasn’t cooked well and didn’t hit the mark.  Upon hearing that her risotto failed, Sarah declared she will NEVER change her risotto to fit “somebody’s palate.” Umm, I don’t know what to say to this other than get over yourself, lady. Our top three dishes were Pretty Chris’ raw oyster dish that complimented his tequila, Lindsay’s perfectly cooked salmon, and Ty-Lor’s steamed clams with a Thai flare. Ty-Lor took home the top prize of $5,000 (but no immunity this time).

Next, we move to the Elimination Challenge. The challenge was to prepare a game meat dinner. The kicker is the chefs have to work in teams of two and they don’t get to pick their partner. I gasped when I saw Bev and Heather had been assigned to a team. I am sure the Top Chef producers did not have that one rigged. While I think Bev can be annoying, I immediately felt sorry for her. Who would want to work with an ogre like Heather? From the get-go, Heather acted like the boss lady and spoke to Bev in a sharp and condescending tone. Before she and Bev even go through dish ideas, Heather declares that the whole dish can’t be “too Asian” because it’s “not her style” and she doesn’t want to get sent home. Why in the world does she equate an Asian dish with failure? It was painful to watch but re-affirmed to America that Heather is indeed a “B” and props to Edward for actually calling her one.

I wanted to high-five Bev for keeping her cool throughout the challenge even though Heather was constantly snapping at her and being overly disagreeable. Heather spends lots of time espousing about Bev’s inflexible, difficult and selfish tendencies, without having any clue that she herself is the giant prick. A dollop of self-awareness would do Heather a lot of good.

The twist in this Elimination Challenge was that the chefs would have to vote as to which three teams would get sent to Judge’s Table for elimination. At elimination, both people in the losing team would need to leave. This made it a more emotional challenge than those we’ve had to date because at least for me, each team had at least one chef that I liked on it.

Let’s start with the winner of the Elimination Challenge – Edward and Ty-Lor (yay!). They made a tasty quail with eggplant and pickled cherries.

Team Grayson and Weird Chris ended up on the bottom for their dish. While the judges appreciated their elk, they were puzzled and annoyed at the sweet potato fries that Weird Chris dished up. He was aiming to make some elaborate chain link number with the fries but ended up just stacking the fries on top of the elk. Grayson tried to sell the architectural feat as one that would give the dish the “height” it needed but that was a crockpot full of B.S.

Team Nyesha and Dakota also landed on the bottom for their severely undercooked venison. It was mostly Dakota’s fault as she was in charge of cooking the meat.

The last team on the butcher’s block was…you guessed it, Bev and Heather. Their duck breast, salad and pickled cherries weren’t a hit but Heather ran out of the gates saying the whole challenge was mired with a conspiracy to get her out of the competition because she won last week. She also quickly threw a quiet Bev under the bus by bringing Bev’s performance with the shrimp in last week’s challenge up and by implying Bev is a sub-par chef. What a classy move, Heather. Instead of explaining why your dish didn’t make the cut, you decide to blame your partner who had almost no say in the dish you ramrodded through the kitchen. Dakota, Grayson and Nyesha all stuck up for Bev but they all were run over by Heather’s train of hate.  I hope Heather watches this epsiode and laments at how awful of a person she is.  I can understand chefs with big egos, but chefs with big useless mouths is a whole other ballgame that no one wants to play.

In the end, Nyesha and Dakota end up going home. A devastated Dakota couldn’t fight back tears as she realized her actions sent Nyesha packing as well. It was a hard way to go down.

However, both Nyesha and Dakota were back in Last Chance Kitchen. The competition this week was between those two and last week’s victor, Whitney. The challenge was to make a dish using cactus and Nyesha came out on top. We’ll see how far she can get on the LCK track of the competition. She’s a strong chef so its nice to see her live another day.

 

Season 9, Episode 7: Game On (originally aired December 14, 2011).

For more kitchen drama tune in Wednesdays 10/9 Central on Bravo.

Images courtesy of Bravo TV.