Top Chef: Rushin' Roulette
We love Top Chef. We hope you will too -- here's our weekly recap of last week's episode, which we hope will prompt you to watch the new one tonight at 10 p.m. on Bravo. You can catch up on our takes of older episodes here, here, here and here. There, now you're caught up.
Hey, Ted Allen, from Queer Eye was the guest judge! This is the first time the guest judge has not been a local San Francisco chef. This ep's quickfire challenge, in which the contestants fight for immunity: make an appetizer that costs less than $3 in 20 minutes. Many of the entries were less than spectacular, and the winner of the dubious prize, of course, is Andrea. We've been making sport of Andrea's predilection for invoking the motion of one's bowels via food -- but, man, in Episode 6, our smoking hot granola nutritionist took it a little too far . . . when Ted Allen was less than complimentary of her fibrous "nature slaw," she commented that it would give him a B.M. Ted quips that he hasn't had one for a while, but is obviously as uncomfortable with addressing that subject on camera (as we are every time she brings it up).
The winner? DARN IT, it's Simon Bar Sinister himself, Stephen. UGHHH! His dish is pretty, but the baby clams on sea beans looked to us about the same as if someone has scattered some fresh pine needles on the plate. Come to think of it, sounds like one of Andrea's dishes. Maybe she'll try it some time . . .
. . . but not on this show. The queen of keeping your innards clean gets dismissed for the second time. There, folks -- we didn't bury the lead for once. Hopefully, the promise of details on how it all came out will prompt you to venture below the jump, where you'll find intrigue, a blow-up by Miguel, and, finally, a main challenge victory by one of our favorites.
The main challenge: plan a whole dinner; each contestant is responsible for one course. The party is in honor of guest judge Ted's new book. Stephen, whether it's because Chef Tom was in the room when Lee Anne asked him or not, respectfully says he'll take the dessert course, which none of them especially wanted to do as they ain't pastry chefs. Stephen has immunity, so it's not as big of a deal. They divvy up the courses, each planning some fantastical creation . . . .
And, right as they are about to start cooking, the judges make them draw knives from a block to switch up who has to do what course. See, they have to cook what the original assignee of that course had planned. Poor Miguel ends up with Lee Anne's beet sorbet with some fancy cheese he can't recall the name of (nor can we). He accidentally pours SALT into the sorbet mixture instead of SUGAR. Oops. Man, isn't that like Chef Preschool -- salt vs. sugar? Basically, Miggy figures he's dead, throws a bit of a snit, then decides he's going to help Andrea prepare his original dish, so at least something he had some part in will turn out okay. In the end, the beet/chesse dish was passable, but Andrea's "latkes with stuff on them" turned out not so great. The latke, the only part of it she prepared aside from the garnish, was cold cold cold. Ta ta, Andrea; no hopes for a boomerang this time around, unless emotionally pillow-like Dave decides to take his knives and go home, maybe.
The epitome of evil amongst dandyish chefs, Stephen, and quiet, competant Harold decide to team up; both come through this challenge safely, though Harold's dessert (Stephen's recipe) is judged to be too rich by some. Tiffani (interpreting Harold's beef dish) and Stephen got high marks, but Lee Anne (interpreting Tiffani's duck, gnocchi and figs) wins. Huzzah! About time. When asked by the judges, Tiffani makes it clear she feels Miggy needs to go home for his blowup. He finds out about this and calls her a snake and makes a few grandiose statements that really aren't characteristic of his generally congenial nature. [ed. note: our favorite part of the episode, next to the geniusness of the classic switcheroo technique on the courses, was Miguel's, "sssss."] Stephen, meanwhile, implies Andrea should go home. As stated above, the judges agreed.
Tonight? We hope Dave is going home because, dood, we can't handle another crying session, even though we like the guy. We hope Harold sacks up and really shows his stuff. We hope Miguel and Tiff make nice-nice.
Buuuuut, our predictions have been off-base, so maybe Dave will win and Harold will go home. Hah!
This episode featured, among other places, the following San Francisco businesses:
As usual, the contestants seemed to do their shopping at Bryan's in Laurel Heights
The dinner party for Ted Allen's book was held at Frisson
[and your editor is totally psyched to hear Dave's "I'm not your bitch, bitch!" line at Tiffani that they've been previewing relentlessly on the commercials all week!]