Top Chef: The Bald Truth--It Ain't About The Food
This season of Top Chef on Bravo has been marred by stupid controversy. The whole Otto/Marisa/stolen lychee thing. The "did someone cheat? Let's eliminate nobody" challenge results. Mia's going postal a few weeks ago. And now Cliff's attempted prank on Marcel gets him booted from the show. Shenanigans.
A lot of stupid crap for a show where the mantra has been "it's all about the food."
We still enjoy the show, but believe that the producers should (and will) be a little more careful in the selection of new cheftestants and challenges for season three. This season's a little unhinged.
In any case, we want to try and forget this episode and are just looking forward to the finals in Hawaii, which starts tonight. Forgive us for our brevity.
In the Quickfire Challenge, the contestants must shill for Nestle by making something with chocolate. Ilan tries turning a chicken liver into candy. Elia makes a chicken with mole sauce and a dessert (a "kiss"); guest judge (and stratospheric superstar chef) Eric Ripert says she'd have won if she'd skipped the bird. Cliff also makes chicken. Marcel does a potato cannoli duo, one with chocolate cream, the other with coffee cream. Sam makes an interesting dish out of shrimp, bananas, chocolate, and chipotle, and wins.
His prize? Well, the elimination challenge is a five-course Valentine's Day-style meal; he gets to choose which course and which protein. The meal will be cooked for restaurant patrons up in lovely Santa Barbara (our old home town! Go Dons!).
Sam choice: first course. He made a scallop/beet appetizer with a lobster plum sauce. Everyone thought it was lovely. In the kitchen, Marcel tells Sam he can't help, as he has no time. Sam is pissed and says on camera that he'll reciprocate.
Ilan's oyster and fideos (a Spanish pasta dish) were highly lauded, and won the day.
Cliff's steak with a lentil puree is somewhat frowned upon because the lentils are relatively unappetizing in this form.
Marcel's salmon with celeriac and beets (with cutesy little hearts in the side potato, awwww) seemed to be generally liked, though some judges wonder why foam/gelee boy went so "standard" on them. By doing a dish with beets, Astroboy also opened himself up to comparisons with Sam's dish, since that had a beet element. Sam, despite his earlier statement, shows he's classy by helping Marcel with plating anyway. Good on him.
Elia's heart-shaped dessert (a version of her Quickfire dish) turned out well, but she messed up the chocolate -- it was supposed to be heart-shaped, and ended up just being a chocolate lattice placed on top of the rest of it.
Overall, all judges were very pleased.
Then came the tomfoolery back at the residence. Ilan and Elia both decide to shave their heads. They both look great minus the pate, actually -- though we loved Elia's wild curls the way they were, actually. But, heck, hair grows back.
That doesn't mean you should be making that decision for others, though. Cliff, Ilan, and Sam joke around about shaving Marcel's Astroboyish locks. Cliff goes ahead with this drunken scheme, actually waking Marcel up, wrestling around with him a bit, and calling for someone else to come with the razor. Marcel breaks free (how?) and spends the night sleeping in the bathroom.
We claimed we were going to be brief, so here's the long and short of it: Cliff put his hands on Marcel; the producers decide to kick Cliff off the show; Chef Tom delivers the bad news; general consensus amongst the judges is that Cliff would've lost anyway. Accordingly, the other four are going to the finals in Hawaii. Padma tries a little fake-out by telling Marcel and Elia to "pack the knives" pause pause pause "for Hawaii!" Ha ha, aren't you tricky, Mrs. Rushdie.
Still better than Katie Lee. But duh.
Tune in tonight for what will hopefully be about food and cooking, and not about shenanigans. SHENANIGANS!