Yikes, am I ever late with this post! My apologies — a weekend trip ate up my Top Chef-writing time. Alas I fear the post won’t be worth the wait — I decided to get up something short and quick rather than longer and even later. Everything’s in the comments this time around.
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I’ll keep my thoughts short and limited to our three (or four?) challenges this week.
First, the Quickfire. I love these chef-skills Quickfires (except for those blind-tasting tests, which I think make really boring TV). However, it quickly became obvious that the knives from the first leg of the challenge were terrible for the potato and rabbit portions of the challenge – especially the rabbit. I wish the chefs had been allowed to use a more appropriate knife. Regardless, Micah pulled it off and went home with a pretty sweet custom knife. $500 an inch? Damn.
Second, the elimination challenge. I thought it was a fun challenge, but I wish the moments they had picked had been about memorable dishes, not just memorable fights. For example, the beef Carpaccio from Season 4 was a terrible dish, which is why it led to a post-elimination stew room fight. Why would we want to see that re-created? Granted, it was pretty funny to re-live the Great Pea Puree controversy.
Lizzie’s bottom-two finish couldn’t have been telegraphed any more clearly. As soon as she talked about learning to cook scallops with her mentor I knew she was in trouble. The scene of her talking to the guy at the fish counter about the scallops sealed it for me. I happen to love scallops, and so I know that they’re finicky little buggers. If you get ones that have been soaked (and dollars to donuts, Lizzie’s had been soaked) they’re disgusting. I really wish she had pushed the fish counter guy harder on the quality of the scallops; she clearly wasn’t comfortable with what she saw in the display.
On the top end, Kristen is looking almost unbeatable at this point. If she doesn’t make the finals I’ll be pretty surprised. Brooke also continued her streak of strong performances. And Josh finally made it to the top for cooking pork! (But then he had to go and shoot his mouth off about John’s pot thing. Not sure that endeared him to me.)
Which brings us to our third challenge: the burger cook-off between bottom finishers Lizzie and John.
Sure, John, you’re not bitter. Not in the least. Not you. Oh no.
Did anyone else think John’s rambling about how he could have refused to let Lizzie have any pickles kind of bizarre? I got the impression that John’s “I could have done that but that’s not the kind of guy I am” was a cover for “I wish I had done that.” Does he really think Tom Colicchio would have let him advance in the competition because he successfully hoarded a jar of pickles?
And what was up with John’s burger? How in the world was that a “lighter” take on CJ’s pork burger? It was made of lamb and had a fried egg on top! Sure, no bun, no carbs, but … come on. I wasn’t surprised in the least when Lizzie beat him out.
I was, however, a bit surprised when CJ beat John to stay in Last Chance Kitchen. John’s a strong competitor and I figured the law of averages has to catch up with CJ sooner or later. But hey, CJ’s dish had my scallop-loving heart aflutter, whereas lobster and foie gras doesn’t exactly scream “creativity” to me. Could CJ actually cook his way back through to the finals?