Top Chef All Stars: LA

[SaintsManiac]

I love Nini. She is one of my favorites, and I think several of the chefs don't consider her a true threat. I hope she shows them.
I also love Kevin. He does his thing, and the taste shows. No fancy pants on him, and I love his sense of humor.

There really isn't anyone I cannot stand and would be irritated if they won. If I had to pick one it would be Malarkey. He grates on me after a while. Too much.

And although he is incredible, Voltaggio is already so well known. So that makes me want to see it go to someone else. He's considered the one to beat, and I typically root for the underdog. I guess that's why.

We are Top Chef soulmates.

 

[msjprincess]

My favorites are Gregory, Eric, Bryan Voltaggio and Angelo.

 

[Aurora79]

I want Bryan or Melissa to win. I love Stephanie, but I don’t see her getting to the finals. I’m not a Nini fan after seeing how she handled Restaurant Wars in her season.

 

[starvenger]

Episode 3
- Just in case you're unaware, during Top Chef: Fans vs Favourites, Jamie gave up his immunity and was promptly booted. I don't think they've mentioned that at all.
- Randall Park and Ali Wong are the Quickfire judges. I found it adorable that Lee Anne and Nini were the most geeked about seeing them
- I still haven't seen Always Be My Maybe. It's on my list
- Challenge - make fried rice, using at least one ingredient from Alton Brown's sabotage pile
- Immunity is up for grabs
- Kevin wins by making a stoner fried rice that sounds pretty good.

- Elimination Challenge is a completely unrelated challenge where you must create a dish based on a style of art featured in the Getty Museum.
- Guest judge is Ludo Lefevbre, who is noted for never, ever speaking his mind. (This is sarcasm)
- There are 3 chefs to a style, basically repeating the "Win, Place and Show" competition from last season. But without the need to edit out John Besh
- Karen is concerned that Kevin decided to join her group. Since he has immunity, he can't be eliminated. Which is actually kind of a dumb way of looking at things- Kevin joining the group doesn't change the odds of Karen being the worst dish
- And indeed, Kevin uses his immunity to go outside the box and try something that, had he not had immunity, would've put him on the bottom.
- Lee Anne is struggling. This doesn't feel like the same woman that ran the gauntlet to make it into Top Chef Colorado.

- In any event, the top dishes were Eric, Melissa, Malarkey and Voltaggio.
- The Winner is

Spoiler

Melissa

- Worst dishes were Stephanie, Jamie, Karen and Lee Anne
- Eliminated chef was

Spoiler

Jamie

- Realistically, not that surprising. Sledgehammer of foreshadowing was in full effect, and you could reasonably predict which two chefs were in the most danger.

 

[maxiesmom]

Who won last chance kitchen last night?

 

[SaintsManiac]

So far I am glad about the people kicked off. Just not my favorites from past seasons.

P.S. Always Be My Maybe was super cute. Everyone should see it!

 

[starvenger]

Who won last chance kitchen last night?

Haven't watched it yet. Will spoiler tag that when I do

 

[palavra]

My favorites are Gregory, Eric, Melissa, Bryan and Kevin

 

[starvenger]

Last Chance Kitchen episode 2, "A Game of Chicken"
We've got

Spoiler

Joe vs Jamie

- Tom asks the usual "why did you think you got eliminated"
- Chef gives an answer that's a bit of the expected "it wasn't really my fault" spin. Tom shoots that down quickly. Hah!
- As one might guess from the title, the chefs must create a dish from one whole chicken, and they basically play "name that tune" to determine the time, and we get a time set to 20 minutes.
- Tom claims that you could roast a chicken in 25 minutes. The chefs dare him to. Dare NOT accepted.
- And then, they need to determine the number of ingredients to use, and it gets down to seven - which includes the chicken.
- Funny moment as we see the previously eliminated chef sitting all by his lonesome in the middle of the kitchen

- Dish A: "liver and onions", using chicken livers and leeks, and a chicken jus
- Dish B: grilled chicken breast with tomato/jalapeno sauce made with livers and schmaltz

Winner:

Spoiler

Joe

 

[Imzadi]

I'm in! I'm finally caught up on all the episodes. But not LCK yet.

My favorites are Gregory, Eric, Melissa, Bryan and Kevin

Mine too, with Bryan edging out everyone. He was robbed of the win his season. He should have gotten it over his brother.

And Melissa comes in second for me.

I can't stand Nini. And I LOATHE Lisa. Her first season, she purposely played up being loathesome to get more airtime. And yep, it worked. I LOATHE her. She's playing down this season, which is fine for me. Did i say already, I LOATHE her?

 

[RUDisney]

What @Imzadi said.

 

[msjprincess]

I don't like Lisa or Karen

 

[maxiesmom]

Mine too, with Bryan edging out everyone. He was robbed of the win his season. He should have gotten it over his brother.

Sooo don't agree! Michael killed it that season! That is still my favorite season of Top Chef, so many super talented chefs.

I think Lee Ann is my least favorite this season. She seems to be phoning it in for some reason. She showed more energy cooking in the snow while pregnant.

 

[starvenger]

So Episode 4
- We get some sort of boys vs girls thing, leading to a weird segue about Karen, Nini and Stephanie being "Padma's Angels"

- Nini really has a lot of jumpsuit/coverall-type outfits.

- Quickfire guest judge is Kelly Clarkson. Famous for

and winning American Idol or something.

- Apparently she's in that Trolls movie that streaming in your house real soon... assuming you pony up the money for it because your kids are getting on your last nerve.

- Quickfire is to take a bunch of random ingredients to make a dish, and each of those ingredients must correspond to a colour on a palette/colour wheel/whatever.

- Gregory talks about all his quickfire wins. I believe this is called "foreshadowing".

- Starting to get obsessed with Gregory's leather/pleather jacket/vest thingie.

- Malarkey tries to make a curry ice cream, and says something to the effect of it being the weirdest ice cream ever. Iron Chef Sakai and his trout ice cream beg to differ.

- I do love seeing the Quickfires because it seems like the chefs really go for it when there isn't anything at stake. Well aside from tickets to a Trolls premiere. Which I presume never actually happened, because you know.

- Gregory wins the Quickfire with a vegan soup

- Elimination Challenge: In teams, create a progressive 6-course dinner, including dessert, using food purchased at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. Oh and the dinner will be vegetarian.

- Teams are determined through knife draw. Blue team: Eric, Gregory, Karen, Jenn, Kevin and Melissa. Red team: Malarkey, Bryan, Lee Anne, Nini, Stephanie, Lisa

- Malarkey senses an imbalance of teams. This is also what might be called "foreshadowing".

- One team appears to be letting the market dictate parts of the menu. The other is somewhat fixated on doing what they do.

- Bryan can't find mushrooms as the regular shroom guy is not there. He has a restaurant in Santa Monica, so I guess he knows the shroom guy? Regardless, he needs to pivot.

- Nini claims that her dessert will be great. I'm always worried when chefs prematurely claim that their dish will be great.

- Malarkey is making what amounts to an upscale calabrese salad. Lee Anne, not to be outdone, is doing veggies and dip. Lisa deep fries brussels sprouts.

- Service... look, after 3 dishes it's pretty clear which team will win. After that, it's about who gets the win, who's in, and who's out.

- Oops, wrong show. I meant who has to pack their knives and go.

- Blue team wins, because they had superior food and had a logical progression

- And your winner... Melissa, with a corn chowder based in part on corn soup she had as a kid.

- Red team is the bottom, but the previous comments on Stephanie, Bryan and Nini's dishes made it clear that they were safe. Really need to stop doubting Nini, unless it's Restaurant Wars.

- Malarkey and Lee Anne were on the bottom again. I think this was Lisa's first time?

And eliminated...

Spoiler

Lisa, who will face Joe in LCK

 

[SaintsManiac]

Malarkey’s days are numbered, imo.

 

[C&Jx2]

Melissa, NeNe, and Gregory are definitely the front runners this season. They’ve always been great though!
Brian M. has to go. He’s so pompous and doesn’t deliver.

 

[fly girl]

Malarkey’s days are numbered, imo.

He is absolutely, hands down, no question my least favorite. His personality reads fake and a show off, not a fan at all. Last week when he mentioned his TV show ... gag. And then this week during the quick fire, just everything he does rubs me wrong way.

Although, I have to say Leann was responsible for her hummus dish. I can't fault him for that. Leann is not in the zone, she has stumbled throughout this competition especially after pouring oil on the grill fire a few challenges back. I hope she can get out of her own head.

 

[fly girl]

Melissa, NeNe, and Gregory are definitely the front runners this season. They’ve always been great though!
Brian M. has to go. He’s so pompous and doesn’t deliver.

I love those top 3 you mentioned. I was so happy to see Gregg in this episode. He has been hiding.

 

[Brancaneve]

All of your comments are making me sad! I have never missed a season of Top Chef but we cut the cable and I'm not able to watch it.
Does anyone know if there's some way to watch it? I have Hulu but not the premium version.
Please help!!!

 

[QueenIsabella]

The full episodes are available on bravotv.com . As are the LCK episodes. As far as I can tell, there is no fee to watch.