I'm just going to point out that saying the chefs can't cook is factually incorrect. Even on shows like Hell's Kitchen or Chopped, the chefs are on the show in part because they are good cooks. Can they cook consistently well in a high pressure situation like Top Chef? Well, that's a different story.
I'm just going to point out that saying the chefs can't cook is factually incorrect. Even on shows like Hell's Kitchen or Chopped, the chefs are on the show in part because they are good cooks. Can they cook consistently well in a high pressure situation like Top Chef? Well, that's a different story.
She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. Her title, according to Top Chef is "Culinary Director," not CHEF, which is what the other two opponents are. It is more a managerial/organizational position. She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. No other competing chef, in the 17 seasons of the show has had the same problem she has CONSISTENTLY had. They are all under the same high pressure situations. That is FACT. She can't cook.
She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. Her title, according to Top Chef is "Culinary Director," not CHEF, which is what the other two opponents are. It is more a managerial/organizational position. She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. That is FACT. She can't cook.
So based on one challenge, she can't cook. OK then.
But let's look at some stats here.
On All Stars LA:
- Top 2/3 in 2 of 6 elimination challenges (33.3%)
- Bottom 2/3 in 1 of 6 elimination challenges (16.7%)
- This actually is the same stat line as Volt, minus the elimination.
Overall
- Top 2/3 in 4 of 10 elimination challenges (33.3%)
- Winner in 2 elimination challenges
- Bottom 2/3 in 2 of 10 elimination challenges. (20%)
Unless you're Paul Qui (a ridiculous 9 wins in 14 elimination challenges) these are pretty respectable numbers. Nini has held her own against the chefs not named Gregory, Kevin or Melissa, and fared better this season than some incredibly talented chefs like Jenn, Lisa and Angelo.
So yes, clearly, she can't cook. Not sure what that says about Jenn, Lisa and Angelo then.
She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. Her title, according to Top Chef is "Culinary Director," not CHEF, which is what the other two opponents are. It is more a managerial/organizational position. She BURNT 3 different kinds of dishes. No other competing chef, in the 17 seasons of the show has had the same problem she has CONSISTENTLY had. They are all under the same high pressure situations. That is FACT. She can't cook.
I like Nini because she has a very unique culinary style blending asian with creole. She also can do desserts which can be challenge for many. I like that she is different, and the underdog. I also enjoy her upbeat personality, wants to win but isn't over the top with crushing others. I liked her in KY, so it just remained for this season. And FWIW, she did win best dish on a few elimination challenges. Why would Top Chef chose her to be a chef-testant twice if she couldn't cook? Answer, they wouldn't.
She can cook. Yes, she has burned stuff. But I think it is her lack of time management and not handling pressure over not being able to cook. Even her dish this last week she lost on was considered incredible and "would have been winning dish" in a another realm. It was Karen's tomatoes that ruined the parameters of the dish. Those tomatoes weren't roasted and added sweet. That was ALL Karen.
I can cut some slack on LCK since it appeared to happen a few hours after elimination, so there might have been fatigue. And as much as she burnt a steak, she STILL beat Lisa. But Karen really fought through the fatigue and frankly outclassed the both of them, so I think it was an easy call, burnt curry or no.
As for the beach grill, Lee Anne burnt the fish. Nini made scallops. So you're using 2 LCK eliminators (which is a very small sample size) to try and support your position.
As for the beach grill, Lee Anne burnt the fish. Nini made scallops. So you're using 2 LCK eliminators (which is a very small sample size) to try and support your position.
Sorry, I'm a little late with this. Had a technical interview, which was... fun. Hadn't had one of those in ten years, so was a little rusty. Give me a talking interview any day of the week.
- Stephanie is missing her buddies. Out of "Padma's Angels", she's the last one standing.
- Chefs come into the kitchen and meet the returning chef, who is... Karen. Guess Stephanie can be happy for a little while at least?
- Quickfire - Make a taco for Danny Trejo. And the machete is your only kitchen utensil. Winner gets immunity (the last one this season). Loser presumably gets stared at by Mr. Trejo for 5 minutes.
- Gregory kind of fares poorly and knows it.
- Volt does some delicate knife work with a fricking machete.
- Stephanie ends up winning with what sounds like a taco/kebab mashup.
- Stephanie is also the first person not named Kevin, Gregory or Melissa to win a challenge, apart from the first quickfire which was a group challenge but had a Melissa AND a Kevin.
- Elimination Challenge... is NOT Restaurant Wars. But it does tie into it as the chefs have to pitch a restaurant concept (complete with mood board, which I just learned is a thing that exists) and prepare two dishes supporting that concept.
- The two winners will be the captains for Restaurant Wars, pushing their concepts.
- While this makes sense as a prelude to Restaurant Wars, it sounds like a challenge cribbed from Food Network Star.
- Guest judges are Kevin Boehm and Top Chef Chicago winner (and Iron Chef) Stephanie Izard.
- Generally speaking, I'd say that chefs with an ethnic background should have a leg up in creating an interesting concept.
- But can they translate that to a pitch and something that is workable in Restaurant Wars?
- Malarkey has opened several restaurants, so I'm expecting him to shine or sink based on how ridiculous his concept appears to be.
- Karen is thinking dim sum cart, which...
- Meanwhile, Stephanie notes that she is a private chef for a reason, and that reason is that she doesn't seem to want to open a restaurant. Which makes me think this about her chances
- Lee Anne is trying to do a Hawaiian-Chinese fusion, involving salted egg yolk. This does not seem to be a good idea.
- Karen jokes that she basically hasn't left this Top Chef kitchen for days.
- Eric is in the weeds and has issues with his plating, and we see some of the other cheftestants jump in and help out. Unfortunately this appears to have flustered Eric, as his pitch is kind of disjointed.
- This will come as a shock, but Kevin, Gregory and Melissa all have solid concepts and dishes.
- And Malarkey spins a tale that somehow involves Donkey and Dragon from Shrek, and reminds me that everyone appears to think that Guy Fieri and that Guy From Smash Mouth are the same person. Hey now.
- Top 4 concepts are: Kevin, Gregory, Melissa and Malarkey.
- Winners: Gregory (Haitian) and Kevin (Southern).
- Bottom 3 - Lee Anne, Eric and Stephanie. Stephanie's immune, so we're down to two.
- Eliminated:
Eric. Bit of a surprise, but I think that he was all over the place, and I think his pitch and food suffered for it. Meanwhile, Lee Anne has simply not gotten out of her rut. It's basically a Josie-type run, if Josie was a nice person
Next week: Restaurant Wars! Or: Possibly the only thing that gets Kevin, Gregory or Melissa eliminated before the finale.
LCK: Colicchio Wants Italian
Yep, we get another round of LCK, and while there technically is no champ (seeing as Karen is back in the competition) they've decided that the last person eliminated in LCK will have a play-in match against the newly eliminated Cheftestant. So thus we've got
- Defender vs Challenger
Nini (in possibly her dullest jumpsuit) vs Eric in a TC: Kentucky knife fight. Maybe.
- Challenger is a little wary of the Defender.
- Challenger had a good concept but simply didn't execute
- Defender says it's easier to execute someone else's concept
- Which is good, since the challenge is to execute Tom's concept. It's all about Tom.
- Tom pitches Coastal Italian Seafood, which neither chef has experience with
- 30 minutes, and it's go time.
- Defender will try and apply all the flavours they know about Italian.
- They settle on using sea bream, and it seems like they're going to fry the fish, and an aioli to go with
- Challenger goes with clams, mussels and cod, maybe a cioppino? Trying to build the broth will be key. Fennel, marscapone and rhubarb are involved. I'm a bit concerned here.
- Tom is leaning hard on the competitors trying to get them to explain how their dishes are coastal Italian. Methinks this might be just as important as the cook.
- Challenger - Clams, mussels and seared black cod in fennel, rhubarb and tomato broth, plus toast with anchovy paste
- Defender - Seared sea bream wuth delicata squash and bagna cauda aioli
- Tom notes that both competitors went with the classic notions of coastal Italian cuisine
- Tom liked both dishes, and was impressed with the "spirit" of both dishes.
- And the winner...
Nini
- "I'm Italian now!" "I wouldn't go that far"
- To be honest, I was a little suprised by the verdict, as I thought Tom was leaning the other way during the cook. But we'll see what happens next week.
Ep 8. Restaurant Wars
- I don't know that I love Restaurant Wars since it's inevitably the executive chef or front of the house that gets eliminated. I think the only way that doesn't happen is if a chef does something so poorly that the judges have no choice, but given the calibre of chefs and some well-defined concepts, you wouldn't expect this to happen.
- I do love that they don't try to be clever, and just call the episode "Restaurant Wars".
- IC Stephanie Izard is back as the guest judge.
- The restaurants, as selected last week, are Gregory (Kann) and Kevin (Country Captain)
- Winners get $40,000 plus free use of a reservation system for a year. SOP on reality competitions is that money is not given out until the episodes air, so that reservation system is probably not useful right this moment, and the money may have come too late.
- Speaking of which, being on separate teams ensures that Gregory/Kevin/Melissa will again be a challenge winner, continuing the streak.
- Which reminds me that whoever won the yet-to-air Amazing Race has not gotten paid, and that season taped in 2018.
- Knives are drawn, and Kevin gets to select first
- The teams are (in selection order):
- Country Captain: Kevin, Volt, Melissa, Karen
- Kann: Gregory, Malarkey, Lee Anne, Stephanie
- As soon as Gregory picked Malarkey first, I said "he's front of the house"
- And sure enough, Padma asks about the pick and Gregory says "front of the house". I mean, on the surface, it seems surprising, but of the 8 it really seemed like Malarkey would rock FoH, so long as the kitchen stayed out of the weeds.
- Looking at the teams, CC has the strongest chefs, while Kann is more balanced.
- During planning, Kevin wants to do 12 dishes - 3 canapes, 1 main plus 7 sides, and a dessert.
- Meanwhile, Gregory is doing 5 starters, 2 mains and a dessert
- Just based on this you can sort of see CC having a bottleneck with the main, while Kann being slow on the starters but faster afterwards.
- Karen is doing FoH for CC
- Shopping, as is traditional for Restaurant Wars, is split up with 2 chefs shopping for groceries while 2 chefs look at decor.
- There is a small "c" controversy as, while looking for table settings, Malarkey spots some lovely large dishes on a display and thinks it would work for Kann. BUT, it turns out the display was Kevin and Karen doing their table setting. Kevin accuses Malarkey of... shenanigans, but really it's much ado about nothing.
- We really don't see much with the food shopping, but we learn that Melissa and Volt were unable to find the same curry powder Kevin used in the previous episode. Kevin is worried that his chicken curry won't taste as good. I'm worried because it seems like his chicken last week was carried by a specific packaged powder rather than some custom blend he put together himself.
- As for the restaurants, Kevin and Karen are setting up the place, while Malarkey, tasked with prepping only one dish, goes it alone. This also allows him to wrap up his day-of prep early to work with the staff.
- In contrast, Karen has to make her dishes and hand off to Melissa without much instruction on what to do.
- In a nice callback, Gregory has Stephanie make the pikliz that won him the signature product challenge.
- The restaurants open, and immediately we see that some of the staff have no idea what they're doing. It's like Magical Elves found some pretty people with no service experience.
- This does hamstring both teams, as servers cross off the wrong things, pissing off expediters Kevin and Lee Anne. The latter is so annoyed that Stephanie takes over as expediter.
- CC is in the weeds with their 300 dishes, and Karen is having a lot of trouble keeping things together in the house.
- Kann is really not better but Malarkey manages to cope and keep the chaos confined to the kitchen by engaging in... malarkey.
- Judges go to Kann first
- They question the lack of oxtail on the menu, since that was featured in the pitch.
- They enjoy the salt cod patties and plantains
- The whole red snapper is the star, and the judges seem to think that the chicken is a worthy substitute for the oxtail.
- The pineapple cake comes off as sweet, but apparently not annoyingly so.
- In CC, the judges think that the 3 canapes sort of taste the same
- They like the dilly beans and potatoes, but the "shrimp and grits" feel like a separate dish.
- Mushrooms and banana pudding get thumbs down
- And they do taste the difference in the chicken.
- At this point, I'd say that 99% of the viewers could predict the results
- And sure enough, Kann wins. Stephanie seems THRILLED that she gets a reservation system to use for her private chef business.
- Judges turn to Country Captain, and as usual, the talk goes to FoH and executive chef
- Karen gets some heat for the poor service, but talk inevitably goes back to Kevin as the person driving the concept
- He gets no grief for the packaged curry, which is... curious.
- Tom asks Kevin why they shouldn't eliminate him.
- Kevin says, really, there is no reason not to
- And yeah, I'm still going to spoiler tag it
Kevin gets eliminated. Sucks, but it was the right call
LCK: Battle Down Memory Lane
- So after Restaurant Wars, we get an interesting battle here as the champ can't be seen as anything but an underdog. But that's the name of the game.
- Our contestants:
Nini (c) vs Kevin
- Champ rightly notes that this will be a tough battle
- The Challenge: Reimagine a dish you loved as a kid in 30 minutes
- Jokes are made about the champ "getting back to their Italian roots", which I'm sure goes completely over the challenger's head
- Champ and challenger do some friendly (maybe) sparring around the pantry
- Challenger decides to use trout, he's thinking of pan-fried trout with fatback creamed corn
- Champ is doing a ginger-chili chicken with pickled cabbage, which I'm thinking would traditionally be poached or braised (confirmed to be braised), but to honour their southern roots we're getting deep fried chicken
- Tom does his halfway done stroll
- He thinks that the dishes look like they're part of the chefs' respective childhoods... if the stories check out. He doesn't have time to verify though.
- Champ is worried that the challenger's dish looks really good but they hope that for their own dish, the "flavours are there". Which is usually a red flag in LCK.
- Champ: Southern-style fried chicken with ginger and pickled cabbage. (and rice)
- Challenger: Ham fat roasted trout with creamed corn and tomato salad.
- Both of these dishes look great, btw. Would be happy with either one.
- Tom loved both dishes with how they elevated childhood memories.
- Tom didn't like the champ's vessel, since everything, while well balanced, was jammed in tight. He did think a braised chicken would've worked better though.
- Tom thinks that the creamed corn got a bit cold, indicating that the dish was plated a bit too early
- And the winner is...
Kevin. Not much of a surprise here. Nini probably would have pulled this out against 5 of the 8 contestants (including Volt), but Kevin has been far better this season and will be tough to eliminate from LCK.
- Leaving this quote for @Imzadi : "Today I didn't burn anything so that's kind of a win."
- Tom notes that there's one more LCK battle before the return battle.
BTW, thanks for not being codependent, by saying you and I can agree to disagree on stuff. 
And then agree on other stuff. 
