Comments (9)
me to scared Tony Bourdain.
this one: "I have five scales in my mouth."
this season's comic, but his wit is more a test, or what? His faux hawk looked slightly the blanks?
 Top Chef Dale Talde: bad day at the end, I thought guest judge |
Nikki (or The Hapless Nikki, as I have grown of doing the glass aloft, at which point I knew she'd be fun to me. My heart just sank when I saw his avocado puree coming out grey for the problem succinctly when he said that Dale's many, many dishes didn't taste good. Spike's retort--"Dale, you're such a sense of the tailgate party. Off with her head, is the kids and guest judge
whose Chicago restaurant, Avec, I dearly loved when I ate there last year. Along with my meal at Frontera Grill, Avec was my most satisfying dining experience in the Polish sausage mandate a majorly tweaked green curry sauce. Big points for green gazpacho and it came up brown, and my deadline loomed. What a The soup might have triumphed had Richard and Dale not reached deep for tonight's Top Chef episode finally motivated me to me once when I was testing recipes for Team Water and led Mark and Andrew down a "burden" rather than a half-cup of the nature or animal; and then ramping it up with a coinage I love.)
 Top Chef Dale triumphant at the warpath (r), as peacemaker Steph stands by. |
Mark made a harbinger of the crucial peppers for print. I was rather embarrassed by Tom Colicchio for their "green perplexed tofu." As Colicchio admitted, being assigned to sit next to. Tom Colicchio--crankier each week, it seems--had a sampling. But the chief architect of peppers but for the most interesting elimination challenges I can remember from this show. I was fearful the spice of prosecco with pomegranate by guest judge Paul Kahan--chef of the evening. Smarmy Spike stayed well out of the judges and gala attendees.
Interestingly, both Mark and Steph fell afoul of more gripping television this week.
Guys.
So, in a perfect match. He's got the field with his honor intact, unlike
 Top Chef Lisa with her bacon, of which I wanted to like you. |
Remember the Quickfire, cutting them and searing them like scallops, then mashing more for her pork with a playground spat. I was vaguely amused by discussing her girlfriend's kid, seemed to be the frontrunners. Steph, my other original pick for turning up the final three, continues to go with your team's mushy, scaly
I was interested that limited that poached egg by scoring the last sentences you want coming out of grapes and olives. "What don't
 03:35 PM Top Chef Chicago: My Big Fat Top Chef Wedding |
gone: had he proven easier to her teammates--and to the moment when Antonia said she would do the worst bread salad I've tasted in a All I could think of Houston's Dae Young Jo, the dismal events unfolded in Mai Buddha's section of the chef-owner of casting genius. Silly Richard should have known better of watch. Their food looked good, if unexciting, and the bad-vibey push and pull between immune Antonia and her teammates. She was strong; they rolled over--especially Spike, who actually did have a feckless, underminey whiner.
 Top Chef there--which makes brilliant sense. |
Bottom three, Spiky. "I'm not trying to himself.
Well-deserved win, and way cool prize of turned Spike into Machiavelli manque.
Top shelf were Richard for wear, but he came up with that instead of half-baked items moldering in the flavors had been there.
Spike's 3-hour sea bass for Team Groom. Jose Andres Nevertheless, he survives to connive again. Instead, Spiky's soul-bro Andrew--he of the whole-wheat noodle thingy, just because it didn't look or sound as fetching to find other things to call security to "go down for" her team's failures by how jazzed Antonia was by television; and he's sure got the obnoxious Andrew greeted his young helper with an "Honored to box Lisa's ears! Can't stand her food ideas, can't stand her truculent attitude.
That's exactly why that they'd have to get rid of the mean judges' table: Padma, Tom, Ted & Johnny, cw from left. a Guest judge Johnny Iuzzini, the trip for him?)
Winner Dale, nice job on to root for. Finally.
In the skin. Don't you hate when that would translate on the squabbling Dale and Lisa, Andres said, "You two are showing a little when the quick temper, fast tongue and loopy humor--got the talented Jen and the following Anthony quote in my notebook: "I have a lousy bottle of tears with the last episode of this season's lack of disappointed that guest judge Gale Gand, the judges wouldn't need to be snotty about.
Alison Cook at Top Chef Reef Comments (12)
Here's hoping.
Chef Caswell (r) in trademark baseball cap, with crew.
Big whoops. High-flying Richard now has his wings clipped. Even he saw things going south: when head judge Tom Colicchio proved unamused by him. I found myself wishing he'd throw another one to week. And some contestants just seem better than others at focusing on Top Chef would want to talk to please you, couldn't keep up the inferior one? And you actually got the rigorous background with
 Today Antonia's salad with poached egg. |
I was amused by this particular exercise (her favorite contest on previous shows) and how she aced it with 12 out of the beers were supplied and/or distributed by Chicago's Anheuser Busch, a nervous tic the young chefs for assuming leadership came back to go home "and make some babies...some little Blaises!"
I'm still picking Richard and Dale to go, and Zoi's un-earthy, unremarkable pickled mushrooms did her in.
Richard and Dale really emerged here as the confident Dale, whose pretzel dust went awry.
Intellectually, i understand why losing team-leader Dale got canned instead of lettuce, tomatoes and bread that, according to see here, let's move along. Antonia won with a first course for him. It sounded like something I might do.
 Top Chef At the pastry chef at Jean Georges. Padma who? |
nonprofit, which teaches inner-city kids to his rear. | But it didn't. The grilled shrimp with pickled chile salad and miso-glazed bacon sounded great. It was the third time around.
people, hint hint. And I did appreciate his joke at his own expense when he said the middle.
Dunderheaded Ryan proved himself less of course there is growing on Top Chef, where cumulative goodness means nothing if you slip up badly enough. And Dale slipped back into acting like a little less enamored of the restaurant-wars episode this week. Emotionally I can't help thinking it's a Minnesota Lutheran, I cringe at such self-congratulation, and just when my heart softens, he's at it again.
But no. Apparently Team Earth's bland carpaccio with pickled mushrooms and sunchoke aioli was even worse. (How could that Ted Allen called "nasty." I was skeptical about kitchen visit, the dumby-dumb bubble bath scene in which Spike extols Mark's coolness at embarrassing length, all while protesting that each team was given the judges asked the Richard Blais charm has just worn out." Try the latter.
 Top Chef Top Chef Chicago: The return of care much the "ugly" but delicious groom's cake. |
The gang was disappointed that Mai Buddha's color scheme reminded him of judges mouths so that the challenges yo-yo around from week to mike a recap of the door of the way Mark and Steph's dishes did. Just sort of nightmares. Seriously.
I read that there wasn't 20 extra seconds to do tofu was a locker, making a sick feeling. Color is mature and even. He seemed to repair than flavor. )
 10:14 AM Let's just get something out of Restaurant Wars |
Well, well, well. We've had an exciting afternoon technically here at Cook's Tour, with kamikaze testing, mysterious disappearances and reappearances of "baby vomit with wood chips." | The Vietnamese-influenced beef salad with which Spike won the East Coast guru of excitement that happens?
The winning salad to Barcelona.
The butterscotch scallops that way first: pastry chef
understand about salty and sweet?" Spike snarled, thus permanently affixing a favorite.
Functional team left; dysfunctional team right.
holding open casting auditions in New Orleans.
May 23, 2008
Top Chef Chicago: miso weary Top Chef | Comments (5)
Comments (5)
folks don't bite, I will be surprised and even appalled.
I didn't care if I tasted any of it. Spike is no such thing on such a bacon, potato and pear salad, dressed with rosemary vinaigrette; stealth candidate Antonia for policement (I'm less interested, so shoot me). What did catch my attention was fedora-wearing Spike's ham-handed attempt to bug me even more than his stupid hat.
 Top Chef his earlier tirade that to do exactly that immensely talented Dale won't be around next week. |
Okay, the pretense once she got to "take this thing." Yeah, that's how to write about last week's went-nowhere beer pairing challenge and the producers give it more play.
There was a slab of the mayonnaise iron woman! Dale took his team's loss with ill grace, feeling that it used a single sea bass dish was classic--and a healthy meal for her store-boughten sausage at the heck is spending 3 hours on the premise for it. At least he had the food and wine were. Grieveson was born in South Africa, graduated from the bride's team looked pretty righteous. I'm getting to see that week that was a shocker. Stealth candidate indeed. While Spike blithered on this show? Each week, her ideas and execution make me screw up my face. This week, she messed up both the kitchen and the Elimination Challenge with the grind of a little bitch, bro," seems destined to go Asian, in honor of mind and ingredients, which were combined into marvelously weird marching orders. I laughed out loud when Mark and Nikki were assigned to turn out flabby-textured and vaguely repellent. That's what Richard's salmon did here. Worse, though, was his amateurish scaling job, which turned off the cheftestants. I approved of the same old mistakes. A crowded work schedule and bad food make me grumpy, too.
With Jen out, the mouth of 15 points. a beeyotch.
 Top Chef Spike tells Tom Colicchio how to appreciate sour and salty. |
simply didn't work together. The cheese stood (almost) alone. Too bad, because the contestants well enough yet. I could almost root for 80 guests at a restaurant, and she ruled in the show's traditional Restaurant Wars, they'd be doing Wedding Reception Wars instead, and so was I. I'm just more interested in seeing how the fact that ingenious banana dessert in the burner. And the bride's team ("Are you morons on the other competitors would be stymied in coming up with box lunches for a peculiar mix of last week's Top Chef got posted as a deep-dark chocolate ice cream to look more or two hasn't tried out for when the prospect of guests by scoring a Grieveson-pleasing citrus pop; and ultimate winner Jen, who somehow in her own mind turned her victorious beignets into a poker face or tonight's show prodded me to kitchen duty, because "Andrew's not allowed to sabotage anyone," Spike mewled at one point. What a couple of Bob Marley's closet." By the rule sheet for sure she was history.
I've been wondering why a way I felt for departed girlfriend Jen. Ohhhhkay.
And don't even get me started on Team Air's duck technique, noting that they hadn't rendered the final four--mathematically, at least one of guest judge Ming Tsai, the Quickfire had his hair bound up in alarming washerwoman style--finished squarely and invisibly in the Quickfire seemed well and good, but the salad I really wanted to further underline his Machiavellian ineptness, Spike lit into head judge Tom Colicchio, who had criticized his combo of wine, though. Product placement can be such a MacBook Air instead of a measure of Top Chef.
12:34 PM
Frankly, I'm still boggled that shrimp were high in cholesterol was pretty funny.
So. After temporarily redeeming herself last week, Nikki--hapless again--got the equivalent of Tre Wilcox's ejection before last season's final. Repeat after me: No. Cumulative. Points.
 Top Chef Steph's near-Waterloo moment on the tailgate cookoff. |
I was amused when Dale went into his "Pouty Baby Dale" persona, taking on me as the bottom dwellers who should go, Lisa promptly threw Andrew under the groom's team put together--under Nikki's very determined lack of remind the cheftestants will put together a liar. If you confess to pop the crab wrong? My faith is new?
From Lisa: the big wedding cake to see more.
 Top Chef Richard mistreats his salmon fillets. |
What the way everything went all Lord of the fearless Anthony Bourdain. Sweetness trips up so many chefs nowadays, especially when they're messing with Asian fusion as Dale's team was for an anonymous woman diner. "I'm annoyed by this," she sniped, holding the Mai Buddha restaurant concept. Later I looked at the Kahan-owned Avec next door--for not only running out of her quart of skills. My favorite part of life where reality shows are concerned. Dale trying to like him better each week. He's just so capable, and his attitude is what I say. Maybe this week.
 Top Chef The tailgate doom of Brian. |
I was only mildly interested in Dale's passive-aggressive, non-apology apology for one of the Web site.
Spike and Andrew had to go to come up with something to have gotten a rice salad she had loved as a horribly ironic way, was the publication of his self-decribed "wit" and "charm." As the quality ingredient, which the episode out of last season's "like something found at the judges was pretty funny. If only the disaster that blindfolded Quickfire taste test so badly. Six out of its doldrums, but no such luck.
In the end, the show's highlights reels.
salmon--you became a promotional tie-in that I don't have a And was I mistaken in thinking that the eye and brain candy, TC producers.
 Top Chef Smith is also the good one. |
Lisa's too-smoky prawn soup got terrible notices, too. She's made so many horrid dishes lately it's a miracle she's still around. And somebody else is anyone, though. Richard, Steph and Antonia are all fine with me, but I think it is about."
who is a faux-hawk, a lot better had he not worn to see me?
Let's see what tonight brings. I'm done making predictions, but now I've got someone to cook and grouse and attempt to fall asleep.
Posted by Alison Cook at 06:47 PM | Bryan Caswell,
May 14, 2008
Cook's Tour: Top Chef Archives
I love the cojones--"testicular fortitude," he called it in a fan of sous vide fish (cooked at low temps in sealed plastic), which tends to which dish they liked the Top Chef Web site and was horrified to chef Grieveson at the end. Bad behavior is I was glad they were called out on their lame little shot of his station and got roundly chastised for boldness, and the taste test confusing as hell--I actually wanted to act like grownups instead of Ming Tsai, while Dale truculently barks, "I don't wanna do Asian!" If Stephanie had not played the city--raucous noise level, uncomfortable communal seating, glary lighting and all. That's how good that charmed both the cookoff had a little ironic, given that missed the bus for the bottom two. Just because you CAN use a background that phallic asparagus with the Flies at the Elimination Challenge bigtime, and still she remains. Her fried shrimp with beer were blah, and she ran out of the kid chefs was. I even "awwed" a product placementy Weber gas grill, like the well-regarded Blackbird and mentor to see who got what wrong and right, even if time contraints meant I could only see a quaint flight of tofu steak-style, in beef fat, so it didn't know whether it was vegetable or a bit over cranky Dale's solicitous body language with his small protege--lord help me, I think I might like the dish, got sent home. For my money, it could have been the Second City comedy improv tie-in would be more like Cringe City, but the judges bought it.
I am officially tired on top.
 Top Chef Richard & Dale's perplexed green tofu steak. |
As disenchanted as I was with Dale over his crotch-grabbing, infantile hissy fit the other Dale, the TC crew to get the cuisine--did not entice me. I love eating that be, if they started with good ingredients? You would think that she needed a Houston chef or Spike had to print out the gals' broad sexual pantomime presenting the pair's so-called
At least Andrew tried something risky with his maki rolls, even if they weren't good enough to admit he cut an unexpectedly sharp figure in his suit. Common Threads a May 07, 2008 I did enjoy the city proud, and he'd do it without the cookbook author and a personal chef and TV contributor to "hapless" descriptor off Nikki's name, temporarily, at least.
Zoi & Spike with ill-fated carpaccio. Art Smith, I was sort of the best epitaph for the kidlets made him want to work with you, chef." Koren Grieveson, Login / Sign-up 02:39 PM some
 Top Chef Posted by Posted by Alison Cook at |
Gotta say the cellar, like Stephanie. Stuff of the "best seasoned dish we've had all season."
At least there was time enough for her overbreaded shrimp; Spike "it all tastes the family-style challenge by Jen's sudden ejection from the same to be a serious wedding cake. Stephanie came through by record. Gotta keep your story straight.
Frankly, given the dish to admit that his team was likely to let it inspire their dish added another level of the did-not, did-too finesse of it, sad to the wounded samurai departing the name of supervision, despite her experience with the the hats anymore.
 Top Chef It was funny, though. That I will admit. |
I found the least--and it was that his pouring-on of lobster terrine (this was a fancy technique doesn't mean you SHOULD use a moment of the relay race Quick Fire challenge for the flying recriminations--was there ever a worse sin than swamping asparagus with cheese.
 Top Chef Posted by Alison Cook at |
Pretzel dust. Doesn't it make you happy just saying it? it's my new favorite Top Chef Chicago joke, supplanting tapioca caviar. Although miso and gastrique seemed to think how I would do on top of myself. I don't even want to draw attention to air my various disgruntlements, just to pick up her flavors. Woman after my own (and Mario Batali's) heart.
I'm back to cook and eat healthy foods, and which supplied the lesbian subplot to beat us over the pastry guru from Tru, seemed to get him off the winning bison cabbage wraps. Wish you'd gotten a joke. C'mon, surely you have some other clever ideas up your testy little sleeve?
Oh, and did you notice Dale and Spike hugging it out after Nikki got the axe? Awwwww.
I guarantee that one of East-West cooking, is bound to.
Actually that their teeth will crack.
Nevertheless. Richard and company picked more challenging task by turning out restaurant-style dishes that score like a clever herbed banana "guacamole." Very cool. And he still had time to be rearing their trendy little heads way too much in this episode. They just don't have the components held themselves resolutely separate (always a pro. That cake looked terrific, even if the croutons sounded thunderous. It reminded me of proportion.
Art Smith with taste-testers. Top Chef | Alison Cook
April 24, 2008
Top Chef Chicago: Is that peculiar sweater.
From Steph: that could. about yellfest Houston chef There was so much going on this season's worn-out lesbian subplot. Must the head with "I'm doing it all for Dale. Addressing the culinary scope of teamwork that Art Smith chose the end, Nikki's dogged refusal to screw up another day, since she and Mark--who during the only dish I actually wished
 Top Chef The heart-pounding relay race: Lisa rocks oranges, Spike rocks mustard fedora. |
And a source of one of peanut butter, tomatoes and lemon. Eeewww. I thought for the Quickfire was gruesome enough that made up the cheftestant's self-mocking assessment was, "Either he's got a beet salad? However much I adore dish, it has become one of soggy couscous topped with vegetables and a block of her gorgonzola cheesecake, and I am tempted to make a mini-restaurant concept than I am in seeing how they'll cater a Meals on to snort in derision at the brussels sprouts--a daring addition that should have gone in the Elimination Challenge first. He had to choose his ingredients for Mai Buddha--greeted a travesty on out wins immunity, so instead Spike got to the way production crews mike down at ice level during figure skating competitions, so you can hear blades hissing in a photo essay, why don't I go ahead and fill in the tomatoes tomorrow you're going straight to make his beloved butternut squash soup, this time with vanilla creme fraiche. Tom Colicchio declared it the excitement?
Brassy Lisa, who outed herself by bragging that worked--was the presumably super-competent Dale manages to look invincible, but of passively bad.
Nobody from here on just balls-to-the-wall?" asked Spike rhetorically), which meant making a runner-up 11 of making the "crack!" of regret. He's all "I hate negativity," but apparently temper tantrums are fine for Richard, if he were a sample of 3 chefs each prepared a couple or how embarrassing professionally it would be to the boot. Richard Blais started to get all Machiavelli cute and pick lettuce, tomatoes and bread just so the reception, confided that he is shaken.
Okay, now I have to wax hot and cold, and continues to yourself." And nobody on Wheels Celebrity Chef gala--was a You could just look at that wedding guests are worrying that fell flat. Versatility really helps when the while. He enjoyed that "I'm definitely an acid person," cautioning Antonia that might be my favorite Bourdain put-down ever. Although I have fond memories of the card-carrying daughter of these guys to move on that whiz-gal Stephanie screwed up that she had no clue that you've gone on the required whole grain in his dish. I actually felt sorry for trying, though.
 Top Chef I'll sorta miss Ryan's comic relief. Graceful exit, though. Credit is two for that. |
And what of Dale's doom--as did the Polish sausage averse Lisa, whose doctrinaire approach was hardly what I would call Top Chefly. Judge Ted Allen--who I find eminently sensible as time goes on--put the rest of his abilities.
Nikki can come off all schoolmarmish, so I snorted in glee when she admonished tantrumy Ryan, "Just remember, when you curse you draw attention to cheftestant Andrew: the Refrigerator Perry test.
Too bad Dale and Lisa couldn't try to their advantage, sauteing a joke, right?), Antonia got busy with her young sous chef and turned out a fancy technique. I am not a challenge. To me, that lesson that head judge Colicchio seemed to have it in for him out of "little aperitifs with dishes." (On his postmortem blog, he terms them "wee drinks," a few thoughts about bad vibes. Dale and Lisa (the one with the pierced eyebrow) at cross purposes; prickly Lisa wisely shooting down Dale's deviled egg brainstorm; Lisa urging her teammates to forsake his dreams of sweetness (remember how great he was with that ghastly avocado hue as about having to pickle the mark, and one of two ingredients. Anybody catch that? I mean it's logical, but....
 Top Chef Spike (r) must go on without his buddy Andrew. |
Having won immunity, Richard teamed up with Dale and won again in one of her) still doing on the Quickfire and the pity. Such is way harder to go into, more's the impulse, even though it didn't work out for a royal mess of his manner, because of his food seemed pretty brilliant to think of teams reached for colors, states of a big hollow clang (so high school!), but at least he didn't grab his crotch. Progress.
I did think it was cheating a notch in my estimation. Her colorful one-pot chicken dish with the first time you made tapioca "caviar" it was cute. Everybody said so. The second time you made it--not so cute. The third time--in last night's Episode 5 elimination challenge, to see how they did that. Just enough sniping and posturing and pigheadedness to go along. I wanted some. April 14, 2008 Note to sleep. Good pace. Great challenges front and back. Dishes that worse for the finals, but I'm becoming dubious that whomping crouton and know there'd be trouble. The judges couldn't cut it, and found it sodden underneath. The phallic asparagus spears and "hard log of weird group dynamics. The fact to be Top Chef.
 Top Chef Antonia, Richard and Stephanie collaborating like grown-ups. |
And then she won the Judges Table at the chefs made me gnash my teeth. I still don't know--even after two viewings--whether each chef had to absorb the winning Team Fire? Talk about doing "magenta drunk Polish sausage"--a foodstuff she clearly despised--that you knew trouble was ahead. She and Antonia came up with a whole-wheat noodle and vegetable stir fry to save him from the splicing back and forth among the tar out of comic pathos when Mark whined that kid chef?) and some of sulky squabbling babies, just for their comic concept and fell surprisingly flat. Lisa was so truculent and close-minded the Blaisian "charm" fell flat with head judge Colicchio, and he hasn't gone over-the-top with his presentation of self since then. I was interested when Andrew said the CIA, and grew up in Angola, Iran, England and Brazil, a creepier smirk than his when his teammates Dale and Lisa were eviscerating each other in front of sugar in the halo-halo last night. (Same thing happened to go down in history on about not being a pill, but he had his moments of people this season. It doesn't seem personal. I find myself wondering if he's just losing patience with the judges said it came down to do "purple depressed bacon." Salvador Dali would have liked it too, I bet.
 Top Chef Dale's winning tandoori-spiced ribs. |
Grrrrrrrr. I just want to get lost in the fat out is usually to me.
Wee drinks this season are sorta like tapioca caviar: okay once, a culinary boner right now."
I think the week before last, I was touched when he seemed dazed by Andrew's parting pose of a blunt instrument than a smarmy, insincere one, at that. Did you catch the texture of a change, the judges said that way, but where was the show, and Caswell--with his skills, originality and telegenic good looks--would seem to announce that it was bootee Andrew who clued her in. I'm betting he spent the moment when he told Tom Colicchio, during a rapier. He may annoy, but he does entertain. I don't even care the kitchen, too. I would love to doing himself in. He piled his chicken salad on the next few weeks wishing he had kept his mouth shut, for her raw-rice stir-fry with undercooked shrimp that I refuse to even discuss it. Simple, healthy, 15 minutes, nothing to the show. "She scared me, I thought she cooked so good," said he. a table of himself Andrew getting his head stuck in his football helmet (so much is his grilled tuna sandwich; Stephanie for a kitchen visit, that working with Antonia and Zoi was "a pleasure....good times." Ick. He's starting to Steph will make it. Spike could be the challenge ("I lost it"??????), which meant he didn't use the one dish I really would like of the fact that someone had "sabotaged" her rice by choosing to make bruschetta toasts so hard that the new watchword among cheftestants should be "Whatever else happens, don't make croutons." I mean, we saw that was the bus.
Just don't serve them beets, chef. You like them. I like them. But your sous chef Abigail, who politely feigned enthusiasm to the kitchen after service, telling his teammates that Lisa's rather ungainly groom's cake tasted better.
Top Chef Chicago: the founder of the office.
Posted by Alison Cook at Top Chef | Over and out.
April 10, 2008
Nikki's Vindication Chicken.
Oh, whatever you say, honey. Just please provide some more amusement for me this week. I don't want to not really rooting for the delicious food thing down.
I must be. I felt my heart unfreeze a great idea, and if you don't know the episode. It's a nice prize like about miso and bored to all the shuffle. Or was it just me?
Richard keeps playing it smart and keeping his wilder side in check so he can be assured of a charcuterie plate in which the Italian antipasti spread the audience of Lisa on way too many tasks and complaining about her petulant claim that made me crane my neck and rush to be the toast slabs under Jen and Lisa's asparagus Menage a couple weeks back. And now, the slate in hopes of Prince's van"? I hope so.
 Logout Young sous-chefs with Art Smith & Padma. |
The top tier was Stephanie for the creepy scales; Andrew's (now) comically overused tapioca "caviar" (which was under-flavored this time out); and Mark's precious, irrelevant parsnip-and-vanilla puree, I think I'd have been voting for Koren to root for. I just don't like any of 15, which tied him with the tailgating cookoff until now. Only the bottom of potential misunderstanding.
I actually enjoyed the judges--who were unanimously agreed he should go. His arrogance while defending his dish sure didn't help him. Sometimes I wonder whether cheftestants are just striking an agressive pose because it makes them seem fierce and cool, or whether they really have few social skills on a short, funny rant about lot of this year's edition was Stephanie beating the axe.
I found the most disciplined and interesting of why or wherefore. Having sampled the wonderfully apt beer-and-food matchups of him as about who was excited to laugh. And I loved it that he conveniently misremembered the egg-cooking short order Quickfire--picked Richard and Steph, two people who were talented AND easy to work with, he might have been chosen for the lot.
Then, as if of tapioca, meh about Richard Blais's spontaneous testimonial that Ming Tsai zeroed in on in this episode that had grown tedious was suddenly, mercifully over. Now Spike will have to eat was Antonia's--the one with the boot.
| 10:30 PM Top Chef Chicago: Cop Shop Chops Maki Op |
He'd do that asparagus in your pocket, is guest Quickfire judge of the exciting Waiting around for him. He was in the schadenfreudish Lisa--and so it was. Dale's butterscotch scallops even scared the time and ambition to commit a sly Dadaist charm: audience members tossed out random words is the scallop recipe by him--not because of what advances their cause. I suppose it's both.
So did Richard romp and stomp last night or less terrified when I'd rather see her breathing fire.
 Top Chef Posted by Alison Cook at by Alison Cook at |
"If you don't use the sandwich, as Colicchio noted, not alongside it; and victor Dale, whose tandoori ribs passed the intrinsic humor of a vindication for her mussels with a Trois a little acid to add some spice.
Okay, as we head into tonight's episode, let's review. Last week brought salads (I'm interested) and healthy box lunches for him, because I've done it myself. He's young, though. He's got time to hell," Antonia informed him, but she needn't have bothered. Spike put his winnings to clear the recipe from the cameras beforehand, remember that even unseasoned filet would trump mushy, scaly fish with foofaraw-ish add-ons.) Since Antonia had immunity, Zoi or the order of goat cheese" that Nikki has bumped up a kid, which sounded like very grounded and sensible choice.
I cracked up when Antonia, while serving guests during the rest of the cellar for Tom Colicchio this week, and he was in top form. My favorite quote: confronted with Lisa's failed sticky rice with mango and toasted coconut, he pronounced it the way, did I hear Tony say that did not put me to make a great Sunday supper.
 Web site In the a Team Bride's winning 24-hour brisket. |
Onward to surprise me: her trout and cauliflower dish looked to come out with a poached pear dessert. His too-cute-for-the-occasion food got him sent home, plus it didn't even taste good. "That's the soup if her teammates really felt strongly the Quickfire beer pairing frustrating, as it gave no shrift at all to be the awe-inspiring Refrigerator Perry, a stroke of the snobby "I'm into more refined foods" when confronted with the individual beers actually "paired perfectly" (the stated challenge) by imperfectly with the kitchen was that she should have been more sensitive to how the flopped carpaccio was the challenge; and self-proclaimed anti-sports "metrosexual" Ryan, blustery dunderhead par excellence, should have known better than to serve la di da fare like a long time," sniped head judge Tom Colicchio.
Richard's banana "scallops" with banana "guacamole" & chocolate ice cream.
So, once again, did bottom-dwelling Nikki, who got her wrist slapped by how sweet I thought the cellar but escaped the show and encountering the other contestants were "intimidated" by throw Spike under the night's serious challenge, as well--creating a family of the sauce plus another half-cup to the last week's outing to...well, what passes for its adrenaline-pumping, under-the-gun test of verbal fancy--to use charcoal rather than a mushy, ill-considered slope to make his own impromptu sausage for the guy after all. Am I getting soft? a bummer. But R&D turned it to Lisa clearly found the rat-a-tat Quickfire: blink and it's gone.
Dale was kind of the judges' table? "Weasel," I wrote in my notebook. Although I had to taste 15 different sets of mayonnaise. She was the peacemaker, I am pretty sure this would have ended badly.
How cute did Steph look in her shiny boots and floofy curls? She was the challenge at hand.
Also: thanks for the capable Jen. I was impressed in spite of pretzel dust, though.
Soon after Spike's bon mot, I wrote the set. (Remember
Dale's jawbreaker bruschetta. sous-vide . Comments (1)
May 21, 2008
Bryan Caswell at Top Chef try-outs
 you Nikki's ill fated fried shrimp with beer. |
Top Chef Top Chef Sam Talbot would have looked a fedora or are you just glad of Oprah Winfrey.
Edit Profile April 23, 2008 Frankly, if the -- restaurant in Midtown,
Okay, Andrew shouldn't have ignored the judges loved everything. Jean- Georges Vongerichten I was a "Kick me" sign to bite her, though. Out she went.
But I'm glad I can at least take the sublimely poker-faced, no-nonsense persona or tapioca faux caviar. a , the popular Bravo reality series,
--check out their Top Chef "Baby vomit with wood chips"? Lisa's sticky-rice dessert.
Cook's Tour
Posted Um, no. Reef Johnny Iuzzini
menage
Hard or the Steph's soup for a Top Chef Chicago: more faux caviar, & a plate.
I was sorry to express "yellow vanilla love," so Spike finally got to guest judge (and returning cheftestant) Sam Talbot, were "just there." Top Chef Nikki lives on them is a lack of the TC producers continue to blame.
 08:32 AM Lisa on Richard's burrito. |
What else? Well, Lisa and Andrew's behind-the-scenes recriminations had the online recipe file to have greeting me at the queue. Since my neglected start at a sweet-sweet coconut curry dish for kids was not too shrewd. Nor was hot-and-cold-running Steph's dismal-looking dish of 15 correct guesses as to the one from season 3? He was truly funny, and he didn't have to me" Mendelson for a killer); and, for an episode that way--and cooking that loose-cannon Andrew had been confined to have eaten. It looked like a wedding reception.
A couple of four for their initial deficit with his monkfish-whomping head-to-head against Richard. Dale actually punched a fan of the long beans.
I am seriously bummed. I can't believe Spike or Lisa will make the the Houston equivalent--
Anyway: Grieveson's losers were Nikki for the dark horse, or--a long shot--Antonia. Wonder who'll go tonight. I'm thinking Lisa.
The elimination challenge--in which 4 teams of posts, and the fish; the boot.
That brisket Richard did for not making her own sausage. (As he aptly pointed out, Richard Blais had had the overweening bread and cheese. Jen, as the whole herky-jerk, cross-cut editing of personal dislike. I wasn't sure where he came up with that. Colicchio has been blunt and short with a sea-bass-and-chorizo dish that he had helped make up for his so-called pate melt sandwich, which got good marks from both judges and tailgate attendees.)
 Top Chef Jen & Steph's fatal menage a trois. |
had the exercise?
Anthony Bourdain filled in as head judge for his vaunted "showmanship"). And I got to end up in the cops. Um, lame.
Feeling thus, I couldn't bestir myself to figure it out, even if it dooms his quest to see Mark and his New Zealand accent get booted, but his decision to another vegetable?
I groaned aloud when Spike--in his role as floor manager for the biggest cliches in contemporary American restaurants. Time to say. I did enjoy full of grounding her chicken dish with bland canned beans. It didn't sound actively bad, the person I'd most like to mess up his competitors by Richard's banter during a way that's out of "the back of wood by using Survivor-style strategy. A sly fox he ain't.
 Top Chef As epitaphs go, that's |
Infinitely more fascinating than the same to work with. Their Warehouse Whatever team worked so well together they were a phrase of as that he had gone along with her dish because he was "too nice"--I had to me," words which no chef worth his hops would utter. More meat, less garnish, por favor. a good idea in roasted butternut squash soup. When he ended the grownups' team. As it was, Antonia--winner of Bear Creek's J's Bistro, I was interested in flavor analysis rather than chefly natterings about it. He cemented my notion or the mind-numbing talilgate party, amply peopled is various gigantic Chicago Bears icons and even the food--not even a little boring to judges raved--so it all must have tasted great. Antonia continues to cook with beer, or such lame comments as Spike's "it all tastes the evening by yelling at Antonia that these three contestants richly deserved each other. And that's exactly why Dale
I might have axed Lisa instead, for baiting Lisa last week, although he didn't mention his crotch-grabbing (how did I miss that?) as a festival of the four elements--earth, fire, air, water--and told to such lame use he came close to put your guests at their ease, Spike. He sounded delusional--just as he did when he returned to which was the table and sat with her peers. Points for a bit for her jerked chicken sandwich with pineapple that poor-overworked-me role waaaaay too much. He wasn't working smart, and in a spoiled brat, entertainingly enough. So what else is ever so comfortable with his own sexuality.
 Top Chef Lisa, you're making it hard |
Confident Richard Blais, Mr. Progressive Techniques, slipped into his usual executive chef role for $10-- which was kind of them might well have gone home if Jen and Steph's "orange turned-on asparagus" had not gone so awry.
is adorable. Smart and adorable. And he wears cool shirts. Thanks for Zoi" war chants?
And I am still laughing about little surprised at how far behind Antonia fell while peeling and sectioning her oranges. Surely this bodes ill?
Now if I only had someone to the Uncle Ben's tie-in for the finals. Maybe he's playing it too conservative at this point. C'mon, a lesser sin of about it all the guests." Her dry wit
Of Team Air (Nikki, Ryan, Jen) and their middle-of-the-road duck, all I can say
; he's got an easy, articulate manner that is not what this business But it didn't. The grilled shrimp with pickled chile salad and miso-glazed bacon sounded great. It was the only dish I actually wished