Top Chef
Week 2
This was the second week of Top Chef Season 5, New York. 15 chefs remain after friends Pat and Lauren were sent home last week. Tonight's guest judge: Donatella Arpaia, a successful restaurateur who has judged on Top Chef in the past.
Quickfire Challenge
To start the show the contestants have to do a "Quickfire Challenge" which is generally a skills test. Today's was a cooking challenge - the contestants had to make their own version of the good ole New York Hot Dog. And to make it more interesting the show brought in a renowned Hot Dog vendor to make her own - just to see if the contestants could do it better.
First thing I noticed...Radhika made a big deal in Week 1 about how she wants to prove she does more than Indian food...but her hot dog was an Indian version of a hot dog. In fact, virtually everything she's done so far has basically been Indian food.
Second thing I noticed...15 chefs are a LOT of chefs. I still can't remember all their names or tell them apart. Padma is going to need to go on Biggest Loser by the end of this if she's going to taste every dish. When she and Donatella walked around tasting the hot dogs I had to think that by the time they got to number 9 they were starting to dread it.
Third...Donatella didn't like Stefan's hot dog. Big of an ego on that fellow - he basically dismissed her opinion. Why do I think we may see a repeat of last season when Tom Colicchio has to tell a contestant "Unfortunately for you my opinion is what counts."
Fourth - we're starting to get a sense of who should and shouldn't be here. Jill was the only chef who didn't make her own hot dog. Instead she cut up a store-bought dog and used it in her dish (which was not successful)
Ultimately, Radhika made a good decision by going with the Indian hot dog - she won the Quickfire challenge and immunity for this week.
Elimination Challenge
For the Elimination Challenge the contestants had a chance to wow Tom Colicchio in his own kitchen. Tom turned over Craft, his flagship restaurant in New York, to the contestants to prepare lunch for 50 New York chefs who had applied to be on Top Chef and been turned down. A hostile crowd? Yeah.
Donatella and Padma are joined in the dining room by Gail Simmons - another regular judge on the show.
The contestants split, on their own, into three teams: Appetizers, Entrees and Desserts and each chef was responsible for a single dish. Some of the dishes were more successful than others, as you might imagine.
First the winners...
- Jamie makes a cold corn soup that goes over VERY well.
- Fabio serves up beef carpaccio with some clever little olives that are treated so that the outside of the olives are solid while the inside is liquid, much like an egg.
- Carla frets over her apple tart but in the end draws high praise from Padma and Tom - if not all the judges.
Fabio is judged best and he wins this week's challenge, making the Europeans 2-for-2.
And for the not-so-successful?
- Ariane makes another trip to the bottom of Judges Table with a lemon meringue martini that is ungodly sweet. It's so bad that Padma actually spits it out into her napkin.
- Hosea is surprised to be at the bottom of Judges Table for his crab salad. I knew he was in trouble during the shopping trip to Whole Foods when he couldn't find Dungeness Crab and instead went with a canned crab he wasn't familiar with. Using an unfamiliar canned seafood is usually an express ticket to the bottom of Judges Table.
- Jill underwhelms the judges by choosing to use an enormous ostrich egg as the basis for her quiche but then does nothing at all special with the ingredient. Diners said that it looked like dog food. Gail said it tasted like glue. Uh-oh.
- It was a good thing that Radhika had immunity from the Quickfire challenge. Her avocado mousse was underwhelming.
To the shock of a teary Ariane it's Jill that gets asked to pack her knives and go this week. She seems a little stunned and saddened but honestly she looked sort of "deer in headlights" a lot tonight.
Observations and Random Stuff
- Back at the Top Chef house Leah is seen to be flirting with Hosea (apparently pronounced "ho-SAY-uh") and in her 1-shot commenting that she likes having a boyfriend.
- Ariane had better find her game. She is consistently at the bottom of Judges Table and sooner or later she'll run out of people who are worse than her.
- The Europeans are strong competitors and they know it. I sense that will be a rivalry that grows.
- Having so many chefs on the show right now means that the commentary on each dish tends to be quite quick. Jeffrey, Eugene and Richard, for instance, got barely any aired commentary on their dishes. That's to be expected when you have to get 15 chefs through two challenges, plus the usual shopping, social interaction, judges talking and, of course, COMMERCIALS in just an hour. As the herd thins expect them to spend more time on each contestant.
Articles
- Week 2 Recap from eOnline - sort of brief but good.
- BuddyTV's recap of Week 2 - Once again, quite good and includes pictures of each dish.
- Exit Interview with Jill Snyder - What she's missing is that she chose an Ostrich egg then did absolutely nothing with that ingredient. If we learned anything from Spike in season 4 it's that you can't pick ingredients then just put them on the plate without any thought. That said I expected it to be Ariane who got sent home too.
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