This week, we're back in the Champagne Room (aka: the podcast bunker) to kvetch about episode 7 of Top Chef. (What did you think this was, the Project Runway Podcast?)
Was this episode painfully boring or was it just my short attention span? I'm going to sum it up much like the cheftestants had to get the specs for their Quickfire dish, Cookstr-style: Tired, bland, and contrived. Tyler Florence (insert Applebee's sellout joke here) didn't even add to the excitement as the guest judge: he lacks the street cred that the majority of the prior guest judges this season had.
For the Quickfire Challenge, the chefs had to create a dish using the three description words that the Cookstr slot machine gave them. What is "stressed" food, by the way? 'Stress food', as in, a pint of Ben & Jerry's? Or maybe a lobster that was just dropped into a boiling cauldron of water. I digress. Ultimately, we learned that passing off a Middle Eastern dish with Indian curry to Padma just doesn't fly, Jersey Mike really knows his Asian food- note the sarcasm, and Ceveech sure loves her scallops (maybe we'll start calling her 'Top Scallop' from now on).
For the Elimination Challenge, the players drew knives to see who they'd be teamed up with to cook a potluck-style dinner for Tyler Florence and Macy's Culinary Council (some great chefs they gave no background info on)...in their own home kitchen. 10 chefs + 1 home kitchen = madness. Each team got a mystery bag of ingredients they had to use in their dish, along with whatever was in the pantry. The only major drama in this part of the episode was the pairing of Jersey and Robin, Angry Brother (Mike V.) losing power to his electric wok, and Ashley's over salted gnocchi.
Ceveech ends up taking the win, getting a $10k gift card from Macy's, which hopefully she'll end up spending on a new wardrobe and on an entire makeover (too bad you can't buy class). Much to my delight, greaseball Ben Folds was sent packing for her salty gnocchi and all-around bad idea for a dish. The show will feel much cleaner now.
Highlights: The horrid clothes this episode (namely Padma, Tom, and Ben Folds), Ash sure knows how to set a table (is this Top Tablescape Artist?), Hot Bro (Bryan) gets all sassy and puts everyone in their place for ragging on his lil' bro, and where the heck is Whatsherface (Laurine) this episode?
Hear the hilarious podcast after the jump:
