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Top Chef New York Season 5
marigold:
An interesting article an interview with Spike:
Spike Dishes on Tonight’s All-Star Battle on Top Chef
Hours before his cameo and Superbowl throw-down on Top Chef, PEOPLE.com spoke to season four’s Spike Mendelsohn, owner of Good Stuff Eatery in Washington, D.C., about the current cheftestants and how they’re all “too bland” for his taste.
Can you give us any clues about tonight’s episode?
You will see who’s a bigger man — me or Fabio. And you will see the electric energy some of the prior contestants have…compared to these new guys!
Speaking of new guys, what’s your prediction for this season’s Top Chef winner?
My money is on Hosea! I think he’s playing the game, he’s flirting with Leah, making great TV and at the same time he’s trying to produce good food and get himself in the way of Stefan.
How would you rate this season in New York? Be nice!
These guys don’t have enough…style, humor, bravado, I can’t put my finger on it. Where is the fun?! They’re too bland for my taste. Plus, N.Y.C. has so many great chefs and great things to do. Seeing Martha Stewart and being on GMA? That’s cool, but the city has so much more potential than that.
Do you think their challenges have been harder or easier than yours?
Our eliminations were definitely harder since it was a lot of catering stuff. This season it seems like they focused a lot more on individual skills, where I remember having to set aside my personal philosophies a lot.
Have you talked to Tom or Padma about this season?
Yes. Everyone is psyched that the show is so popular. But I gotta say, the judges and past contestants, we all agree it was kind of hard to top us….I mean vanilla love, culinary boner, lesbian scandals, that’s classic stuff. Fabio can’t even top that, even with his grandmamma.
Link: http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/01/28/spike-dishes-on-tonights-all-star-battle-on-top-chef/
TexasLady:
--- Quote ---Can you give us any clues about tonight’s episode?
You will see who’s a bigger man — me or Fabio. And you will see the electric energy some of the prior contestants have…compared to these new guys!
--- End quote ---
WHOAAAAAA!!!! Spike! Let me check... :spy: There IS no contest, it's Fabio all the way! :funny:
marigold:
Tom Colicchio's Blog:
The Front Seven Become Six
Did you know that after Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday is the day of greatest food consumption in America each year? (Antacid consumption, too, by the way.) Granted, roughly 15-20 million pounds of that will be potato chips, tortilla chips, and popcorn, but chips alone do not get us through the game; we want food. The foods of choice vary region to region, which is why I particularly liked this week's challenge.
Each NFL team represented was chosen because its city has a distinguished and distinctive food culture. San Francisco is known for its Dungeness Crab, for sourdough bread. You think of Green Bay and you think of venison, cheese, bratwurst. New York is a food mecca and we were shooting there; Dallas, big over-the-top grilling; Miami, Latin food. And Seattle not only has great seafood but is actually a great food town. In fact, I even strongly considered moving there twenty years ago because of its great food culture. I looked forward to what the chefs would do to highlight each town and team's food legacy.
The only thing I didn't like about this challenge was the voting power invested in the young culinary students, who, I'm afraid, tended to vote personality over palate. On the other hand, there had to be a way to break the ties that occurred between the four judges more than once. Also -- Top Chef All-Stars? It might be a stretch to say so: Some didn't make it more than half-way through their season's competition. Andrea was eliminated not once but twice, and not one of the members of the "All-Star" team made it to their season's finale. Still, they're all solidly good chefs and having already weathered prior seasons, they had the advantage of having been through the stress of the competition before.
Overall, the chefs did a fine job. And I'd like to note that sometimes in this competition a great dish gets edged out by an even better dish. For example, I voted for Camille's dish over Jamie's, because I think that Camille's was ultimately even stronger, but I still felt that Jamie's was one of the strongest of the day. The way this challenge was structured, I voted against Jamie's while voting for certain other dishes that, while better than their challengers', were not as strong as Jamie's. Hey, some years there may be better teams than the one that ultimately wins the Super Bowl, which just had a great streak. It happens.
As for the bottom dishes, Jeff's was the overall weakest. First of all, it wasn't actually ceviche. As I'm sure you know, ceviche is seafood that is literally cooked by the acid in the citrus in which it is steeped (the citric acid causes a chemical reaction that cooks the fish without needing to add heat). Here, Jeff poached the shrimp first. osie may have done so as well -- I'm not sure. But regardless, her dish was far more flavorful; aside from Padma, it was the clear favorite of both the judges and the students. Similarly, while the venison was overcooked, Fabio's sauce was excellent and his dish, overall, showed more creativity and intensity of flavor. Jeff is very concerned about presentation. He's right that it is important, however it's not the beginning and end of the story, and his dish was just weak. The sorbet on top was a good idea in theory, not in practice. It was fine cold, but once it started to melt, it just became watery and didn't hold up. At the end of the day, the dish was bland and uninteresting, regardless of how it was presented. Unfortunately for Jeff, decision at the Judges' Table was clear to us all this week.
A post-script: This is the second time that Top Chef has worked with the NFL and it won't be the last ... keep your eyes peeled ... and enjoy the Super Bowl.
Link: http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/blogs/index.php?blog=tom_colicchio&article=2009/01/the_front_seven_become_six#breadcrumbs
marigold:
:hearts: Gail Simmons Blog:
Missing the Points
I grew up in Canada, as I've mentioned in previous blogs, so the Stanley Cup was a much bigger deal in my house than the Super Bowl. I've tried to become a football fan, but I really only watch the big game for the over-the-top commercials and the opportunity to eat spicy chicken wings, spinach-artichoke dip, and potato skins for dinner. Viewing this episode of Top Chef, however, certainly put me in a spirited mood. I thoroughly enjoyed not only how enthusiastic the cheftestants returning from seasons past were to get back in the game, but also how fiercely competitive our seven remaining Season 5 chefs became when they discovered their Elimination Challenge would involve cooking against former contestants in a race against the clock.
This challenge had a few more rules and regulations than most. It was judged on a point system that dictated which chef won each set of a seven part cook-off. Each of our New York chefs was pitted against a chef from a previous season. They were asked to create -- in front of a live audience -- a dish inspired by food from one of seven great football cities: Dallas, Green Bay, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. The judges allotted seven points to the dish they liked best. Four tasters from the audience also weighed in, bestowing three points on their favorite. If a New York chef lost in their individual heat, they were up for elimination. Thankfully, our hometown chefs won the day overall. Jamie (San Fran), Carla (New Orleans), Josea (Seattle), and Leah (New York) managed to create dishes the judges and fans really liked. To their dismay, Stefan (Dallas), Fabio (Green Bay), and Jeff (Miami) lost their respective challenges and faced the judges' wrath at the end of the evening.
The most surprising and satisfying portion of the episode for me was watching Stefan's overconfident attitude deflate completely after losing to Andrea Beaman, best known as the health food chef from Season 1 who was eliminated twice! Since shooting in San Francisco with her way back in 2005, I've gotten to know Andrea a little. She is not only incredibly knowledgeable about ingredients, but also exceptionally passionate and focused in her work. The sting of Stefan's defeat was compounded by the fact that Stefan was the winner of this episode's Quickfire and, instead of receiving immunity in the elimination, was allowed to choose both the city he wanted to represent and the chef he wanted to cook against. He clearly chose Andrea because he viewed her as the weakest of the lot, underestimating how well she can cook and how familiar she is with the food of the Southwest, a choice he may never live down. The judges were split on who should win but in the end declared his meat duo -- Roasted Pork on Coleslaw with Cilantro & Ancho Chilies and Pan Seared Steak with Roasted Corn & Pepper Salad -- lacking in the bold flavors for which Dallas is known. Stephan's dish may have been prettier, but there was no question the audience preferred Andrea's Tex-Mex Chili.
Fabio's problem was his overcooked Venison Tenderloin. There was no way he could defend that to the judges, no matter how hard he tried. Spike, Season 4's hat-wearing provocateur, easily beat him with an impressive Five-Spice Venison.
It was Jeff who made the final fumble. A resident of Miami, he chose what he was convinced he could cook best, but his inability to focus his presentation and concentrate on just a few key ingredients sent him packing his knives. His opponent, Josie from Season 2, may have created an unconventional variation on ceviche by serving it warm (ceviche is typically cold raw fish or lightly cooked seafood, marinated in citrus, which causes the protein to break down and appear "cooked"), but it certainly looked tasty. Jeff's Rock Shrimp Ceviche with Mango, Jicama, Cilantro Sauce & Sangria Ice was overworked and underwhelming. Kind of like watching that missed field goal sail wide in the final seconds.
Link: http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/blogs/index.php?blog=gail_simmons&article=2009/01/i_grew_up_in_canada#breadcrumbs
marigold:
Toby Young's Blog:
Girl Power!
As a food critic, I'm constantly asking my editors to let me review airline food, not least because it is such a good opportunity to be funny. So far, they've never said yes, but for an example of just how funny it is possible to be about airline food check out the link below received by Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Atlantic.
Last night's Elimination Challenge wasn't about making a good airline meal, but it wasn't far off. The seven remaining cheftestants were asked to put together the kind of dishes that would be good to eat while watching the Super Bowl. In other words, something simple and portable and which didn't require too much fiddling about with cutlery. If they could convey something of the flavour of the region where their particular teams came from, so much the better.
For me, the big surprise of the night was that the three remaining female contestants ended up among the winners, while Stefan, Jeff, and Fabio had to battle to stay in the competition. Why should women be better at cooking "football food" than men? Perhaps the answer is that in spite of the advances made by the feminist movement, in most households women are still stuck behind the stove on game day.
Carla admitted that her husband and stepson are big football fans, while she can take it or leave it, so it is not surprising that she emerged as last night's overall winner. She's probably been cooking up a storm on Sunday nights for years. By picking New Orleans, she got to play to her strengths and she scored a touchdown with her gumbo. I can just imagine her making this dish for the men in her life as they sit down to watch the Super Bowl - which might explain why both Tom and I said we could "taste the love" this time. I wonder if she'll give both of those Super Bowl tickets to them or keep one for herself?
Picking the overall loser was a lot more difficult - probably the toughest decision I've had to make as a judge since joining the show. Remember, we're not allowed to take a chef's track record into account, so Stefan wasn't safe in spite of having won so many times before. We really didn't like his salads - and serving two salads, along with two different proteins, seemed a little excessive given the parameters of this challenge. Fabio, too, let himself down, by overcooking the venison. Still, I preferred Fabio's dish to Spike's - and so did the audience.
In the end, we concluded that Jeff's dish was the weakest of the three. His ceviche was limp and flavourless, not the sort of food anyone would associate with the Miami Dolphins. Up until now, I've enjoyed Jeff's complex, multi-faceted food, even if he is a little over-reliant on sorbets. But this dish was more suitable for a trio of ladies at a tennis match than a bunch of guys sitting down to watch a football game. If the sports competition in question had been
Wimbledon, rather than the Super Bowl, he might have won. As it was, he deserved to go home.
Link to the blog: http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/5/blogs/index.php?blog=toby_young&article=2009/01/girl_power_1#breadcrumbs
Link to review: http://timesnews.typepad.com/news/2009/01/apparently-sir-richard-branson-thevirgin-bossthought-this-was-the-funniestletter-of-complaint-hed-ever-received------dear.html
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