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Top Chef New York Season 5
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Top Chef 5, episode 10
This episode starts with a more mundane product placement in association with Quaker Oats. The Guest Judge for the whole episode is Scott Conant of Scarpetta Restaurant. The chefs have to pick a position on a board which will determine the one of 7 food groups which they will work with. Then on the top of that column, wherever it is, is a "secret ingredient" that has to be used along with the food group. This could lead to some varied results for sure, but the catch is that all of the secret ingredients are Quaker Oats oatmeal. Now most of the contestants are pretty blah about that, but Carla states that she eats Quaker Oatmeal 4 times a week. The dishes concocted in 45 minutes are:
Jaime(Fruits) - coconut oat-crusted shrimp, nectarine salsa, avocado crème fraiche
Fabio(Vegetables) - rolled fried eggplant crusted w/ oats, corn and parmesan salad
Stefan(Dairy) - banana mousse with almond petit fours
Carla(Nuts) - pecan and oat-crusted tofu w/ oatmeal and lentil salad
Jeff(Poultry) - oat-crusted chicken paillard w/grits and fried zucchini
Hosea(Meats) - wiener schnitzel w/ oat crust, warm potato salad and mustard sauce
Leah(Seafood) - oat crusted branzino and mussels w/ escarole and bacon
The losers group was Leah, Jeff and Fabio. Leah's fish was overcooked (opposite of last episode) and clashed with the bacon flavor being too strong, Jeff had too many brown colors, and Fabio too much oat taste due to method of encrusting. The winners group was Carla, Jaime and Stefan. Stefan is the designated Winner and his reward is to pick the opponent and city for the Top Chef Bowl.
Top Chef Bowl
The elimination challenge has been renamed this week in honor of the Super Bowl. It is a cookoff between the Top Chef All-Stars, with that group including nobody who had finished 1, 2 or 3 in the past 4 years and obviously trying to showcase some chefs who have received less publicity since they "graduated" from Top Chef. They are:
Spike (season 4)
Andrea (4)
Josie (2)
Andrew (1)
Camille (3)
Nikki (4)
Miguel (1)
The NFL cities whose key ingredients are supplied and whose cuisine is going to be attempted are Green Bay, Miami, Dallas, Seattle, New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. That's an interesting range of regional cuisines. First is the pairing. Stefan gets to pick opponent, which is Andrea, and city, which is Dallas. The remaining chefs for each team have to huddle just like an NFL team and have 5 minutes to determine who gets which city. That results in these pairings:
New York Leah vs. Nikki
Miami Jeff vs. Josie
Green Bay Fabio vs. Spike
Seattle Hosea vs. Miguel
San Francisco Jaime vs. Camille
New Orleans Carla vs. Andrew
Dallas Stefan vs. Andrea
The scoring system was mostly logical(for a judges tie I would have split the touchdown points into half). There are 4 judges votes; if they split 3 to 1 or 4 to 0 that's scores a touchdown and 7 points for the winning chef. Then 5 secret fans in the gallery are asked for their votes, which determine which of the contestants get a field goal for 3 points. With a 2 to 2 judges vote, the fan vote will determine who gets all 10 points from both touchdown and field goal; that a bit nonsensical to have your closest competitions result in the widest point differential, but so be it. I am going to guess that the judges are going to work to make sure neither team wins before the last opportunity (isn't this Hell's Kitchen and the way that is supposed to work?). Each pair gets the prior evening to prep and then 20 minutes to cook at the Institute for Culinary Education. Here are the dishes and actual scoring:
Leah - NY strip steak w/ creamed corn, snap peas and arugula salad
Nikki - chicken livers w/ onions and goat cheese on challah
Outcome - Leah wins the judges 3-1, Nikki the fans, scoring 7-3 for Season 5
Hosea - crispy salmon roll w/ ginger and blackberry sauce
Miguel - cedar plank salmon w/ noodles and mushrooms
Hosea wins the judges 3-1, plus fans as well, scoring 10-0 for season 5
Carla - crawfish and andouille gumbo over stone-ground grits
Andrew- crayfish crudo w/ spicy lime vinaigrette
Carla wins the judges 4-0 (take that and shut up, Andrew), Andrew salvages a field goal win as fan preference, scoring 7-3 for season 5
Stefan - roasted pork w/ coleslaw, NY steak with corn, pepper and pesto salad
Andrea - TexMex chili w/ crispy fried corn chips and guacamole coleslaw
The judges tie 2-2, so all 10 points from fan preference go to Andrea, scoring 10-0 for all-Stars (and note that Stefan asks Andrea to call him and this will be his first losers' group trip to losers' table and that Andrew has a wickedly funny impression of Stefan just after)
Jamie - crab cioppino w/ olives, basil and toasted sourdough
Camille - miso sweet potato mash w/ mustard crab meat and salad
The judges tie 2-2, all all 10 points from fan preference go to Jamie, scoring 10-0 for season 5
Jeff - rock shrimp ceviche w/ sangria sorbet
Josie - warm rock shrimp ceviche w/ papaya
The judges vote for Josie 3-1 and the fans prefer her dish too, scoring 10-0 for All-Stars
At this point there is one pair left and a 10-0 victory for Spike will win it for All-Stars; any other outcome means victory for Season 5
Fabio - venison in mustard sauce w/ mache salad and cheddar cheese
Spike - 5 spice venison w/ port reduction and micro herb salad
The judges vote 3-1 for Spike but the fans save Season 5 by voting for a Fabio field goal
Final score: Season 5 37, All-Stars 33, similar to real NFL scores. This putts Fabio, Jeff and Stefan on the bubble.
Winners group includes all 4 in Season 5 who won. Carla was told that Toby tasted the love this time and Tom loved the flavor and considered it smart to infuse reductions of the shells into the gumbo. Tom tells Hosea that he managed to take an egg roll and cook the salmon inside it to perfect medium rare. Scott says Jaime is meticulous, which pays off in her flavors. Leah was told she had a good simple dish (which I call damning with faint praise). Scott gets to declare the winner, who is Carla. She wins 2 tickets to the Super Bowl!
Next we come to the losers' group. My bet is that it will be Jeff because the producers are not going to allow the other 2 (who are both final 3 material) to be eliminated just yet. I actually think Fabio's dish was the worst by a small amount. Stefan had a good dish that was beat by a slightly better dish and he should not be in jeopardy here. Jeff is told that his dish did not have a ceviche flavor; Tom says it was watered down. Jeff argues that he did "19 things" more and he disliked paper plates, but he gets no sympathy. Tom says "he went down and he went down hard." Fabio is told by Tom he completely overcooked the venison. He claims that the meat when finished was not overcooked, but standing caused it to do so. Scott tells him that the greens were wilted and the cheese was questionable. Stefan was told that he did not have strong flavors. It is possible that the producers intervened to create this outcome although there is a 50% chance that that was the conclusion of the judges. Jeff is eliminated.
tory:
TY mg for the vid's and interviews. side note i live like 2 hrs from dc so i have friends who have eaten at spik's restrunt and love love it. it is not to costly to eat there and the food is awsome. i heard the hamburgers r the best in the city.
:waves: also ty for the warm welcome u guys gave me the other day it was awsome to see today.. i guess i am so busy watching tv i have not posted for a few days..hhuumm any way i kinda liked jeff he was right about getting kicked off for that dish i no they keep ppl around for intertanment value some times and a few weeks i think they did that for him but this week they did it for fabio, jmo
a few weeks bk i though jeff was a gonner.. i think that was the week the mom left..i for got her name sry.. any way i found a realy good pod cast and they interview cj and spike and severl other cheftestants from past seasons they call it life after top chef. that is not the pod cast, i am not sure if i am allowed to mention another pod cast on this board if so let me no and i will post it. out of respect to rff love them rob and trevor, who introduced me to the best pod cast ever.....i now down load lots of them for the gym it is great..ok bk to top chef i loved the vid of padma playing the tamborin she was so not padma she look like she was haveing so much fun...she should have taken down that poney tail and let her freek flag fly lol.. it was great.. ty mg again
marigold:
--- Quote from: tory on January 31, 2009, 11:57:24 AM ---
TY mg for the vid's and interviews. side note i live like 2 hrs from dc so i have friends who have eaten at spik's restrunt and love love it. it is not to costly to eat there and the food is awsome. i heard the hamburgers r the best in the city.
--- End quote ---
:hearts: Oh my gosh tory you have the best and amazing stories to tell thanks for sharing with us :hugs:
apskip:
Here is an article in today's Star-Ledger about Chef Ji of Hell's Kitchen 5, Ariane Duarte recently eliminated from Top Chef 5, and Cliff Crooks former Top Chef competitor:
Ariane Duarte Video and Article
scuzneck:
Alrightie...What an episode...Very easily 4 of the cheftestants could have gone home...Fabio, Leah, Jamie and Hosea all produced bombs of dishes last night...Only Stefan (gawd!!!) and Carla (Yeah!!!) produced anything of quality...
Fabio was only in the Top 3 because they needed a Top 3...His dish was the best of the worst and he has to know that...He is too smart of a chef to not realize that...
Stefan and his eel proved to be his stepping stone for this challenge...Not only did the eel provided the Quickfire win, but also gave him choice of the easiest dish to recreate...Even I can bake a lobster and have it come out nice and clean and delicious...He took the easy way out, which may end up proving to be the winning way out...
Carla, once again, came out of left field and made a spectacular dish. I actually thought that she was going to win the elimination challenge. Her food was praised that highly...
In my opinion, the bottom three were very much deserving. And each of those three have no excuses for not paying attention at lunch. A 6-course lunch with two world-renowned chefs, eating with you, at one of their restaurants. Both of those chefs make comments about the dish throughout the meal. And you don't put 2 and 2 together and realize you are going to have to recreate the dish. All three schould be booted for that reason alone. Come on now. A 3 year old could have seen that coming.
Hosea. A seafood chef?!?! Remind me not to eat in his restaurant. Sorry, that's harsh, but if he cannot simply recreate a dish he got to eat, look at and have all ingrediants right there in front of him then something is horribly wrong. Even my untrained eye could see that the spice used was used liberally. When he started to coat the fish in it, I knew he was in major trouble. Hosea dodged a big bullet this episode. The question becomes Can he withstand the chopping block, like Stefan last week, and or will he tank like many of the chefs before him?
Leah, in my opinion, should have been gone this week. The quickfire challenged proved that. If it had been me, after fileting the sardine and thinking I had done horribly, only to be told that I, in fact, had done a splendid job, would have been ecstatic to the point of knocking out the next fish. Instead, Leah crapped out and QUIT. If I thought my sardine was bad, but wasn't, I would have filet the next fish until I was told to stop butchering it. Who knows she might have done an excellent job. But she will never know. And once again, fish proved to be her downfall. Now, I don't know miso from mayonaisse, let alone how to prepare it. But that's why I am here and she is there. She should have been able to figure out the composition of the miso and recreate it to near impeccable standards. Hell, she had all the ingredients and the chef's input. It was a shame that she couldn't even come close and a shame that she is staying. I had always liked Leah up until this point.
Lastly, Jamie. Pack your knives and leave. Jamie had grown on my the past few episodes. She became a chef that didn't think to highly of herself or her dishes and I liked that. I really hated to see her go. She knew what her limitations cooking and preperations were. Hence, her immediate knock out in the quickfire. No excuse. I don't filet sardines. The elimination challenge was hard for her. It is hard to have to recreate a dish that you didn't like in the first place. I have had to do this with recipes from family memebers that my wife and kids like. You try to add your flavor to the dish. I know Jamie wanted to do that. The only beef that the judges seemed to have was the saltiness of the celery. I believe her ultimate downfall was the fact that she served the celery knowing full well that the judges were going to rip her to shreds about it. Many times we have heard the judges say, if you are not happy with something, why serve it? Jamie fell into that realm last night and was thusly eliminated. Had she not served it and explained why may not have saved her either, but it may have been worth a shot.
Everything is shaping up to be a Fabio/Stefan/Carla finale...
I believe Leah is next to go...Her heart, for the competition, seems to have left when Hosea and she kissed.
Hosea better man up...He talks a big game against Stefan...but he needs to watch out for himself first...
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