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Top Chef New York Season 5
apskip:
scuzneck, in general your remarks as OK but when you talk about Hosea I disagree:
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?
Recreating a dish is not exactly a trivial exercise and when the recipe to be deduced is from a world-class chef it is likely to be quite complicated. Second, Hosea was given low marks because of the texture of the sliced monkfish. He should have done a better job of planning ahead on timing so that the monkfish could sit for more than the 1.5 minutes he said was all he could do. Not being able to do that is the kind of mistake that a knowledgeable seafood chef should not make, but I say give him the benefit of the doubt. It's obvious that the judges were not considering him for elimination. He was the Best of the Worst.
I find you comments about Fabio's dish inappropriate. Who are you to second-guess the judging of the judging team? You aren't eating the food they eat to judge the dishes and the stated objectives of top chef judging are to use only today's food as the basis for decisions. If there were a personality component then I think commentary on personality etc. would be relevant in the final juding, but that is not the way it is. The quesiton of whether past food perfomrance shhould be used is open as far as I am concerned (I think they should use past peformance in some minor, such as for a tie-beraker. Fabio did more than OK and he deserved to be in the Best group. There is never any requirement for an even split between the size of the two groups. In fact, I rarely see that. Fabio had to earn it to be there. If not there would have been 4 in the Worst category.
TexasLady:
I believe you both are right in your assessments. I found this round particularly interesting, it reminded me of Hung's winning dish when they went to the French Culinary Institute in New York. However this seemed like an even harder challenge because they each had to create exactly a dish from Eric Ripert.
What do you both think of the degree of difficulty here? It seemed to me that this is one of the strongest groups that Top Chef has ever had and this was a way of weeding out the weakest of the lot. I was not surprised to see Leah, Jamie and Hosea in the bottom three and I thought any one of them could have been the one sent home.
One other thing that hit me last night, I think this has been the best season yet for the other chefs helping their fellow contestants. I remember that no one would help Marcel when he needed it and yet this season they have jumped in to bail out a fellow competitor. :tup:
Oh, I do agree with you both about Hosea, I would NOT want to eat at his restaurant. If he is a sea food expert, he should have planned his time to let the monk fish rest. That seemed like a bad mistake on his part.
scuzneck:
apskip, I will agree with your assessment of Hosea. Even my wife commented on the fact that they are under extreme time constraints and therefore have to rush plates to service. (I believe even Carla commented upon the fact that without help from her fellow chefs, her dishes would not have made it out there). But even with that, he should know better. Letting the monkfish rest for even two or three more minutes would have been better. And he admitted that he did know that. And, I realize that recreating a 5 star chef's high quality extraordinary dish is no easy feat, but it can be done. He over spiced the fish. I still contend that anyone could have seen that the spice was not the signiture part of the meal.
As far as Fabio, I still think he was the "best of the worst". I will have to review the tape, but most of the judge's comments at the restaurant seemed to be of a negative nature. They simply did not like the dish, initially. As more dishes came, I believe they appreciated Fabio's meal more. They were able to see that his dish was not the worst thing they put in their mouth that evening. Therefore he was rewarded with a top 3 finish. Why? Because his was third best or fourth worst. "Best of the worst" may be too strong. Three categories of food last night...1st Rate (Stefan and Carla)...Atrocious (Leah, Hosea, Jamie) and Average (Fabio)...
Fabio can do much better than what he ran out there last night...
(Disclaimer: I belittle the chefs because I am jealous of their talent and dedication. There is little to zero chance of me being able to recreate any of their dishes in the time they are given. I would love to be able to cook as well as they do, but I'll just stay in my little kitchen and make pleasing meals for my family. Let these big dogs cook up a storm. I enjoy watching {and criticing} them every week.)
TexasLady:
--- Quote ---Posted by: scuzneck "Everything is shaping up to be a Fabio/Stefan/Carla finale..."
--- End quote ---
I so agree with this. I'm wondering why all the eliminated chefs are holed up in an adjacent apartment. Do the producers have plans for them? I know they bring back the eliminated chefs as helpers but all of them staying in New York? That seems odd to me. :duno:
apskip:
Well, there are two good reasons and one OK one that I can think of for keeping the eliminated chefs around. The first is that they need to be sequestered somewhere until the show is over. That is standard practice for reality shows. Why not next door? The second reason is that they often show up on-screen as diners or whatever might be needed. Third, there are probably miscellaneous tasks in the Top Chef kitchen area that they can do.
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