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Top Chef 9

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apskip:
Last Chance Kitchen Ep. 6

This battle was Heather vs. Nyesha. The tasks were to utilize frying, injecting and foaming in a half-hour in the preparation of one dish. The dishes prepared were:

Heather – fried Gulf shrimp w/ smoked paprika and porcini mushroom foam

Nyesha – brown butter foam and beignet injected w/ caramel sauce

Tom said they were both good, but Heather overcooked her shrimp and so the win went again to Nyesha. The “peanut gallery” did not have much impact on this one.

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TC9, Ep. 7

The Guest Judge was Nathan Myhrvold, author of the $625 6 volume 52 pound cookbook Modernist Cuisine. He was Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer and he is the founder of the globally respected “Intellectual Ventures” think tank. The Quickfire was for the chefs to create the best modernist cuisine dish in 30 minutes. The winner would get the cookbook plus immunity.  The dishes created and presented were:

Beverly - Curry Whipped Cream, Flash Steamed Clams and Mussels, Mango Chili, Cucumber, Radish
Chris C. – risotto foam, scallops, brown butter dust
Chris J. - Miracle Berry, Lemon Deconstructed Cheesecake, Lemon/Lime Spritzer
Edward - Compressed Watermelon with Brunoise of Radish, Salmon Belly Sashimi, and Orange Pulp
Grayson - trout sashimi with dill caviar, pickled watermelon, cucumber and radish
Lindsay – marinated baby octopus with sea beans and togarashi
Paul - endive salad with egg yolk
Sarah - Breakfast Raviolo, Pancetta, and Egg Yolk
Ty-Lor - watermelon with vanilla bean honey, saffron, and salted olive oil powder

Myhrvold rated as worst dishes Paul (insufficient depth of flavor), Beverly and Grayson (too simple). The best were Ty-Lor (a watermelon with tapioca maltodextrin), Beverly and Chris J. (an intense flavor bean that turned the following lemon flavor into tangerine flavor). The winner of immunity and the cookbook was Ty-Lor.

Elimination Challenge
These teams were created by chefs banding together:
RED – Ty-Lor, Ed, Sarah
WHITE – Chris C., Chris J., Beverly
BLUE – Grayson, Paul, Whitney
The task was to cook plates for 300 guests at the Salt Lick Restaurant consisting of beef brisket BBQ, pork ribs BBQ and chicken BBQ plus 2 side dishes. Each team had $1000 at Whole Foods and $1000 at Restaurant Depot (primarily for meat) to buy in 30 minutes at each place. The teams were given a demonstration of the inside BBQ pit of the Salt Lick by its owner, but they were actually cooking all night and the next morning outside in the broiling Texas heat at the Onion Creek outside BBQ pits. Tom Colicchio came by to tell them that the winning team would get $15,000 to split. The mentality of Top Chef producers to force chefs to show that they can “do whatever it takes” may be misplaced when no sleep and heat prostration become critical. It backfired when Sarah got heat prostration and had to be taken away by an EMT to a local hospital, to return only as the judges arrived for sampling the RED team’s plate.

The RED team was using Ty-Lor’s Kansas City-style dry rub. The WHITE team used Chris J.’s beer can style chicken and Dr. Pepper in the ribs. The BLUE team was using Asian spices on its BBQ. Will that sell in Texas?

The plates actually created were:
RED – Texas chicken, Kansas City Style Pork Ribs, Smoked Brisket, Poppy Seed Cole Slaw, Pinto Beans
WHITE – Smoked Brisket with Spiced Barbeque Sauce, Sweet N Sticky Pork Ribs with Dr. Pepper Glaze, Pit Roasted Beer Can Chicken, Coleslaw and Bourbon Baked Beans
BLUE - Smoked Brisket with Bourbon BBQ Sauce, Curry BBQ Chicken, Caramel Miso Pork Rib, Watermelon Salad and Nouc Mam

Comments from the judges while eating were:
BLUE – ribs excellent, cilantro watermelon great
WHITE – salty, chewy
RED – ribs chewy, brisket flavor really good

The BLUE team was judged the winner for doing a first-class job of cooking and seasoning the meats.

Comments by the judges at JUDGES TABLE were:
WHITE – too salty due to Chris C. marinades and sauces for all the meats, meat cooking by Chris J. not done correctly, a number of mistakes made by Beverly, including cole slaw that was neither acidic enough nor original enough, beans undercooked and chicken skin not crisp enough
RED – ribs chewy, Sarah’s chicken poorly done, Ty-Lor and Ed did not get it done, partly a result of his decision to slice his meat too early

In the final analysis, the judges believed that there were plenty of mistakes for each and every one of these 6. Ty-Lor was immune or he might have been eliminated. The worst was judged to be Chris C.

apskip:
LAST-CHANCE KITCHEN, Ep. 7

This was Chris Crary versus Nyesha. There were given the classic gas station ingredient challenge with 15 minutes and $20 to buy and 30 minutes to cook. Nyesha ‘s dish was:
Beer-glazed smoked,  sausage w/pork rind  twill, chili cheese sauce
Chris – togarashi spiced tomato soup, spiced pork rinds, grilled cheese w/ fried ham, pickle

Tom judged Nyesha the 3-time winner, so she stayed alive.

spauline:
Top Chef has really taken quite a huge recognition with being able to come up with big names for the culinary industry but seems to have lost quite its touch in terms of audience turnover.  I think that the drama some shows are able to bring out though nothing really contributing to the show is enough to sway viewers to other shows.  I am talking about Hell's Kitchen and though it attacks the topic differently has taken some ranks higher.

apskip:
spauline,

I looked into this and Top Chef despite its Emmy Award has sunk to about 2 million viewers last week. The most recent Hell's Kitchen, which was a finale, got 5.85 million.

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