Oh sweet joy of joys, how I do love Bravo's Top Chef! Even more than usual when my culinary idol Anthony Bourdain appears as a guest judge! Last night's episode was great, just like the week before. Honestly, I got a little worried about the show around the 5th ("Latin Lunch") through 8th/9th ("Restaurant Wars," 9th episode if you include the talk-show non-episode) episodes. But thankfully, it would appear that my favorite show is back to form! I never really wanted this blog to be a play-by-play rehashing of whatever I'm watching... but hell, I just have to talk about this show. On with the PBP!
So Padma wakes our remaining contestants up at the ass-crack early hour of 6am. Cuteness and giggles and all that, I definitely think this was the most likable I've ever seen Padma. That one little scene did loads for my image of her. Surprisingly everyone seems more excited than upset at their early morning wake-up, CJ's even ready to invite Padma under the covers - he's awesome. Also, damn is Casey stacked. She should fall over more often, the way she's built. I love it. Lol. The quickfire was surprisingly straight-forward this episode. No odd ingredients, methods, budgets, or anything. Just utilize a blender while making breakfast for Padma (damn that girl has an awesome job). I predict next week's quickfire is "go get coffee for Tom C." Anyway, the chefs pretty much make decent looking breakfast. I mean, nobody is really inventing the next big thing here, but everything looks tasty and at least slightly more impressive than what's on the Denny's menu. Casey made a pretty good looking savory french toast with a terrible looking salsa (though it may be worth noting that I pretty much hate all salsa) that seemed fairly good if not boring. Sara made egg-in-a-whole. Seriously. That's not chef-level food, that's the kind of shit country mothers make to "cutesy-up" their bland breakfast offerings. Dale made a fancy looking frittata, and I'm happy to see him actually attempting a chef-level breakfast item. Hung went classic on this one with steak and eggs with Grand Marnier shake to kick it up. CJ (aka, the MAN) made incredible looking crepes by applying a little bit o' CJ logic: all girls like crepes, Padma is a girl, so Padma likes crepes. Best part is that Padma, of course, does in fact like the crepes. Hehe, good stuff. Brian just bores me now so I can't even remember what he made. Not too much exciting during the meal - Hung breaks a bottle of truffle oil, everyone runs around like always, and I was afraid that Casey was going to burn herself with the pan that kept falling off her little kerosene burner. Hung wins with a help from the almighty power of booze. Fun to watch, but damn is breakfast food boring. Ah well, least Casey looked as hot as ever. It's worth noting also that by this time, I already know who will be going home tonight. Not because of anything to do with the quickfire, but because Top Chef is very formatted show, and I've seen enough not to be able to pick out the pattern pretty easily.
Breakfast over, Padma delivers the big news: Sara and Brian are eliminated for being boring and being replaced by Sam from season 2 and Tre! No? Ah well, I can dream, can't I? Real news is that Top Chef is hitting the road, headed to Manhattan! Little do our chefs know that they won't even get to New York the state, much less into the city before the next elimination. Soon as they land in Newark Airport in NJ, Padma's waiting to let them know they're spending the night in Jersey so they can cook in the airport tomorrow. Ouch, being stuck in Newark is definitely not fun. Newark is like the New Jersey of New Jersey. Think about that for a minute. Anyway, the chefs are next tasked to prepare better version of the business class reheatable meals. Airline food. Now I've flown First Class on United airlines quite a few times in my life, and I've had a couple very decent meals, so I know that airline food can be made edible, but it's still a pretty difficult challenge. Hung's quickfire prize comes in here, he gets first choice on the protein and nobody else can use what he picks. Hung's definitely thinking about the challenge and picks moist, resilient chilean sea bass. It not only holds up to the unfriendly airline oven, the judges agree that it's pretty much perfectly cooked. Hung's a bi-polar competitor - some days he produces ridiculously horrible dishes, and some days he really knocks it out of the park like this. Dale also plays it smart by choosing an already tender chunk of filet mignon and combating the standard plane food complaint of blandness by serving it aggressively au poivre. He miscounts his portions by one, but honestly his dish looked so could that I'd certainly forgive his slip-up. Sara serves up a disgustingly over-cooked excuse for salmon with bland looking couscous... with random figs thrown in. Brian is again fairly forgettable, but he plates an oversized sirloin that is WAY bigger than any real airline would ever serve and puts rubbery lobster with trendy potatoes on the side. CJ slightly overcooks his halibut, tops it with a weird mint sauce that Anthony Bourdain says tastes like toothpaste (on his blog), and sadly serves broccolini that's so messed up that Bourdain and Tom joke that it looks like cheap, dried up ganja. Casey, rockstar that she is, wins the day with a daring and delightful meal of veal medalions and gruyére cauliflower. Looked as delicious as it sounds. I love this girl. Hot, sweet, and a hell of a chef.
Sadly, as my favorites never make it to the end on these shows, Top Chef's resident giant goes home. Turns out that broccolini was simply intolerable, CJ's sent packing and Tom says it's the worst dish of all three seasons. I was really hoping that Sara was going because... well, because she's a dumb bitch that seems to cook at about an Applebees level. I'm gonna miss CJ. He seems like the kinda guy you just wanna go out and get a beer with, ya know? I hope the one-testicle wonder has a bright future in this industry ahead of him, he deserves it. But at least Casey won - if my #1 has to leave, it certainly helps to see my #2 take the victory. Now if only they'd air some of that bikini footage during the show that they briefly flashed during the previews.... Grr.
And to finish off, I just want to say that all the negative attention Casey's been getting is bullshit. A lot of folks are talking about how's she's only on the show because she's hot. Ridiculous. Yes, she is hot. But she can cook, so who cares? Wouldn't it be more ridiculous if they only chose ugly people for the competition? Why the assumption that just because she's pretty, she has to be relying solely on that fact? Weak. I'd still be supporting her if she didn't look like she did, and I'm pretty sure Padma is already there to cover the sex appeal aspect of the show, so lay off the girl.
That being said, I will continue to happily drool whenever she's on screen. lol.
Damn, looks like she's about to pop out of that jacket.
Heavenly.
If you aren't already watching Top Chef, I highly recommend it. Even if you aren't much of a foodie, it's still a fierce competition that I really think most people can get into. Keep your eyes open for marathons on Bravo, they seem to run them fairly often for Top Chef.
Till next time friends!
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