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Top Chef: Las Vegas Episode 1: All in
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Top Chef: Las Vegas Episode 1: All in
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| bravotv.com | |
So I think I've finally pinpointed why I don't like Top Chef Masters as much as I loveloveloveamobsessedwith Top Chef. (Recap of the TCM finale is coming in a bit). Though this could very well be the product of flattering editing, these superstar chefs are so seemingly hellbent on doing nice things for other people that it feels very cheap and very wrong to ridicule them. (I tried anyway. I'm sorry, Rick Bayless! I kinda like you now because you care about others!)
While Top Chef: Las Vegas' 17 new cheftestants possess plenty of talent � they weren't shy about flashing all the James Beard-ian-and-otherwise credentials around on last night's season premiere � these kids aren't quite there yet. And that means I feel way more comfortable spending an inordinate amount of time concocting overly complicated ways to make fun of their hair.
To the kitchen!
Quickfire: In keeping with the Vegas setting, producers have made the QF format nice and cheesy this year, theming it around gambling. (How many chefs will spiral into baccarat-laden depravity before the finale?) This means the cheftestants are randomly drawing poker chips to determine teams, and more broadly, who'll have the best chance at a $15K QF cash prize. There's also a golden immunity chip that excuses you from competition � Robin gets the first one of these while the remaining 16 kids split up into squads of four. First challenge is the mis en place relay we just watched on Masters � popping clams, peeling prawns, cleaning lobsters and butchering two chops from the rib.
Well, Preeti has no clue how to pop clam shells, causing Tom C. to shake his head in disgust. (She's the chef at Google ... Google that shit!) "I might as well bring a beach chair and a fucking palm tree with me, because I might as well be on vacation," laments Preeti's big-bearded teammate Kevin, who turned down a full ride to MIT to cook in the ATL. "The hardest part of shucking clams is knowing how to do it," says Philly girl/former El Camino Real chef/current Xochitl sous Jen Z., who also struggles with the task. Fellow PHL gal/10 Arts maven Jen C., on the other hand, rips shit, inspiring a relatively sexist drunk-in-Seaside Heights-style rant ("A girl shouldn't be on the same level that I am") from Mike I., a former Stephen Starr chef who could definitely get away with chloroforming a member of LFO and assuming his identity Talented Mr. Ripley style:
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The blue team � Jen C., Bmore chef Jesse, one half of the look-like-lifeguards brother duo Bryan, and kerchief-ed Mattin (he's fabulous, he's French, he's read The Sun Also Rises) � win the race, and Tom and transcendently beautiful Padma tell them they need to prepare a dish using the ingredient they rocked in the relay. Though Tom likes Jesse's shrimp and grits plate, describing it as a "big mouthful of ocean" (mmm!), our girl Jen C. wins the $15K chip with a simple clam ceviche. Buy me dinner, Jen?
Elimination: Each chef gets $150 to prep a plate based around a personal vice. Guest judge? Wolfgang mahfuckin' Puck. Since running down each and every contestant's dish would be about as productive as me taking note of the shoe sizes of a band of soccer hooligans as they stomped on my trachea, we'll just touch on a few. First of all, cheftestants � there are vices other than drinking. So many of them incorporated liquor into their dishes in some way and justified it like "Well, I like booze, so ... " Yall cook. WE KNOW YOU LIKE BOOZE. Why didn't anyone cook a dish that represented a crippling Internet porn addiction, or a predilection for picking up loose women in a seedy bar (on seeded rye)? You disappoint me.
Jen Z.'s got a hot temper, she says, so she decides to stuff a chile relleno with seitan � a dish she did at El Camino. "Why cook with seitan? Nobody fucking likes that stuff," laments Kevin, soldifying his status as this season's Guy Who Laments and Says Fuck A Lot. Laurine's vices are doughnuts, bacon, chocolate and beer (I like Laurine, not sure why ... ), so she combines as much into her dish. Hector's Puerto Rican so he deep-frys a steak. Jen C. works like 80 varieties of liquor into a lobster sauce. (OK if you're gonna take the I Heart Booze angle, do it like this.) Michael, the other lifeguard brother, gets real creative with it, fixing up a rack of lamb and breaking down a couple bulbous coconuts to represent boobs.
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| bravotv.com |
Top four: Jen C., Kevin, LFO Mike and Ron, a Haitian who cooks a well-executed fish dish to represent his 27-day journey across the ocean to get to the States. (Not really a vice, but hell of a story, and Tom is feeling it.) Kevin, whose vice of procrastination is conveyed by slow-cooking arctic char, takes home the very first Elimination. He looks very happy and does not say fuck.
Bottom four: Hector (achtung � Wolfgang does NOT like his steak deep-fried), Jesse (dry chicken), Jen Z. (not feeling the seitan) and Eve, who employs the most confusing and convoluted strategy in the history of season premieres to explain how her tendency to overcomplicate (or was it oversimplify?) was conveyed in her shrimp/scallops curry cream dish, which was both complicated and simple and stupid and what?! She somehow eases her way off the chopping block despite cooking a trick-question SAT analogy, and our girl Jen Z. gets axed very first for her seitan dish, which Padma referred to as a "vegan bar midnight special." Z, you took a big-ass risk and it didn't pan out. I probably wouldn't have gone so left-field with it, but I respect the balls � and I bet there's an army of skinny vegans out there crafting a glorious statue of you out of pliable tempeh to erect in some LEED-certified town plaza somewhere. See you over in Headhouse!
Next week: I will attempt to talk about more than four of the contestants.
[...] Sneak peek at APO Bar + Lounge's new cocktail list• Trade your PECO bill for free beer tonight• Top Chef: Las Vegas Episode 1: All in• Watch the Top Chef: Las Vegas premiere tonight at 10 Arts with the infinitely good-looking [...]
[...] Sneak peek at APO Bar + Lounge's new cocktail list• Trade your PECO bill for free beer tonight• Top Chef: Las Vegas Episode 1: All in• Watch the Top Chef: Las Vegas premiere tonight at 10 Arts with the infinitely good-looking [...]
Jen C. is that type of girl I'd like to hate if she gave me a reason to, but ends up having her shit so together she wins my respect 10 minutes into the episode. Now she's my pick to win the whole thing, and I want her to bitch slap one of those brothers, or that guy Mike. Go Jen!!!! Also, who deep fries a steak?? I mean, really?!? Hector needs to thank el Dio de Cojones for that second chance!
Totally agree with Simon. Jen C. could be that ohmygodyou'retheworst! contestant if she didn't have the shit to back it up. I'm definitely favoring her to take it all but I've got to give it up to Ron because of his awesome accent and when he yelled at the time remaining in the kitchen, saying "24 minutes. 2-4. Ya heard?" You can yell random numbers at me anytime, Ron.
[...] the slightly space-cadetty Eve who ends up getting the boot. Fair enough. I was so confused by the explanation of her “vice” dish from last week that any more Eveism might’ve induced a [...]
[...] barely into our recaps for Season 6 of Top Chef (here’s Episode 1 and Episode 2), and Philly’s already looking formidable. Above, check a clip from [...]
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