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Top Chef Masters Episode 5: Nearly there, sortakinda
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Top Chef Masters Episode 5: Nearly there, sortakinda
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I'm looking at last night's Top Chef Masters episode � and next week's � like I look at the last two tortuous days of work before you bolt for a long-overdue vacation. Conventional wisdom suggests these days are dull, but rat racers know that the exact opposite is often true � the final 48 hours before escaping via train/plane/automobile somehow always end up bogged down with more stupid tasks and useless information and vexing revelations than an entire month's worth of ass-busting. It makes me furious just thinking about it. Thank God no one will really care if I direct my hostility at a benign target like TCM.
Yes, Episode 5 had every cylinder of my ambivalence engine firing, but it also featured perhaps the most gracious star cheftestants yet � Michael Chiarello (former Food Network host and chef at Napa's Bottega; described by one friend � not me � as "rapey"), the charmingly ADHD Rick Moonen (Vegas' RM Seafood), coolcalmcollected Swede Nils Noren (formerly of Aquavit, now a bigwig at the French Culinary Institute ... and apparently Earth's only Scandanavian reggae fan) and the slightly wild-eyed Lachlan M. Patterson (Boulder's Frasca Food and Wine). These guys displayed loads of class in the heat of competition, helping and congratulating each other the whole way through. It was lovely. Almost ... too lovely.
Quickfire: In a rehash from Season 1, the foursome is tasked with creating an upscale plate based on a well-loved junk food. Though Top Chef popped off just three years ago (doesn't it seem longer than that?), it's funny how dated this challenge seems already � plenty of chefs are fond of the whole spin-on-empty-calories idea these days ("curly Fries ... three ways"), mainly because it's fertile ground to do really fun stuff. Chiarello selects fish sticks as his inspiration. Patterson goes for hot dogs, which prompts Moonen to select corn dogs (smart man!). Since Noren's Swedish, he decides to play his plate off fried shrimp.
The judges are the crew from Bravo's Flipping Out, which I believe is about how hard and/or awesome it is to flip real estate while being irresistibly sassy and suffering from immense OCD. I've never watched this show, but I'm fond of that in-The Soup-perpetuity clip of star Jeff Lewis ordering a drink that's 70 percent lemonade, 20 percent punch and 10 percent Sprite, so I looked forward to him tearing the competitors' dishes apart for no substantive reason.
Rick, in a heartbreaking oversight, fails to plate his dish in time, DQing him. Though Noren and Patterson both crank out lovely-looking offerings (poached shrimp with creamed corn, pickled tomatoes and a lobster sauce; a prosciutto stufado with pork sausage), Chiarello wins the QF with a 4.5-star-earning swordfish meatball dish. No hyper-specific beverage requests from Jeff, which is bullshit.
Elimination: Each chef has to prepare three bite-size mini courses � starter, entr�e, dessert � for a 100-person cocktail party that's attended by both real-life Top Chef fans and random-ass cast-offs from Project Runway. Noren does a seafood-centric menu featuring a diced scallop starter, slow-cooked salmon and a ganache topped with smoked tea whipped cream that freaks everyone out. Noonen kills it with an exotic fish ceviche, a well-received scallop/shrimp brandade and a simple lemon panna cotta. Patterson, the northern Italian chef, fries pineapple wrapped in speck, serves grilled short ribs with an anchovy/parmesan vin and a frangine with strawberries in lieu of the traditional pear.
Chiarello, meanwhile, is shown working the females in the crowd like a perverted carnival barker. "If I had a smile like yours, I wouldn't have to cook for a living"? Perhaps "rapey" is too strong of a fake adjective, but I see where my friend is going with this. His menu: shaved brussels sprout salad with roasted marcona almonds, "pissed-off" prawns cooked in chili and garlic oil and a marinated strawberry dessert with basil gelato that Green likens to the taste of "lawn clippings."
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Next week: The last of the six finalist slots will be finally, finally be filled. Then ... vacation!
[...] - Michael Chiarello [...]
[...] first, Quickfire: Accomplished chef/restaurateur and Top Chef Masters competitor Rick Moonen, along with the transcendently preggo-glow beautiful Padma, institute a TC first � the “Tag [...]
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