I could see that. This season has not really captivated me yet. I will keep watching, though.
I didn’t really get the inclusion of the nastiness at the end except as an attempt to include some drama. Haven’te we demonstrated that we don’t need the drama by watching the 3rd season?
I’m tired of team challenges and tired of challenges which would be more appropriate on Top Caterer.
I’d like to see a challenge where they each had to make the same dish and were really judged entirely on technique. I’d also like one where they all had to use the same 3 or 4 ingredients to create a dish, they could add others but every chef-testant’s dish would have to include all the required ones.
I agree with Tom Colicchio about the shot glasses of distraction not adding to the plates.
And I was thinking about Zoi. Two weeks in a row she’s talked about loving bold flavors and then been called on the carpet for sending out under seasoned food. I wonder if she grew up in a home like mine where rosemary would’ve been a culinary risk.
I wanted “butternut squash” guy to get booted. But Zoi had a point - he shouldn’t have just gone along with immunity girl, if he truly didn’t support the team.
And how can something go out underseasoned anyway - didn’t they learn from earlier underseasoned boots? Taste taste taste!!!
Spike is not long for this earth (and good riddance, especially with that weird bamboo baseball hat–his most hideous yet!), but Zoi had it coming tonight, and I won’t miss her perpetually weepy face one bit. Let’s just hope Jen doesn’t go on and on and on and on about how she misses her hunnybun and how so-and-so is So much worse a cook than her sweetiepie.
Dale’s a tool who can’t even value a victory, and Richard (who I generally like) was overdue for being brought down a peg. And Stephanie continue to have the magic touch.
I don’t understand why Spike just went along with his teamates’ plans for a dish he knew was going to be subpar, when his former partner Manuel was kicked off the week before for that very reason.
Those both sound like cool challenges.
It does seem like they’re slowly weeding out the sub-par chefs this season. I thought it was interesting when they were sitting around and one chef commented that the things Richard does are “light years” ahead of the food she makes.
While I love the show, they do have a habit of sticking people on there with huge gaps in skill.
I’m having a hard time picking a favorite. I’m struggling with being able to get behind Richard because of the fauxhawk. Andrew has a weird, hyper energy that kind of creeps me out. Most of the others are just kind of non-descript.
This season has really been low on personal drama and focused on the cooking but, unfortunately, the cooking hasn’t been very interesting yet. There haven’t been any big highs or lows, just marginal winners and losers. I think they need to come up with some more engaging challenges than just catering for this or that group with some kind of contrived theme.
The drama at the end seemed kind of contrived to me, or it could just be because of the editing. It was definitely time for Zoi to go. She was on the chopping block more than once and had not won a quickfire or elimination challenge.
Spike AKA hatboy needs to go home next. I honestly can’t remember anything that he has cooked well.
Lisa seems to be coming on strong although I think she has been lucky being teamed up with Stephanie two times in a row. It could be because of the editing but see seems to be more than a little bitchy. Stephanie has commented more than once that she has a “strong” personality.
I knew that team fire with Dale, Stephanie and Lisa would be near or on the top, even with the mini drama at Whole Foods.
I still like Richard a lot but fish scales? Blech, I would probably retch if I bit into one.
My favorites so far are still Stephanie, Dale, Richard and Mark.
I forgot to add that mr. twitchy aka Andrew may have some chef talent but two faux caviar in a row? That two trick pony is over dude.
I’m not sure what to think of Antonia yet. She seems to be in the middle in every competition although I remember in season 3 that Casey seemed to come out of nowhere to make the top three.
Nikki? if all you can do is Italian, your days are numbered.
While I agree that Zoi was the right choice to go home, I have to say that Richard needed to be kicked in the nuts for cooking salmon sous vide. He wasn’t at risk of being ejected, for the scales or anything else (as one of the pre-chosen few, he would have to screw up a lot more egregiously to earn an exit), but I’m having difficulty thinking of a worse cooking technique for salmon. Blech. So, no ejection, but definitely a boot to the nutsack.
I think all of the judges knew that Richard screwed up. At the same time , they know that he has way more talent than hatboy or Jeniffer or for Og’s sake Ryan.
Dale is a hypocritical dumbass. How dare he rail at Lisa for being negative? He doesn’t have a single comment on anything or anyone that isn’t negative or egotistical. And it sounded to me like he was anticipating a loss just so he could go off on Lisa, and that her winning over him just compounded it. Hello, your team WON! What’s up with all the rage? Let it go!
Antonia totally said she’d do the soup if the others were absolutely set on it. I like how she was all like, “dude, it’s on VIDEO!”. Sometimes I wish I had a video to rewind for people when they claimed I never said something… I bet she laughed her ass off when she re-watched that!
I agree that if Andrew does the tapioca again, they’re going to call him on it. I was glad that Richard’s smoke machine broke for the same reason.
Looks like next episode is going to be a grill-fest at a football game? Yawn. Do we really need another “cook outside for an average-joe crowd” episode? The writers for this season are really lacking. Count me in as another one who would like to see them do an iron-chef type challenge with a few required ingredients. OR something where they pair up, and they each have to do a dish that they think is best suited to the style of their partner. That would get some of them out of their ruts, for sure!
Just to explain my late comment, I always have to watch the show the day following its initial broadcast due to my work schedule.
First of all, I’m disappointed to see someone win a trip to Italy who actually thinks you have to add something to bacon. Other than that, I guess everything worked out on this show as expected, and that seems to be the problem this season. The contestants are rather boring, the challenges are complete yawners, and there have been no surprises in the outcome at judges’ table.
I haven’t the least understanding of food or cheffery (hee), but I’ve enjoyed the past seasons of Top Chef. This season, I’m seriously thinking of finding something else to do on my Thursday evenings. Maybe Lifetime should steal this one out from under Bravo, too.
BTW, I spent the first couple of episodes trying to think of who Richard reminded me of, and it finally came to me that he has a vague resemblance to Blaster (of Master-Blaster) from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Now I know why I sometimes feel kind of sorry for him (even though I thought up to this week that he was one of the best chefs on the show).
I’m actually watching this again after the dullfest of Season 3. You know it’s love when Padma licks her knife at a dressy function and you still think she’s just the cutest thing ever.
I like that the chefs are stonewalling Tom in the kitchen now. Since he’s basically there to gather info which he intends to use against them later at the judging table, he deserves it. Also: should have made the butternut squash soup? No. At least the carpaccio can aspire to sucking on the basis of technique, whereas BNSS has been the staple of blanditry for about ten years now.
You are now my favorite poster Grossbottom There is something about Padma. I also agree that Chef Tom needs to get away from the Chefs when they are trying to meet a deadline.
I don’t like Tom to begin with, and when he goes around to talk to the teams, I always kind of hope that someone will just tell him to fuck off. It’s not like he’s Tim Gunn, who doesn’t serve as a judge and who gives the contestants helpful advice; all he seems to do is waste the chefs’ limited time and, like you said, gather info that he’ll use against them at judging. He’s not even useful in instances where it would have helped to know more about what was going on the kitchen, like when people were changing recipes in the 500 calories challenge in season 2.