Two rules from the book of Top Chef:
- Don’t do the desserts.
- If you are not a natural leader, don’t win the quickfire that will make you a
leader.
Oops! I meant 1-21.
Swiftkicking Radhika to the curb…
As compared to Restaurant Wars episodes from past seasons, this one never pulled me in. The whole Stefan’s an ass (which may be true but he just saved yours) to all the Hosea/Leah stuff - I didn’t care about any of it.
The disaster waiting to happen was all brought about by the guest judge picking the quickfire winners he picked. Makes me wonder if it was set up to begin with.
Radhika seemed to be the willing volunteer to fall onto the sword. Didn’t seem like she gave a damn from the quickfire on. She had first choice, and to not use that to pick what may very well be the best chef, bad mistake.
I think the two Europeans kicked everyone’s ass this show.
Best decision by far was to put Fabio in the front of the house (his own decision) - guy’s got charm and personality oozing from him.
I’m by no means a chef, but Stefan seems to have the most pure cooking talent. And regardless of how much he’s portrayed as an ass, he never gets flustered, he does a good job. Compare him to Carla, and how they handled/managed doing frozen deserts with a wonky freezer.
Jaime also seems to be quite good.
The rest, meh. Hosea and Jeff both seem very competent cooks, but not at top level. Jeff has more originality and a more refined skillset.
So, for me, I want Leah, Carla and Hosea off next, in that order.
I wonder if Hosea and Leah would be feeling so guilty about their little make-out session if it hadn’t been filmed. I so wanted Leah to go home last night.
Radhika was just useless. It’s too bad, because I think she’s got real talent as a chef. She should have insisted that Jeff be in the front of the house.
Stefan is so far ahead of everyone else. They might as well just give him the trophy right now.
Radhika looked like a deer in headlights for the whole elimination challenge. She has no leadership skills. How could she let the judges leave without telling them goodbye and thanks? Sheesh.
I wish somebody would link to the bird muppet that Carla looks like. I can see her in my mind, but I don’t know her name. 
She got a little snippy with Tom, didn’t she? “I sent out my dish with love.” Bah.
I hate to see someone go home when they didn’t even cook anything, but I can’t argue that Radhika didn’t perform well in this challenge. Still, she seems to be a better chef then some of the ones still left, particularly Leah, who I suspect will be going home soon.
The fact that Top Chef contestants so consistently screw up desserts makes Stefan’s performance all the more impressive.
Random thoughts. Restaraunt wars! yay 
I had assumed from previous seasons there was an unwritten rule that you wouldn’t get sent home if you didn’t cook. I guess I was wrong.
Carla should have gone home. Her only competancy is dessert, and she screwed up two of them, should be unforgivable. Anybody else starting to get the feeling that it would only take about one second of misunderstanding for her to go from amusing, ecentric, flake to crazy-eyed bunny-killing bitch?
Leah served raw fish(that wasn’t suposed to be) to a judge? and got to skate on. Damn lucky.
I liked the bow-chicka-bow-wow music while Leah and Hossea dry-humped. nice touch;)
Stefan is clearly the best, and most well rounded. Fabio is a clear second place, and has enough charm to make up the difference in areas beyond cooking.
Jamie is third I guess, but doesn’t have the consitancy to make it. Jeff would be third most talented if he ever figured out what kind of food we serve here on Earth, as opposed to where-ever his mind lives. Hosea rounds out as boring but mostly competant. The rest are just dead-chefs walking.
I felt bad for Radhika even though she did deserve to go home. She didn’t make anything and she was clearly uncomfortable giving orders in the kitchen. She was even worse at the front of the house. In hindsight I bet she wishes that she assigned Jeff to the front, even though he didn’t want to and let Jamie be the leader in the kitchen. Carla was a train wreck and her meltdown in front of the judges nearly got her tossed.
I wonder if it opened Stephan’s eyes just a little being picked last even though he is probably the most talented chef this season. Is this the reason he chose to do dessert and stay out of everyone’s way? That had to hurt a little bit even though he constantly proclaims that he doesn’t give a crap about the other chefs.
It sure looked to me that Leah and Hosea did more than just kiss. The next day they both had the look of a dog who just crapped on the carpet and got busted for it. I don’t know what to think about Leah. She sure seems needy when it comes to men but she also has cooking talent, not counting this episode of course. She does have two quickfire wins and two elimination wins, that can’t be all due to luck.
Jamie just oozes confidence and competence and is a natural leader. Jamie and Stephan are at a higher level than the others and will likely be in the top three.
and oh yeah, one more.
If I was on there I would make Scallops for every single challenge. Simple elegant, easy to do good, and not that many ways to screw them up. seems like 95% of scallop dishes are well accepted, and the judges never really give points for variety of originality.
I hate when the judges say you shouldnt have done A, you shoulda done B, when you know for sure they would bust you for B as well.
If your frozen yogurt aint frozen, you shoulda called it yogurt soup.
Yeah right, that’ll work…
Do something else with the ingredients? Sure. Don’t send it out. Maybe. Just Rename it? BS
If I ever send out raw chick, I just proclaim it to be “Midwestern Sushi”
BTW, has anybody ever just done one dish and it was so bad they didnt send it out because of it and they let it slide as the lesser of two evils?
I forgot to add this. Did anyone notice the constipated look on Tom’s face when the British judge went into his Elvis comparison? Padma also looked like she was trying desperately not to roll her eyes. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Toby won’t be back next season.
I don’t see why Jeff should have been relegated to front of house, sure he can schmooze but I would have sent Carla to front of house instead since I don’t think she’s that good with her cooking skills. And if I let her do desserts I would have insisted she do something that I already know her to be confident with, those little tarts thingies. Sure, she’s done it twice but in restaurant wars they don’t jump on you for using a tried and true recipe as long as it’s good. Actually, I wouldn’t have picked Carla at all, I would have picked Stefan. Sure, he can be a dick, but he’s a competent dick.
Well, I lost my bet about Leah or Hosea going home this week. Leah was sure getting the loser edit and Carla seemed to be in the loser #2 position. I think Radhika was better than some of those left but she really did not do well as leader. Doesn’t she have a cafe of her own? I expected her to be a little more outgoing with the customers.
This is Top Chef, not Top Scallop.
First, the smooching scene between Hosea and Leah, complete with juicy kissing noises, squicked me out. I don’t mind some romance and even some of umhmm yeah baby in the right context, but that’s not why I watch Top Chef. It felt very voyeuristic. I thought, what the hell is this, The Real World?
Second, Stefan is an ass and that new judge is an ass. Only one of them is redeemed by solid cooking skills, as far as I know.
Third, why hasn’t everyone learned the key lesson from team challenges? YOU DON’T WANT TO WIN THE QUICK-FIRE BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THE TEAM LEADER! The team leader takes ultimate responsibility and is the greatest risk to be sent home. Jamie said as much, but she was the only one. I’m with her: Aim for the middle of the pack.
Fourth, Radika has zero “front of house” skills. As the team leader, she should have recognized her own shortcoming and relegated herself to the back. Jeff or Carla would have been a much better choice. Even if she hadn’t been team leader, she should have fought for a spot in back.
#1 should be don’t do frozen desserts. The freezer is ALWAYS “broke”. Radika did basically nothing last week too so was not sorry to see her go. I like bug-eyed girl :).
Jeff said he’d rather be in the kitchen but he would do what Radika wanted him to do, so she could have easily said “I want you in front of house”. It was Radika’s failure to lead. She pretty much let Jamie take over everything else in the kitchen. She didn’t even provide useful input to Carla when she was concerned about her desserts. It’s like she thought everything would still run smoothly if she didn’t do anything.
I watched with some other people and we were so annoyed with Leah and Hosea. Hosea saying they only “flirted”, um, no, that was not just flirting. They both seemed to be in denial and saying that what they did wasn’t really that bad or cheating. If either of them still have their S.O. after this I will be surprised.
I realize the show is about strategy as well as cooking, but Jamie’s comment actually turned me off. It sounded like someone who is afraid to take a risk and be a leader, which is weird because I don’t think of her that way at all. I would have thought Jamie would jump at the chance to show she could open a kick-ass restaurant.
I don’t like team challenges at all.
And why IS the freezer always broken?
I agreed with the guest judge who said it was infuriating when Carla said that she sent out desserts that she knew were bad, but sent them out “with love.” If she won’t acknowledge her mistakes, it’s fair to worry that she’s not going to learn from them. I would have sent her home.
Wile E is right that Carla should have been in front, where her self-confidence would have been put to better use. Radhika is too introverted, Jeff is too surly, and Jamie is too valuable as a cook.
The new judge is indeed too precious.
When is Jeff going to win something? If he keeps not winning, sooner or later his luck is going to run out.
I can’t understand why GE uses this show to feature their top of the line appliances when they are usually broken and the chefs bitch and moan about them all the time.