Jennifer was so hard on herself that I thought it looked like the judges refrained from ripping her as hard as they ordinarily might have. I mean, they told her what she did wrong and everything, but it looked like they saw that she was already beating herself up worse than they could ever do, and they kind of backed off a little bit.
I think she’s tough, though. You don’t run the kinds of kitchens she runs without being tough (especially as a woman…it can be a sexist culture). My guess is that rather tahn folding, she’ll knock the next challenge out of the park. I don’t think she has a personality that will let her quit, I think she has a personality that demands self-perfection and loathes personal failure. I don’t think she’s accustomed to falling down on a job like that, and it was killing her. She’ll rebound.
First of all, I want to point out that I totally called the quickfire. And it was, in fact, really interesting and fun to watch.
It was lucky that two of the “top 4” pulled the first and second pick knives. Imagine if Kevin had gotten first pick and Laurine or Robin and gotten second pick… the teams could have been Kevin, Jenn, a brother and Eli/Mike vs., which would have been a slaughter (although given the blue team’s meltdown, who knows?).
Definitely an entertaining episode.
That was my impression as well. Robin came up with the initial idea, Michael suggested a way she could update it (appropriately since they were shooting for a modern American restaurant) and then they got into it over the portion size. “Why is this piece here?” “You said three pieces. This is three pieces.” I also think he got angry when she swore at him because he was viewing himself as the leader and the boss of the kitchen–what he says goes. Now, on the one hand, that can be pretty damned obnoxious, and I don’t blame Robin for being annoyed or Bryan for refusing the money at the end. On the other hand, he was the leader of the kitchen that put out the best Restaurant Wars service in all six seasons, so he might be an obnoxious prick, but he obviously knows how to keep the kitchen running and turn out exceptional food. I do take Bryan at his word when he says he didn’t like seeing “bad behavior” rewarded. I’d love to see Bryan run a kitchen. I bet it wouldn’t involve shouting and getting in people’s faces, though we caught a glimpse of his probable style when he stepped in between Michael and Robin.
I was fascinated by the shows of genuine emotion from Bryan. When Michael made some comment (I think it was about the ganache) and Bryan practically growled in response. You could see that Michael knows how to push Bryan’s buttons and clearly Bryan knows it too. Then at the Judge’s table when they complimented his ice cream and he practically beamed in response.
I’m worried about Jennifer. I think she could very easily be a better chef than the brothers, but she’s clearly stressed. She was sick a few weeks ago, but the show is shot with all the episodes back to back. I wonder if she was still under the weather this episode.
In fairness, Jennifer identified it correctly at first as well . . . I think she just forgot after a half hour of anxious waiting without being able to speak.
At least, that’s how the edit seemed . . . who’s to say when her initial comment about what fish she was using was actually recorded.
I’m still astonished by Kevin. In the quickfire, when he took off his blindfold after 30 minutes (I’m surprised he got his bearings so quickly), he understood that they wanted him to poach the fish, but he didn’t want to. His fish, sauteed in butter with a sauce, looked so good. Extraordinary!
And, he didn’t take the easy route – scallops. Too frequently in this show it seems that when something tough comes up, the solution is to sear a scallop. He could have done that and he chose not to. Both dishes looked very good, but I’d much rather the fish than the strip that had been started on the grill 30 minutes earlier.