Zooey Deschanel was on Top Chef Masters. That challenge was a bit less egregious because they didn’t hold out the temptation of cooking in a steakhouse.
I remember that vending machine challenge. That guy was basically Chris Farley. That might have been the single laziest “dish” in the history of TC (or any other competitive cooking show). It was literally nothing but a Cheeto stuck in a Snickers bar. Pothead cuisine at its most minimalistic.
What do you mean by “throwing”. Did he win? Or was his dish a statement of how stupid he thought the quickfire was ?
Now, if he had marinated in a swimming pool full of children for a few minutes he might have been onto something 
I can’t be the only one who’s a little tired of the CONSTANT curveballs, can I?
Colicchio even talked about “throwing them off their game,” as if it didn’t happen every single freaking week.
How about a quickfire the consists of “Here’s some shrimp, have at it.” Or an elimination challenge that is completely unrestrained; the twist can be, “oh, and you have to serve it on THIS dish provided by Lenox.”
How health conscious! And I was thinking the potato chip thing was bad.
Losing on purpose.
Eli batted. He batted both eyes and all ten toes!
I am also over Mike V - too bad, I thought he was a cutie at the beginning, and really disliked Bryan. Now I think maybe Bryan is just maintaining control despite his brothers’ dysfunction. I find myself imagining the horror that must have been their homelife. . .
Soooo glad Mike I is gone. I was actually glad to see Robyn stay - in comparison.
Jen is breaking my heart.
The show always strikes me as a long, drawn-out job interview. I don’t understand why the Hung’s of the show don’t get that. I wouldn’t want to work with Eli or Robyn. His narcissitic whine is just as bad as her constant babble. Six hours a day, five days a week? No Way! I don’t care how well they cook!
Of all the people on there, the ones I’d most liek to work with/for are Jen and Kevin. I don’t think Jen’s going to win, but I think she’d make the best boss.
No kidding.
I cant understand how these folks dont get how in the long run how they come off in the show are SOOO much more important that rather they actually win or not.
Of course I think the world is logical, rational, and fair, so I could be wrong here.
I realized that just as I was coming back in this thread. I knew it was recent so I was thinking it was this season.
I think this pretty much sums up the dynamic. Bryan at first came across as completely cold and robotic, but as Michael starts to get more arrogant and aggressive, it becomes clearer why Bryan is the way he is.
I am beginning to wonder if this is the first time Jen has really met a peer who is a challenge to her. I get the feeling that all through cooking school she was the big fish, and right into her job at Ripert’s restaurant she was the star. She was kicking ass when she came in confident, but she is now acting exactly like someone afraid of competition, and doesn’t want to have to admit she lost for the first time in her life. I just get the feeling she has kind of cashed it in, so if she loses she can say to herself she didn’t really try. I think she or Kevin or either of the brothers would have easily won any other season, and she came in assuming her competition would be like that. The old chick is still likely to screw up more next time, but at this point I expect Eli to go farther than Jen.
I am absolutely hoping for Kevin to win . He approaches it from a love of food, taste is king style. I think he is very hard to throw off of his game because he has spent his time learning everything he can about food everychance he can, while the brothers are focused on a checklist approach to what Gourmet food is supposed to be according to experts. Kevin understanding that he has much to learn and is enjoying meeting the some of the real Food Gurus of the country and learning from them is fun to watch. The brothers seem to have the attitude that they know everything, and expect the show to be a victory lap for them to show off their mastery to adulation.
And good riddance Ass Mike
I loved the judges too. I think what made it even funnier was just the honest enjoyment they were having. I can’t help but giggle when people are really giggling.
I could tell Mike was going home b/c he was getting the loser edit and got more camera time than the rest of them put together, it seemed. I am not sad to see him go, although I’d rather see Robin go if for no other reason I won’t have to listen to them complain about her any more.
Next week there is a reunion show on at 10pm, so I am guessing there won’t be a new episode or it’ll be on at 9.
And if Mike said “Whatever, whatever” and its various mutations one more time, I was going to scream.
whatever.
Hey, it is what it is. (Is there a more stab-inducing phrase in any language?) Anyway there’s no new episode next week.
Rewatched part of the episode tonight. The story Kevin told about his grandmother cooking for his family really tells you everything there is to like about Kevin. (Well, that and the beard-fluffing thing he does during the credits.) And I can see a little more clearly why the chefs were irritated. They really let them get pretty far down the line of planning their food before surprising them with the vegetarian thing. But it was still a disproportionate amount of pissing and moaning.
Michael V. was definitely being whiny about Kevin. His snarky recap of the dish missed the smoked kale which the judges pointed out specifically as having found to be really interesting. His comment about how he could have made it in 20 minutes? Well, maybe he should have, then.
Mike I. was being an idiot about the ‘leeks were the protein’ thing. Most vegetarians don’t need or don’t even like representations of meat on their plate.
YAY for Kevin!! This is the first time I’ve really felt the Voltaggio dislike everyone else seems to have. I’ve thought them intense and focused. But whichever one (I still can’t tell them apart) dissed Kevin’s dish without tasting it just came off like a sore loser. I’m glad to see the end of Isabella. It’s very hard to watch Jennifer break down. Like watching a champion racehorse stumble then limp their way to the finishline. I hope they don’t have to shoot her.
Eli may be the dark horse, coming up from the middle of the pack. Robin continues to annoy, but continues to hang in there.
StG
I LOVED Natalie Portman! In addition to the prick comment, there was the great drug dealer comment. And she’s so darn adorable!
I was suprised how thrown everyone was by this challenge. I can’t believe that no one made a squash soup, or a pasta with sauce. I’m not a vegetarian, but it’s really not all that hard to make vegetarian chili, minestroni or ravioli. Is it that they got to “Chef-y”. That they were sucked in by the idea that simple is bad?
Just look at how disgusting Mike’s dish is: (number 13): http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/photos/episode-10-rate-the-plate I can even imagine how awful undercooked leek was. Mike is an ass. I think he was less upset about losing than he was about not outlasting Robin.
It was Michael who dissed Kevin.
Bryan was the only person who didn’t bitch about the challenge (at least I don’t remember him commenting on how vegetarians are weirdos or anything else) and didn’t bitch about the winner. Though now Bryan really has to step up his game. He’s been consistent, but he’s not been winning, and I don’t want to see him showing up in the bottom 3 next week because Michael, Kevin, and Jen have outdone him again.
Jen hasn’t outdone anybody in a couple of episodes. I do continue to like the brothers, but yeah, Mike has been a dick on several occasions.
I don’t think Kevin’s dish photographed as well as it presented on the plate and clearly not as well as it presented on the palate. As Natalie said, it was a “manly vegetarian meal.” Hearty, satisfying, one of the few that wasn’t a collection of side dishes, but an actual entree. As a vegetarian, I agree with Natalie that especially in restaurants, it’s disturbing how infrequently it’s possible to get something like that. I can’t remember the last time (outside of an Asian restaurant) that my choices weren’t overpriced unsatisfying salad, overpriced, oversalted, overdairyed pasta or an assortment of side dishes like mashed potatoes and cole slaw and the vegetable of the day.
And Kevin has the background for it. Despite Mike Isabella bragging on the number of vegetarian dishes on the menu of his restaurant, Kevin’s little bio blurb set the stage for his victory because he cooks and eats vegetarian in his home several weeks every year. That right there told me all I needed to know to know he was going to win. If a man who has a pig tattooed on his arm eats veg every Lent with his wife (I gotta admit I still giggle when he mentions his wife) then he knows how to make a satisfying, meaningful vegetable-based (that is, not grain or pasta based) meal.
From what I can find in some searches, she may be wheat sensitive, but doesn’t have full-blown celiac disease. Zooey Deschanel and Mary-Louise Parker are the Hollywood hottie boombatty celiac poster girls.
I, too, am incredibly tired of the vegetarian meal being used as a curveball. Every serious cook hates working for celery suckers, but they all have to do it.
Why not do more things like the Asian food thing, but with different regions. You want to inspire a cook, give him or her a style of prep or ingredient combination they’re not familiar with and set them loose.
I’m tired of watching the muppet looking girl break down and whine. I thought no matter how bad the guy who got sent home did, hers looked and sounded worse. Also, I think she gave herself an undue advantage by saucing at the table. She essentially gave herself a few more minutes than the other chefs, and I was disappointed Tom didn’t call her out on it.
Kevin has some serious chops. Bryan is outstandingly solid. Robin is out of her depth but continues to do at least moderately workable food.
Eli’s, “The most important thing she ever did was to be in Star Wars, which is the only thing that counts,” comment just made me hate him even more. He’s so fantastically annoying I almost want him to have to go home on a medical after he drops a knife and sticks it through his foot.
Or better still, through Mikey V’s foot. That little SOB needs to go bobbing for apples in a deep fryer. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.