Jen may have served SOS to the judges for breakfast, but hers wasn’t one of the bottom two dishes. Those belonged to Robin and one of the V brothers.
The right person left. Robin seems to have confused bitchy with assertive. I think her concept for the Casino challenge was at least valid (the Chihuly art), how stupid was she to try to do sugar work without having any experience? Eli wasn’t able to bring anything away from Circus Circus. You know, if whichever Voltaggio can get inspiration from a miniature fireboat, he should’ve been able to find something besides a pink jello mold.
I think Jen is just burned out and wants to go home. At this point it looks like she is throwing the competition. Not only did she make SOS, but she made it with that dried beef from a bottle, those tough little disks of salt. I mean my granny used to make SOS for our breakfast but at least she had the decency to use sirloin tips. And I thought Jen’s elimination dish was the least creative and least inspired of the group. That’s the kind of stuff I make at home when I don’t have time for anything else.
I also wonder what sort of creations we could have seen if one of the Volt brothers or Kevin drew Circus Circus rather than Eli. It is the casino with the most potential for a truly stand out creation, but Eli came up blank. At least he had some colors in the end, but my wife and I were going back and forth with circus/midway ideas the whole time Eli was complaining that there was nothing for him to do.
One thing that bothered me is that what she did make, that failed, was still brown. Brown? I know it’s not typically called for in fine dining, but is there really no food coloring in the top chef kitchen?
I really liked what they showed of Kevin in the stew room saying to Eli that his dish was one that would take three or four rounds of refinement, and not that it was crazy or bad. So much classier than Michael V saying he could make Kevin’s food with his eyes closed standing on his head in his first year of culinary school.
I have wondered this in past seasons. One I remember is Fabio drawing Green Bay in the SupeBowl challenge. What if he’d gotten Dallas?
Too bad he didn’t have any experience with the old (see Fear & Loathing for an example) Circus Circus. That actually did have circus performances that you walked under and was only a few steps above a carnival (with booze & a what was probably the worst buffet in town) I kinda miss it ;)! If I were going to do circus circus, I might try to recreate one of those horrible buffet plates except make it taste amazing LOL> Ok that idea was lame- which is why I’m not a chef.
That would be Bryan V., who despite doing well in eliminations still has yet to win a Quickfire all season, and has been in the bottom group more than once. Maybe he just doesn’t work as well under that kind of time pressure. I’m not sure how much it means though . . . if I recall, Stephanie (the season 4 winner) didn’t win her first Quickfire until the finale in Puerto Rico.
Regarding whether the right person left, I kind of suspect that more often than not when it looks like the wrong person left we’ve been victims of misleading editing. From the chef’s blogs, it sounds like they’re usually in agreement that the one they sent home had truly made the worst dish.
Even though it’s been clear for weeks that Robin is far and away the worst of the remaining chefs, I really hoped that she would stick around for one more week so that she could say “In your face, loser! They kept me around longer than you AND Mike I!” to Eli.
I just so hated the childish clique garbage this year, and Eli and Mike I were the major perpetrators. They both had a major lack of class.
Hope you’re gone next, Eli. And if Jen is trying to do “suicide by judge,” she must be in utter despair right now. It would be impossible for her to come up with something as repulsive as what you just served.
I’ll have to admit I really snickered this week when you got hosed in the Quickfire prize department. One week, the winner gets $10,000 cash, and you’re the unlucky schmuck who gets “Guess what YOU get? You’ll get your recipe published in our cookbook!”
Apparently Nigella didn’t like the combination of the vanilla with the crab, but I thought that was a relatively common pairing?
I thought Bryan was adorable when he walked into the suite and seemed surprised that Padma and Nigella were still in bed. “Oh, hello.”
I thought it was very strange that Eli couldn’t come up with something better for Circus Circus, but Robin’s whole plan, from conception to execution was horrid. The Bellagio is beautiful and decadent and lush. It’s fine to be inspired by the sculpture, but I think she really missed the point of the casino. Standing in that lobby, something besides “panna cotta” should have come to mind. How does panna cotta even come to her brain that far along in the competition?
I actually feel sorry for Jennifer. The Excalibur is a pretty shitty casino. I’ve never had a good time there and the whole place is very drab and “meh”. I actually think she had the most difficult of the six.