Best episode this season! Great guest judges, great Elimination Challenge, and Leah is history. And we got Harold! Yay! I love Fabio and Carla more each episode. I was so impressed that Fabio hid his injury from the judges when he served their dinner- Hosea probably would have made his splint twice as big and whined about it the whole time. And I vote for “This is Top Chef, not Top Pussy” for this season’s t-shirt.
Carla’s classical training has really come through the last couple of episodes, and Jaques Pepin saying that he could die happy after eating her dish might even be better than winning the EC.
I was very happy when Wylie Dufresne picked the simplest, least molecularly gastronomic dish as the quickfire winner.
Nice editing job. I really thought for a moment there that Stefan might not make the finals. And I know I will never be a top chef because I actually prefer my salmon cooked all the way through, mostly dry and starting to brown. ( I don’t serve it to guests that way, or at all really)
And thanks Fabio for making me feel like a total wimp. I went back to work, but only stayed an hour after having a tooth pulled last week. My head hurt! (In my own defense, going home didn’t take me out of the running to win $200k).
I’m glad Fabio’s finger was broken and not sliced.
Carla’s description of herself as the tortoise, while a tiny bit annoying, was apt. In the first episode I figured she’d be one of the first three eliminated. She’s progressed well, and seems to get stronger, and really have chops beyond making decent pie crust.
I really don’t know which two I’m hoping will meet in the finale. Since I spent all of last season fairly sure Richard would win last season and was surprised (and not at all unhappy) when he didn’t, I would not be as surprised if Stefan didn’t win this one.
I actually cheered for Carla in the quickfire. I didn’t like her at first, but she has grown on me. I’m glad Leah is gone. I want Carla to win, but would be happy with anyone but Hosea.
I agree. I bet Carla actually cries a bit when she hears this comment. I almost did myself.
This has been a weird-ass season, and Stefan’s pretty much a shoo-in at this point, but as long as Hosea doesn’t win, I’ll be satisfied.
I really like that Carla has come on so strong at the end. She’s hugely expressive, she’s fun to watch, and she obviously knows how to make a plate of food. Like many, I’ve changed my mind about her over the course of the season. She’s the real breakout star this year. Her catering business will never lack for customers, if she chooses to continue it.
Carla still grates on me, but she’s definitely blossomed as a cook.
I do wonder a little bit whether the decision to drop Leah and not Stefan can be comfortably reconciled with their general rule that dismissal is based on that week’s dish and not on the chef’s complete history. At least based on the edit we saw, it looked like Stefan’s dish was more negatively received than Leah’s.
It surprised me a bit how prosaic the superstar chefs’ meal requests were. It’s your last meal, and you want roasted potatoes? peas? pigeon?
There’s a whole book on this question. It’s remarkably entertaining. Some of the chefs go for spectacularly elaborate (lobster poached in truffle juice, or the like); some go for comfort food from their childhood (mac and cheese). It’s a great book, highly recommended.
Based on what I saw, I think if they were really going with the results of ONLY the current dish served, Stephan would hvae been history. The eggs benedict there were some disagreements about whether the various components were cooked correctly. But everybody agreed his fish was way overcooked. Based on overall performance through the season he appears from what we see to be a better cook than Leah, so they let him stay.
I think the argument (once Tom puts up his blog) will be that only one component of Stefan’s dish was bad (the salmon), whereas the sauce and the overall flavor profile was on the money. In comparison, two components of Leah’s dish (the undercooked egg and the weak hollandaise) missed the mark. Two > one, ergo, Leah loses.
If there’s any justification for Leah’s departure based on the stand-alone event, it was they she got several different components of the dish wrong (the egg, the sauce); not glaringly bad, and not unanimous, but still there were many different things to complain about. Stefan’s fish dish had one problem–it was overcooked (but everything else was fine), but not in an inedible way that made Jamie’s celery debacle a no-brainer. I think it was probably a split vote, and you could see Tom was a bit fidgety about being too hard on Stefan, because having someone who’s been so dominant marginally losing to someone clearly in another (lower) league would’ve probably seemed a greater injustice. Stefan got a bit complacent, but the fish wasn’t a disaster–so he squeaks by (and believe me, you could tell he knew it was a close one, post-interview bluster notwithstanding).
“Go home? I’ll chop off my finger with a cleaver and sear it on the grill to stop the bleeding and worry about having 9 fingers tomorrow…this is Top Chef, not Top Pussy.”
Fabio is hardcore, man.
Carla can be a little precious at time, but basically seems pretty cool and likeable. It looks like she’s also kind of a stealth technician. In the early episodes, it seemed like she was kind of homey and souly, then we find out she’s classically trained, and has a keen palate and can execute technically as well as Stefan sometimes. I think she’s a real dark horse to win the whole thing.
As to Stefan – yeah, even last night it sounded like Tom was going out of his way to say that everything else on Stefan’s plate was fine. I’m betting that even the overcooked salmon was only “overcooked” by the extremely exacting standards of those chefs, and not to the degree that it was rubber or anything.
Anyway, even though they say the eliminations are based only on each particular challenge and don’t take past performances into account, I think what they alreadyknow of the given chefs has to influence them at least subconciously when there’s a close call. Tom wanted to get rid of Leah last week. I think he just wasn’t going to allow her into the finale over someone as clearly and consistently superior to her as Stefan.
If Stefan had really screwed up badly – like Jaimie’s salt-lick celery bad – he would have been cut regardless, but the call last night was close enough to justify the decision.
I always assume that the producers of the show have more say than we realize in deciding who stays and who goes. They have to maintain the drama and keep the viewers coming back. I think that’s why Jeff went home and not Fabio last week (or was it the week before?) during the super bowl competition. Fabio is well liked by viewers, jeff, not so much.
I’m a Carla convert. In the early episodes I thought she was a flaky ditz and I didn’t like her at all. But I really like her now. She’s showing some spine, and some spirit, she’s actually kind of funny and charming, and she’s showing herself to be a really good cook, and a smart one. Go Carla!
Me too! She used to really annoy me, but she just sort of grows on a person! I just wish she would blink more often. Her food looks and sounds fantastic, and I’m glad she’s still around.
It was far past time for Leah to go. Sheesh, screwing up eggs Benedict? She got the softball pitch, and still messed it up.
My darling Fabio managed to hack up a roasted chicken with one hand, and still made it look pretty good.
I think the way the show is edited they always try to make things seem as close as possible, so that we’ll keep watching until the end because we don’t know who’s getting the boot. But that, in turn, always makes it seem like it was arbitrary and unfair who was sent home, even if it wasn’t particularly close.
