Uh, no. I did not say he deserved no blame. I said I felt like he gave up in advance, meaning that yes, he did deserve the blame for his own demise. He could have tried harder but I think in his mind it was already lost and he just gave up.
However I disagree that he can’t work with other people, he is able to work well with certain other people, he has worked well with both Richard and Stephanie on other occasions and even won or was in the top group for those challenges, but he does not work well with Lisa and Spike as has been seen in challenges when he got stuck with those two.
And yes, he was the victim of circumstances because had he won the quickfire Antonia would have been stuck with Spike and Lisa and how well would she have fared? Maybe she would have given a better effort than Dale, and Spike or Lisa would have ended up going home which would have been great or Antonia would have been thrown under the bus and would also have gone home before two less deserving people. I think it pretty obvious that any team with Lisa and Spike would have been the losing team.
I know it was probably editing, but why did the judges think Dale didn’t know the taste of a laksa? He told her it was too smokey! And lack of leadership? How is having your chef du cuisine telling you to go fuck yourself all the time when you tell her to do something a lack of leadership ?
Is it really a suprise that Lisa is currently unemployed?
I think this was about the third week in a row that the losers were made up of my least favorite chefs. No matter who got sent home, there was much rejoicing.
Lisa’s problem was that she flubbed the rice and then Dale told her to salvage it with pastry creme. They made it worse. The easiest and correct course of action to make the lemons into lemonade here, would have been to make a traditional rice pudding or a “dessert congee” with the rice and mangoes. They might have gotten some flack for not serving what was on the menu, but it would have been better than serving “Baby food with Poutpourri”, as one diner described it.
I know they’re not the same thing, but couldn’t you approximate the texture of glutinous rice with sushi rice, and then make up for the different tastes in the sauce/whatever-else-you-add-to-the-dish?
Lisa said that the rice wasn’t sticky enough, and it wouldn’t hold together. If they did use sticky rice, then she should have gotten a decent bind. If not, then it was more likely her cooking technique. Now, she claims Dale picked out the wrong rice, Dale says not. So, who to believe?
I think you could make a nice mass with sushi rice, if you were to cure it and fan it in the traditional way with vinegar, salt, and sugar. She could have easily made a mango sushi.
Isn’t it amazing what a difference, a change in name can make in cooking- Sticky Rice with Mango, Mango Sushi, Rice Pudding, Congee? Any of these sound better than Baby Food with Poutpourri. Moral, of the story…never let your critics name your dish… serve something good and name it well.
… and they used instant, dry mix, pastry cream! Pastry cream to bind? That’s it? That’s just gross. They could have added whip cream at the minimum and simulated a mousse…
There was an episode of Iron Chef America a couple of years ago that featured “scallops brulee” or some such. It was a round of honey paper (basically brittle) on a parcooked diver scallop, finished under the salamander. Conceptually, there’s nothing wrong with pairing sweet flavors with seafood; I make a berry coulis that’s fantastic with fish. It just sounds like he went really overboard and didn’t properly balance the flavor profile.
I just watched this this morning, and rewound to when they picked out the rice. Lisa couldn’t find sticky rice, and Dale reached up and picked up a package from the shelf. He said it was for rice pudding, and said it should work.
Even though he made some mistakes, I was disappointed he went home, too. Lisa is a bitch, period. And she can’t cook.
I think the advantage Antonia got for winning the quick fire was too much, really. I think they should have picked a second place winner of the quickfire to be another team captain and then they alternate picks with Antonia going first.
I don’t think her advantage was too much at all. They were down to the final six, theoretically all six of them should have been capable, talented, intelligent chefs. It’s not Antonia’s fault that Spike and Lisa are douchebags, and that Dale appears to have a temper and no ability to multi-task. By the time the field is winnowed down to six, the producers shouldn’t have to go out of their way to make sure everything is “fair.”
That was the first thing my wife and i did after the show ended on Wednesday night (we had been recording it). We went straight back to the shopping segment, and sure enough, there’s Dale commenting that they don’t have regular sticky rice, and then picking a different package off the shelf, handing it to Lisa, and telling her that it will work.
I love it when there’s this sort of debate between the chefs ove something that is so easily confirmed by the Top Chef cameras. It happened, even more blatantly, earlier in the season, when two chefs were arguing about something (can’t remember who) and one said to the other, “It’s on film!” And sure enough, it was.
I wonder if the judges ever check stuff like this, or ask the crew to confirm one story or another, before making decisions.
Oh why do I watch this show? It’s not like I get to taste the food.
Dale was one of my early favorites but either he has started losing his cool a lot or the editors have just started showing it off more. 3 weeks ago I would have been sad to see him go. After 2 weeks of tantrums I didn’t feel like it was a bad decisions - except that Lisa deserved it more.
Same sort of thing with Spike - I liked him early on expect for the stupid hats. Now I want to smack the smirk off of his face.
I’ve come to believe that one can predict the loser by the loserly behavior the editors show us throughout the show. Highlighting Dale’s tantrums was a setup for his loss. Not a full blown system yet - but I’m working on it.
I read an interview Dale gave (sorry didn’t bookmark it). In it he said he has worked with difficult people before but what really got under his skin about Lisa was that she was so negative and he just couldn’t deal with it. Interviews with other people who had worked with Dale in the past said he was a bit of a jokester and a fun guy. So something about her really seemed to push his buttons. Haven’t we all had someone like that we’ve had to deal with in some way?
Also, he worked well with Stephanie because they have worked together before Top Chef. When he worked with Lisa and Stephanie their team won the challenge, giving Lisa her only elimination win. Even though Lisa got on his nerves he at least had Stephanie as a buffer but with the recent episode his only buffer was Spike who’s not really going to be much of a help since his whole strategy is to hope other people screw up more so they get sent home.
I agree that the last 6 chefs should all be equally talented but we know that’s not the way it works.
Wile E You remember correctly. Dale does not suffer with fools well at all. He obviously respected Stephanie and Richard. Hell, I would have crashed and burned having Lisa and Spike on my team.
