I down, 13 to go
I think the right choice was made. These early season ejections always seem to be chefs they brought in as cannon fodder. There was no way Clay was going to advance beyond the early rounds.
I like Bourdain being there for guest judge. He always has impressed me with his speak your mind style. He can be abrasive, but he doesn’t pull any punches or try to play games.
Special props to the guy who actually read Bourdain’s books!
If it hadn’t been for the Dave in the semi-finals precedent, I’d agree with you.
But then, Dave, in the semi-finals lost to the person whose food was so bad, the guest judges visibly recoiled from it.
Also, I still hate Tom in the kitchen. If he’s not a mentor, he needs to leave them the hell alone. All that should matter is the food on the plate at the end of the night.
If anything, this challenge should have played right into Clay’s strengths (Mississippi native pushing his southern foods style). He was lucky in the draw, made fairly safe choices for the surf & turf and still fell flat on his face. The apple dish he prepared for the quickfire was bad as well.
The editing of this episode didn’t really expose many of the chefs personalities yet, and that’s OK. I’d rather the entire season focus more on the food instead of the personality train wreck that was last season.
Hung & Tre did seems to be on top of the heap last night but that could be just due to editing. Hung did exhibit some nice knife skills when he was starting his dish. Seems to be a leave me alone and let me cook type - not sure how that will play into some of the team format challenges later on.
Glad to see they upped the hawtie factor on the girls, last season was pretty bland. Ten bucks says Marcel comes on as a guest judge and they all make foams.
This, I think, is going to be an interesting season both food and personality-wise. I’m praying that the drama doesn’t escalate to last season’s levels. But considering that everyone this season has serious cooking chops, maybe the drama will take a back seat more often than not.
I wish Clay would’ve lasted a few more episodes. I think he was spot on with the “Top Chef ignoring Southern cuisine” thing. If the proteins weren’t as unusual, I think he would’ve had a chance.
I’m actually surprised about Clay leaving, just because of his whole backstory of “My dad was a chef but couldn’t handle it so he killed himself, and I want to be Top Chef for his legacy.” I’d think Bravo would want to stretch the story out some.
Clay reminded me of Ray McKinnon (actor from O Brother & Deadwood), but yeah, he was the one to really drop the ball. The others made serious mistakes, from being overambitious to too timid to poor time managers, but his food simply sucked.
I’m not so sure of the hottie factor (at least for this straight male), but Camille comes closest to being a bona fide cutie.
And Hung & Tre really delivered the goods. Here’s hoping the season doesn’t end up consuming itself into a whirlpool of disappointment like last season’s.
I kind of liked the quick comaraderie between Tre and Hung. They both seem like they really know what they’re doing but I really liked the appreciation they showed for each other as well. Usually when the judges ask a contestant, “what did you think of _____'s dish,” the contestant will either trash it outright or find some condescending way to nitpick it while trying to sound faux-objective. It was cool to see Tre say, “oh yeah, I tasted Hung’s dish, it was delicious,” and to say it in a genuine, enthusiastic, unselfserving way. I think it would be nice to see a friendly competetion between a couple of talented guys who can show each other no quarter in the contest but still have a mutual respect and friendship. Those two looked like they were just having a lot of fun without any personal drama or bullshit.
I know it’s ridiculous to make predictions after the first week but I think Tre and Hung might end up being the Final 2.
I was a little disappointed though. I thought to myself - what would really piss me off if I went to a restaurant and ordered surf + turf? Would it be getting food that was badly cooked/flavored? Or would it be only getting the surf (or only getting the turf) and having them tell me “we just didn’t have time for the other half?”
See if the food was bad, I would complain. Maybe get something else. But I would end up paying.
If they only brought half I would be freaking livid. I wouldn’t know if the other part tasted good, because I would be so hopping mad I wouldn’t eat anything. And I would definitely NOT pay.
I think I would have kicked off the guy who didn’t deliver, despite his culinary promise. Simply unforgiveable in a restaurant setting.
Anyways, I’m excited for this season! I do agree that if Collichio is not a mentor, he needs to fucking get out of the kitchen. How hard would it be to add in someone who COULD mentor these people? Maybe a different celebrity mentor every week. I’d love to see a good chef with credibility and a little personality come in and say, “that sounds fucking awful!” or “you don’t have time for that.”
Also Padme or whatever her name is? Still awful. She should not be allowed to say anything but “_____, please pack your knives and go” and “Doctor Who, please lick off this whipped cream I have sprayed on my tanned and nude body.” But, for God’s sake, NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING about food or cooking (in fact, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t even let her say anything about whipped cream. She’d just have to point and make licking gestures).
I think they may as well. It was so cool to hear such a genuine compliment come from one contestant to another.
I hate Hung already. He’s got the chops apparently, but he also seems a prick like Marcel and Stephen (apparently, he is friends with Marcel as well). The common thread beyond their arrogance is that they are all (Las) Vegans. I wonder what it is about the restaurant culture in Vegas that gives us these beauts? Don’t get me wrong, most Chefs have a certain arrogance and prick-lieness, naturally (they need it to survive in a pro kitchen.). But these guys just ooze pretentiousness.
I did feel bad for Clay, but his food just didn’t cut it. Although, I seriously think that Howie should have gotten the axe, he didn’t complete the challenge, which in my mind was the biggest gaffe in this contest. For all they know, his frog legs could have sucked on their own, or in combination with that urchin risotto.
And Brian disappointed me with his Eel and Rattlesnake dish … Just before they showed him picking out the eel and rattlesnake I was playing along and thinking what I would choose as my surf and turf, and those were the two ingredients that I chose mentally. I thought to myself, those would be the perfect ingredients to take in a Chinese direction, they are both complementing delicacies and would be best prepared with chinese techniques… plus it has the perfect built in name, you could call it double dragon, or dueling earth and sea dragon… His deep fried take, pissed me off… he could have had the most simple, best tasting as well as the best looking, and most exotic dish there.
Yes, that made me like Tre all the more. I was pullin’ for the good ole Southern boy, too - oh well. I was surprised when they kicked him off instead of frog leg guy.
Mmm, frog legs… it’s been too, too long. And abalone risotto? I’d go for it. I’m looking forward to more from him.
Hey, by the way… what number was Clay? What did he draw? Was he makin’ do? Surely, every chef was passing over Boar and Scorpion Fish.? Uni and frog legs seem like a pretty safe choice and decidedly bland. Any southerner knows that Boar and Scorpion are strong flavors. He would have been better off doing a make shift sausage and incorporating the fish in a Jamabalya.
Well, that issue was pretty well covered at the Judge’s Table, I think. He made the comment about the book on how food should be served when it was ready, not earlier. And they commented on how that might be right for a restaurant setting but not for a contest setting.
Ask yourself, would you have been happier with late food or with bad food. I’d rather have the late food.
Good start to what looks like a good season.
I think I now have an answer for the thread about why Shear Genius didn’t make it. The panel in this show is simply good. They all are. Even Ms. Amidala is good at what she has to do (look pretty). The rest know their stuff and have the personalities to make it interesting.
As for Tom in the kitchen, I like it. I think he keeps them straight and helps us (the viewers) get a better perspective of what’s going on.
I just. Don’t. Get it. A rules violation should be an automatic disqualification. Fuck how good you can cook. The TOP chef needs to be able to handle EVERYTHING, including demands and constraints on time. Howie should have been sent home even if Clay’s food was tasteless and burned. There’s plenty of time left to weed out the losers, and if Clay is a lousy cook, he could be sent home next week. Meanwhile, Howie got the equivalent of a fucking Mulligan in a fucking contest among fucking professionals. Damn. Just plain damn. :mad:
I’m fine with Clay going home. Actually, based on what little we saw of his performance, I’m not sure he should have been there at all. Bourdain was right when he said Clay didn’t even demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals. Clay didn’t know what an amusee bouche was (which that one woman really made an obnoxious big deal of, even though according to Tom he did a passable job flavorwise with the apple; and didn’t know how to prepare the boar (parboiling it instead of cooking in real time).
I don’t really care for Howie, either, but I suspect he’ll implode somewhere down the line.
If Howie hadn’t pulled his knowledge of Bourdain’s books out of his ass, it might have been him going home, but it still sounds like his one dish was much better than both of Clay’s combined.
I still think the judges’ choice was right though because as a customer, I would rather wait the extra two minutes to ensure the order was right than to get something that came out on time and was lousy. Comp me a beer and apologize for the wait, but don’t serve me something that is lousy.
I hadn’t really followed the show in the off-season, but was Amidala in a car accident during the break? Her right arm was really badly scarred and while I didn’t have a problem with it, wasn’t sure if she would have felt better wearing something sleeveless.
I agree with Liberal. Heck, if that’s not an automatic disqualification, Clay should have “accidentally” left off the worst part of his dish too. Maybe he could have eked by.
This is Bravo - they will root out any hint of drama and make it front and center as much as possible. Season 2 was such a train wreck because they magnified the drama to such an overwhelming extent. I almost swore off the show after the nonsense last season, but I’ll give 'em two or three episodes this year to see if it’s any better.
I don’t get the Clay love. Other than he’s a good ol’ boy with a sad background, he failed at the most basic requirement of the show - cook tasty food. He got a pretty good draw and had some basic ingredients to work with, and he failed miserably. Can you even imagine what nastiness he would have concocted if he was stuck with kangaroo and sea urchin? He was just out of his league on this show. Stick him in a barbeque contest with Bobby Flay and maybe he’d get lucky.
His opening effort looked like he cut an apple with a chainsaw and dumped in some fruit and champaigne. Honestly, I could have come up with something better than that. At least I know what an amuse bouche is. It would be nice to see a top chef using southern cuisine as a theme, but this wasn’t the guy to do it.