I really enjoyed last night’s episode. The challenge was difficult but not impossible and I thought the chefs came up with a great way to work together on the challenge.
Thought that Kevin would win w/ his braised pork but thought Michael seemed deserving as well for his pork belly. All of the judges seemed really impressed that he was able to pull that off within the parameters of the challenge.
I’m glad Preeti went home as she just really annoyed me and her food has never seemed that interesting to me. A pasta salad? On Top Chef? Really? Tom was hilarious when he was asking who first came up with the idea of a pasta salad.
I really enjoyed seeing sexist asshole Mike get called into the bottom three after being called in w/ the top four. Hilarious. His shrimp salad looked really terrible.
I can’t complain about Mike being brought down a few pegs, but it would have been wrong to cut him loose with the two impossibly wishy-washy tagteam pasta salad makers in contention. I still thought it was funny that Mike was made vulnerable by the teaming up concept, which was his idea! Farewell Slumdog chick, we hardly knew ye (but maybe you can learn how to shuck oysters now!)
Kevin, Eli, and the brothers are all really cool, and I like Jennifer as well–though gender-wise, the groups aren’t remotely balanced, since they’re (quite appropriately) picking off the ladies one by one. Maybe a guy will blow it next week, but there are certainly a lot more women currently vulnerable (Jesse, I’m looking at you).
I was amazed that Ashley, who poo-pooed the wedding challenge last week, didn’t raise a “Gays in the Military” stink this one. Amazed, but relieved.
I think they scaled this one way to big, and the skill gaps too big. It’s hard to care right now, because they are just going through the motions to figure out which order to dump the chumps, which isn’t that interesting unfortunately. I can’t wait for three or four weeks when the real show starts.
I definitely seems like, unless either one has a major screw-up, Kevin and Jennifer are going to be in the final three. I was especially impressed when Jennifer was disappointed that she wasn’t in the top three in the last episode. One of the brothers will probably make it to final four too (I still can’t tell them apart). The girl who was with Preeti is probably next to go.
I wonder which guy will go first. Probably Frenchy or Hector. Frenchy hasn’t done anything special at all yet, and Hector is pretty up and down. Didn’t he say something about playing it safe in this one? Never a good sign.
I think we need to add a new Top Chef rule: Don’t make shrimp. Hasn’t a shrimp dish been on the bottom three every time? Of course, none of them lost…
Or any salad. Yeah, I’m talking to you Carlos and Josie. My cousin sings “You don’t win Top Chef with sa-lad” forced to the tune of Homer Simpson’s classic “You don’t win friends with sa-lad”
Based on what they showed the judges saying I was convinced before the commercial break that Preeti would be going home, but I did spend the break wishing that somehow it would turn out that they cut Michael. He might be a alright guy in person but I find him irritating and would be grateful for limited exposure to him on my television.
I think Sam (season 2) got into the top 3 with a salad once. Mainly because it was a really good salad that made sense for the challenge and wasn’t a “play it safe” move.
Also, I missed the part where they explained the challenge. Were they not supposed to pair up?
Jennifer has been really impressive to me so far. Sure, she’s a little humorless, but she’s hella focused and intense, obviously smart, and she ran a fairly challenging service like a swiss watch. Michael had a good idea to put her in charge, since she had immunity, and she did as good a job of it as anyone I can remember on this show. She wasn’t ostentatious or grandstanding about it, but she kept everybody on task and on time under some very challenging circumstances. She knows what the hell she’s doing. I expect to see her in the top 3 for sure.
Preety annoyed me in little ways for the whole episode – taking Ashley’s water (and I was glad to see it didn’t ultimately sabotage her gnocchi), trying to snark on the clam chowder to save her own ass at the judge’s table, and that whole story about how 9/11 was the reason she wanted to be a chef? WTF?
I kind of like how the brothers seem to be more concerned about beating each other than anybody else. I have two brothers and I can understand that. A guy can accept not winning the whole thing, but it would be intolerable to get eliminated before your brother.
That pasta salad looked pretty lame. That looked like something I would throw together as a side dish at the last minute just cooking dinner for my family. I expect to see a little more originality than that. Preety didn’t seem to understand that there was anything wrong with it. At least the other two understood their dishes kind of sucked.
Last season, the woman from NJ won a challenge with a salad. That was the challenge where the top 3 went on the Today show.
What surprised me was that the judges weren’t enthusiastic about the bottom dishes before judges’ table, but they were not saying “Oh, this is gross,” while eating and they when they got there, they were hostile to the 3 contestants at the table. It seemed to come out of nowhere. They’re usually not that aggressive unless the dishes are truly terrible and inedible, and mostly their complaints seemed to be that the food was just bland.
Loreen’s comment about “I forgot it was a competition” was pretty telling. Once she got called on it, she could have recovered by saying something like, “I was so caught up in the idea of cooking for these heroes that I wasn’t thinking about competing, just about giving them some variety.” But she wasn’t quick enough.
I see from the trailer that they’re going to eliminate two next week. Great. They should do that the first couple of weeks and get some of the obvious losers out of there faster.
Jesus, if she said that i think it would have put me over the edge.
They must have devoted about 15 minutes of a 1-hour show talking about how honored they were to be cooking for the heroes. I half-expected a logo on the screen saying “To join now, go to www.airforce.com” or “This episode sponsored by the US Air Force.”
Like other folks, i was happy to see Mike land in the bottom three, but even though he’s a tool he’s clearly a better chef than either of the other two, and he was never really in danger of getting cut.
As someone who’s as rah-rah as anyone, I was starting to get a little nauseated at all the schmaltz. Speaking of which, I wish I had been watching with my brother, who’s been an Army officer for 25 years. I’m sure he would have contributed a few humorous opinions on the Army vs. the Air Force in a theater or war.
Put me in the impressed by Jennifer camp. That had the makings to be an absolute disaster when it came to fighting over equipment/menus and she ran it seamlessly. I was very impressed.
And how about an elimination challenge where each person tries to top the previous one in just begging to be eliminated.
First Mike starting with “I was proud of the salad I did it all myself” when he was in the winner’s group. Then in the loser’s group “I’m not going to lie I knew it was bad when I put it out.” And then resorting to the old favorite to get you kicked out - arguing with the judges.
THen Loreen tops it with the passionless I forgot it was a competition speech.
But then Preeti managed to play the winner with “You’re wrong, my sucky dish came out great.”
Those applying to Top Chef should review that Judge’s Table for what not to say.
