Sweet. I was just thinking this morning it’s been a while since there was anything Top Chef on the air. There are fewer chefs I have heard of this time around, so It’s hard to handicap. But early pick for me is Samuelson.
It was cool last season watching some of the chefs who had been master of their domain for so long struggle when forced to improvise or encounter something that wasn’t from their carefully controlled working habits. The crop seems a fair amount younger on average this time around.(But I will miss Keller, the dude was awesome.)
I try not to be a picker of nits but it seems worth mentioning that the first episode is airing at 11:00, rather than 10:00. (in my time zone, at least)
I just read Kelli Choi’s bio, and based on that I think I’d like to hang out with her. She seems fascinating, on paper. I don’t really enjoy her on the show, though. What is the name for the bias that makes it hard for me to take her seriously because her dress is so short? It’s not her fault she’s pretty.
Yeah, I’ll admit to a Keller crush. Can’t say I’ll miss Art Smith, though.
Ya know, I’m kind of on the fence with the whole Top Chef thing though. I watch it because I watch all things Top Chef, but for me none of the seasons have been as good as 1 &2.
Tonight was a great start. Govind Armstrong was the only chef that I recognized. I liked the partnership competition.
Glad to see the two oldest chefs win tonight. Susan Feniger surprised me. She seemed kind of wacky. But, she can certainly cook. Tony Mantuano showed why he’s Obamas favorite chef.
I’m not sure if they changed the scoring. I don’t think they added the quickfire stars into the final score. I’ll watch closer next time.
I hope they won’t have work in teams on every episode. I like seeing what each person can do on their own. But I guess they want two winners each episode?
Oh, and I don’t know if anyone else had been watching Shear Genius, but as the finale for that was on right before Top Chef, that winner was such bullshit. What a dumb show.
I think, and may well be wrong, that most of the episodes have 4 chefs. So in addition to being on late this one gave us the impact of 2 episodes. Someone must have a reason for wanting a specific number to compete, and doubling up this week was the only way to cram them all in to the allotted number of episodes.
I began to assume 3 or 4 weeks ago (I don’t remember what the challenge was) that they (the producers) were rigging it for her to win. I suspect we’ll see the premier of “Brig’s Big Top” where we get to see her spend her prize money on Bravo soon enough. Samantha got a show, and I don’t remember who won her season. I guess they wanted the biggest personality to win to make the marketing easier.
I watched the repeat last night. Something about the show seemed a little off. I couldn’t get enough of Top Chef Masters last summer. I’m not in any hurry to watch last nights episode again.
I think part of it was the chemistry between the chefs. Last year they seemed to support each other more. I recall one chef had trouble with a mixer and another chef jumped in and helped him switch it out. Season 2, the chefs were respectful, but I didn’t get the same sense of comrade.
The previews of Rick Moonen losing losing his temper with Ludo Lefebvre don’t help. I prefer seeing chefs of this caliber act more professional.
God, no shit. I can’t believe I wasted 10 weeks of my life on that crap. Not only has Brig never done anything special, but her runway looks were absolutely terrible. I can’t believe the judges fell all over themselves for that and kudos to the guy who pointed out the emperor is naked. It’s especially galling because Mathew, at least, is clearly 100x the talent and the professional that Brig is. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I was a bit turned off last night’s Top Chef episode, though I’ll watch again next week. I didn’t really like Govind’s attitude of “I don’t want to be paired up, I hate working with partners” etc. You’re not being paired up with some asshole from a backwater town who can’t cook, you jerk! And his partner was such a nice guy, too. I hate people with attitudes like that, especially when they’re playing for charity.
Chalk up another vote for no-partners. My hunch is that the phase one of the competition will have partners, but then the phase two portion; they will be doing individual stuff. I’ll have to wait to test that theory out though.
I also didn’t like that only one chef got to present the meal. If you’re going to pair them up, let them both be part of the pair.
I’m glad it’s back and will continue watching.
He had a bit of an attitude, but he was right. It’s fine for the quickfire (although that competition was completely pointless last night) but not for elimination. There was a perfect example of it in the show - the one chef (gay white guy from Chicago) cooked what was probably the best dish of all, but his partner served a soup with a limp chicken wing in it with the slimy skin still hanging off of it. The guy got eliminated entirely because of his partner’s failing.
We watched it at work when it wasn’t busy and we couldn’t believe how many times she was in the bottom and skated by to make to to the finals, at that point we figured it was definitely rigged and she was going to win. Then when they were falling all over themselves to praise her when all she did was put some cellophane on their heads and stick some hair pieces on and they thought it was art! I thought it was a hairstyling competition.
Yeah we won’t bother watching the next season, I guess we’ll have to find some work to do at work instead.
Yeah, like the other contestant said (I already forgot her name), as an art piece Brig’s designs were striking, but they had nothing to do with hairstyling. She basically just stuck a plastic hat on their heads. I also hated her entire attitude the whole season. “I’m so weird! Look how weird I am! Don’t forget I’m the weird one! Aren’t I unique and weird!?.. Why do people make fun of me? It’s like I’m back in high school! pout They just can’t accept my weirdness. Oh, did I mention I was weird?”
The quickfire winners get 5000$ for their charity, so it’s not entirely pointless. I prefer this way to the previous season, when a for fun quickfire like the tasting or dicing challenge might decide who goes on to the next round instead of the actual food.
I definitely didn’t like this episode as much as most of the previous season. I’m hoping that it’s just an invidual case, and doesn’t apply to most of the season. I hope Bravo has learned something from Top Chef Masters success, and doesn’t try to bring more of the regular Top Chef ingredients like forced drama into it.
It was a blast watching polite and skilled world class chefs cook great food in season1. The finale where Rick Bayless won is probably one of my favourite episodes of any reality tv series. It’s also a rare opportunity to see how the chefs work, as a lot of them rarely prepare dishes from the ingredients to the final product in their professional lives anymore.
I’m definitely not a fan of the group challenges and group judging, and I hope it only applies to the first episode. I want the chefs to stand on their own dishes, and not be potentially burdened by being paired up with an inferior chef. In this episode both winners seemed to have amazing dishes. However with this system it’s possible for the best two chefs to get eliminated if they get paired with the 2 worst chefs. If they insist on pairing them up, then at least judge the dishes separately.
I still love all three of the critics and Jay Rayner in particular. I’m not very fond of Kelly Choi, and I still hate the “pack your knives and go” bit they insist on including with the final judging. They should let the losing teams stay to congratulate the winners, and hear their scores. Being sent back to the kitchen to pack their knives seems slightly and unnecessarily demeaning.
Second episode aired tonight. This challenge put some of the more traditional at a slight disadvantage. For example, Thierry Rautureau is a well known classical french chef. I was surprised at how well he did in this challegene.
Carmen Gonzalez struggled with the QF and EC. She cut herself cooking the QF. Then left her stew in the kitchen. She lost an hour driving back to get it. She showed amazing creativity by improvising and improving the stew. Carmen won without serving her sides. Marcus Samuelsson won the other slot thanks to a fantastic Mac & Cheese.
This episode had some controversy. I’ll defer that discussion for later. Hopefully we won’t need spoiler boxes tomorrow.
