Top Chef Masters Season 5 - Series Thread

[Dr_Doom]

@aktep

She was eliminated this week. And her reaction was about as you would expect.

Thank You.

[aceplace57]

Masters had been so good this season and then they had to ruin it with their stupid tricks. Sending two masters home for kids food? Seriously? That is just lower than low.

The challenge itself with the characters and kids was a lot of fun. I just cringed thinking a master chef could go home for jello. That’s just so wrong on every level. The edit monkeys sure faked me out with Douglas. I thought for sure he was on the bottom. Then he actually wins. Stupid edit monkeys. Can’t trust anything we see on the show.

It’ll be next week before they let us know which chef gets back in.

[MovieMogul]

Douglas didn’t win, but he was in the top 3. Neal (I think that’s his name; mustache?) won with the pasta.

Well, the double elimination was not really a double, since they’re giving both a chance to come back in a head-to-head challenge. Haven’t seen the next sous installment to see how that goes, but…I thought Bryan was toast because he was in the bottom 3 and his dish was so disliked. Seemed like Jennifer fared the best under the circumstances but I guess the judges thought differently…

[aceplace57]

I was hoping they’d take the chefs out fishing and then cook the catch. They did that in a Top Chef All Stars challenge and it was one of my favorites that season.

It seemed like all the chefs struggled getting the fish prepped in the limited time. It really impacted all the dishes. David Burke’s dish just looked terrible and it was all because there wasn’t enough time. Sang and Neal had the same problem. I hate it when the show’s challenge rules screws up the food. Even one more hour would have made a big difference in all the chef’s food.

They were giving Neal the a-hole edit this episode. Lots of snarky comments about David Burke. I started really disliking Neal.

[Palo_Verde]

I can’t help but think that when 4 out of 6 dishes taste bad, especially when you have some seriously great chefs, that somehow the rules of the challenge were messed up. Badly thought-out challenge.

[GovernmentMan]

@aceplace57

I was hoping they’d take the chefs out fishing and then cook the catch. They did that in a Top Chef All Stars challenge and it was one of my favorites that season.

It seemed like all the chefs struggled getting the fish prepped in the limited time. It really impacted all the dishes. David Burke’s dish just looked terrible and it was all because there wasn’t enough time. Sang and Neal had the same problem. I hate it when the show’s challenge rules screws up the food. Even one more hour would have made a big difference in all the chef’s food.

They were giving Neal the a-hole edit this episode. Lots of snarky comments about David Burke. I started really disliking Neal.

I haven’t seen the recent episode but Neal said some stuff before that made me dislike him.

[aceplace57]

Quite a shocker elimination tonight. It just shows even the best can have an off night.

This has to rank up there with one of the more bizarre Top Chef episodes I’ve seen. Mexican wrestlers with bird head costumes, some androgynous striptease, guys wrestling in skimpy spandex. It was one wild and crazy episode.

The Mexican food looked good. Except for the cow tongue. I couldn’t bite into that. Just not appealing to me.

[Palo_Verde]

So glad that Jen seems to have gotten a second when since being eliminated and coming back. Now she’s on fire!

Not too sorry to see Sang go, he was very aggressive to the people who work for him, and that’s such a turn-off to me.

[butler1850]

I’m many episodes behind, mostly because I feel as though I’m only able to watch half the show. The idea of a web series being an integral part of the television broadcast show is unacceptable. Web should be for extras and behind the scenes, but if it affects the outcome of the show, it should be on the regular broadcast. Make the season longer if need be. My home is simply not set up to watch video online, nor do I have much interest in it. I have an older TV with good sound, and being forced to either connect the PC to the TV (not technically possible at this time), or watch it on a small screen is simply not right.

I’m really disappointing in their choice to show only half the show, as I usually feel that the Masters edition is far superior to the regular version.

[aceplace57]

Once again the show just changes the judging to eliminate who they want. Under cooking meat (most especially lamb) is one of the cardinal sins of Top Chef. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many chefs TC has eliminated for raw lamb. It has to be at least a dozen in the past ten seasons. Every master chef in that kitchen commented Jenn’s lamb was undercooked.

So they send home a chef that had the balls to cook 60 souffles? Souffles that came out of the over perfect and suffered from the delay in getting it served? They probably were sitting there getting cold while that guy gave the speech honoring the teacher. Something poor David had no control over at all.

That’s pretty low, even for Top Chef. I hate it when they have crazy and unexplained judging like this. Maybe the edit monkeys just made it look like Jenn’s dish sucked? I certainly would have refused to eat that raw lamb. It makes me nauseous even thinking about it. I love lamb chops when they are properly cooked.

[StGermain]

@butler1850

I’m many episodes behind, mostly because I feel as though I’m only able to watch half the show. The idea of a web series being an integral part of the television broadcast show is unacceptable. Web should be for extras and behind the scenes, but if it affects the outcome of the show, it should be on the regular broadcast. Make the season longer if need be. My home is simply not set up to watch video online, nor do I have much interest in it. I have an older TV with good sound, and being forced to either connect the PC to the TV (not technically possible at this time), or watch it on a small screen is simply not right.

I’m really disappointing in their choice to show only half the show, as I usually feel that the Masters edition is far superior to the regular version.

I don’t know if they’ve done this every week, but last night’s Sous Chef Battle was broadcast after the ep.

StG

[StGermain]

@aceplace57

Once again the show just changes the judging to eliminate who they want. Under cooking meat (most especially lamb) is one of the cardinal sins of Top Chef. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many chefs TC has eliminated for raw lamb. It has to be at least a dozen in the past ten seasons. Every master chef in that kitchen commented Jenn’s lamb was undercooked.

So they send home a chef that had the balls to cook 60 souffles? Souffles that came out of the over perfect and suffered from the delay in getting it served? They probably were sitting there getting cold while that guy gave the speech honoring the teacher. Something poor David had no control over at all.

That’s pretty low, even for Top Chef. I hate it when they have crazy and unexplained judging like this. Maybe the edit monkeys just made it look like Jenn’s dish sucked? I certainly would have refused to eat that raw lamb. It makes me nauseous even thinking about it. I love lamb chops when they are properly cooked.

Gail Simmons on why Jen didn’t go home and David did.:

Bravotv.com: People liked Jen’s dish, but I think it sort of came down to the question of whether or not the lamb was undercooked. Even the chefs in the kitchen thought maybe it was.

GS: I thought the lamb was a little undercooked. I didn’t have a problem with it personally, but I know that’s a very subjective question. In general, I do think it was undercooked for the majority of people there and for how lamb really should be. It was just a little too pink in the center, almost blue. I think that was daunting for a lot of people. I also wish it had been more seared on the outside, that she would have developed a little more crust or char, which would have given it more flavor and also helped the texture. There’s a lot of fat on the outside of a lamb chop like that. If you don’t render it down, it becomes chewy and fatty to eat.

But the grains and fennel she paired with it were absolutely outrageous! I loved that she started with the idea of porridge and, just like Mama Bear’s, it was just right.

Bravotv.com: And David ultimately goes home.

GS: David made it to the final four and did so with incredible finesse. I’ve always known how talented he was, obviously from his reputation and from knowing him over the years. But this whole season he has impressed me for so many reasons. He’s a total wild man in the kitchen. You never ever know what you’re going to get from him; his creativity knows no bounds. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s fearless, has the best sense of humor, and he’s generous too – and all of those things are what you want in a chef.

His dish in this challenge was a soufflé. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he chose to do something completely classic for the first time all season, which makes me think he should always just be adding 17,000 things to food instead. He took a big risk because even though it is a simple dish in its components, it is a very complicated dish in its execution. You have almost no time between the time it comes out of the oven to the time that it has to be served, or it will collapse. They looked beautiful coming out of that oven in the camera. The issue for the soufflé, especially making it for a challenge like this, is he seemed to forget that we’re actually making television at the same time. In your own kitchen making a soufflé should never be a problem because you can control service, but you can’t control service with a television show the same way. We’re pretty good about serving the food as soon as it’s hot; we take it very seriously on our set. But things happen, and there are delays. You just never know. So David took that risk, and because everyone else’s dishes were so strong that day, when it got to the table, it had collapsed. The texture was a little bit funny, and of the four dishes, it was the weakest. That’s not to say that it wasn’t good, but it was just the weakest of what we had in front of us, which is how we had to judge it.

StG

[aceplace57]

A very good finale for one of the better Masters seasons. I couldn’t help but root for Bryan, He is an incredible young chef that proved a lot against these cooking heavyweights.

But Doug has more experience and there were signs all season that he is a better chef. He slowly and steadily began picking up wins all season. I’m really impressed that he prepped all that food day 1 without his sous. To overcome that and win says a lot about his skills.

I’m hoping a few of these sous chefs will be in the next Top Chef New Orleans season. We’ll find out next week.

[StGermain]

In one of the blog posts, they interviewed Bryan. I particularly liked that he thanked Graeme and acknowledged his help.

Bravotv.com: Anything else you’d like to add?

BV: I want to thank Graeme for everything and helping me along this journey. He is a big player in how we got all the way to the end, and I appreciate all his hard work day in and day out at VOLT.

Bryan really thought he’d won it. Apparently his beef dish was too beefy.

I’m happy that Green Dog Rescue got the money.

StG

[shiftless]

@aceplace57

A very good finale for one of the better Masters seasons. I couldn’t help but root for Bryan, He is an incredible young chef that proved a lot against these cooking heavyweights.

I was rooting for Bryan all season too. Was a little disappointed he didn’t win becasue I have reservations at Volt for this weekend.