Frontera Grill is one of the Obama’s favorite restaurants in Chicago, from what I’ve heard. I believe they were there sometime right before taking office. But you sure didn’t hear that from Rick Bayless. That guy is a class act.
Listening to the comments, I thought Rick Bayless was going to take it last night. As for the Quickfire, I don’t know what Anita Lo was thinking. it was obviously too deconstructed to compete against a bunch of classic (although gourmet) burgers. There was nothing burger-like about it.
The elimination challenge was really hard. I can see why with her dietary restrictions, Zoey Deschanel was happy to have a real meal cooked for her.
StG
I thought Lo was a goner but can’t complain about giving Art the heave-ho (nice guy but I can’t see him as Final 3 material, so it was only a matter of time). And props to Marin County for the win! 
My wife guessed the vegan challenge from the promos last week, but I thought Spike was a bit of a snot in the burger judging.
Unfortunately, all the drama-free positive vibes may evaporate when we have Top Chefers returning next week. 
Spike is always a snot. And I agree about both Lo and Art Smith.
StG
I was worried he wasn’t showing the Masters enough respect. Then I saw the promos for next week. Spike’s a saint comparatively.
I totally recognized Zooey’s mom from her part in The Right Stuff. (She was Mrs Glenn to Ed Harris’ John Glenn.)
As for Zooey, it’s hard to feel compassion for her dietary restrictions when most of them are choices she’s made. But she seems happy with them so I’m not going to hold it against her. I just won’t feel bad that she only eats raw vegetables.
I’ve been waiting for a long time for a vegan challenge on Top Chef, so I was thrilled to see it last night. Some of the food looked wonderful, and I’ll have to check to see if the recipes are up yet.
I wasn’t sad to see Art go, but I’m surprised that Anita’s dish looked so bad. I’m a huge eggplant fan, but I don’t think I would have eaten her eggplant, it looked awful.
My favorite cookbook right now is Great Chefs Cook Vegan, which features a number of the chefs who show up on Top Chef as judges, including some of the folks on Top Chef masters. I think, though, that none of the five remaining chefs had a meal in the cookbook.
Now that there are 4 chefs left, are there going to be 3 more episodes?
I can’t imagine existing on a diet such as hers, but she was a total sweetheart about all the dishes. She even had some nice things to say about Art’s dessert, which looked to me like a plate of half-melted glop with a piece of bark on the side.
On the one hand, I have nothing but contempt for veganism, but at least the guest didn’t seem to be as uptight about it as many. It’s just her choice.
On the other hand, as a cook, it’s a great challenge to really test your chops when a major portion of your repertoire is taken away. My roommate had a friend visiting and asked if I’d do a special dinner while he was in town. I normally do at least one three course dinner party a month. I agreed, THEN she told me he was a vegetarian.
Making a three course vegetarian meal when you specialize in French and Caribbean is hard enough, even though it turned out well for us. Making a completely vegan meal (that’s also wheat gluten free), even though it’s just one course would have likely completely stumped me even if I’d had days to plan. Then again, that’s why I’m not a Top Chef.
The look on Michael Chiarello’s face in the preview for next week’s show has me so excited to see it. I wish it could be followed by an elbow to the clavicle, but I’m sure he’s too much of a pro for that.
See, I think they should’ve told the chefs who they were cooking for, and how many people, and had them determine amongst themselves who would handle which courses … THEN told them it would be a vegan meal. That would’ve thrown them for a loop.
I’m glad Art’s gone – he was my least favorite. I was sure Anita was gonna bite it, though. Her burger interpretation was just crazy as all get-out, and she nearly blew it with the eggplant.
I thought it was very interesting. The two lifetime chefs*, Hubert and Bayless actually knew food that fit the bill and had no trouble at all. The two part time chefs, Chiarello and Smith were just guessing and substituting. Michael got lucky with it a Art got unlucky with it. But Michael obviously knew nothing about Quinoa pasta, and it very easily could have been a horrible disaster, just like Art’s Rice milk ice cream. To pick a main ingredient you don’t know and get lucky doesn’t impress me, I stick by my early prediction of Bayless and Keller.
*I really don’t know anything about Lo, but man did she look out of it for the whole thing this episode. I don’t know if it really was exhaustion, or she was sick or what. But the whole episode she had the same vacant look that some blasted on Percoset does, and her dishes felt like her brain was running a few cylinders short today. I’m excusing her from the analysis for that reason, but she is lucky to go on.
Lo is constantly making remarks about how she doesn’t feel comfortable with the challenges, doesn’t feel sure of herself, etc. Not that she needs to become an arrogant jerk, but she could use a little more self-confidence.
I’m still waiting to hear how Art made brittle without butter! They flat out asked him at panel and he gave a decidedly non-answer. Maybe they edited out his explanation, but I wouldn’t put it past him to fudge a little on the ingredients.
As for next week, I can only hope that it was part of the challenge for the assistants to be as non-cooperative as possible. I just don’t see why Dale would throw away his cooking career by being rude to a Top Chef Master. It would be career suicide.
From the look on Michael Chiarello’s face, it might not be limited to career suicide.
“Tonight’s Special: Short Ribs”
I usually substitute Earth Balance spread for butter when I’m cooking or baking and it works pretty well. I thought that might be what he used, but I do wonder if it has any soy in it.
Fixed your spelling. 
All along, my wife has been wondering why they don’t implement this scoring system into the regular Top Chef. It would be great to see judging with actual scoring going on, she believes.
I think it would be interesting too, but knew the reason they wouldn’t do that is threefold.
- Here, it really doesn’t matter who wins. The chefs are competing for the thrill of the competition. The producers understand this and the judges understand this. Cut who you’re going to cut, the show will go on and it will still be interesting.
- It’s really hard to game the system. Yes, Tom’s mentioned on many occassions that the producers have never asked for them to judge in X manner so as to keep a person on or kick a person off. So be it. But I’m sure there’s nudging and everyone knows what makes for good TV.
- No one can take past dishes into account. So if you’re the best of the best of the best and screw up royally one time, you’re gone. Points are points and it’s hard to give high marks to a dish everyone knows is crap just to get someone to stay.
And yet…I think the judges gamed the system anyway. Anita screwed up not once but twice and went from last week’s winner to what I thought would be a swift exit. But wait a second! She somehow manages to squeek by a half a point ahead of Art? Really? They couldn’t have made it a quarter of a point just for that extra nail biting factor? I think the judges wanted Anita in more than Art and determined what realistic point count it would take to make it happen.
So was Michael KEY-arello getting the douche edit, or is he really just a condescending jerk?
I don’t have a problem with asking chefs to chop a carrot, but the whole “what’s my name?” thing and calling Dale “young man” were not particularly endearing.
The “young man” didn’t bother me. He noted at the beginning how old they all made him feel, and why should he remember Dale’s name? All he was doing was giving instructions. I think Dale went way over the top with his pugnacious attitude. Suck it up - you’re a sous chef. Say “yes, chef” and get on with it. OTOH, his “what is my name” thing was weird. And the fact that he had less team work obviously hurt him.
Anito Lo, in the bottom again, and blaming her team, who weren’t responsible for her raw bar decision (mind you, she didn’t know they’d be stuck outside in th ebroiling sun.)
Good for Rick Bayless for graciously giving all the credit for the ice cream to his team mate. I was disappointed he didn’t win, although I’d like to see him step out of his Mexican comfort zone.
Hubert did an all-around good job. Congratulations!
StG
I didn’t like the way they handled the elimination challenge this week. I think they threw too many variables into the mix.
It was enough to have them oversee a team of sous chefs that they hadn’t worked with/trained, particularly given the time constraints and the challenge itself (a buffet for 200 people? Sheesh). To then throw the “whoops, we’ve gotta move everything to another location” curve ball was over the top, and then adding the “oh, by the way, you’ll be outside in full sun” kicker was ridiculous.