Speaking of which, anyone know if Bourdain is gonna be on at all this season?
Wasn’t the main challenge supposed to be family-style food? None of the offerings really struck me as family style, other than perhaps, that fairly frightening whole fried fish.
There were a couple plates of what looked like appetizers or even an amuse bouche. To me, “family style” is stuff like a shepherd’s pie, or lasagna and a bowl of salad, or a platter of grilled chicken and bowls of mashed potatos.
They were serving it “family style,” which is one big dish that everyone takes from. It looks like Eugene was really the only one that took advantage of that with the whole fried fish.
Eugene needed to go on account of that horribly grotesque contorted whole fish. I’m sorry, but that looked NASTY. Blecchh.
So I’m watching it now. In the Quickfire, Ariane is complaining because the judge is picking apart their desserts? He’s the judge. Its his job. And her cream was definately overwhipped. Carla reminds me of the muppet Beaker. I thought it was interesting to watch her deconstruct her dish and figure out exactly where she went wrong. So many times the contestants keep defending dishes that put them in the bottom. However, she’s outclassed. I liked Eugene from the beginning, but he just disappointed over and over.
StG
I agree about the way Carla reacted to the criticism. So often, the contestants have nothing to say about what went wrong, or what they would do to improve the dish…they just stand there and insist they thought it was good, or they just say “it sucked, what can I say?” What she did is exactly what they should do…acknowledge the problems and analyze how to do it differently. I’m glad she did that, because I like her & was hoping they would keep her around for a while.
Carla is not gone yet…perhaps there is still time for her to make a contribution beautifulagonydotcom before leaving 
With those eyes, chances are it would be remarkable.
I thought it looked great. Using bamboo skewers to make a fish look like it is swimmming is a Japanese technique.
I’ve liked Eugene from the start (maybe because he reminded me of BJ Penn), and I think he’s really creative, but he was obviously outclassed and lucky to have made it as far as he did. He’s not formally trained and only really knows his own cultural foods, which - fair or not - aren’t really renowned internationally.
Jamie is really getting on my nerves with her whining. My eyes almost rolled out of my head when she won and said, “finally,” as if she deserved it every time and was only just now recognized. She gives off an air, to me, of laziness, and seems like she’d be a pain in the ass to work for.
What’s with the “is there any saving this show” comment? It doesn’t seem to me to be any better or worse than it ever has been. The new judge was annoying but it sounds like that has already been taken care of (per Tom’s blog mentioned above.)
I must say the WMD comment was really cringeworthy. It wouldn’t even have been funny back in 2004 when it was relevant.
I didn’t make the comment but it feels that this season isn’t really as good as the last few. It might just be the people. Except for Fabio, none of them are very interesting. It also seems like there’s been a lack of group challenges. I know some people don’t like those, but they really show how people work together.
The people have never been the highlight of this show, IMO. With very few exceptions, most contestants have either totally sucked or been bland and boring. I watch for the food.
I actually like this year’s slate of chefs. For me, the nadir of Top Chef was the second season with Ilan, Marcel, Betty… what an asshole contest. I think they have done a much better job with casting since.
I won’t disagree with that. Ilan sucked so bad that by the end of the season I was rooting for that jerk Marcel.