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We are now down to the final five. Wait, seriously? There are still five? That feels like so many. Do you guys remember what life was like before this show? So peaceful and blissfully unaware. It was probably paradise I bet, and none of us had ever been bored by or complained about anything before. This is all brand new territory. Hey, speaking of paradise: WELCOME TO THE BAHAMAS! Ja, mon! Right? Ja, mon! Aloha! LOL! It does look nice, though. The whole time this episode was on I was just like, GET OUT OF THE WAY, MIKE ISABELLA, your face is blocking my view of the Bahamas! Big old Mike Face. How much do you think his head weighs? 40 pounds? 80 POUNDS?! Anyway, as the chefs show up for their first challenge, we see some of the show’s previous winners already waiting for them, and it reminds us just how many DUDS have won this fucking show. I mean, sure, Michael Voltaggio is my king, and that is why his name is tattooed across my midsection (because that’s where the food goes! What am I even talking about at this point?!) but Kevin Sbraga? No. HOSEA?! Thumbhead. As Padma and Tom and guest judge Eric Ripert explain, everyone will be cooking a pre-selected protein in a head-to-head contest against their season’s champion in this quickfire, and whoever wins (each pairing) will get $10,000. It’s mildly confusing insofar as Hosea’s head really does look like a thumb is sprouting out from between his shoulderblades three different people will win $10,000 rather than the quickfire having one winner. Ja, mon!
Cook cook cook. Thumbs thumbs thumbs. Heads heads heads. Tiffany crushes Kevin, no doy, with her pork stew with potatoes, peppers, citrus & allspice. Congrats, Tiffany! We should all be so lucky as to go head-to-head with Kevin. In a real upset, Hosea beats Carla with his braised lamb in red chili broth with olives & mint, goat cheese & rosemary polenta, but mostly it’s because Carla’s rice is undercooked. C’MON, SON CARLA! Losing a challenge at this stage of the competition for undercooking your rice is a dealbreaker, ladies. Season whatever winner Stephanie Izard (more like Stephanie DUDZARD) narrowly beats Antonia with her veal scallopini with tapenade & poached egg, but it’s really only because the judges can’t decide which dish they hate MORE, and so Richard Blais handily wipes the Caribbean floor with both of their shiny faces with his seared veal loin & braised veal cap with raisins, carrots, potatoes & mushrooms. THEN, in yet another upset, Mike Isabella takes the win from Michael Voltaggio with cashew dusted spiced duck breast with duck leg & mushroom jus. Really? Because Voltaggio’s dish (duck breast with duck leg in bacon vinaigrette, burnt leek & coffee pesto) looked like CLASSIC VOLTAGGIO. Since everyone except Carla beat their season’s winner, and she lost on a technicality, I think this whole segment was just cooked up to make us be impressed with these “All-Stars.” Sure. Wow.
For the Elimination Challenge, all of the chefs will be cooking for Bahamanian royalty (which Tiffany pronounces rowellty). Simple enough, right? WRONG! After everyone does their shopping and their prepping, they learn that what Tom actually meant was that they would be cooking for the cast of Treme or something. I don’t really understand what’s happening, other than that there are a lot of feather costumes involved. And the part that I REALLY don’t understand is that all of the chefs are like “Oh, shoot, I should have known” (should you have?) and then start complaining about how they miscalculated their dish. Wait, WHY? Excuse me, but as someone who is not the king of an island (yet) I can promise you that I would still LOVE TO EAT LIKE ONE! I don’t understand why their delicious foods fit for kings and queens are not going to be suitable for people who are not kings and queens. Do you really think that your dishes are so sophisticated that they’re too good for a bunch of “poor” “assholes”? Weird. Of course, what they could be talking about when they say they mis-planned their dishes is the fact that the kitchen only has deep fryers and a flat-top and so it will be almost impossible for them to prepare the “royal” dishes properly, but I prefer to see it as ELITISM and CLASSICISM. Yuck!
Fryer fire. High drama. Big snores. I do like when Tom walks into assess the damage like he’s fucking Donald ‘Shadow’ Rimgale in Backdraft.
Everyone’s food is “contaminated” and everyone is “upset.” Mike Isabella just “hopes [they] get to cook tonight.” Haha. Ease up, tiger. So, back to the drawing board. Everyone has to re-prep their dishes, but this also means that everyone can completely reconfigure their dishes, which pretty much everyone does, taking away Tiffany’s lead because she was already planning on making garbage food. So! Prep prep prep. Cook cook cook. Fry fry fry. Serve serve serve. Eat eat eat. Judge judge judge. Is it just me, or does it look like Eric Ripert owns a mansion just down the street and had himself rolled into the restaurant?
Total boss.
Because we are down to the final five, everyone is called in to the Judges’ Table. Can I tell you one of the things that I like about Richard Blais besides the fact that he is the best and that he should have won his season and that he should and hopefully will win this season and that every morning he dips his hair in liquid nitrogen to get the degree of hold that he needs for the rest of the day? The thing that I like about him is that he sweats it out every week at this time, just so nerve-wracked that he’s not good enough when clearly he is BETTER than good enough, and it seems very genuine and I appreciate it. He has a certain arrogance and self-assurance too, obviously, which he gets from his incredible talent and success, but he doesn’t have, like, the false bravado of a Mike Isabella, who, incidentally, won’t shut up all episode about how hard he is working, which I’m pretty sure he did in his original season, too? Everyone is working hard, Mike. You’re being a real bitch right now. Stop being such a bitch. Although, in his defense, the bitch wins the challenge with his sous vide chicken, mushrooms, yams, lobster sauce & lobster hash. Meanwhile, after Mike is named as the winner, both he and Richard just kind of disappear. Like, the judges don’t specifically tell Richard he is safe on camera because EVERYONE KNOWS IT.
So now we are down to Antonia, with overly-sloppy crispy shrimp & grits with cilantro & pickled vegetables, Tiffany for her overly-simple roasted spiced pork tenderloin, dirty rice, curried slaw & tomato jam, and Carla for her overly-sweet fried pork medallion with sweet potato puree, apple sauce & apple chip. Whatever. Flip a coin. I mean, Carla’s dish was the one with real problems (Gail’s pork was practically raw! What does Carla think pork is, rice?) but both of these women seem out of their depth at this point, no offense. I’m sure they are very nice! And I am sure dinner at their house would be better than dinner at my house (although I make really good burritos, so…) but this is not Top Dinner At Someone’s House, this is Top Scallop.
Goodbye, Carla. Hootie-bye.
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Gabe loves Blais so much that I’m starting to wonder if he is actually Fabio.
I’m sorry, but Richard Blais annoys the crap out of me. The whole “I hate everything I do” nonsense seems like an easy way to not take accountability for his work. If he really hated everything he ever made, why is he always so surprised when he loses?
So, Team Tiffany, I geuss?
Team Antonia!
She seems a bit too self-sabotage for me.
Seconded! I think it comes down to which chef’s food I would actually want to eat. Blais is certainly super talented and doing innovative things, but I get the feeling Antonia’s food probably tastes better.
He annoys the crap out of me, too! Why does Gabe love him so?
I’m rooting for Antonia or Tiffany at this point.
I’ve realized that I can relate to Blais and his insecurities. I hated writing exams and was always convinced I’d failed even though I’d done fine (I could probably win Top Exam (perfect analogy)). The stress gets to you, you guys! What I’m saying is, Blais and I should be in a low self-esteem support group together and he should cater all the meetings.
they did tell blais he was safe on camera. plus, he sucks and i hope he gets eaten by a shark next week.
Gabe couldn’t hear it because he was too busy floating away on a Blais dream cloud (made out of liquid nitrogen), head in hands, eyes glazed over (probably with liquid nitrogen).
Blais is a good chef (duh), but god he’s an ass sometimes. And you know what? I love Stephanie, the winner of his season. DEALWITHIT.GIF
Fucking every time with these recaps I get to haw-hawing and can’t stop. The shit with “Big Old Mike Face” was particularly #winning.
I miss the Voltaggio brothers so, so much….sigh.
this post is jamaican me hungry!
#culturallyinsensitivedadjokes
Why can’t we just let Blais be great?
So after the fryer blows everything up Carla decides to stick it to the man and just fry everything.
‘Bohemian rowellty.’ -Tiffany
At least she wasn’t serving him any pea purrrrayy.
Poor Carla – Hootie’s always been my favorite, and now the only person left to root for is Richard Blais. Unfortunately Carla seemed to peak at the mid-point this season and was having some real issues the last few episodes. The months off (the NY eps were shot in Sept., the Bahamas in Jan.?) don’t seem to have helped.
On that – it always seems odd and forced that they go somewhere else to finish off the final few episodes. Not only does it break the flow of the show, but any rhythm the chefs were in at the end of a season is potentially broken, too. In her blog, Gail mentions this is why Kevin Sbraga was able to win his season (and I’m guessing that idiot thumbhead Hosea, too) – he got in more “practice” he clearly didn’t have at the end of the regular part of the season. So I think a better way to do it would be to just keep going in their locales without a stop – a few more episodes, rather than travel to some weird location unconnected with the location for their season, and to let chefs keep the rhythm they had going.
Hootie-hoo!
Is there any chance Embry Lotus Blais won’t grow up to run a sustainable avant-garde doughnut truck in Soho?
either that or she’ll own a KFC franchise.
I think my biggest disappointment was that Top Chef All Stars still has another episode! Everything’s been crap since the Paula Deen episode.
Poor Carla. But to be fair, using the deep-fried raw searing method only for the judges portions and giving everyone else non-raw meat seemed like maybe not the strategy for winning/redemptioning.
Enhance.
Speaking of these Season Weiners….. why didn’t they just have them all come back and compete against each other and THEN we could all see some REAL shit go down!?
Let me guess…. it was just so Marcel could come back and harrass our eyes. UGH
Blais, why can’t you realize Gabe’s dreams of yours?
After two weeks of seeing previews of Padma looking FINE in a bikini, I love that Gabe is holding his load until the actual episode to let all his “feelings” out.
Ewwww.
Am I the only person who thought it said “jamon” and was really excited for a post about Top Chef cooking ham? This is kind of a letdown.
It’s not just you.
Mike’s head! What shape is it? It seems to take up more than my TV screen can handle.
Mike was sweating so much when he was cooking. Like, it was just rolling off his face and into the food. It was not good.
I HAVE to post that I really hate the shit Mike said about Tiffany, Antonia, and Carla only making it this far on an wing and a prayer or whatever, when he is such an ass clown from downtown. Knowwhatimean? His shit surely was NEVER better than any of theirs, except for MAYBE Tiffany’s.
Mike has always been the worst, and he’s crazy sexist. Like, I’m surprised how he doesn’t get called out on this every episode.
Also, it really bothered me how Antonia changed her dish after she found it wasn’t literal royalty they were serving. Assface much Antonia?
I totally agree with you. Why wouldn’t ANYBODY want to eat a really good dish? UGH You are so right.
Carla going home was rediculous! It wasn’t a fair challenge. It would be great to actually see the contestants compete when they’re all at their best, but it seems Bravo is determined to add unnecessary drama so we can watch talented people make bad food. http://foodiegossip.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-chef-all-stars-fire-breaks-out-and.html
Was the fire even an accident?
In defense of Stephanie Izzard, I ate at her restaurant in Chicago and it was great, I ate pig face, (PIG FACE!) and it was great so I like her
I wish there were Videogum recaps of “Million Dollar Listing” or whatever that show’s called. It has sucked me in this season. Very entertaining! And rife with moments worthy of Gabe’s commentary. This is the new hottness, you guys. I swear.