Top Chef - S8E14 Power Rankings

As usual, there's a lot of sneaky intel out there, but I'm endeavoring to keep this blog a spoiler-free zone. This isn't just for the readers, but for me, too -- I don't want to know what happens! As such, anything that's already been broadcast or has been posted on the official Bravo site is fair game for discussion. I will, for example, discuss the preview of next week's show at the end of the post. But if you've heard rumors that one chef has been hosting a lot of dinner parties, or that another chef was spotted boarding a plane to an exotic locale, please keep them to yourself.

So I almost had an extra special surprise this week. Remember when Mike said...

"To make pasta from scratch in an hour is pretty much almost unheard of."

...and then Antonia chimed by using the word "feat" in reference to their attempt? Yeah, that didn't sit well with me. I thought to myself, "Heck, I make fresh pasta from time to time, and it isn't that difficult to do it quickly." So I decided I'd set up the Flipcam, bust out the timer, and give it a whirl. But I decided to up the ante. Mike used a food processor, stand mixer and pasta extruder. I would use none of the above. Just an electric pasta roller and my hands. 60 minutes later, my kitchen looked like somebody had planted an explosive device in a ten-pound bag of flour. But there's no video posted for two reasons. First, something was really, really screwy with the sound, rendering it basically unwatchable. And second, I only got 40 plates done... because I made too much pasta. To make the kneading manageable, I split the work into two batches. When it came down to the wire, I only had time to roll out and cut about a fifth of the dough I had made. But even from 20% of my dough, I got 40 plates. So if I'd made half as much dough and not wasted the time on the second batch, I would've had enough time to roll out one full batch and get my 100 plates.

The lessons are twofold. First, Mike exaggerates when it comes to his own accomplishments. Which I'm sure surprises precisely nobody. Second, fresh pasta takes some practice, but it isn't the epic undertaking it's made out to be, which was the more important point of the exercise. Sorry there's no video to prove it.

Frankly, what I was far more impressed by was Richard's one hour Bolognese. When I make a big pot of Bolognese, it's on the stove for at least 12-14 hours. Now, it doesn't need to take that long, and even the way I do it would take a lot less time if I weren't making such a huge batch of it. But bringing the sauce along very, very slowly kind of comes with the territory when you're talking Bolognese. I consider it possible -- even probable -- that if I were to taste Richard's sauce, I'd consider it delicious but not a Ragu alla Bolognese. But I don't know. There could be magic in that pressure cooker.

I suppose I don't have anything particularly intelligent to say about the elimination challenge, though Top Chef's version of diving for conch kind of reminded me of Easter egg hunting with a two-year-old ("Good job! You 'found' one!"). And with beach facilities, what could have been an epic mess actually seems to have turned out quite well.

Some movement this week!

The power rankings are not purely a prediction of who is most likely to win, or an assessment of last episode's dishes, or a reflection of the contestants' historical performance, but rather a nebulous amalgam of all three, combined with a little bit of gut feeling, to provide a relative measure of current awesomeness.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Richard Quickfires 3 8 2 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 3 7 1 Watching Richard coming up just short challenge after challenge would be funny if I didn't actually feel for the guy. But even though I'm sure he disagrees, I thought he looked great this week. Pressure cooker one-hour Bolognese? If it even remotely resembles what I'd recognize as a Bolognese, that's a feat. And though vegetable "noodles" is by no means his innovation, doing them well enough to fool Colicchio into thinking it's actually pasta -- while cooking on a beach, no less -- is pretty freaking remarkable. It's been a long season of near misses... which is, I'm sure, a large part of the reason Richard's tied up in knots. It's not as though he feels his first shot at the title was characterized by the term "near miss" or anything. But near misses or no, it's been a long season of consistent excellence from Richard, and he's in the number one spot.

2 Mike Quickfires 2 5 5 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 2 6 2 But did anybody think Mike would be breathing down his neck, even three episodes ago? Mike's made such an incredibly strong showing in the first two seasons of the finals that I feel compelled to bump him past Antonia. As mentioned, the dude came PREPARED. And even if he exaggerates his pasta exploits, there's no getting around the fact that he's won both eliminations in the finals, and that Tom just declared his Banana Leaf Wrapped Grouper, Braised Pineapple and Conch Vinaigrette one of the best dishes of the season. Mike's transformation is just so odd though. We've seen chefs reenergized and prepared coming out of the break, but I'm trying to remember, have we ever had a finalist who showed up looking like a completely different chef? Just for kicks, I went back to look at all of Mike's dishes across two seasons that were solo efforts, and weren't largely dictated by the challenge (restrictive preselected ingredients, specific dish assignment, etc.): Olive Oil Poached Halibut with Wood-Roasted Eggplant Puree Scallop Crudo with Avocado Puree and Corn Nuts Arctic Char, Smoky Caper Sauce and Car Car Orange Potato Risotto with King Crab and Mascarpone Greek Salad with Cucumbers, Chickpeas, Olives and Poached Shrimp Sautéed Escargot over Potato Garlic Puree, Onion and Ouzo Broth, Lemon, Fava Bean Pork Gyro with Apple and Fennel Tzatziki Cucumber Yogurt Soup / Rack of Lamb Kabob Style Stuffed Pork Shoulder Skillet Asparagus with Six-Minute Egg and Green Romesco Arctic Char Tartare with Kalamata Olive Puree, Preserved Lemons and Harissa Sausage and Peppers, Mushrooms and Cheese, Warm Fruit Salad Whole Roasted Leeks with Onion Jus, Baby Carrot Puree and Fingerling Potatoes Bucatini with Bacon Lobster Carbonara Warm Sockeye Salmon, Eggplant Marinated Tomatoes and Pickled Peach Paella Stuffing Slow-Cooked Chicken with Pepper and Chorizo Stew, Pickled Onions Pan-Roasted Branzino with Black Olives & Caper Stew Pan-Roasted [Fish] Belly, Confit Cheeks, Charred Collar & Tomato Sauce Braised Pork Belly, Octopus with White Beans Slow-Cooked Lamb Chop, Cauliflower Puree, Turmeric & Honey Carrot Puree, Roasted Eggplant & Egg Yolk Spiced Lamb Kabobs with Mint & Chili, Feta Cheese Fondue Spicy Coconut Soup with Mushrooms, Scallions & Lime Fried Chicken Oysters with Mustard Gravy and Oyster Liquor Grit-Crusted Gulf Shrimp, Sour Cream & Chive Potatoes with Pork & Lobster Sauce Seriously, is there any indication that he might suddenly start busting out the kind of dishes he has over the past two episodes? Is turmeric in his S8 Restaurant Wars lamb dish and a coconut soup he made at Target the only hints that he'd do anything other than Southern European? I want to get out ahead of this a bit because if he wins, you know there will be howls that he must be cooking somebody else's food. And I think no matter how odd it seems, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it seems pretty clear that he isn't shooting from the hip here. We've seen what he does when he shoots from the hip. Broken record, I know, but Mike came to the finals prepared

3 Antonia Quickfires 2 5 3 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 2 7 5 No sooner do I talk about how the judging seems to be shifting, and Blais is talking about demonstrating a sense of authorship and Antonia's defending the simplicity of her food. I stand by what I said earlier about what seems to be a gradual shift in judging criteria. But for the finals, it's starting to look like they're pulling back to Top Chef tradition a bit, which makes the hill a little steeper for Antonia to climb. But even so, she hasn't been completely on her game since the break, and combined with Mike's surge, I'm dropping her to number three. I'd still rather see her in the finale, but these are Power Rankings, and she's definitely trailing the others in that regard right now.

4 Tiffany Quickfires 1 2 6 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 3 9 Well... she got a win! I don't mean to be harsh. I think Tiffany's a fine chef. And I also don't think we got her best this entire season. When she went on a run last season, she really looked strong. And if she'd done more of that, I'm sure she wouldn't be the running gag she's become this season. But the fact remains that her standing greatly exceeded her performance this season, and it seems only right that she won't be around at the end. It's too bad, though. I wish we'd gotten that late-S7 Tiffany, because that run was fun to watch.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE FIFTEEN SPOILERS AHEAD

Tonight's quickfire looks to be a one pot dish including, but not limited to, canned and/or processed food. It doesn't appear to be completely restrictive, so it doesn't look to be ridiculous. But it's hard to say. I'd call it a throwaway, except that it seems as though it ends up dictating how the elimination challenge shakes out...

...and for the elimination challenge, it looks like we're revisiting S5's Last Supper, wherein the contestants had to cook for big-name chefs, making whatever they would choose for their last meal. This was a fabulous challenge last time around, but a lot of it depends on the draw. First off, Antoina gets Morimoto. Which is brutal. Between Blais and Mike, I'm not sure who gets Wolfgang Puck and who gets Michelle Bernstein. We know Mike's been tasked with fried chicken and biscuits, but does that sound like a last meal for either Bernstein or Puck? Strange. I suspect the answer may be at the 30 second mark of this video, but I'll be damned if I can make out what he's saying.

And the elves are hard at work editing the previews to look like there's some sort of shocking twist dealing with another unexpected scenario. A two-man cookoff for the second spot in the finale, perhaps? Or a total red herring. Remains to be seen.

Discuss!

Comments

[Anon Man]

Nice wrok compiling a list of Mike's dishes. Can I borrow from the usual refrain about guys like Angelo and Dale and note that "Southern Europe is a big place", and say that taking on a big chunk of a continent shows some diversity?

Italy, Spain, Greece, Lebanon (remember he did Kibbeh, which I don't see up there, which has elements in most of the SE Med), they do tend to do a lot of fish, and he's done a fair amount. Shouldn't that serve him well on an island?

[Skillet Doux]

In cooking fish, certainly. But he's looking very much at home with flavors we've never seen him use. It just doesn't look like what we've come to know as his food at all. Not trying to cast doubt, I just find it surprising.

[Independent George]

You know what I find really impressive? The fact that Dom apparently has a Top Chef database that lets him search out Mike I's dishes over two seasons, filtered by challenge parameters. I think he should take over as Bravo's webmaster.

[Alamos Road]

Hmmmmmm....No video of Alex making his pea puree, and now no video of the pasta making? It's so hard to know whom to believe these days.

Maybe Mike I was getting some coaching from the Voltaggi over the break. Bryan is apparently an investor in Mike I's new restaurant.

[bryanD]

"I suspect the answer may be at the 30 second mark of this video, but I'll be damned if I can make out what he's saying"---skilletdoux

On the video Mike says "because Michelle would give me the biggest challenge". Mike:Michelle Bernstein

If Mike DID get to choose his diner (which seems apparent), his denying Antonia a chance to seek comfort in anything CLOSE to her historic comfort food zone, is further evidence that Bacchus AND Fate are smiling on Mike for these finals...(knock on wood).

PS. In Antonia's favor, my viewing of Morimoto's judging parameters across 3 food show franchises, show him to be a mild critic and open to any chef to "convince" him why he, Morimoto, should like what he might not "think" he likes, ie Morimoto will "roll" with spirit.

So maybe Blais gets Herr Puck? Hahahahaha.

[Independent George]

I like Richard, but I can't root for him for the same reason I can't root for Duke. Not that he's as Evil as Duke, but he's the frontrunner.

Or maybe I've got it wrong - Mike is Duke, Richard is NC, and Antonia is NC State. Yeah, that makes more sense, but I'm still rooting for State!

[Cheryl]

Dom - you pasta making story made me laugh...especially the commentary about Mike and his inclination to over dramatize himself and his abilities. It made me think of Iron Chef where Ann Burrell would always whip out a pasta dish for Mario in no time and make other dishes as well! If your experienced at it, it's like riding a bike.

[Skippy]

I so look forward to your posts each week! Thank you! I'm confused though. I though tonight would be the last episode, but it sounds like maybe not? Go Richard!

[Bart]

Maybe there'll be a Season 5-esque playoff. "You must win this quickfire and then you must win this challenge"

[doktarr]

Agreed with bryanD: it seems pretty clear that he says Michelle.

[Anon Man]

@George, remember that State stayed at home this year. So, I guess the curse of the Black Hammer lives.

[garik16]

George, State? Poor guy, suffering for five years under a terrible coach.

(I'm a Duke Grad :-P)

[larry]

i thought the surprise reward from the previews would be a spot on top chef masters (said something about there being one spot left).

[redpoint]

Call me crazy but I don't think it's that tough to whip up a delicious mock-Bolognese sauce in an hour. The pasta would undoubtedly have been easier to plate than the multi-component steak salad. To have each slice of meat be cooked to the exact same amount of doneness also seems challenging to me (but I am not a chef).

So if Mike could do this in an hour, how come he screwed up so terribly badly in the Rao's challenge?

Go Antonia!!!!!!!

[Independent George]

i thought the surprise reward from the previews would be a spot on top chef masters (said something about there being one spot left).

That reminds me of the old joke about BigLaw: it's a pie-eating contest where the prize for winning is more pie.

[Danny]

I think that I would reverse #1 and #3. I'm guessing that it is going to be a Mike and Antonia finale (the cooking cousins!). I think that Richard is going to psych himself out again and it seems from reading the blogs that the judges were over Richard's attitude - of course this could be their reaction after watching the show and not their reaction at the time. I definitely, probably, might possibly kinda stand by my perhaps correct prediction. I'm proud to put the wishy back in the washy.

[momjamin]

IGeorge -- Go Heels, Go Blais -- love your analogy, but I think Dom's bracket from the start of the season would look about like mine does going into the Sweet Sixteen ;-)

[Anon Man]

@IG, that's what they told me when they brought the partnership agreement in for me to sign.

[Cousin Sam]

Dom, I thought of you and your all day Bolognese when Richard said that's what he was making, and wondered how in the world it would be possible to do that in an hour. and now I know.. ;)

[Mahalo]

Dom

That was a clever pasta experiment --
Did you also try to plate 100 portions of grilled beef with salad within an hour, while Richard went out for a six-pack of beer? :)

[Allison]

While I'm rooting for a Richard/Antonia finale, Mike's performance in the Bahamas can't be denied. Hopefully, the other two will be better.

Agree with bryanD & doktarr that Mike has Michelle Bernstein & that Richard has Wolfgang Puck, also backed up by Richard's comment that unlike Mike, he and Antonia had to understand a different culture.

[Canuck]

IG, count me as one of those UNC-Blais fans! In your equation, would Tiffany be Wake Forest, the one who's technically there but never seems to do much of anything?

In any event, I'm excited for tonight's episode. I'm a big lover of Morimoto's cooking, and it'll be interesting to see how Antonia tackles it. I don't recall seeing many Asian flavours in her cooking, other than the shrimp toast in the dim sum challenge where she couldn't avoid Asian flavours. Morimoto is a whole 'nother animal, though.

Mike's food definitely looks inspired. However, it's not as if he was cooking poor, unimaginative food before. He's always been a good cook, but he hasn't always been great like this. I think the fact that the end is in sight is a huge motivator for Mike...before, he was cooking to not lose, but now he's cooking for something tangible. To borrow an overused cliche, his eyes are on the prize. Richard's clearly are too. I'm sure Antonia's are too, but the elves aren't exactly making that apparent.

I'm pumped.

[Mahalo]

From what I'm getting from the previews and reading the judges recent interviews, these next two episodes sound like they're going to be one big roller coaster ride!

[Kenny]

You pasta monster you ~~~ You know we want it!!

And you know, for Richard's Bolognese... he did lose.

But I admire your research into Mike's accomplishments, as well as your insights into it all. It's anyone's game, and tonight is going to be fun no matter what.

[Kenny]

@Mahalo Yes, they preview I saw ended with Padma and a small calling card, saying, "Do you rememebr this?" At which everyone visibly sank.

[Canuck]

Does anyone know of a place where I'd be able to watch tonight's episode online? It appears my reliable source has been taken over by NBC Universal.

[pottymouth princess]

@IG: I think Blais would be dook (note the correct spelling) :D Isabella reeks of State. My girl Antonia? Heels, baby!

Could it be possible that they pull a switcheroo in the middle of prep, leaving either Blais or Isabella with the daunting task of cooking obscure Japanese dishes for Morimoto? A Heelgrrl can dream, although I hold out little hope for my girl if she is indeed saddled with Morimoto's meal.

[attheapollo]

the big difference between this mike and the one from tc las vegas was a major elimination scare. when he was eliminated from season 6, he was cocky and so sure of himself and was SHOCKED when he was elliminated. this season he was sure he was gone and he was saved. a kick in the pants can really do wonders and it's apparent.

my money is still on blais (has been since casting, not to toot my own horn or anything...). he has proved that he isn't just a MG-bandit. when thrown into a situation where he doesn't have his beloved liquid nitrogen, he still exceeds. go richie!

[Kenny]

My $.02 in on Antonia. All the way!

[HF]

@Canuck, I hope this site isn't U.S.A. only (the domain extension is European Union, but who knows), and they won't post the episode till tomorrow afternoon EST, but maybe here...
http://www.fastpasstv.eu/tv/top-chef/

@bryanD, I need to repeat my comment from the end of the last thread (I didn't realize Dom had a new post up)... DAMN YOU!!! I was blissfully ignorant of that Friday "song"! |:^P

[HF]

Oh yeah, the nice thing about watching online is you don't have to suffer the "Only by Bravo!" guy.

[Kenny]

Hmmm... Antonian's... ?

[Robin]

In the conch challenge, my high opinion of Antonia sank a fair amount when she said she'd never cooked conch. Why didn't she work on conch recipes over the break, like Mike and Richard, when she knew they were going to the Bahamas?