Top Chef - S9E6 Power Rankings

Oy... I don't know that I'm willing to call two consecutive episodes a tailspin, but whatever it is, here's hoping we pull out of it soon.

And it got off to such a nice start! With one (very) notable exception, the quickfires have been way more interesting than the eliminations this season, and the mother sauce challenge is no exception. It's culinary history, a skills challenge and a test of individual creativity all in one. Then, turn around and cook beef for 200 people. Is it really any surprise that the food coming out of the quickfire looked so much better than what came out of the elimination?

Many seem to feel that the caliber of chefs this season is way down, but I need to stand up for this crowd. I'm sometimes surprised by how perception in the comments is so different from mine. Is it because I'm reading the recipes? I don't know. But to anybody who thinks this cast lacks talent, go to the Bravo site, check out some quickfire recipes, and see if you still feel the same way. That's not a challenge. I'm curious to see if that changes anybody's mind.

No, the problem, I think, is that this crowd is playing it very, very safe when up for elimination. We've had two consecutive eliminations with embarrassingly timid food. The question, as I see it, is whether the judges start getting pissed enough to send people home for playing it safe. Whitney was too easy. Here's hoping they throw somebody off the island for doing a decent rendition of a really boring dish. They're starting to send the message. Here's hoping it gets through, otherwise this could be a very boring first half of the season. If the chefs start bringing that quickfire creativity to the big challenges, though? It could turn around in a hurry. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, what am I supposed to do with this field? Unimpressive wins, some noise from the bottom half of the standings, but little that seems to merit moving anybody anywhere. I wish I could punt on the entire episode. But here goes.

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 Paul Quickfires 1 2 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 0 I'm sure you're all shocked -- shocked -- that Paul retains number one. Some of these guys are going to come on strong. There's too much talent for that not to happen. But at the moment, it looks like Paul vs. The Field. For those unfamiliar with the fuss over a roux, the five mother sauces as codified by Escoffier, with the exception of hollandaise, are thickened with a roux, a cooked mixture of flour and butter or an alternate fat. This has largely gone out of fashion. Today, these sauces are usually thickened simply by reducing them, which serves to thicken them but also condenses the flavors and makes them more intense. It's not a question of right or wrong so much as a question of style, and it's unclear whether Fearing was probing out of curiosity, or to dock points if the sauces weren't prepared in the traditional manner. If the latter, it didn't stop Paul, whose Espagnole was scented with ginger, lemongrass and Thai chiles. Crisp quail, lightly pickled honshimeji mushrooms, sautéed okra and garlic scapes... his dishes continue to look fabulous.

2 Sarah Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 1 2 1 Sarah had a quiet week, but she's coming off a couple of strong performances, so she's going to hang out here. Though it didn't get any screen time, her quickfire dish had a nice look to it, shrimp poached in a ginger and saffron scented shrimp velouté, plated with sautéed fennel, leeks and toasted breadcrumbs. And her work on the gazpacho was regarded as safe but solid, which frankly put her ahead of the curve on this one. Plus, she's managed to completely stay out of trouble thus far, which is not a small thing. Treading water.

3 Heather Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 1 2 0 I should probably bump Heather over Sarah for the win, but I just can't. Frankly, I have a hard time giving anybody a whole lot of credit for that elimination. The fact that she was using Ed's génoise recipe doesn't bother me. First, she has to execute it. Second, here's the cake recipe, abbreviated: Whip six egg yolks with six ounces of sugar, sift and fold in the flour, add vanilla extract and salt, bake at 350 until golden brown. This isn't the Coke formula we're talking about here. Still, with all due respect to Heather, that has to be the cheapest big prize win we've seen on the show. I can't bring myself to put her at number two for working on a portion of that cake. Incidentally, I don't particularly want to delve into the whole question of whether or not her attitude is appropriate. One heavily edited challenge hardly seems like the basis to draw any conclusions in that arena. But whether or not her response was proportionate, I'm not sure her annoyance with Beverly was unwarranted. I know the snide comments about Beverly always doing Asian definitely are NOT. It's been suggested that she's just pointing out the truth... the judges may tire of that. It's true, they might. But it's all in tone. That wasn't concern, that was condescension. More below.

4 Chris J. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 2 1 Chris also falls into the "Yeah, he got top mention, but I'm loathe to bump anybody for succeeding in this dog of a challenge" category. I do not, in any way, mean to diminish the accomplishment of sending out 200 plates of beautifully cooked meat. But it's a bit of a niche accomplishment. Plus, I felt like I had him a little high last week after the cigar debacle. So I feel pretty comfortable letting him stay put.

5 Grayson Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 2 0 From last week's Power Rankings: "I'd feel a whole lot better if I'd seen her produce one savory dish with some finesse." Well, okay then! Charred corn ravioli plated with seared scallops and topped with a corn hollandaise and blueberry gastrique. I'd say that qualifies. I've been skeptical about Grayson given the look of her food in the first two episodes, but that dish is exactly what I was looking for before giving her a big bump, so there it is. Incidentally, can somebody explain why the judges are continually amazed by chefs who make pasta in small amounts of time, to say nothing of ninety minutes? Fearing seemed shocked that she'd made ravioli. One plate of ravioli? I could do it in 30, and I'm a rank amateur. Sarah must've been quietly chewing her tongue off. Not to take anything at all away from Grayson's plate, but while fresh pasta takes skill, it really doesn't take all that much time.

6 Dakota Quickfires 1 1 2 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 1 0 Dakota's all over the map. I realize we're only a few episodes into this thing, but while we've seen plenty of her, I still have no idea what to expect from her. A quickfire win and two quickfire bottom appearances? A top dessert and another that might have sent her home if her team hadn't won? Even odder is that the less confident she is in her dish, the better it seems to go over with the judges. Wild swings just means that you might win a prize or two before you flame out. We'll see which Dakota shows up next week. In the meantime, a small ding for the quickfire bottom.

7 Beverly Quickfires 0 1 2 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 1 1 Ditto Beverly, though it sounds like she simply took too many liberties with her mother sauce for Fearing's tastes. I'm heading into broken record territory, but this issue of a contestant "always doing Asian" really needs to be addressed. Does anybody think Heather would have said that about a French or Italian chef? Yet, in hitting Korean, Chinese and Japanese, Beverly's already covered ground more diverse. Heck, you could stay entirely within China and cover ground more diverse (it's... um... a really big country). It's sad how for so many, Asian cuisine is one big yellow lump that comes from... you know... East. Though I may be proven wrong, in sporting that attitude (which is thankfully becoming outdated), I suspect Heather's speaking only for herself and not for the judges. I think she may have a point about the shrimp, though. Beverly cleaned 400 shrimp. It's hard to say based on the edit, but it appears she went well into the second day working only on cleaning shrimp. It was two three hour chunks, so let's say four hours. 36 seconds per shrimp to peel and devein? That's not acceptable in any professional kitchen I'm familiar with. The question, of course, is whether Beverly took that time because she could, or because she had to. We'll see.

8 Edward Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 1 I want to ding Edward more for that bottom appearance, but a few things give me pause. First, who other than Grayson should launch past him? You could make a case for one or two of those below him, and I really tried, but couldn't quite convince myself of it. Second, even if raw potato gratin and medium-well ribeyes didn't already tell you all you needed to know, extended Judges' Table made it clear that Ed was in zero danger of elimination. My suspicion is that Ed was a surrogate used to send a message to the rest of the field. Playing it safe will put on the chopping block. And you can bet Ed won't do that again. Hopefully everybody else gets the message as well. None of this is to say that Ed isn't on thin ice at number eight, however. Reality hasn't lived up to expectations. The moment somebody below him gives me something to go on, he could drop like a stone. But I have a hunch that isn't going to happen.

9 Nyesha Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 1 Nyesha could've made a bigger jump if not for the quickfire failure. I'm not going to undersell the finesse that can come through in a really good compound butter and jus. For the butter, she actually roasted it with bone marrow, onions, wine, sugar, vinegar, garlic, thyme and bay leaves. This isn't just "take some soft butter and mix in a few herbs." Still, this is the first time she's made any noise, and top mention notwithstanding, I can't bump her more than this.

10 Chris C. Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 1 1 1 Well, that's something. His quickfire dish looks nice, though sadly there's no recipe to examine. Still, this is the first time Chris had made any solo noise, and the memories of last week's double bottom finish and cupcake smorgasbord are far too recent. Do it again, Chris.

11 Lindsay Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 1 Lindsay's supposed to be better than this. Her fellow chefs seem to think she's better than this. But she got off to a bad start, and she managed to rack up another black mark this week. Again, it's hard to say these things definitively, but it appears that she was the one who made the call to fire the steaks prematurely. That combined with Chris and Nyesha putting together some good food are enough to knock her further down. Although I will say that I really liked the look of her quickfire dish, which didn't get any screentime. She put a soft-cooked whole egg over polenta, then sauced it with a slightly vinegary hollandaise (not really a béarnaise) and a chorizo, celery and oregano salad. It looks great and I wish we'd seen a reaction to it. Still, with no coverage, it's anybody's guess how it turned out.

12 Ty-Lör Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 3 Let me say that I really like Ty-Lör. I like that he took what was probably the most difficult task head-on. I like that he did so while standing over a grill the size of a Buick in 112 degree heat. I like that this was despite having spent the night in the hospital. I like that he made no excuses. I like that he still saw the failure of execution as his, and I like that he didn't for a moment appear to consider throwing somebody else under the bus, even though he could have easily made a very good case that the failure wasn't his. But as much as this episode made me respect him, it didn't make me think he's in any better position to win this thing. Some chefs just seem to have a nose for the chopping block, and this season that chef is Ty-Lör. We're only four regular episodes in, and already there's a sense of inevitability about him. And this is only compounded by the fact that his food, even when he's not on the block, just doesn't look all that exciting for the most part. I like Ty-Lör. But I can't imagine putting anybody else in the basement.

13 Whitney Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 2 Yeah, that pretty much defines the term "no doubter." Six hours to make a raw gratin is an immediate ticket to the sequester house. Extended Judges' Table lends the impression that when it came to making the call between Whitney's botched dish and Ty-Lör's botched dish, what saved Ty-Lör was the fact that he'd taken on a difficult task while Whitney's should have been a breeze. And I'm really just flabbergasted by Whitney's choice to begin with. The fact that the cheese is a mix of gruyere, comté and parmesan is all you have to hang your hat on? If that's the extent of your creative expression, you're in trouble even if you do a flawless routine AND stick the landing. In her exit interview, Whitney talks about how the hardest thing for her was to think on the spur of the moment. And Acheson certainly had faith in her abilities. Some extremely talented chefs just need time to create and can't generate dishes on the spur of the moment. Perhaps Whitney's one of them.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE SEVEN SPOILERS AHEAD

Time for spirits! A tequila pairing is on deck, and... what's this? Ty-Lör calls out Southeast Asian as "[his] style"? Is this a Lisa Fernandes "No, no, really, this is my specialty even though I never bothered to cook it until the finale" scenario? Ty-Lör had one SE Asian quickfire dish that didn't get any screentime (Prawns in a caramel sauce, E4), but are we about to see a sudden shift in his food? It's unclear from the previews what's going on in the elimination (hunting game with Tim Love... thanks for filling in for my DVR, nomx3) except that it's a small number of plates and the chefs are paired off. Oh, and Heather and Beverly are together, so that should work out great.

Discuss!

Comments

[nomnomnom]

Elimination was previously shown to be some sort of hunting thing with Tim Love. Assume all the ingredients will be wild-ish game considering this was June and there are no real open seasons in June.

[Vncntdl]

Thanks for putting in the work, Dom. Agree that it was another underwhelming episode, but the upcoming double elimination should make things interesting. Based on past performances, Ty-Lor and Lindsay definitely deserve to be the next two eliminated from the island, but it seems to me that anyone from 6 to 12 could go this week w/o raising too much of an eyebrow. Right now, it's looking like a Paul–Heather showdown but I guess it's still early days.

[Skillet Doux]

nomx3... Ah, was that on the "next week" segment? My recording missed that this week for some reason.

[Anon Man]

For the record, Fabio got called out for always doing Italian, and Bevs first two dishes were Korean version of X, not "Asian take on X", so even if just doing Asia is broad enough (and it is), doing too many from one country is problematic (with the possible exception of China). Remember, Fabio the knock was he would only do Tuscan style, not Sicilian or Neopolitin (or, really, anything south of Rome, for that matter).

As to your broader issue about the talent: I actually think they are largely very talented and have some creative dishes - which we see in the Quickfire. Maybe it's the challenges, but the ECs have all sucked from a food perspective. I'm calling this the no Leann problem: they aren't giving the chefs reason to be more innovative and it shows in both viewing and cooking.

[Skillet Doux]

Anon Man... I'm trying to remember myself... who gave him a hard time for that? Did the judges? The other chefs? Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that nobody would ever call out an Italian chef for only doing Italian. Just that I doubt Heather would do so (though that's largely speculative). As far as Fabio's limitations, look at his Italian vs. some of Sarah's Italian so far. If Fabio was criticized, I suspect it had more to do with his specific breed of food than the fact that it was mostly Italian.

I agree that if Beverly were sticking to one Asian country, it might get her into trouble. I'm not convinced that it should. But the point is moot. If Heather can't see the range in what Beverly's cooking (good or bad), my point is that's Heather's shortcoming, not Beverly's.

[Anon Man]

I know Bourdain called out Fabio for not appreciating Sicilian styles or even Southern styles generally (as evidenced in the Rao's challenge), and he certainly had to fit comfort food and Asian food (Burgers and that odd-ball lamb and ricotta "Asian" plate in All-stars) into his Italian mold. Don't get me wrong, I liked watching him cook Italian, but it wasn't like I turned on the TV every week going "Wow, what will Fabio do tonight"? as I would with say Blaise or Angelo or the V brothers or any number of other past contestants.

I think we're in agreement that cooking only "Asian" food isn't really a grand criticism given the diversity of food there, and that there is perhaps a tinge of cultural blindness among people like Heather in making that complaint. But, where I think the criticism is valid is that I would expect professional chefs to be able to throw down both some European-and Asian-based dishes with some level of ability. Paul certainly can do both sides, and Ed too. And, Ty-lor is laying claim to proficency in both styles as well. Past seasons have shown people who have ability even if not their wheelhouse (Kevin S, Angelo, etc.) Let's see it from everyone.

[ally]

I also thought of Fabio when it came to the single-culture criticism. Regardless of the fact that all Asian food is not the same, a smart cheftestant should know that only Asian is not a good strategy for this show, because perception is 9/10ths of the law here.

Dom, I think only a couple of people said the chefs weren't talented. I think most of us just found the food to be boring. Which jives with your comment that they're playing it too safe. Just for a second last week, I thought they were going to eliminate Paul just to make a point that the food was way too safe. I think they've done that before, but I can't remember when. Probably not when the boring dish was in competition with a boring au grautin with raw potatoes after given 6 hours to complete it. :)

[ally]

Not Paul, Edward!

[mncharm]

"No, the problem, I think, is that this crowd is playing it very, very safe when up for elimination. We've had two consecutive eliminations with embarrassingly timid food."

This thought crossed my mind based on comments Tom made -- I hope that's true. The last two episodes have been disappointing, to say the least -- and I agree that there seems to be more talent here than what the elimination challenges are showing.

[Anon Man]

Since I suspect Ty-Lor is not long for this show, I want to add that I agree 100 percent with Dom about him. Class act; solid, if uninteresting cook. A guy someone will want on a brigade in the finals. I do hope he sticks around for awhile, but I have a hard time imagining how that's possible.

[rab01]

I think this crowd has talent and has been woefully underperforming in the past few episodes. Maybe part of the issue has been that there are fewer caterers in this crew. The last two challenges were in the sweet spot for a Stefan or Carla who knew how to give food a personal style without the benefits of a restaurant kitchen.

As for general talent level, I think this season is at least as high as any season other than 6 or all-stars (and way higher than seasons 1, 2, 3 and 5). Edward was invited to cook on Iron Chef America and won but he's sitting in 8th place among this group. That such an accomplished chef is sitting in the bottom half does say something about the overall talent level.