I can't watch this week, but you guys keep the postmortem rolling until I get back. Be back next week!
Comments
First and foremost, Chris With the Stupid Hair, it is the Kobayashi Maru. Say it right or don't say it at all. Also, it's a test of people's reactions to no-win scenarios, which means it's a perfect description of Restaurant Wars, but you totally didn't mean it that way. /geek
Can't really argue with the decision, but I'm surprisingly sad to see Ty-Lor go.
I almost wish the women's team had gone down so they could have hashed some stuff out instead of letting it continue to simmer, but ultimately I am glad that Bev pulled the win. I get that she is probably a pain to deal with, but the Mean Girl act from Sarah and Lindsey was just cringe-inducing. I don't know how much longer I can watch them shut her down at every turn and then blame her for everything that goes wrong.
Next week looks super-interesting, and apparently they don't have to work as an actual team, thank god.
My heart was pounding- I thought Paul might go home.
Sad to see Ty-Lor leave. This is actually the first elimination all season that's kind of a bummer. Now, if Sarah or Lindsay went home after the..um...fine leadership skills they displayed, I would have been fine with that.
Agreed Natalie. "Cringe" is really the right word. I think that what's happening isnt just then being annoyed by her, it's that they think she sucks and has stayed longer than she should have. In their minds, this justifies everything they do. And the praise that she garners, rather than cause them to reevaluate their assessments just makes them even more bitter and resentful. It's pathetic, and I don't think they realize how absolutely horrible they are being and appearing. In their minds, I'm sure they think they are being nicer than they have to be. Personally, I'd like to smack (verbally) both of them as well as the one who left several episodes ago.
The comment that jumped out at me most was "five hours of sleep and none the night before.". Seems like whatever team went first had the biggest disadvantage. Although the ladies also had some brain mistake during planning, like having one person fire both main courses.
Glad Bev won. Sorry to see Ty go. Glad Paul's still around.
When will these women learn that Lord of the Flies was a cautionary tale and not suggestions for how they should act at work? Lindsey has yet to cook a single elimination dish that has garnered any praise but she looks down on Bev? After the judges say that Bev cooked their favorite dish (and is therefore a big reason why the team won), Sarah has to make a point of complimenting Lindsey? At least Grayson gets it ... and probably knows she'd be next.
I can tell you exactly why Bev was in the weeds: she was preparing two entrees that had to go out at the same time. Where Grayson and Sara could alternate depending on the course, Bev got slammed with two entrees at once. It should have been split as app/entree, entree/dessert, app/dessert, with the FOH person's dish being something that could have been 80% prepped ahead of time instead of a la minute. They had an entire extra night to think about that.
There's clearly some creative editing going on here to make Sarah and Lindsey look worse I think - when the men come back from the Judges, the women are cracking up at some joke or other (at which point, humorously, they all immediately somber up as soon as they see the guys come out).
I just don't see them being so cheery if there really was that much tension.
Grayson is my favorite chef from a personality standpoint (I love a sassy, New York attitude), but she can also pull out two high quality dishes that uses simple ingredients w/ an unexpected flavor twist that works. Yeah, her lows have been really (dangerously) low, but she's had more successes than failures and, when given the chance to play to her strengths, can surprise the judges.
Gah, parts of this episode were really hard to watch. I wonder how Beverly is in her own restaurant -- for whatever reason, there have now been 3 chefs who bullied her and bossed her around, yet I have to believe she's capable of leading a kitchen since it's what she does every day. (And clearly she is capable of cooking delicious food.) I don't want to give the others a free pass for the way they acted towards her, but maybe this can be written off in a similar way as Mike I. and Marcel in restaurant wars last year - sometimes people just don't get along. I'm sure Beverly wouldn't hire someone like Heather, Sarah, or Lindsay in her kitchen, and vice versa... and maybe we can just leave it at that instead of turning it into a case of right versus wrong.
What I'm confused about is why Lindsay chose to do something as time-sensitive as fish once she volunteered for front of the house. Odd decision.
But anyway... on an unrelated note, how weird was it to see the guys standing at judges' table in street clothes??
My memory is off... in seasons past, isn't restaurant wars usually a 2-day challenge - that is, the chefs have one day for prep, and a second day for service?
It seems like having a second day to prepare mentally is a pretty significant bonus for the girls (even if it doesn't appear they took advantage of it). After the first night's service, the first thing I would have asked the boys was "How is the line set up? What did you do wrong? How would you change things?".
I think the better set up would be to give the team that went first an extra two hours to prep, and instead of drawing for the assignment, you draw for the chance to decide whether to go first or second. Actually, forget the draw - there should have been a QF to determine who gets to choose.
I can see Sarah now getting hammered on yelp in a similar way that Heather was. I think it's mostly editing but every time Sarah or Lindsay said something, Grayson would look at Bev and roll her eyes sympathetically.
Really happy to see Beverly win but really disappointed to see Ty go home. He and Paul were the two classiest chefs there.
Lindsey always seems like she is setting other people up to fail so she can blame them if something goes wrong. Bev cooked her fish, the asian BBQ was Paul's idea, there have been other situations like that before as well. If that team had lost she would have been out the door with the way her dish was received and her disastrous performance in the front of the house. She should have been praising Bev and Grayson for securing the win instead of acting like a petulant child. That stupid comment Sarah made at the end about Lindsey getting more credit was unnecessary, wrong, and bitchy. As for the episode itself it was a massive disappointment. The showpiece episode of every season and they hamstrung the teams on time, especially the guys. I can't believe they didn't take into account that the women had an entire extra day to menu-plan while judging the restaurants. Had Paul gone home I probably would have lost interest in this season as none of the other chefs left seem worthy of the title. Chris is just lost, Ed seems ok I suppose but doesn't impress often enough, and the women all have massive flaws. I would think Paul, Ed, and Bev or Sarah will be the final three but at this point I really don't know.
I agree about the Mean Girls duo, but I do feel inclined to defend Lindsay, somewhat. I think this is the first time we've seen her act this badly, right? So in her case, for the time being, I'm willing to hold off on passing judgment. (Sarah, on the other hand, is a repeat offender, and at this rate may soon even rival Heather for my least favorite cheftestant.) Lindsay, I suspect (or would at least like to believe), allied herself with the Mean Girls team of Heather and Sarah because, well, everyone needs allies to have their back (otherwise you're in danger of getting kicked around like Bev.) I just think there might be a better side to Lindsay, and here's hoping that we'll see more of that rather than what we saw in RW tonight...
Re. Last Chance Kitchen -- I know Dom asked that we wait before discussing it (wait until Friday, I believe it was?), so I won't go into detail. All I'll say is WOW, LCK just keeps getting better and better. This week's was jaw-dropping.
Bit of a downer episode. I'd much rather see both teams succeed. Lindsay seemed ill-suited to FOH. Wonder if she really has much FOH experience. She didn't seem to have much warm or grace in dealing with customers, even before everything went completely downhill.
The lack of sleep for the guys (which could as easily have been for the girls) I thought was too much of a edge to give randomly. It's a significant edge both in terms of being more rested, and all that time to think about dishes and planning/execution. If you want to do something like that, at least make it a contest to earn the advantage.
Hated the way Sarah and Lindsay were behaving, at least as shown. I can see that dealing with someone you perceive as a slow partner (I don't know to what extent that is really true for Beverly) on team challenges can be frustrating, but still no excuse.
A bit surprised at the Paul slip up. I could never tell in prior episodes whether he just appeared very easy going or really was that way (e.g., he took on a lot but didn't appear to manage teammates closely). But he realized he probably should have in this episode. Still very odd that he doesn't taste the salmon until the end. Yes, it appears Ty-Lor had primary responsibility for seasoning but it's still partly Paul's dish and he has some exec chef role implicitly. How is everyone not tasting each other's dishes? Or setting up an expediting system? Partly lack of sleep perhaps, but still.
garik16- I did notice that moment in the Stew Room and have hopes that once they all cooled off they got themselves under control again, but it just seems like the default position once a challenge begins is "bag on Bev." Creative editing is no doubt in play, but there were fairly large chunks of uncut/non-VO footage from the kitchen where they were very harsh in their attitudes,imho.
Agree with others that the setup for this RW was terrible, both in terms of giving some obvious advantages to the second night of service team and in terms of it not being very interesting to watch. I like seeing the ways different RW teams get things done (or not) in comparison to each other, and I felt like all that tension was missing this time.
Tom W, if we go back to the first elimination challenge, Lindsay and Sarah treated Keith and his frozen shrimp purchase just as poorly as they did Beverly this week.
Don't know if anyone followed the live tweets, but the #topchef hashtag went insane when they announced that Bev won. Most people were fed up enough with Lindsay/Sarah's behavior that the response was massive. Perhaps this is what Gail's comment foreshadowed, that Bev would transition from being overwhelmed by the bullying to overcoming it?
Also, if I knew where Tom Colicchio lives, I'd send over a truckload of coconuts. I get the point, and generally agree, but he is awfully hung up on names sometimes.
editing or not, Sarah and Lindsey were completely ungracious when Bev won (and I won't even comment on before and during service since that was just ridiculous). from the little smiles plastered on their faces when they announced it, Lindsey's little head shake when they went back to the stew room, and Sarah's obvious pandering to Lindsey. ick. makes we want to go put in 100 votes for Bev for fan favorite.
@Cici -- I did think about that as I was posting. But, if I'm remembering it right (do correct me if I'm wrong, because I've definitely been paying less close attention this season than past seasons) is that Sarah CLEARLY went at Keith harder than Lindsay did. Lindsay was (completely justifiably) pissed off that he bought precooked shrimp, but wasn't it Sarah who went all-out throwing him under the bus at JT, etc?
My main point is that Sarah this season has repeatedly behaved worse than Lindsay has (except for last night's episode.) So far, at least. I hope Bev doesn't keep getting pushed around by those two for the rest of the season...
The women's team was so baffling to watch. Sarah and Lindsay obviously don't like Bev, which, OK, maybe that's understandable. They don't trust her cooking (shooting down every one of her ideas), yet Lindsay is willing to let her prepare and serve her signature dish? If Lindsay felt they had no other choice, why didn't she choose a dish that was failproof to prep? What an idiotic decision. IG is right, Beverly was screwed having to prepare and serve both entrees, especially with Lindsay micromanaging her and Sarah treating her as if she were a 7-year-old helping Mommy in the kitchen. It made the win really satisfying.
And Sarah's comment about how Lindsay deserved as much praise for Bev's win as Bev did was 100% WTF bitchery. How does that even make sense? Major props to Grayson calling out bullshit when she saw it, and not just behind people's backs.
@Sweet Sue
Yes it was over the top on my part. It was late and I was tired. In my opinion all of the remaining women contestants have a flaw that will keep them from winning. Bev's mental toughness, although I hope she lasts longer, she seems very good. Greyson seems to lack the refinement and skill to win it, but she shows flashes here and there. Lindsay floats in the middle too much. Floating may help you last longer but eventually you will bottom out. Sarah is probably the strongest competitor of the women left, but she's been on a bit of a downward trajectory for a bit.
Ed's joke about how Sarah knows great flavor but, of course, her great weakness is barbecuing in the sun was freakin' hilarious. As was the little exchange between the men at Half Bushel, when Chris said cheerfully, "this is the best meal I've eaten since we've been here!" and the rest were like, "Aw,duuuude!"
Paula- And then Chris giving them a "What? It is." look while trying to soothe them. I really like Ed. He seems to be very real and very grounded, plus he generally makes tasty food.
This episode drove home two absolute TC truths- flavor over all, and never forget the salt. As much as it killed me to see Ty-Lor go, true class act that he was and is, it had to be him. Chris just did not do enough bad things to warrant being sent home.
On a related note, anyone remember Mikey from I think S2? The guy who's twice baked potatoes Bourdain described as "Absolutely Flintstonian in execution, but at least they taste good." I feel like Chris is some weird inverted reincarnation of Mikey. His food is never particularly good, and he is unnecessarily focused on technique over flavor, but he somehow seems to survive when other chefs fall. I doubt his streak stretches much further. Still, all I could think of, watching that guy making hideous dessert in the kitchen, was "How far did Mikey get again? Pretty far right?"
attheapollo -- small point of order -- that's a sassy WISCONSIN attitude, not NY. :) Did love it when she point-blank told Lindsay that her instructions on cooking the halibut to Bev were flat-out wrong.
It's disappointing when the personality issues are so strong that you can't help but be overwhelmed by them -- thanks, Lindsay and Sarah! -- instead of concentrating on the food. That's really a shame, because it looked like the women banged out some great dishes.
The guy team seemed to do fairly well -- seemed like the judges got on them at JT but weren't so dismissive at the table. Overall, seemed as if -- particularly given the difficult time constraints, the point of which is lost on me -- both teams did fairly well on the food quality front.
Unfortunately, all that was lost thanks to Lindsay/Bev. Yes, I'm sure editing is involved; but when Lindsay is abandoning her job to go yell at Bev, how much creative editing is needed? Irritating, to say the least. (Psst, Lindsay, here's a tip: maybe you should lay off the people who are cooking better than you.)
Paul still holds a commanding lead in my book. Ed/Sarah/Bev seem to be the only ones capable of knocking him off -- and then only if he's a bit off and they bring the thunder. It's happened before.
Has anyone else noticed that the comments at Judge's table seem totally incongruous with comments made during/after the challenges? Tom seemed relatively pleased with the food and service at Canteen during dinner, if not a little disappointed with some under-seasoning and misnamed dishes. Transition to JT, and suddenly all the guys "deserved an F" and were complete failures across the board. He did the same thing during the game challenge- the elk went from being "a little under" at dinner to completely raw at JT. Is this an editing trick, or do his criticisms become harsher the longer he has to think about them?
Also, the more I think about Lindsay, the more frustrated I get. It seems that ever time she has taken a leadership roll (the quincenera, telling Ed to fire the steaks at the Cattle Barons Ranch, agreeing to be FOH when she clearly was more focused on the kitchen and Beverly), it has not turned out well. Plus, her only memorable dish is the QF she won with the saltine sandwich....and that is not a compliment.
Considering the lack of time the men had to mentally prepare for their challenge, I think the service at Canteen ran surprisingly smoothly ( and much of the problem seemed to be the fault of the wait staff, rather than the lack of a designated expediter ). Smoother, certainly, than at Half Bushel - I thought that having the judges wait, ungreeted, at the entrance, serving themselves drinks, would have cost the women the challenge right then and there !
BTW, does it say something about S9 that the season highlights, so far, have come from LCK rather than the competition itself ?
TxGriff, my guess is that they have time to really evaluate the errors and point them out using harsh, over exaggerated vocabulary for the typical reality show audience member, which is why I look to Extended Judges' Table for deeper insight. But EJT got NERFED this season. They usually comment on one person for the majority of the time, a portion of which has already been aired. Really frusturating.
Pepperjack, Blais' tweet made my night.
nmcharm, I have to disagree. A New York attitude can permeate through anyone from any region if exposed to it long enough ;)
Alright, last comment of the day. Sarah's post-win "Lidnsay, you deserved more praise" comment was not only inappropriate, but it was entirely unfounded. Lindsay was in charge of two things, she she disappointed with both: FOH and the fish dish. Yes, Beverly cooked the fish, but Lindsay was ultimately in charge of the execution, and why did she choose a dish that had to be cooked to order? It seems that if anything, they should have been thanking Grasyon, who had two very well-received dishes. Really, I know this show is edited, but I simply do not understand where Sarah was coming from with that comment, other than to undermine Beverly.
I understood Sarah's comment remark to Lindsey completely differently than everyone else, I guess. At least as it was shown to us, they had just come in from judges' table where Bev got the win, Sarah's dish was praised, Grayson's dish was praised, and Lindsey got dinged on both her dish and the abysmal front of house performance. And she was clearly upset -- so I thought Sarah was saying that the judges should have said something nice to her along with the criticisms (since the team had actually won, so the front of house problems can't have been terminally bad), NOT that she was saying that Lindsey should have been praised more than Bev. She was trying to comfort Lindsey, not insult Bev.
Natalie, I'm glad I wasn't the only one shouting "Kobayashi Maru, you idiot!" at the TV.
Hugh's blog makes the same point made above about Bev having to fire both entrees. Yes, she was the natural choice to be fire the FOH dish because she only had one, but, then maybe Sarah should have been FOH and the others could have split up her dishes. But Hugh does address, point blank, that there is something a bit off about Bev's kitchen behavior. She is apparently slow, or rather, just doesn't speed up and he is shocked that she has lasted, but that the food is good. Even really good.
Hugh also has nice things to say about Grayson the Bullfrog. But his best line was something along the lines of: "good things the ladies had a screen blocking the kitchen view. All of that yelling would create a lot of bad Yelp reviews."
As for Ty-Lor: damn. Not that he'll win going out middle of the season, but he has my vote(s) for fan favorite. Class act. Even last night he was a voice of calm when the weeds grew in the kitchen. Liked the shout out to his family saying he was glad his dad could see him be successful in what he does as a cook. Nice stuff.
Now one huge nit as noted by NomX3. Not having the two restaurants running simultaneously gave the second team a gigantic advantage. I really hope they don't do that again.
nm -- I'm pretty sure Sarah was somehow trying to give credit to Lindsey for Beverly's dish. I'd have to watch again to be certain, but I'm pretty sure that Sarah said that Lindsey helped Beverly conceptualize her dish. What sticks in my mind is that after Sarah made the comment, Beverly started listing the different components of her dish that she (Beverly) was responsible for.
I thought the episode was disappointing: I thought the girls had a HUGE advantage going second, not only an extra day to prepare, but a chance to see what the guys were doing right - and wrong - and what the "bar" was to win. Surprised the girls didn't post an expediter. I managed restaurants for five years, and planted myself on the other side of the line most nights - checking that the food looked good going out, didn't sit there getting cold, etc.
Surprised to see the thread thus far hasn't really commented on whether Mr. Moto or Ty-Lor should have been eliminated. What the heck did Chris even do? It's not like he had substantial goodwill built up to date so that the judges could overlook one flub because they want to see more of him - I'm trying to think of a truly memorable dish he's made. I think it just goes to show you can basically ignore what any judge other than TC says.
I suppose Ty had two bad dishes, and Chris just one (that Tom actually liked). It's like the old Yogi Berra joke: "This restaurant stinks - the food is terrible and the portions are too small."
This was the least restauranty-RW I can remember. It really just came down to the food. The concept, service, ambiance, experience, all took a distant back seat.
There is another unfair advantage that is beginning to bother me. In the BBQ episode the contestants pulled an all-nighter in temperatures, according to Tom C., that were over 110 and at the grill 120. Thank the loser had to go cook against someone who presumably got a good night's sleep in an air-conditioned house. This week, was another challenge with an extreme amount of work and the loser had to go up against a well-rested contestant.
If they are not giving the PPYKAG contestant some rest time it seems that the person they are competing against has an extremely large advantage over them. That's not even counting the emotional toll that being in the middle of competition brings.
The ultimate winner will be competing against two people who are there because they succeeded at long arduous complex tasks while exhausted. Meanwhile they will be there for successfully cooking for up to 30 minutes while rested against people who have been run through the ringer. This hardly seems fair. I hope that we aren't being shown or told this but that the PPYKAG contestant is in reality given 24 hours of rest before comepeting.
I have never commented before, but the Bev thing is driving me to it. I understand the anger about the perceived bullying of Bev, but having worked with someone who had a similar personality I have to say I also understand to a degree the anger of the contestants when they have to work with her. I think it is pretty clear she is slow which in timed challenges has to put them over the edge. Also, the constant wide-eyed victim pose, leading to other people coming to her defense, would also lead to a rift between her and anyone else who wants or needs to confront her about any issues they may have.
I don't think the animosity towards her should be simply be passed off as a "mean girl" thing, and tend to think of it as a little sexist. If you recall last week, she did nothing to help her team, and although their comments were maybe a bit softer, her team did not seem thrilled to be working with her.
Jj, now you are manufacturing evidence against Bev? There was no drama regarding Bev last week and noone said she didnt help them at all. She was the least bad from that team. And i don't see her as playing the victim. She keeps trying to be heard, then she is head down and does her dish. Its just so typical that the loudest people dictate the narrative, even though what we *saw* from the actual *footage* was her working hard and remaining silent, head down when those obnoxious twits were talking to her like that. Ganging up on the perceived weakest link and playing mind games like trying to belittle them even when they're successful...sorry but she's not *that* slow.
I agree with the others that the girls had the advantage of cooking one day later, but it's hard to quantify how much of an advantage it was. It is what it is - at the end of the day, the guys still had to find a way to cook the better dishes and they weren't able to. Simple as that.
Sorry to see Ty go. I was hoping he'd crack the top 5, but it wasn't meant to be.
Really gratifying to see Bev win. It was pretty insulting the way Sarah tried to make it seem like Lindsey was responsible for Bev's dish. That was...odd.
And I don't think there's any excuse, really, for the way Lindsey openly said, "Bev f----d my dish" right in front of her, to Grayson (good on Grayson for giving it back to her), or the way Sarah tried to take the wind out of Bev's win in the Stew room. Oddly immature and hypocritical, given Lindsey's abysmal FoH service.
I don't want to get too caught up in personality, but it bugged me and affected the way I watched the episode.
Now having said that, I would have liked to eaten Bev's dish, Sarah's appetizer, Paul's "ham and eggs" and his pork belly. Those dishes looked the most fun to eat.
By the way, I'm pretty sure the bullying is backfiring on them. It seems to me that the judges enjoy giving Bev the thumbs up. I am SO glad Heather was gone for this episode, it really would have been unbearable to watch.
Chris is pretty lucky to have been able to squeeze by this time. I think if Tom hadnt kiked it, he would have been gone. And yes, it is strange to see how the judges comments go from "nice caramel sauce" at the restaurant to something about spitting out the dish at judges table.
I wonder if the two different days wasnt just for the benefit of the judges. Maybe they aleays think the order in which they taste benefits one of the restaurants in years past. I wonder what the statistics are for whether first or second restaurant wins.
@JJ -- Re. Bev, frustration at her slowness is understandable (Acheson's blog is on point in addressing that.) A patronizing attitude toward the weakest link may be understandable and human (if not at all laudable.) But a patronizing attitude is very different from the outright vicious behavior we saw from Sarah and particularly Lindsay last night, as well as the viciousness of your own post, frankly. Bev poses as a victim? Are you even aware of how nasty and vicious an accusation that is? Whatever the similar personality you once worked with and how that person may have consciously played the victim, I see zero evidence that Bev does so. There's no polite way for me to make my point, which is that I find your accusation to be on the same level as Lindsay and Sarah's behavior last night, another example of the cruel impulse to lash out at a convenient scapegoat when one is frustrated with a situation.
If Beverly is so slow and such a lousy cook - why didn't they put her in the front of the house where all she has to do is seat people and smile?
And then they give her both entrees to cook?
The conspiracy buff in me wonders if the other three were setting her up to fail; if we win, great, and if we lose, we throw Beverly under the bus. Too bad the guys stuffed it up, or it would have been a very interesting JT.
@JJ - I hear what you're saying. I come from a restaurant family and have worked in restaurants for most of my adult life. You hustle, or you don't make it. End of story.
That being said, if Beverly is the perceived weak link out of all the remaining chefs, how on earth did that team decide to put her in charge of BOTH main courses?!?!?!? It's idiotic from both a timing perspective and a common sense perspective. It's really hard for one person to put out two complex dishes simultaneously. And you never never never never never give your worst employee the most important job.
Let's not kid ourselves. Sarah and Lindsay decided their own fate here. It seemed that everyone got to pick what they were doing during the planning stages except for Beverly who was "forced" to pick a main course. (I recall Beverly saying, "I have to have a dish, guys," after Sarah shot down numerous ideas.) If they were truly concerned about the team, they would have given Beverly a (beet) salad and called it a day. Sarah - and to a very slightly lesser extent Lindsay - instead wanted Beverly to be the super sous chef they could micromanage to death. They have each shown this ugliness throughout the season, and I could not be less impressed.
I want Paul to win the whole thing. Ed wouldn't be too bad. I'd hate for anyone else to take the title at this point.
Based on what I've seen I think Bev would be much easier to work with than any of the screaming banshees. I'm not sure how Hugh came to his conclusions about her; whether it's from watching her in the kitchen or the Bravo edit but it seems she has reached some degree of success in the restaurant world so she must be doing something right. I try to be very calm and focused while I'm working so I can relate to her approach, calmness doesn't necessarily equate to slowness or a lack of intensity.
As far as i can tell, Acheson has been watching most of the show from his couch and then blogging, so his info has mostly been the same as ours. That he's drawn his conclusions on the say-so of these, ahem, individuals says a little something about him. He's just trying to be "funny" and fit in with the cool kids IMO.
I know someone who knows someone who knows Bev, and I'm told she was suffering post-partum depression during the shoot. Take that with the large helping of salt it deserves, but maybe that's part of why she seems so odd.
Bob, I don't see the conspiracy theory. She is, by most accounts, slow. I can't even fathom her in FOH, she gets so rattled. When the rubber hits the road, I'm sure they are exhausted and trying to get the food out. Make no mistake: I don't agree whatsoever nor endorse Lindsey's or Sarah's treatment of her, but in the "moment" can somewhat understand their frustration.
Beverly strikes me as amazingly naive or worse, passive aggressive. Anyone at that age (say, over 20) and a leader of a kitchen team should demand some level of respect. She doesn't.
On another note, I want to reiterate what many have said above about the difference of Tom's tone during the meal and during JT regarding the losing team. Wow! Is he posturing at JT? I thought that it was overly harsh, particularly following the last challenge which was a physical killer.
Sorry to see Ty go, for sure, and am glad Paul came out OK. Surprised about Sarah and Lindsey, especially since they manage a team in their real life. That is no way to manage successfully and reinforces their weaknesses.
Comment Tom made on Last Chance Kitchen says Nyesha has to beat three more chefs to get into the finals. So unless there's a double elimination left . . .that means five in the finals? Four plus Nyesha.
(1) Sarah's behavior is even more annoying than Heather's b/c she doesn't just steamroll over Beverly but tries to make Beverly see why the steamrolling is necessary. Her patronizing attitude drove me up the wall.
(2) Once again, Lindsay showed herself to be horrible at expediting/organizing a team. And her food remains unimpressive.
(3) Can't believe they kept Chris for another episode, after being bottom two for – what? – the third time.
(4) All-around depressing episode. Moreover, it was patently unfair that one team got an additional day to relax and prepare for the challenge.
In an earlier episode, she mentioned being in an abusive relationship that was hard to break from. How does that affect her against the abusive Heather and Sarah.
Anon Man - Ty-Lor hammered Nyesha earlier on. I do think highly of him, just that editing can make and hide a lot.
1. How is Bev's "behavior" so outside the norm that it has warranted anyone's attention besides people who need to find scapegoats when they're feeling insecure? Except for her crying in the first couple of episodes and being a spaz at times, i just dont get it.
2. Did anyone else laugh when Bev said oil and ... Herbs? Regarding lindsays dish and lindsay says, no, just oil. So typical for most of the chefs this season.
3. Regarding Tom's comments, maybe he's just getting elved. He says Ty made a good caramel sauce but maybe they cut out the rest of his comment (... But i wanted to spit out the crab) during the restaurant scene.
Just my two cents: it's understandable that certain personalities can be difficult to work with. It's also understandable to express discontent or get frustrated when you're already under a significant amount of stress. However, under no circumstances is it acceptable to speak to someone in an openly condescending and hostile manner, or call them "f*cking retarded" because you're aggravated. End of story.
I think Dom's rule for LKC was to wait until Friday to post, so I'm going to get the ball rolling. I have to say, I think I'm in the minority when it comes to Nyesha. I definitely think she was eliminated early (and unfairly), but her performance was not that impressive while she was on the show. Of course, I realize that one's performance on TC does not reflect the strength of the chef, but she always rubbed me the wrong way because she spoke very highly of herself despite a lackluster showing. I have no doubts she is very talented, but I think part of her success in LKC is because she has been the only chef eliminated due to circumstance rather than performance. Each week, she is facing chefs who were eliminated because of their poor performance, which would obviously shatter one's confidence. Nyesha knows she was eliminated despite putting out good food, so she has both confidence and drive going for her. That's not a criticism on her part (mojo's a big part of the game), just a reflection on whether her performance in LKC so far is due to talent or circumstance. Anyways, I like Ty-Lor, and I obviously have no idea what caused the friction between he and Nyesha, but it annoyed me how she repeatedly accused him and treating her poorly, and he only had kind and generous things to say about her. And I know- editing, we only see the stories created for the chefs, etc. I'm just saying, as presented, it annoyed me. But hey, both dishes looked awesome.
Glad Bev won, easily the best dish and an entree nonetheless. Oh Lindsay where to start? Had the girls lost Lindsay would have gone easily, terrible front of the house especially considering they had a whole extra day to work out the kinks. No "open kitchen"? Seriously? I guess that was a good way to hide all the dishes dying on the window.
More on Lindsay (can not wait for her go home), halibut with chorizo...yawn, even if cooked perfectly it was just an unremarkable dish, which is becoming a Lindsay trademark at this point, besides -and again having a whole extra day!!!!- how on earth if you are running FOH you decide to have the person working already entrees to execute another entree duhhhhh!!!! Especially considering that you and Sarah (who had the nerve to talk smack about Bev even before the challenge started as being weak, how dare her, I mean she just came of bailing her own team on the last challenge for not being fit basically) think of her as a weak cook, so much for that, she was busting her arse and if it wasn't for her either Sarah or Lindsay would have gone home as Grayson held her own and acted professionally and not like a child.
Chris should have gone home but Tom is protecting the show's best interests b/c they can not get rid off the molecular guy. Chris has not won anything yet and rightfully so, he is only a one trick pony, all about gimmicks and so far what it appears based on the judges critics, flavorless, uninspired food. One dessert? I mean seriously, both Emeril and Hugh hated it by the way, Tom had to pull really hard for you or perhaps made an executive decision to keep you around, with one dessert Chris should have manned up the expo, I mean like my fave NFL crew would say "c'mon man!!!"
Ed's comment was spot on, c'mon Top Chef, the guys had a serious disadvantage going first, in fact if considering that into the equation they should have won the challenge. I think as cooks we can always put up with the physical demands of the job no matter what (except for "strong" cook Sarah) but from a mental state especially creating, designing and executing a brand new menu is tough, hence the mistakes made by them, still Ty under seasoning is a good reason for any judge to send you home.
So, I watched the episode again last night (d*mn post-hockey agitation) and first, I now nominate Grayson for the "Decent Human Being Award" for her professionalism in the kitchen.
On the Sarah thing, her food is the one I want to eat most often, so I want to like her. But, after watching the episode again, Sarah comes off even worse. Sure editing is always suspect, but editing doesn't create Sarah using a tone with Bev that was as if she was talking to the junior garde manger, rather than another chef or yell at Beverly in such a way (with Lindsay) that Grayson felt compelled to shout "Stop". That's not editing. Maybe they were justified to yell: maybe Beverly is too slow, was doing something poorly, or other error; that's what the editing can distort.
As I read through the comments I noticed a lot of people justifying some of the behavior with possible editing.
I think there is a difference when the editing is chopped up, used from conffesionals, or other places. But when a scene like what happen in kitchen at Half Bushel is aired, all of that is just the plain truth, and we even have Grayson who witnessed it first hand and called them out on it. This isn't the magic of the elves this is the catty meaness of the women.
A team is not about identifying someone's weaknesses but rather playing to someones strengths.
I'm over it though. I was hoping the girls would loose so we could get rid of Lindsay or Sarah because it was their attitude and cattiness that brought the team down.
I'm also at a cross roads with Sarah, I tend to like her food but that attitude just keeps on getting worse, and the more it does the more she stands a chance to go home.
1) Going second was an enormous advantage - an extra day of rest after the BBQ challenge, a chance to mull over and discuss things, and most obviously, a chance to look at what the other team did and learn from their mistakes.
Why, oh why, did they not have a QUICKFIRE to determine who went second?? Mise en place relay, blindfold relay, whatever... this was a huge missed opportunity for a cool team challenge with a big reward, instead of a big fat hit of randomness.
2) Great analogy by MotoChris. With very rare exception, Restaurant Wars is an exercise in failing gracefully.
3) That's the second or third time this season that Grayson has come off smelling like a Rose just by being the counterpoint to someone who was acting in a ridiculous way.
4) It seemed like a poor strategy to have Lindsey do a tricky preparation of fish when she was front of the house, and this mistake was compounded when the execution of that dish was given to Beverly - who was also executing the other entree! We've seen disasters in past restaurant wars that were caused by giving one person responsibility for two hot dishes going out at the same time. (At least the short ribs were a braise).
5) Random thought - whenever someone does mussels, they win, and the other chefs complain about a simple dish winning. Why not do mussels in Restaurant Wars? It seems like a spot where a strong dish that doesn't take a ton of time would be in very high demand.
6) Watching the seamless use of sous-chefs in LCK (don't worry, no spoilers) right after watching Restaurant Wars reminded me of why Top Chef is such a difficult scenario for the contestants. In a normal kitchen, everyone has the exact same goal, and there is a clear chain of command. In any team challenge on Top Chef, there are significant competing incentives for the chefs, and there is no established chain of command.
I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about the unfair advantage the women had in going second.
It was a coin toss, it could have gone either way.
Apparently, the women's food was that much better-so much better-than the men's food. Good for them.
That's a pretty insane comment to make. The time to think and plan is a monster advantage in a timed cooking contest. You can schedule your own time down to the second in the 24 hours extra they had to prepare. Even if they weren't allowed to talk to eachother they could still debug their gameplan in their own mind.
To have that decided by the flip instead of a relay race or whatever other ways they have done it in the pass completely discounts the accomplishment.
I will agree with others that Lindsay is a Hosea starter kit. The only people I'm even remotely interested in following past this season are Ed and Paul but Nyesha also is starting to reel me in.
@Jackson, I don't think Tom kept Moto Chris in just because he wanted an MG chef. To be clear, I'm not speaking with any intimate knowledge of his decision-making process, but Tom and the Judge's Table in the past have made some very unpopular decisions and explained those decisions adequately on their Bravo TV blog. You should check it out, he'll tell you why Ty and not Moto Chris was eliminated.
It was a coin toss, it could have gone either way.
By that logic, Sweet Sue, they could just decide who goes home by a series of coin tosses. After all, they can go either way, so that's fair, right?
The point is that if it's supposed to be a test of cooking as opposed to a test of who gets lucky, then one team shouldn't be granted an enormous advantage by a coin toss. This really isn't a controversial idea, I think.
Yes, it's clear that the women's food was much better. How much of that was because they cooked with an extra night's sleep, after seeing what the guys did, discussing their mistakes with them, and re-hashing their plans? We'll never know.
1. It looked like the girls really didn't have more time to plan. They both got 45 minutes and I think they had to stick to their plans reguarding dishes, FOH and restaurant name. While the girls certainly seemed to have more time to think and rest they didn't have more time to hash out the master plan. It seems a little unfair but not as unfair as just letting them have the whole day to plan and go through everything.
I also would think that after the BBQ Challenge they would give everyone a day of rest. There are union rules that protect the crew and talent (even reality shows) from production. Otherwise there would not be any turn around time.
2. Lindsay effed up her dish. She can't blame Bev for the distaster. If she didn't trust Bev to do it then she should have asked to switch things around so Sarah could do it. Also that cooking technique didn't seem right to me either. She seemed to be one of the worst FOH that I recall. I can't even rememer if Radhika was even that bad.
3. Even though The guys got backed up I thoguht Ed did well with FOH. He was friendly even when there were issues and he did a great job of describing the dish to the judges.
4. Paul bit off more than he could chew and Chris did very little. I agree with Paul, the friendship part of the team actually caused issues because there was a clear defined leader, just a bunch of buddies cooking together.
5. While watching Chris with his Peanut butter I was thinking "Whoa, be careful that doesn't come out looking like Dog poop in a bowl.
6. Tom liked the taste of Chris' dish but Emeril said he'd never serve the mess in his restaurant. Over all it looks like taste won out over bland nicely plated food.
I don't see how it made a big difference as to how it was decided - whether it was a quickfire or a coin toss, it was still 50/50 either way. Assuming they went to the Palm Door the next day after the BBQ challenge, and knowing the first team cooked the next day after the challenge was announced, that was still two nights of sleep. Both teams had the same amount of time to plan and shop, and it's not clear what the women were able to do on the day the men were cooking - it's possible they were forbidden to do any extra planning (otherwise, you'd think they would have worked out the Bev's preparing two main courses and here's how you cook Lindsey's fish correctly issues). The men didn't seem to have any lack of confidence in their ability to execute regardless of the lackof an extra day. And in the end they both had the same problem with not figuring out how to expedite properly.
If the men had won as it stood or if the situation had been completely reversed, would people still be crying foul over the coin toss?
I could be wrong about this, but didn't the men have to cook the day the challenge was announced (as in, challenge was announced in the morning, then they had the rest of the day to plan/shop/cook)? If so, they would understandably have been exhausted cooking one day after the BBQ challenge, and I would consider the extra day of rest both a mental and physical advantage for the women. I haven't let the situation rile me up too much, since much of reality programming isn't inherently "fair", but I do agree that the cooking shifts should have been determined by a QF or some other type of challenge. The odds are always 50/50, but at least the advantage would have been the result of performance rather than chance.
I don't see how it made a big difference as to how it was decided - whether it was a quickfire or a coin toss, it was still 50/50 either way.
A coin toss is a random event, while a quickfire is a test of skill. If you win the quickfire, you deserve the benefit you get from that win. If you win a coin toss, you earned nothing.
Also, a quickfire is only 50/50 if the teams are equal, which may or may not be the case.
Your argument is sort of like saying that they should just decide the winner of the Super Bowl, or the presidency, with a coin flip. After all, it's 50/50, so it's fair, right?
If the men had won as it stood or if the situation had been completely reversed, would people still be crying foul over the coin toss?
If the men had won as it stood, I still would think it was dumb that they had a coin flip instead of some sort of quickfire, but I would also be able to say with confidence that it didn't have any impact on the result.
If the men had won the coin toss and won the challenge, then I would complain about that in exactly the way I am complaining about this.
"A coin toss is a random event, while a quickfire is a test of skill. If you win the quickfire, you deserve the benefit you get from that win. If you win a coin toss, you earned nothing."
Agree very much with this. I think the extra day is a significant advantage in any event but the biggest issue I have with it is that it comes the day after the bbq challenge. I haven't pulled a true all nighter in a long time, but the last couple of times I've come close to it, I've still felt really out of it even after getting sleep the following night. And sounds like they didn't even get a full night's sleep, which probably isn't that surprising given that they would have had to start very early the day of RW to fit it in.
"Also that cooking technique [of Lindsay's] didn't seem right to me either."
Agree with this too. Even if it could have worked in some hypothetical kitchen, it seemed like an overly complicated approach to leave to someone else who's preparing her own entree at the same time. And, as has been mentioned by many, it was just a crazy choice for a dish from the FOH person.
@ TXGriff - no, the planning/shopping was the same day, the cooking was the next day.
@ doktarr - um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic. they only decided who went first. suspecting that they do it but not being all that familiar with how they use coin-tossing in sports, I looked it upon wikipedia:
"Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. It is used widely in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially; these decisions may tend to favor one side, or may be neutral."
so yeah, it may have given them a slight (albeit not a significant one, by my viewing of how it played out) advantage, but it's still a neutral way of deciding. yeah, it might have been more satisfying to the viewers to decide by quickfire so whoever had it could earn it, but maybe they were pressed for time or wanted to give them a break by not further stressing them out with a quickfire and giving them more time to plan/shop. they didn't air any comments from the chefs (particularly the men) if they thought it was fair or not either before or after, so I'll continue to believe that it didn't really make all that much different to the outcome.
besides, no one here is arguing that dividing them up by gender could have given either team an advantage or not, which could have easily have been the case. In fact, it seems that would have given the men the advantage since on the face of it the men made a stronger-skilled team of chefs. as you said a quickfire is only 50/50 if the teams are equal, and since they might not have been equal then the coin toss is more neutral.
even if they had both cooked on the same day, one team could unknowingly have had an advantage determined by which restaurant the judges decided to go to first, depending on where the teams were in their service and how far they had gotten to working the kinks out (or not). and the only way to even that out is to split the judges up and send a group to each restaurant at the same time, which I vaguely recall they've done before but I don't think that's the norm.
chrish: "And sounds like they didn't even get a full night's sleep, which probably isn't that surprising given that they would have had to start very early the day of RW to fit it in."
sounds like from what? both places were in Austin, so they didn't travel. and they didn't cook, so all they had to do was shop and plan (and even that was within time parameters). so just in terms of resting, it still had to be one day and two nights minimum after the BBQ challenge. surely the men would have been relatively ok by then.
"sounds like from what? both places were in Austin, so they didn't travel. and they didn't cook, so all they had to do was shop and plan (and even that was within time parameters). so just in terms of resting, it still had to be one day and two nights minimum after the BBQ challenge. surely the men would have been relatively ok by then."
You're suggesting the men did not cook same day? Don't think that's right. One of the men explicitly said after service that they had previously had consecutive nights of no sleep (the night they stayed up) and 5 hrs sleep (night after bbq). I can't remember anything that is inconsistent with that that.
"um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic"
He was just pointing out the logical endpoint. No one here disagrees that a coin toss is random or "neutral", as per your citation to wikipedia. Indeed, that's precisely the objection. If the advantage becomes big enough (I realize you dispute the size of the advantage), then random chance plays and increasingly bigger factor in deciding the entire contest. If the advantage is overwhelming (and I'm not saying it was), then it is tantamount to deciding the contest by coin flip, which would of course be a perfectly random and "neutral" way of settling things. Just wholly unsatisfactory.
"If the men had won as it stood or if the situation had been completely reversed, would people still be crying foul over the coin toss?"
Of course! It has nothing to do with who won or lost the coin toss. It has to do with having a level playing field – or as close to one as possible. Don't see how anyone can defend the random decision (1) to make it boys against girls or (2) to decide who is going to cook on which day based on a coin toss. More than this, a QF challenge to determine who would be on which team – for example – would have added excitement to the episode (which mostly had drama of the negative sort). In general, the organization of the challenges has been awful this season.
Padma: "one team will cook and serve tomorrow, and then the other team the day after that."
after men's service: they all talk about the errors they know they made with seasoning, with expediting. no one says anything about not getting enough sleep.
after JT: Ed "we were going on, what, five hours of sleep? and nothing the night before." so that's five hours the night before RW cooking and nothing the night before, after BBQ service. granted, that's not much and probably didn't help matters but no one says they thought the girls did better because they got more sleep. the men fully acknowledge that they made a lot of mistakes and should have done better.
as to your other comment, it seems pretty clear the advantage was not overwhelming. no one made an issue that the girls did better because they had an extra day to plan and/or rest. the guys fully admitted they were hoping the girls would screw up worse than they did and didn't begrudge them doing a better job because they had the extra day. so while theoretically the whole thing could have snowballed from the coin toss, there's nothing to support your assertion that's what actually happened. as I said before, dividing them by gender was just as random as the coin toss and that could have also played into a bigger factor. the guys could have just as easily had an extra advantage by having the team with more skilled chefs, and clearly *they* thought they were the stronger team at the beginning for a variety of reasons. ever consider it was hubris that brought them down and not fatigue?
Vncndtl: "It has nothing to do with who won or lost the coin toss. It has to do with having a level playing field – or as close to one as possible. Don't see how anyone can defend the random decision (1) to make it boys against girls or (2) to decide who is going to cook on which day based on a coin toss."
don't get me wrong, I'm not defending either decision. just saying that in the end neither one significantly influenced the outcome (and probably cancelled each other out). and I agree with you that anyone who takes issue with one should take issue with both as either one *could* have created an unfair advantage. just as a quickfire could have, or a knife-pull. I think we all know sometimes luck is a often a factor in these things even though we prefer it to be about skill.
"after JT: Ed "we were going on, what, five hours of sleep? and nothing the night before." so that's five hours the night before RW cooking and nothing the night before, after BBQ service. granted, that's not much and probably didn't help matters but no one says they thought the girls did better because they got more sleep. the men fully acknowledge that they made a lot of mistakes and should have done better."
That's the part I remembered. I would suggest that one night of no sleep followed by five hours the next night is way less than "not much". I think I'd have a hard time being functional and would make lots of mistakes as a result.
I haven't rewatched. I'll take your word about what Padma said, but then it seems inconsistent with the quoted part from Ed. The zero sleep night is the night of the bbq challenge. Five hours is presumably the following night, after which the RW challenge started (unless it started the day of the bbq challenge, which would seem a little nuts). I had thought Ed was talking about doing service following the zero and five hour nights. I guess he could have been talking about starting the RR challenge, with service the next day. In thinking about it, it could take a full day to film shopping at both of the decor places and whole foods.
When men win (most) women say "congratulations"; when women win (many) men say "it's not fair, I'm tired, it's the wind, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the phrase should be "woman up."
There is ample evidence that the team that went first was grossly sleep deprived. If this is true, it was a huge disadvantage. Not acknowledging that it would be a huge disadvantage is ludicrous. Trying to allege sexism in making a logical connection is disingenuous and obnoxious.
Regardless, those of you attempting to minimize the advantage are missing the point: it's not about sour grapes, it's about trying to get the best, most even playing field in order to view the competition as purer test of skill. Handicaps, advantages. And rolls of the dice detract from that and inject other variables that aren't of particular interest, and the intelligent area of discussion revolves around whether or not the sleep deprivation actually occurred, and whether the ladies were able to leverage extra time to plan.
first day after BBQ: Padma introduces RW, both teams have their organizational meetings, and both teams do their shopping.
second day after BBQ: men's team cooks and serves.
third day after BBQ: women's team cooks and serves.
Maybe sleep deprived on first day -- but was same for both teams. Do not see "evidence" of sleep deprivation for second or thrid day.
The elves obviously did not have the extra time they have had in previous seasons for RW, where the show has been either 1q5 minutes or 30 minutes longer, so had to cut out the QF and get everything started fast.
Do not see any significant advantage or disadvantage to either team on the coin flip or girls vs boys decision.
When men win (most) women say "congratulations"; when women win (many) men say "it's not fair, I'm tired, it's the wind, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the phrase should be "woman up."
Seriously?!!!
I've been commenting here for four seasons. Besides food, my favorite thing to talk about regarding this show is game theory, and the third most favorite thing is logistics. You're really going to play that card when it happens to occur during a boys vs girls split (something everyone has acknowledged was idiotic), ignoring the umpteen times we've had identical discussions on other challenges? Or do you not think an extra day to not only plan, but also debrief the other team does not constitute a significant advantage?
Nobody here has said that the girls team did not deserve to win on account of better food. Nobody here has said that the men were in any way superior to the women. It's not a matter of making excuses for the men, it's a question of whether the challenge was designed fairly, which I don't think it was.
Of course, unfairly balanced TC challenges are par for the course. A far more unbalanced setup was during the seasons where the RW teams were determined by one person. But unless they kept the women isolated from each other, I can't see how am extra 24 hours to plan does not confer a huge advantage to the second team. It just happened that it occurred during an idiotic, TV-drama inducing 'boys vs girls' split (which everyone hated when they did it in S6 wedding challenge). I guarantee you I'd be making the exact same points regardless, and I resent it when you throw around an accusation like that.
Anyone who's been sleep deprived knows that it takes more than a day to recover; it takes several. The more days of rest you have, the better you function afterwards. The men were making mental mistakes that made no sense in light of what we'd seen of them previously. That indicates that their abilities were somehow impaired. Of course, it could have been for some other reason. But the simplest and most likely explanation is that they were still suffering the effects of the BBQ challenge.
And IG is quite correct above. Even were the sleep question moot, there is a very strong advantage in going second and seeing the opposing teams mistakes, so that planning can be done to improve upon and avoid them. This was not an even playing field.
Fist I find his blog kinda funny, perhaps at times he tries hard but I really like that his writing style is so different from Tom's. If it was too close to Tom's style it would feel redundant.
Secondly we've heard that Gail made reference to a transitioning point with Bev and in Hugh blog he likes compare her to animals.
He called her a slow Tortoise > Ugly Duckling > Swan > Cobra. If these is any indication as to where she will end up I say she's got a good chance at top 3 and with such a transition she's got be around at least for a few more episodes.
My memory may be completely faulty, but I seem to recall a season in which one team got along swimmingly right from the start (maybe the Four Horsemen season?), much like the men's team this time around. The planning went smoothly, shopping went great...but when the time came for service, the results were surprisingly blah and the competitors were caught off guard when they found themselves in the weeds. It makes me wonder if a sense of complacency and complete faith in your teammates ends up working against you in RW.
Again, the point you seem to keep willfully missing is that we don't want there to be "breaks.". "Breaks" screw up what we'd like to be a purer test of skill. The level of indignation on perceived "breaks" has been consistent over many seasons.
Lindsay - Preseason I was hoping she'd make a good impression on me, working and living in Florida I was ready to route for her, also her time working with Michelle Bernstein had me intrigued.
but and a big fat but is that I'm not impressed with her at all. The things I remember so far about her are:
* Throwing Keith under the bus (just a tad even though I agreed upon her frozen shrimp dilemma)
* Her QF win with the Vienna sausages and tuna saltine cracker sandwich.
* Getting anxious and firing Ty-lor's steaks to early
* Her freaking out on restaurant wars and being the worst FOH I can remember in recent history.
This is not a good track record.
and while Grayson seems to be learning and working the game Lindsay is just freaking out and blaming others. I think in my personal rankings I'm pulling grayson out of the basement and putting her in there.
There are all kinds of situations where the cooking is staggered. It is usual for chefs to start at intervals, so their food is hot and just ready when it is time to serve -- in the editing, the elves may make it appear that everyone is cooking at once, but I suspect that seldom happens.
Here, the physical room apparently prohibited simultaneous wars -- so, it was staggered. The women had an extra day to plan and observe, but
it did not seem to do much good in terms of process mistakes. They appeared to make their own share of process mistakes, just like the men.
If the men would not have made the mental mistakes with an extra night's sleep, how do you explain the mental mistakes made by the women -- who had the extra sleep? It seems this argument is founding upon the premise that the men were better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field." I don't think this will stand up.
Despite a boatload of mistakes by both sides, the women's food, on balance, to both the judges and the guests, tasted better.
Also -- I disagree that everyone accepts the boy girl split as idiotic. It was an obvious and fast division where time was at a premium. No more idiotic that dividing by right handers and left handers, or tattoos versus no tattoos, or drawing knives.
Mental mistakes by men's team are not "evidence" of sleep deprivation. If such, how explain the "mental mistakes" made by women, who had extra sleep? This argument appears to be based upon premise that men are better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field, which is unfortunately, baloney.
At the end, despite a boatload of mistakes by both sides, the women's food, on balance and to both the judges and guests, tasted better,
FWIW, I didn't have a problem with the boy/girl split either. They happened to have 4 of each and it's no less random than a knife-pull determination. It's not like it was obviously unbalanced talentwise.
As for all the sexism charges: I haven't seen anyone here say the men should have or would have won if not for x,y,z. The argument simply boils down to whether one team had an unfair advantage...which isn't the same thing as saying that team shouldn't or wouldn't have won anyway based on the food.
To not so subtly change the subject, what did you all think of LCK?
I suspect that Nyesha didn't really get a chance to know Ty very well during the short time they competed. The clip they played of him saying something like "put out good food or just shut the F up" I think probably was taken out of context, though clearly Nyesha thought it was directed toward her.
But wasn't she a clever one in her sous chef selection? She understood the power of Ty having worked with Heather before and eliminated that advantage. She was taking a risk with Heather's volatile attitude, particularly since she had just eliminated her. It took Nyesha extra effort to retain her leadership position against such a strong personality, yet she asserted it well.
I like her attitude very much and really hope she makes it through what now is 3 more challenges.
BTW, does that mean 5 chefs in finals, barring a double elimination?
When men win (most) women say "congratulations"; when women win (many) men say "it's not fair, I'm tired, it's the wind, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the phrase should be "woman up."
Seriously?!!!
I've been commenting here for four seasons. Besides food, my favorite thing to talk about regarding this show is game theory, and the third most favorite thing is logistics. You're really going to play that card when it happens to occur during a boys vs girls split (something everyone has acknowledged was idiotic), ignoring the umpteen times we've had identical discussions on other challenges? Or do you not think an extra day to not only plan, but also debrief the other team does not constitute a significant advantage?
Nobody here has said that the girls team did not deserve to win on account of better food. Nobody here has said that the men were in any way superior to the women. It's not a matter of making excuses for the men, it's a question of whether the challenge was designed fairly, which I don't think it was.
What Independent George said, 1000 times over. (Well, I don't think "battle of the sexes" was inherently terrible - it's one of those things I'm willing to accept as part of a TV show that wants to gin up fake drama, and no worse than the knife-block teams we get about half the time. But I agree with everything else 100%.)
I am game-theory obsessive. If you troll through my past comments on this site, you can probably find somewhere between 12 and 20 posts where I complain that a Top Chef challenge was configured poorly, and if they had done [insert alternative] instead, it would have been more fair. Suddenly, when I do this for the (13th? 21st?) time, it's because I'm sexist and wanted the women to lose? Seriously, what the fuck? (I'm curious, was my wife sexist because she wanted a quickfire, too?)
Literally every other Restaurant Wars episode, and the vast majority of Top Chef episodes, contain a quickfire. Most past RWs have related the quickfire to the elimination in some way - often by letting the winner pick their team or get first pick. Probably the best point of comparison was in Las Vegas, where the winning team got to pick which of two restaurant spaces they would use. That was certainly a less significant advantage than going second was this season.
The sleep deprivation is an obvious factor, but far more significant in my mind is that the women got an extra day to game-plan (probably before they shopped - I doubt they made the women leave their produce sitting for 40 hours). Even more significantly, then they got to see the other team open a restaurant in the same space, discuss what they were doing and how it was going while watching them, and then re-hash it with each other and with the men (who seemed to be pretty open about their mistakes) before trying it themselves. The advantage is obvious and enormous. It's the largest structural advantage any Restaurant Wars team has ever had, over and above the $200 bonus or choice of space or any of the other things that some teams have won in quickfires.
@ doktarr - um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic.
As others pointed out, you are taking me too literally. An advantage is won in that coin flip, and there is no reason to hand it out randomly.
It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has. In football, for instance, the effect of the coin flip to determine the opening kickoff is precisely mirrored in the kickoff to open the second half, thus making the effect of that coin flip insignificant.
The only time the coin flip in football really matters is in overtime... which is why the rules of overtime are extremely controversial, and vary in different divisions and even at different times in the season. I'm sure it would shock you to find out that I've gotten in long arguments on the internet about the best way to play overtime (I think Independent George has been involved in some of those arguments, too...)
Duffy, you are inferring things from my post that I did not state. I state that their behavior was inconsistent with what we've seen before. That implies that something was impairing it.
What I do not say is that if they had not been impaired that they would have won. That is your assumption you're feeding into my words, not mine.
What *I* am saying is that it looks like they were fighting with a handicap and I'd have liked to have seen a more fair fight. Who knows who would have won? But I would have appreciated the contest and outcome more.
And while those were the breaks for this contest, and while Top Chef has handed out unfair advantages on any number of occasion, I don't like those contests as well. I want this show to be about the cooking, not the gimmicks. And all evidence I've seen from this blog in the past four years is that most of the readers here feel the same way. That is the root of any indignation that you may see.
"Mental mistakes by men's team are not "evidence" of sleep deprivation. If such, how explain the "mental mistakes" made by women, who had extra sleep? This argument appears to be based upon premise that men are better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field, which is unfortunately, baloney."
What mental mistakes did the women make? The only mistakes I saw from them were on Lindsay's part -- she made several, from her choice of dish to her method of cooking to asking someone she felt couldn't cook to prepare it, to her ignoring the front of the house when her mistakes caught up with her. And Lindsay has made mistakes in judgement since the show's beginning, like firing Ty-lor's steaks early, so it's just her abilities or lack thereof.
The rest of the chefs on her team were in good form, and made good food, despite the attitude from Sarah.
But I do not know that the other team was in as good a form, because of the way the contest was structured, and I dislike that Top Chef took a contest that should be the highlight of the season and structured it in such a way as to cast doubts upon the outcome.
When men win (most) women say "congratulations"; when women win (many) men say "it's not fair, I'm tired, it's the wind, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the phrase should be "woman up."
Seriously?!!!
I've been commenting here for four seasons. Besides food, my favorite thing to talk about regarding this show is game theory, and the third most favorite thing is logistics. You're really going to play that card when it happens to occur during a boys vs girls split (something everyone has acknowledged was idiotic), ignoring the umpteen times we've had identical discussions on other challenges? Or do you not think an extra day to not only plan, but also debrief the other team does not constitute a significant advantage?
Nobody here has said that the girls team did not deserve to win on account of better food. Nobody here has said that the men were in any way superior to the women. It's not a matter of making excuses for the men, it's a question of whether the challenge was designed fairly, which I don't think it was.
What Independent George said, 1000 times over. (Well, I don't think "battle of the sexes" was inherently terrible - it's one of those things I'm willing to accept as part of a TV show that wants to gin up fake drama. But I agree with everything else 100%.)
I am game-theory obsessive. If you troll through my past comments on this site, you can probably find somewhere between 12 and 20 posts where I complain that a Top Chef challenge was configured poorly, and if they had done [insert alternative] instead, it would have been more fair. Suddenly, when I do this for the (13th? 21st?) time, it's because I'm sexist and wanted the women to lose? It's you who can't see past gender, not me. (I'm curious, was my wife sexist, too, because she wanted a quickfire?)
The sleep deprivation is an obvious factor, sure. Also significant in my mind is that the women got an extra day to game-plan. By far the most significant is that they got to see the other team open a restaurant in the same space, observe them in operation and discuss what they were doing and how it was going, and then re-hash it with each other and with the men (who seemed to be pretty open about their mistakes) before trying it themselves. The advantage is obvious and enormous.
Literally every other Restaurant Wars episode, and the vast majority of Top Chef episodes, contain a quickfire. Most past RWs have related the quickfire to the elimination in some way - often by letting the winner pick their team or get first pick. Probably the best point of comparison was in Las Vegas, where the winning team got to pick which of two restaurant spaces they would use. That was certainly a less significant advantage than going second was this season.
@ doktarr - um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic.
As others pointed out, you are taking it too literally. An advantage is won in that coin flip, and there is no reason to hand it out randomly.
It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has. In football, for instance, the effect of the coin flip to determine the opening kickoff is precisely mirrored in the kickoff to open the second half, thus making the effect of that coin flip insignificant.
The only time the coin flip in football really matters is in overtime... which is why the rules of overtime are extremely controversial, and vary in different divisions and even at different times in the season. I'm sure it would shock you to find out that I've gotten in long arguments on the internet about the best way to play overtime (I think Independent George has been involved in some of those arguments, too...)
Absolutely agree that gimmicks detract. But that said, staggering the cooking time is not a gimmick. It is a reality of every contest where you have multiple chefs and the physical set up prevents head-to-head work.
Here, the planning and shopping, being items of major importance, were on the same day, head-to-head. No advantage either way. Then, one side did get to watch the other in their process steps of operating the kitchen, but it seemed to make little difference -- the women made their own set of process mistakes -- some in exactly the same area as the men -- when their turn came.
In the end, it came down to taste -- not process -- which had nothing to do with the extra day.
As someone who works 24 hour plus shift and spend my life in a constant state of sleep depriavation, I feel more than qualified to have an opinion. One night of sleep after being up for a zillion hours is not enougth to recuperate. This means the girls team totally had an advantage by having an extra day of sleep to catch up.
And as for Sweet Sue, seriously get some help. You seem to be a very angry and unhappy person and your comments seem to be contentious just for the sake of being contentious. Dom set up this site for a forum for people to share a love of food and conversation regarding the show - not a personal diatribe which you seem to launch on to on a regular basis. Play nice with the other kids or get out of the sandbox!!!!
I assume that was addressed to me. I'm going to be a lady and just say that you may disagree with every opinion that I express and that's just fine. It's part of what makes the post mortem fun but it's a real stretch to accuse someone who's been here for three or four seasons of "trolling" just because you disagree-even-vehemently-with her.
As Dom is on a self-imposed blackout, I have pasted in a slightly modified version of his post from the ep 9 post-mortem. Can we all agree with this and move on to the LCK thread?
*TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET*
Hokay, folks... let me say that:
Let's give this one a rest and move on, please... thanks!
Giving myself the last word is kind of lame, I know. But hey, it's my blog :-)
Posted by: Skillet Doux | January 8, 2012 at 03:40 PM
Seriously Sweet Sue, just stop. Your comments & opinons are not "fun" to use your own words. They come across as angry, petty and mean and not even remotly "ladylike" as tiy describe yourself. Please particpate on this board in the spirit it was created... a celebration of food and not the snark fest that you seem to spew every time you post... again... play nice or go away!
All I can say is, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to next week's episode, Charlize Theron notwithstanding. Some of that food looked pretty macabre. It's too bad Theron's promoting a sci fi horror flick instead of a movie about a restaurant. :)
@doktarr: Jen C did mussels in Season 6 RW and went down in flames. Probably scared everyone else off from going the mussels route.
Both teams' principal mistake seemed to be the failure to designate an expediter. In the women's case, it mostly affected FOH and service. In the men's case, it seemed to mostly fluster Paul and Ty-lor, who produced the weakest dishes.
Where's Grayson to shout "STOP! STOP!" when you need her?
Seriously, guys, can we please get back on topic? Reading this thread went from an enjoyable banter about game theory with mild elf-bashing to uncomfortable, cringeworthy posts attacking other posters that ruin this forum for the rest of us.
Now for something TC-related: several people earlier have stated that they would be upset if Paul or Ed don't win the title, but I wouldn't mind if Bev, Sarah, or anyone else take home the proverbial crown, as long as the food is at a high level. Judging by the past few episodes (not counting Texas BBQ), the chefs have stepped it up considerably and I can only hope this upward trend continues. Paul's definitely the #1 seed, but I won't be surprised in the least if Bev, Sarah, or Ed (or even Chris J.) pull the rug out from under Paul's feet.
Paul has definitely dominated the season so far, but Bev, Sarah, or Ed winning wouldn't be bad. Hosea and Kevin were both probably bigger upset winners than they would be.
lol, this is way more fun than that meme that ran on here about how carrot tops (The food, not the prop comic) will kill us all and eat our children from a few years back.
It sort of covers up just how little there really is to get excited about this season that the challenge format is the only real drama.
doktarr: "It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has."
it wasn't seemingly, I don't follow sports which is why I looked it up first. although I noticed the article said that the coin toss is often significant in cricket and can influence the outcome. so that was my piece of sports trivia for the day. ;)
So we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the option of who got the extra day was arbitrary or not. I think in the end that's how it played out as there was little evidence provided to suggest that anyone felt the sleep deprivation was a factor. The challenge could have been structured better, of course the challenges often aren't optimally structured so it is what it is.
"Judging by the past few episodes (not counting Texas BBQ), the chefs have stepped it up considerably and I can only hope this upward trend continues. Paul's definitely the #1 seed, but I won't be surprised in the least if Bev, Sarah, or Ed (or even Chris J.) pull the rug out from under Paul's feet."
Agreed attheapollo. And while I'm not fond of Bev or Sarah on a personality basis, if they start stepping it up with great looking food, I'll be more than happy to jump on board their train. Sarah, at least seems smart and her execution reasonably crisp...I just haven't been excited by her flavor profiles.
But honestly, I think my expectations were just raised so high with the Voltaggio's, Jen, and Pork Jesus...it's hard for other seasons to compete.
That magical season six sure did ruin Top Chef for future competitions. It really has been hard to work up much interest in the food during the past couple of (non-all-star) seasons. It just seems so...mundane.
I'm gonna go ahead and predict that Beverly makes it to the finals. Now that the season is moving towards individual rather than team challenges, and Bev can just do her thing without being bullied, we'll finally see what she can do.
I think that our recollections of Season 6 are so dominated by the Four Horsemen that it's easy to forget that the rest of the pack was really, really weak. Eve, Preeti, Ash, Ron, Mattin, etc? Except for the four standouts (which in my opinion were really three - I always thought that Jen was alone in Tier 2 of that season's chefs), it's not like Season 6 had a stunningly talented cast. I'd say that this season's median chef is probably at least as skilled as the median chef of any other season, including 6.
I like Beverly and have actually loved her focus on pan-Asian flavors. So far she's incorporated ingredients and flavor profiles from Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, India... others? That's a pretty good variety. And even her weak dishes have for the most part suffered from lack of ambition, rather than not tasting good. Unless she screws up majorly in the next couple of episodes, I'd have no problem at all with having her in the finale.
The early season haircut from 26? to 16? helped deal with the preeti issue. It probably brought up the median to some extent, but the real mark of a bad season is a OH NOES moment when someone leaves far before the preeti's of the world.
Since they expanded the contest to it's size now (S3 on) I'd probably say if you took the Final 10 as an average I'd rate them
Season 3 - IMO the highest Median by FAR to date.
Season 5 - Most underrated season talent wise
Season 6 - Top heavy enough to carry the rest
Season 7 - I can barely recall anyone I'd ever care about hearing from ever again that didn't make the finals.
Season 4 - This was a 2 horse race. The rest were glue factory bound. Yet nobody ever really points that out when discussing Lisa's showing.
Ed - Except for S2, we tend to forget the unpleasant "drama" of a season as it recedes into the rear-view mirror. Season 6 spent a ton of airtime on frictions between Robin and Mike and then Robin and Eli because the producers thought that the Volts were boring. For me, that focus detracted from the "magic" of season 6.
3Nom - I probably enjoyed S4 more than any season other than all-stars so I'm biased. But, I object to calling a season that also had Antonia, Dale Talde, and Jen a 2-horse race. It also had the Aussie who looked good early and Andrew, who made some good food and had energy to burn. I didn't think of those chefs as glue factory-bound (except Andrew - from the first episode on, I knew he couldn't touch Blais). I guess I also have to mention Spike given how many high profile gigs he's gotten but ...
@MB in MD - I don't disagree with your analysis - but it doesn't lessen my enjoyment of season 6 at all. Having 4 really strong competitors is, I guess, enough for me - I don't mind that the rest is chaffe.
And perhaps I'm being charitable by putting Jen right up there with the other folks, but I really continue to feel that she's incredibly strong. She has a few problems that are damning (falls apart when sleep deprived, which is exacerbated if she's had alcohol). The arrogance that caused her to take full responsibility in the All-star challenge where her partner screwed her also probably inspired most of what I liked about her, so I wouldn't term that as a fault per se.
All that being said, I find this conversation about which season had the best total cadre of chefs to be pretty interesting too. Unfortunately, with wikipedia down, I can't refresh my memory about the seasons to throw my own cents in.
First and foremost, Chris With the Stupid Hair, it is the Kobayashi Maru. Say it right or don't say it at all. Also, it's a test of people's reactions to no-win scenarios, which means it's a perfect description of Restaurant Wars, but you totally didn't mean it that way. /geek
Can't really argue with the decision, but I'm surprisingly sad to see Ty-Lor go.
I almost wish the women's team had gone down so they could have hashed some stuff out instead of letting it continue to simmer, but ultimately I am glad that Bev pulled the win. I get that she is probably a pain to deal with, but the Mean Girl act from Sarah and Lindsey was just cringe-inducing. I don't know how much longer I can watch them shut her down at every turn and then blame her for everything that goes wrong.
Next week looks super-interesting, and apparently they don't have to work as an actual team, thank god.
Posted by: Natalie | January 11, 2012 at 09:03 PM
My heart was pounding- I thought Paul might go home.
Sad to see Ty-Lor leave. This is actually the first elimination all season that's kind of a bummer. Now, if Sarah or Lindsay went home after the..um...fine leadership skills they displayed, I would have been fine with that.
Posted by: TxGriff | January 11, 2012 at 09:04 PM
The bright spot to me is Beverly winning and making Sarah and Lindsey just shrivel more with envy.
Sad (but understandable) to see Ty-lor go and then have Nyesha just play him in last chance kitchen.
Posted by: Lou | January 11, 2012 at 09:47 PM
Agreed Natalie. "Cringe" is really the right word. I think that what's happening isnt just then being annoyed by her, it's that they think she sucks and has stayed longer than she should have. In their minds, this justifies everything they do. And the praise that she garners, rather than cause them to reevaluate their assessments just makes them even more bitter and resentful. It's pathetic, and I don't think they realize how absolutely horrible they are being and appearing. In their minds, I'm sure they think they are being nicer than they have to be. Personally, I'd like to smack (verbally) both of them as well as the one who left several episodes ago.
Posted by: Dmantell | January 11, 2012 at 10:03 PM
The comment that jumped out at me most was "five hours of sleep and none the night before.". Seems like whatever team went first had the biggest disadvantage. Although the ladies also had some brain mistake during planning, like having one person fire both main courses.
Glad Bev won. Sorry to see Ty go. Glad Paul's still around.
Posted by: TokenOmnivore | January 11, 2012 at 10:10 PM
Sarah has become nasty the last two episodes. I am glad Beverly won.
Chris J. is skating fast over thin ice. He did much less than Ty but Tom liked his dessert.
Sad go se Ty go. Massive highs and lows for him.
Posted by: Gjlmore | January 11, 2012 at 10:14 PM
Well, that was disappointing if not unexpected.
When will these women learn that Lord of the Flies was a cautionary tale and not suggestions for how they should act at work? Lindsey has yet to cook a single elimination dish that has garnered any praise but she looks down on Bev? After the judges say that Bev cooked their favorite dish (and is therefore a big reason why the team won), Sarah has to make a point of complimenting Lindsey? At least Grayson gets it ... and probably knows she'd be next.
Posted by: rab01 | January 11, 2012 at 10:15 PM
I can tell you exactly why Bev was in the weeds: she was preparing two entrees that had to go out at the same time. Where Grayson and Sara could alternate depending on the course, Bev got slammed with two entrees at once. It should have been split as app/entree, entree/dessert, app/dessert, with the FOH person's dish being something that could have been 80% prepped ahead of time instead of a la minute. They had an entire extra night to think about that.
Posted by: Independent George | January 11, 2012 at 10:20 PM
There's clearly some creative editing going on here to make Sarah and Lindsey look worse I think - when the men come back from the Judges, the women are cracking up at some joke or other (at which point, humorously, they all immediately somber up as soon as they see the guys come out).
I just don't see them being so cheery if there really was that much tension.
Posted by: garik16 | January 11, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Grayson is my favorite chef from a personality standpoint (I love a sassy, New York attitude), but she can also pull out two high quality dishes that uses simple ingredients w/ an unexpected flavor twist that works. Yeah, her lows have been really (dangerously) low, but she's had more successes than failures and, when given the chance to play to her strengths, can surprise the judges.
Posted by: attheapollo | January 11, 2012 at 10:26 PM
Gah, parts of this episode were really hard to watch. I wonder how Beverly is in her own restaurant -- for whatever reason, there have now been 3 chefs who bullied her and bossed her around, yet I have to believe she's capable of leading a kitchen since it's what she does every day. (And clearly she is capable of cooking delicious food.) I don't want to give the others a free pass for the way they acted towards her, but maybe this can be written off in a similar way as Mike I. and Marcel in restaurant wars last year - sometimes people just don't get along. I'm sure Beverly wouldn't hire someone like Heather, Sarah, or Lindsay in her kitchen, and vice versa... and maybe we can just leave it at that instead of turning it into a case of right versus wrong.
What I'm confused about is why Lindsay chose to do something as time-sensitive as fish once she volunteered for front of the house. Odd decision.
But anyway... on an unrelated note, how weird was it to see the guys standing at judges' table in street clothes??
Posted by: Joanna | January 11, 2012 at 10:27 PM
My memory is off... in seasons past, isn't restaurant wars usually a 2-day challenge - that is, the chefs have one day for prep, and a second day for service?
It seems like having a second day to prepare mentally is a pretty significant bonus for the girls (even if it doesn't appear they took advantage of it). After the first night's service, the first thing I would have asked the boys was "How is the line set up? What did you do wrong? How would you change things?".
I think the better set up would be to give the team that went first an extra two hours to prep, and instead of drawing for the assignment, you draw for the chance to decide whether to go first or second. Actually, forget the draw - there should have been a QF to determine who gets to choose.
Posted by: Independent George | January 11, 2012 at 10:32 PM
I can see Sarah now getting hammered on yelp in a similar way that Heather was. I think it's mostly editing but every time Sarah or Lindsay said something, Grayson would look at Bev and roll her eyes sympathetically.
Really happy to see Beverly win but really disappointed to see Ty go home. He and Paul were the two classiest chefs there.
Posted by: gdis2002 | January 11, 2012 at 10:34 PM
Lindsey always seems like she is setting other people up to fail so she can blame them if something goes wrong. Bev cooked her fish, the asian BBQ was Paul's idea, there have been other situations like that before as well. If that team had lost she would have been out the door with the way her dish was received and her disastrous performance in the front of the house. She should have been praising Bev and Grayson for securing the win instead of acting like a petulant child. That stupid comment Sarah made at the end about Lindsey getting more credit was unnecessary, wrong, and bitchy. As for the episode itself it was a massive disappointment. The showpiece episode of every season and they hamstrung the teams on time, especially the guys. I can't believe they didn't take into account that the women had an entire extra day to menu-plan while judging the restaurants. Had Paul gone home I probably would have lost interest in this season as none of the other chefs left seem worthy of the title. Chris is just lost, Ed seems ok I suppose but doesn't impress often enough, and the women all have massive flaws. I would think Paul, Ed, and Bev or Sarah will be the final three but at this point I really don't know.
Posted by: Alex | January 11, 2012 at 10:39 PM
I agree about the Mean Girls duo, but I do feel inclined to defend Lindsay, somewhat. I think this is the first time we've seen her act this badly, right? So in her case, for the time being, I'm willing to hold off on passing judgment. (Sarah, on the other hand, is a repeat offender, and at this rate may soon even rival Heather for my least favorite cheftestant.) Lindsay, I suspect (or would at least like to believe), allied herself with the Mean Girls team of Heather and Sarah because, well, everyone needs allies to have their back (otherwise you're in danger of getting kicked around like Bev.) I just think there might be a better side to Lindsay, and here's hoping that we'll see more of that rather than what we saw in RW tonight...
Re. Last Chance Kitchen -- I know Dom asked that we wait before discussing it (wait until Friday, I believe it was?), so I won't go into detail. All I'll say is WOW, LCK just keeps getting better and better. This week's was jaw-dropping.
Posted by: Tom W. | January 11, 2012 at 10:47 PM
and the women all have massive flaws
Seriously, isn't that a bit hyperbolic?
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 11, 2012 at 10:48 PM
Bit of a downer episode. I'd much rather see both teams succeed. Lindsay seemed ill-suited to FOH. Wonder if she really has much FOH experience. She didn't seem to have much warm or grace in dealing with customers, even before everything went completely downhill.
The lack of sleep for the guys (which could as easily have been for the girls) I thought was too much of a edge to give randomly. It's a significant edge both in terms of being more rested, and all that time to think about dishes and planning/execution. If you want to do something like that, at least make it a contest to earn the advantage.
Hated the way Sarah and Lindsay were behaving, at least as shown. I can see that dealing with someone you perceive as a slow partner (I don't know to what extent that is really true for Beverly) on team challenges can be frustrating, but still no excuse.
A bit surprised at the Paul slip up. I could never tell in prior episodes whether he just appeared very easy going or really was that way (e.g., he took on a lot but didn't appear to manage teammates closely). But he realized he probably should have in this episode. Still very odd that he doesn't taste the salmon until the end. Yes, it appears Ty-Lor had primary responsibility for seasoning but it's still partly Paul's dish and he has some exec chef role implicitly. How is everyone not tasting each other's dishes? Or setting up an expediting system? Partly lack of sleep perhaps, but still.
Posted by: chrish | January 11, 2012 at 11:02 PM
garik16- I did notice that moment in the Stew Room and have hopes that once they all cooled off they got themselves under control again, but it just seems like the default position once a challenge begins is "bag on Bev." Creative editing is no doubt in play, but there were fairly large chunks of uncut/non-VO footage from the kitchen where they were very harsh in their attitudes,imho.
Agree with others that the setup for this RW was terrible, both in terms of giving some obvious advantages to the second night of service team and in terms of it not being very interesting to watch. I like seeing the ways different RW teams get things done (or not) in comparison to each other, and I felt like all that tension was missing this time.
Posted by: Natalie | January 11, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Tom W, if we go back to the first elimination challenge, Lindsay and Sarah treated Keith and his frozen shrimp purchase just as poorly as they did Beverly this week.
Posted by: Cici | January 11, 2012 at 11:07 PM
Don't know if anyone followed the live tweets, but the #topchef hashtag went insane when they announced that Bev won. Most people were fed up enough with Lindsay/Sarah's behavior that the response was massive. Perhaps this is what Gail's comment foreshadowed, that Bev would transition from being overwhelmed by the bullying to overcoming it?
Posted by: Kevin | January 11, 2012 at 11:09 PM
Also, if I knew where Tom Colicchio lives, I'd send over a truckload of coconuts. I get the point, and generally agree, but he is awfully hung up on names sometimes.
Posted by: chrish | January 11, 2012 at 11:10 PM
editing or not, Sarah and Lindsey were completely ungracious when Bev won (and I won't even comment on before and during service since that was just ridiculous). from the little smiles plastered on their faces when they announced it, Lindsey's little head shake when they went back to the stew room, and Sarah's obvious pandering to Lindsey. ick. makes we want to go put in 100 votes for Bev for fan favorite.
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 11, 2012 at 11:25 PM
@Cici -- I did think about that as I was posting. But, if I'm remembering it right (do correct me if I'm wrong, because I've definitely been paying less close attention this season than past seasons) is that Sarah CLEARLY went at Keith harder than Lindsay did. Lindsay was (completely justifiably) pissed off that he bought precooked shrimp, but wasn't it Sarah who went all-out throwing him under the bus at JT, etc?
My main point is that Sarah this season has repeatedly behaved worse than Lindsay has (except for last night's episode.) So far, at least. I hope Bev doesn't keep getting pushed around by those two for the rest of the season...
Posted by: Tom W. | January 11, 2012 at 11:33 PM
The women's team was so baffling to watch. Sarah and Lindsay obviously don't like Bev, which, OK, maybe that's understandable. They don't trust her cooking (shooting down every one of her ideas), yet Lindsay is willing to let her prepare and serve her signature dish? If Lindsay felt they had no other choice, why didn't she choose a dish that was failproof to prep? What an idiotic decision. IG is right, Beverly was screwed having to prepare and serve both entrees, especially with Lindsay micromanaging her and Sarah treating her as if she were a 7-year-old helping Mommy in the kitchen. It made the win really satisfying.
And Sarah's comment about how Lindsay deserved as much praise for Bev's win as Bev did was 100% WTF bitchery. How does that even make sense? Major props to Grayson calling out bullshit when she saw it, and not just behind people's backs.
Posted by: paula | January 12, 2012 at 06:00 AM
@Sweet Sue
Yes it was over the top on my part. It was late and I was tired. In my opinion all of the remaining women contestants have a flaw that will keep them from winning. Bev's mental toughness, although I hope she lasts longer, she seems very good. Greyson seems to lack the refinement and skill to win it, but she shows flashes here and there. Lindsay floats in the middle too much. Floating may help you last longer but eventually you will bottom out. Sarah is probably the strongest competitor of the women left, but she's been on a bit of a downward trajectory for a bit.
Posted by: Alex | January 12, 2012 at 06:03 AM
On a lighter note:
Ed's joke about how Sarah knows great flavor but, of course, her great weakness is barbecuing in the sun was freakin' hilarious. As was the little exchange between the men at Half Bushel, when Chris said cheerfully, "this is the best meal I've eaten since we've been here!" and the rest were like, "Aw,duuuude!"
Posted by: paula | January 12, 2012 at 06:11 AM
Paula- And then Chris giving them a "What? It is." look while trying to soothe them. I really like Ed. He seems to be very real and very grounded, plus he generally makes tasty food.
This episode drove home two absolute TC truths- flavor over all, and never forget the salt. As much as it killed me to see Ty-Lor go, true class act that he was and is, it had to be him. Chris just did not do enough bad things to warrant being sent home.
On a related note, anyone remember Mikey from I think S2? The guy who's twice baked potatoes Bourdain described as "Absolutely Flintstonian in execution, but at least they taste good." I feel like Chris is some weird inverted reincarnation of Mikey. His food is never particularly good, and he is unnecessarily focused on technique over flavor, but he somehow seems to survive when other chefs fall. I doubt his streak stretches much further. Still, all I could think of, watching that guy making hideous dessert in the kitchen, was "How far did Mikey get again? Pretty far right?"
Posted by: KinderJ | January 12, 2012 at 07:56 AM
attheapollo -- small point of order -- that's a sassy WISCONSIN attitude, not NY. :) Did love it when she point-blank told Lindsay that her instructions on cooking the halibut to Bev were flat-out wrong.
It's disappointing when the personality issues are so strong that you can't help but be overwhelmed by them -- thanks, Lindsay and Sarah! -- instead of concentrating on the food. That's really a shame, because it looked like the women banged out some great dishes.
The guy team seemed to do fairly well -- seemed like the judges got on them at JT but weren't so dismissive at the table. Overall, seemed as if -- particularly given the difficult time constraints, the point of which is lost on me -- both teams did fairly well on the food quality front.
Unfortunately, all that was lost thanks to Lindsay/Bev. Yes, I'm sure editing is involved; but when Lindsay is abandoning her job to go yell at Bev, how much creative editing is needed? Irritating, to say the least. (Psst, Lindsay, here's a tip: maybe you should lay off the people who are cooking better than you.)
Paul still holds a commanding lead in my book. Ed/Sarah/Bev seem to be the only ones capable of knocking him off -- and then only if he's a bit off and they bring the thunder. It's happened before.
Posted by: mncharm | January 12, 2012 at 07:59 AM
Has anyone else noticed that the comments at Judge's table seem totally incongruous with comments made during/after the challenges? Tom seemed relatively pleased with the food and service at Canteen during dinner, if not a little disappointed with some under-seasoning and misnamed dishes. Transition to JT, and suddenly all the guys "deserved an F" and were complete failures across the board. He did the same thing during the game challenge- the elk went from being "a little under" at dinner to completely raw at JT. Is this an editing trick, or do his criticisms become harsher the longer he has to think about them?
Also, the more I think about Lindsay, the more frustrated I get. It seems that ever time she has taken a leadership roll (the quincenera, telling Ed to fire the steaks at the Cattle Barons Ranch, agreeing to be FOH when she clearly was more focused on the kitchen and Beverly), it has not turned out well. Plus, her only memorable dish is the QF she won with the saltine sandwich....and that is not a compliment.
Posted by: TxGriff | January 12, 2012 at 08:00 AM
the extra 24 hours to rest/plan was a monster advantage for the women. Horrible to have this decided on a coin flip.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 12, 2012 at 08:08 AM
enjoyed this tweet
RichardBlais RichardBlais
Good job Beverly ! Head down... Block that ish out.
Posted by: Pepperjack | January 12, 2012 at 08:14 AM
Considering the lack of time the men had to mentally prepare for their challenge, I think the service at Canteen ran surprisingly smoothly ( and much of the problem seemed to be the fault of the wait staff, rather than the lack of a designated expediter ). Smoother, certainly, than at Half Bushel - I thought that having the judges wait, ungreeted, at the entrance, serving themselves drinks, would have cost the women the challenge right then and there !
BTW, does it say something about S9 that the season highlights, so far, have come from LCK rather than the competition itself ?
Posted by: Angie | January 12, 2012 at 09:17 AM
TxGriff, my guess is that they have time to really evaluate the errors and point them out using harsh, over exaggerated vocabulary for the typical reality show audience member, which is why I look to Extended Judges' Table for deeper insight. But EJT got NERFED this season. They usually comment on one person for the majority of the time, a portion of which has already been aired. Really frusturating.
Pepperjack, Blais' tweet made my night.
nmcharm, I have to disagree. A New York attitude can permeate through anyone from any region if exposed to it long enough ;)
Posted by: attheapollo | January 12, 2012 at 09:39 AM
Alright, last comment of the day. Sarah's post-win "Lidnsay, you deserved more praise" comment was not only inappropriate, but it was entirely unfounded. Lindsay was in charge of two things, she she disappointed with both: FOH and the fish dish. Yes, Beverly cooked the fish, but Lindsay was ultimately in charge of the execution, and why did she choose a dish that had to be cooked to order? It seems that if anything, they should have been thanking Grasyon, who had two very well-received dishes. Really, I know this show is edited, but I simply do not understand where Sarah was coming from with that comment, other than to undermine Beverly.
Posted by: TxGriff | January 12, 2012 at 09:41 AM
I understood Sarah's comment remark to Lindsey completely differently than everyone else, I guess. At least as it was shown to us, they had just come in from judges' table where Bev got the win, Sarah's dish was praised, Grayson's dish was praised, and Lindsey got dinged on both her dish and the abysmal front of house performance. And she was clearly upset -- so I thought Sarah was saying that the judges should have said something nice to her along with the criticisms (since the team had actually won, so the front of house problems can't have been terminally bad), NOT that she was saying that Lindsey should have been praised more than Bev. She was trying to comfort Lindsey, not insult Bev.
Natalie, I'm glad I wasn't the only one shouting "Kobayashi Maru, you idiot!" at the TV.
Sad to see Ty-Lor go; I wish it had been Chris.
Posted by: nm | January 12, 2012 at 09:59 AM
Even when butchered, Wrath of Khan references are always welcome in my house. My next dog is so going to be named "Khaaan!".
Posted by: Independent George | January 12, 2012 at 10:00 AM
And yet Chris did not seem to have learned the lesson of how to beat the Kobayashi Maru challenge...
Posted by: KinderJ | January 12, 2012 at 10:48 AM
Hugh's blog makes the same point made above about Bev having to fire both entrees. Yes, she was the natural choice to be fire the FOH dish because she only had one, but, then maybe Sarah should have been FOH and the others could have split up her dishes. But Hugh does address, point blank, that there is something a bit off about Bev's kitchen behavior. She is apparently slow, or rather, just doesn't speed up and he is shocked that she has lasted, but that the food is good. Even really good.
Hugh also has nice things to say about Grayson the Bullfrog. But his best line was something along the lines of: "good things the ladies had a screen blocking the kitchen view. All of that yelling would create a lot of bad Yelp reviews."
As for Ty-Lor: damn. Not that he'll win going out middle of the season, but he has my vote(s) for fan favorite. Class act. Even last night he was a voice of calm when the weeds grew in the kitchen. Liked the shout out to his family saying he was glad his dad could see him be successful in what he does as a cook. Nice stuff.
Now one huge nit as noted by NomX3. Not having the two restaurants running simultaneously gave the second team a gigantic advantage. I really hope they don't do that again.
Posted by: Anon Man | January 12, 2012 at 11:20 AM
nm -- I'm pretty sure Sarah was somehow trying to give credit to Lindsey for Beverly's dish. I'd have to watch again to be certain, but I'm pretty sure that Sarah said that Lindsey helped Beverly conceptualize her dish. What sticks in my mind is that after Sarah made the comment, Beverly started listing the different components of her dish that she (Beverly) was responsible for.
Posted by: kimberly | January 12, 2012 at 11:41 AM
At this point I feel like the one hour show is just the build-up for the Last Chance Kitchen, which is the best part of each week.
Posted by: Beatrice | January 12, 2012 at 11:54 AM
I thought the episode was disappointing: I thought the girls had a HUGE advantage going second, not only an extra day to prepare, but a chance to see what the guys were doing right - and wrong - and what the "bar" was to win. Surprised the girls didn't post an expediter. I managed restaurants for five years, and planted myself on the other side of the line most nights - checking that the food looked good going out, didn't sit there getting cold, etc.
Surprised to see the thread thus far hasn't really commented on whether Mr. Moto or Ty-Lor should have been eliminated. What the heck did Chris even do? It's not like he had substantial goodwill built up to date so that the judges could overlook one flub because they want to see more of him - I'm trying to think of a truly memorable dish he's made. I think it just goes to show you can basically ignore what any judge other than TC says.
I suppose Ty had two bad dishes, and Chris just one (that Tom actually liked). It's like the old Yogi Berra joke: "This restaurant stinks - the food is terrible and the portions are too small."
This was the least restauranty-RW I can remember. It really just came down to the food. The concept, service, ambiance, experience, all took a distant back seat.
Posted by: Bob | January 12, 2012 at 12:08 PM
There is another unfair advantage that is beginning to bother me. In the BBQ episode the contestants pulled an all-nighter in temperatures, according to Tom C., that were over 110 and at the grill 120. Thank the loser had to go cook against someone who presumably got a good night's sleep in an air-conditioned house. This week, was another challenge with an extreme amount of work and the loser had to go up against a well-rested contestant.
If they are not giving the PPYKAG contestant some rest time it seems that the person they are competing against has an extremely large advantage over them. That's not even counting the emotional toll that being in the middle of competition brings.
The ultimate winner will be competing against two people who are there because they succeeded at long arduous complex tasks while exhausted. Meanwhile they will be there for successfully cooking for up to 30 minutes while rested against people who have been run through the ringer. This hardly seems fair. I hope that we aren't being shown or told this but that the PPYKAG contestant is in reality given 24 hours of rest before comepeting.
Posted by: Danny | January 12, 2012 at 02:16 PM
I have never commented before, but the Bev thing is driving me to it. I understand the anger about the perceived bullying of Bev, but having worked with someone who had a similar personality I have to say I also understand to a degree the anger of the contestants when they have to work with her. I think it is pretty clear she is slow which in timed challenges has to put them over the edge. Also, the constant wide-eyed victim pose, leading to other people coming to her defense, would also lead to a rift between her and anyone else who wants or needs to confront her about any issues they may have.
I don't think the animosity towards her should be simply be passed off as a "mean girl" thing, and tend to think of it as a little sexist. If you recall last week, she did nothing to help her team, and although their comments were maybe a bit softer, her team did not seem thrilled to be working with her.
Posted by: JJ | January 12, 2012 at 02:23 PM
Jj, now you are manufacturing evidence against Bev? There was no drama regarding Bev last week and noone said she didnt help them at all. She was the least bad from that team. And i don't see her as playing the victim. She keeps trying to be heard, then she is head down and does her dish. Its just so typical that the loudest people dictate the narrative, even though what we *saw* from the actual *footage* was her working hard and remaining silent, head down when those obnoxious twits were talking to her like that. Ganging up on the perceived weakest link and playing mind games like trying to belittle them even when they're successful...sorry but she's not *that* slow.
Posted by: ally | January 12, 2012 at 03:50 PM
I agree with the others that the girls had the advantage of cooking one day later, but it's hard to quantify how much of an advantage it was. It is what it is - at the end of the day, the guys still had to find a way to cook the better dishes and they weren't able to. Simple as that.
Sorry to see Ty go. I was hoping he'd crack the top 5, but it wasn't meant to be.
Really gratifying to see Bev win. It was pretty insulting the way Sarah tried to make it seem like Lindsey was responsible for Bev's dish. That was...odd.
And I don't think there's any excuse, really, for the way Lindsey openly said, "Bev f----d my dish" right in front of her, to Grayson (good on Grayson for giving it back to her), or the way Sarah tried to take the wind out of Bev's win in the Stew room. Oddly immature and hypocritical, given Lindsey's abysmal FoH service.
I don't want to get too caught up in personality, but it bugged me and affected the way I watched the episode.
Now having said that, I would have liked to eaten Bev's dish, Sarah's appetizer, Paul's "ham and eggs" and his pork belly. Those dishes looked the most fun to eat.
Posted by: Bart | January 12, 2012 at 03:52 PM
By the way, I'm pretty sure the bullying is backfiring on them. It seems to me that the judges enjoy giving Bev the thumbs up. I am SO glad Heather was gone for this episode, it really would have been unbearable to watch.
Chris is pretty lucky to have been able to squeeze by this time. I think if Tom hadnt kiked it, he would have been gone. And yes, it is strange to see how the judges comments go from "nice caramel sauce" at the restaurant to something about spitting out the dish at judges table.
I wonder if the two different days wasnt just for the benefit of the judges. Maybe they aleays think the order in which they taste benefits one of the restaurants in years past. I wonder what the statistics are for whether first or second restaurant wins.
Posted by: ally | January 12, 2012 at 04:15 PM
Liked not kiked. Stupid tiny cell phone keyboard!
Posted by: ally | January 12, 2012 at 04:16 PM
@JJ -- Re. Bev, frustration at her slowness is understandable (Acheson's blog is on point in addressing that.) A patronizing attitude toward the weakest link may be understandable and human (if not at all laudable.) But a patronizing attitude is very different from the outright vicious behavior we saw from Sarah and particularly Lindsay last night, as well as the viciousness of your own post, frankly. Bev poses as a victim? Are you even aware of how nasty and vicious an accusation that is? Whatever the similar personality you once worked with and how that person may have consciously played the victim, I see zero evidence that Bev does so. There's no polite way for me to make my point, which is that I find your accusation to be on the same level as Lindsay and Sarah's behavior last night, another example of the cruel impulse to lash out at a convenient scapegoat when one is frustrated with a situation.
Posted by: Tom W. | January 12, 2012 at 04:33 PM
BTW, I forgot to mention that I posted previous seasons as "Nsam." I never liked that nom de plume, so I changed it.
Posted by: Tom W. | January 12, 2012 at 04:37 PM
If Beverly is so slow and such a lousy cook - why didn't they put her in the front of the house where all she has to do is seat people and smile?
And then they give her both entrees to cook?
The conspiracy buff in me wonders if the other three were setting her up to fail; if we win, great, and if we lose, we throw Beverly under the bus. Too bad the guys stuffed it up, or it would have been a very interesting JT.
Posted by: Bob | January 12, 2012 at 05:44 PM
@JJ - I hear what you're saying. I come from a restaurant family and have worked in restaurants for most of my adult life. You hustle, or you don't make it. End of story.
That being said, if Beverly is the perceived weak link out of all the remaining chefs, how on earth did that team decide to put her in charge of BOTH main courses?!?!?!? It's idiotic from both a timing perspective and a common sense perspective. It's really hard for one person to put out two complex dishes simultaneously. And you never never never never never give your worst employee the most important job.
Let's not kid ourselves. Sarah and Lindsay decided their own fate here. It seemed that everyone got to pick what they were doing during the planning stages except for Beverly who was "forced" to pick a main course. (I recall Beverly saying, "I have to have a dish, guys," after Sarah shot down numerous ideas.) If they were truly concerned about the team, they would have given Beverly a (beet) salad and called it a day. Sarah - and to a very slightly lesser extent Lindsay - instead wanted Beverly to be the super sous chef they could micromanage to death. They have each shown this ugliness throughout the season, and I could not be less impressed.
I want Paul to win the whole thing. Ed wouldn't be too bad. I'd hate for anyone else to take the title at this point.
Posted by: TDub | January 12, 2012 at 05:58 PM
Based on what I've seen I think Bev would be much easier to work with than any of the screaming banshees. I'm not sure how Hugh came to his conclusions about her; whether it's from watching her in the kitchen or the Bravo edit but it seems she has reached some degree of success in the restaurant world so she must be doing something right. I try to be very calm and focused while I'm working so I can relate to her approach, calmness doesn't necessarily equate to slowness or a lack of intensity.
Posted by: Bill G | January 12, 2012 at 06:02 PM
As far as i can tell, Acheson has been watching most of the show from his couch and then blogging, so his info has mostly been the same as ours. That he's drawn his conclusions on the say-so of these, ahem, individuals says a little something about him. He's just trying to be "funny" and fit in with the cool kids IMO.
Posted by: ally | January 12, 2012 at 06:12 PM
I know someone who knows someone who knows Bev, and I'm told she was suffering post-partum depression during the shoot. Take that with the large helping of salt it deserves, but maybe that's part of why she seems so odd.
Posted by: Sprugman | January 12, 2012 at 06:49 PM
Bob, I don't see the conspiracy theory. She is, by most accounts, slow. I can't even fathom her in FOH, she gets so rattled. When the rubber hits the road, I'm sure they are exhausted and trying to get the food out. Make no mistake: I don't agree whatsoever nor endorse Lindsey's or Sarah's treatment of her, but in the "moment" can somewhat understand their frustration.
Beverly strikes me as amazingly naive or worse, passive aggressive. Anyone at that age (say, over 20) and a leader of a kitchen team should demand some level of respect. She doesn't.
On another note, I want to reiterate what many have said above about the difference of Tom's tone during the meal and during JT regarding the losing team. Wow! Is he posturing at JT? I thought that it was overly harsh, particularly following the last challenge which was a physical killer.
Sorry to see Ty go, for sure, and am glad Paul came out OK. Surprised about Sarah and Lindsey, especially since they manage a team in their real life. That is no way to manage successfully and reinforces their weaknesses.
Lastly, go Nyesha! I am rooting for her.
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | January 12, 2012 at 07:15 PM
Comment Tom made on Last Chance Kitchen says Nyesha has to beat three more chefs to get into the finals. So unless there's a double elimination left . . .that means five in the finals? Four plus Nyesha.
Posted by: Lon | January 12, 2012 at 08:09 PM
(1) Sarah's behavior is even more annoying than Heather's b/c she doesn't just steamroll over Beverly but tries to make Beverly see why the steamrolling is necessary. Her patronizing attitude drove me up the wall.
(2) Once again, Lindsay showed herself to be horrible at expediting/organizing a team. And her food remains unimpressive.
(3) Can't believe they kept Chris for another episode, after being bottom two for – what? – the third time.
(4) All-around depressing episode. Moreover, it was patently unfair that one team got an additional day to relax and prepare for the challenge.
Sad
Posted by: Vncntdl | January 12, 2012 at 08:57 PM
I like Bev and want to see her do well.
I wonder how much of her behavior is cultural?
In an earlier episode, she mentioned being in an abusive relationship that was hard to break from. How does that affect her against the abusive Heather and Sarah.
Anon Man - Ty-Lor hammered Nyesha earlier on. I do think highly of him, just that editing can make and hide a lot.
Posted by: gilmore | January 12, 2012 at 09:31 PM
1. How is Bev's "behavior" so outside the norm that it has warranted anyone's attention besides people who need to find scapegoats when they're feeling insecure? Except for her crying in the first couple of episodes and being a spaz at times, i just dont get it.
2. Did anyone else laugh when Bev said oil and ... Herbs? Regarding lindsays dish and lindsay says, no, just oil. So typical for most of the chefs this season.
3. Regarding Tom's comments, maybe he's just getting elved. He says Ty made a good caramel sauce but maybe they cut out the rest of his comment (... But i wanted to spit out the crab) during the restaurant scene.
Posted by: ally | January 12, 2012 at 11:10 PM
Just my two cents: it's understandable that certain personalities can be difficult to work with. It's also understandable to express discontent or get frustrated when you're already under a significant amount of stress. However, under no circumstances is it acceptable to speak to someone in an openly condescending and hostile manner, or call them "f*cking retarded" because you're aggravated. End of story.
I think Dom's rule for LKC was to wait until Friday to post, so I'm going to get the ball rolling. I have to say, I think I'm in the minority when it comes to Nyesha. I definitely think she was eliminated early (and unfairly), but her performance was not that impressive while she was on the show. Of course, I realize that one's performance on TC does not reflect the strength of the chef, but she always rubbed me the wrong way because she spoke very highly of herself despite a lackluster showing. I have no doubts she is very talented, but I think part of her success in LKC is because she has been the only chef eliminated due to circumstance rather than performance. Each week, she is facing chefs who were eliminated because of their poor performance, which would obviously shatter one's confidence. Nyesha knows she was eliminated despite putting out good food, so she has both confidence and drive going for her. That's not a criticism on her part (mojo's a big part of the game), just a reflection on whether her performance in LKC so far is due to talent or circumstance. Anyways, I like Ty-Lor, and I obviously have no idea what caused the friction between he and Nyesha, but it annoyed me how she repeatedly accused him and treating her poorly, and he only had kind and generous things to say about her. And I know- editing, we only see the stories created for the chefs, etc. I'm just saying, as presented, it annoyed me. But hey, both dishes looked awesome.
Posted by: TxGriff | January 13, 2012 at 08:12 AM
Glad Bev won, easily the best dish and an entree nonetheless. Oh Lindsay where to start? Had the girls lost Lindsay would have gone easily, terrible front of the house especially considering they had a whole extra day to work out the kinks. No "open kitchen"? Seriously? I guess that was a good way to hide all the dishes dying on the window.
More on Lindsay (can not wait for her go home), halibut with chorizo...yawn, even if cooked perfectly it was just an unremarkable dish, which is becoming a Lindsay trademark at this point, besides -and again having a whole extra day!!!!- how on earth if you are running FOH you decide to have the person working already entrees to execute another entree duhhhhh!!!! Especially considering that you and Sarah (who had the nerve to talk smack about Bev even before the challenge started as being weak, how dare her, I mean she just came of bailing her own team on the last challenge for not being fit basically) think of her as a weak cook, so much for that, she was busting her arse and if it wasn't for her either Sarah or Lindsay would have gone home as Grayson held her own and acted professionally and not like a child.
Chris should have gone home but Tom is protecting the show's best interests b/c they can not get rid off the molecular guy. Chris has not won anything yet and rightfully so, he is only a one trick pony, all about gimmicks and so far what it appears based on the judges critics, flavorless, uninspired food. One dessert? I mean seriously, both Emeril and Hugh hated it by the way, Tom had to pull really hard for you or perhaps made an executive decision to keep you around, with one dessert Chris should have manned up the expo, I mean like my fave NFL crew would say "c'mon man!!!"
Ed's comment was spot on, c'mon Top Chef, the guys had a serious disadvantage going first, in fact if considering that into the equation they should have won the challenge. I think as cooks we can always put up with the physical demands of the job no matter what (except for "strong" cook Sarah) but from a mental state especially creating, designing and executing a brand new menu is tough, hence the mistakes made by them, still Ty under seasoning is a good reason for any judge to send you home.
Posted by: Jackson | January 13, 2012 at 08:47 AM
So, I watched the episode again last night (d*mn post-hockey agitation) and first, I now nominate Grayson for the "Decent Human Being Award" for her professionalism in the kitchen.
On the Sarah thing, her food is the one I want to eat most often, so I want to like her. But, after watching the episode again, Sarah comes off even worse. Sure editing is always suspect, but editing doesn't create Sarah using a tone with Bev that was as if she was talking to the junior garde manger, rather than another chef or yell at Beverly in such a way (with Lindsay) that Grayson felt compelled to shout "Stop". That's not editing. Maybe they were justified to yell: maybe Beverly is too slow, was doing something poorly, or other error; that's what the editing can distort.
Posted by: Anon Man | January 13, 2012 at 09:38 AM
Agreed Anon Man -
As I read through the comments I noticed a lot of people justifying some of the behavior with possible editing.
I think there is a difference when the editing is chopped up, used from conffesionals, or other places. But when a scene like what happen in kitchen at Half Bushel is aired, all of that is just the plain truth, and we even have Grayson who witnessed it first hand and called them out on it. This isn't the magic of the elves this is the catty meaness of the women.
A team is not about identifying someone's weaknesses but rather playing to someones strengths.
I'm over it though. I was hoping the girls would loose so we could get rid of Lindsay or Sarah because it was their attitude and cattiness that brought the team down.
I'm also at a cross roads with Sarah, I tend to like her food but that attitude just keeps on getting worse, and the more it does the more she stands a chance to go home.
Posted by: Libster | January 13, 2012 at 09:50 AM
1) Going second was an enormous advantage - an extra day of rest after the BBQ challenge, a chance to mull over and discuss things, and most obviously, a chance to look at what the other team did and learn from their mistakes.
Why, oh why, did they not have a QUICKFIRE to determine who went second?? Mise en place relay, blindfold relay, whatever... this was a huge missed opportunity for a cool team challenge with a big reward, instead of a big fat hit of randomness.
2) Great analogy by MotoChris. With very rare exception, Restaurant Wars is an exercise in failing gracefully.
3) That's the second or third time this season that Grayson has come off smelling like a Rose just by being the counterpoint to someone who was acting in a ridiculous way.
4) It seemed like a poor strategy to have Lindsey do a tricky preparation of fish when she was front of the house, and this mistake was compounded when the execution of that dish was given to Beverly - who was also executing the other entree! We've seen disasters in past restaurant wars that were caused by giving one person responsibility for two hot dishes going out at the same time. (At least the short ribs were a braise).
5) Random thought - whenever someone does mussels, they win, and the other chefs complain about a simple dish winning. Why not do mussels in Restaurant Wars? It seems like a spot where a strong dish that doesn't take a ton of time would be in very high demand.
6) Watching the seamless use of sous-chefs in LCK (don't worry, no spoilers) right after watching Restaurant Wars reminded me of why Top Chef is such a difficult scenario for the contestants. In a normal kitchen, everyone has the exact same goal, and there is a clear chain of command. In any team challenge on Top Chef, there are significant competing incentives for the chefs, and there is no established chain of command.
Posted by: doktarr | January 13, 2012 at 10:01 AM
I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about the unfair advantage the women had in going second.
It was a coin toss, it could have gone either way.
Apparently, the women's food was that much better-so much better-than the men's food. Good for them.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 13, 2012 at 10:34 AM
That's a pretty insane comment to make. The time to think and plan is a monster advantage in a timed cooking contest. You can schedule your own time down to the second in the 24 hours extra they had to prepare. Even if they weren't allowed to talk to eachother they could still debug their gameplan in their own mind.
To have that decided by the flip instead of a relay race or whatever other ways they have done it in the pass completely discounts the accomplishment.
I will agree with others that Lindsay is a Hosea starter kit. The only people I'm even remotely interested in following past this season are Ed and Paul but Nyesha also is starting to reel me in.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 13, 2012 at 11:15 AM
@Jackson, I don't think Tom kept Moto Chris in just because he wanted an MG chef. To be clear, I'm not speaking with any intimate knowledge of his decision-making process, but Tom and the Judge's Table in the past have made some very unpopular decisions and explained those decisions adequately on their Bravo TV blog. You should check it out, he'll tell you why Ty and not Moto Chris was eliminated.
Posted by: Bart | January 13, 2012 at 11:19 AM
The point is that if it's supposed to be a test of cooking as opposed to a test of who gets lucky, then one team shouldn't be granted an enormous advantage by a coin toss. This really isn't a controversial idea, I think.
Yes, it's clear that the women's food was much better. How much of that was because they cooked with an extra night's sleep, after seeing what the guys did, discussing their mistakes with them, and re-hashing their plans? We'll never know.
Posted by: doktarr | January 13, 2012 at 11:23 AM
a few more of my observations.
1. It looked like the girls really didn't have more time to plan. They both got 45 minutes and I think they had to stick to their plans reguarding dishes, FOH and restaurant name. While the girls certainly seemed to have more time to think and rest they didn't have more time to hash out the master plan. It seems a little unfair but not as unfair as just letting them have the whole day to plan and go through everything.
I also would think that after the BBQ Challenge they would give everyone a day of rest. There are union rules that protect the crew and talent (even reality shows) from production. Otherwise there would not be any turn around time.
2. Lindsay effed up her dish. She can't blame Bev for the distaster. If she didn't trust Bev to do it then she should have asked to switch things around so Sarah could do it. Also that cooking technique didn't seem right to me either. She seemed to be one of the worst FOH that I recall. I can't even rememer if Radhika was even that bad.
3. Even though The guys got backed up I thoguht Ed did well with FOH. He was friendly even when there were issues and he did a great job of describing the dish to the judges.
4. Paul bit off more than he could chew and Chris did very little. I agree with Paul, the friendship part of the team actually caused issues because there was a clear defined leader, just a bunch of buddies cooking together.
5. While watching Chris with his Peanut butter I was thinking "Whoa, be careful that doesn't come out looking like Dog poop in a bowl.
6. Tom liked the taste of Chris' dish but Emeril said he'd never serve the mess in his restaurant. Over all it looks like taste won out over bland nicely plated food.
Posted by: Libster | January 13, 2012 at 11:53 AM
I don't see how it made a big difference as to how it was decided - whether it was a quickfire or a coin toss, it was still 50/50 either way. Assuming they went to the Palm Door the next day after the BBQ challenge, and knowing the first team cooked the next day after the challenge was announced, that was still two nights of sleep. Both teams had the same amount of time to plan and shop, and it's not clear what the women were able to do on the day the men were cooking - it's possible they were forbidden to do any extra planning (otherwise, you'd think they would have worked out the Bev's preparing two main courses and here's how you cook Lindsey's fish correctly issues). The men didn't seem to have any lack of confidence in their ability to execute regardless of the lackof an extra day. And in the end they both had the same problem with not figuring out how to expedite properly.
If the men had won as it stood or if the situation had been completely reversed, would people still be crying foul over the coin toss?
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 13, 2012 at 12:28 PM
I could be wrong about this, but didn't the men have to cook the day the challenge was announced (as in, challenge was announced in the morning, then they had the rest of the day to plan/shop/cook)? If so, they would understandably have been exhausted cooking one day after the BBQ challenge, and I would consider the extra day of rest both a mental and physical advantage for the women. I haven't let the situation rile me up too much, since much of reality programming isn't inherently "fair", but I do agree that the cooking shifts should have been determined by a QF or some other type of challenge. The odds are always 50/50, but at least the advantage would have been the result of performance rather than chance.
Posted by: TxGriff | January 13, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Also, a quickfire is only 50/50 if the teams are equal, which may or may not be the case.
Your argument is sort of like saying that they should just decide the winner of the Super Bowl, or the presidency, with a coin flip. After all, it's 50/50, so it's fair, right?
If the men had won as it stood, I still would think it was dumb that they had a coin flip instead of some sort of quickfire, but I would also be able to say with confidence that it didn't have any impact on the result.If the men had won the coin toss and won the challenge, then I would complain about that in exactly the way I am complaining about this.
Posted by: doktarr | January 13, 2012 at 01:41 PM
"A coin toss is a random event, while a quickfire is a test of skill. If you win the quickfire, you deserve the benefit you get from that win. If you win a coin toss, you earned nothing."
Agree very much with this. I think the extra day is a significant advantage in any event but the biggest issue I have with it is that it comes the day after the bbq challenge. I haven't pulled a true all nighter in a long time, but the last couple of times I've come close to it, I've still felt really out of it even after getting sleep the following night. And sounds like they didn't even get a full night's sleep, which probably isn't that surprising given that they would have had to start very early the day of RW to fit it in.
"Also that cooking technique [of Lindsay's] didn't seem right to me either."
Agree with this too. Even if it could have worked in some hypothetical kitchen, it seemed like an overly complicated approach to leave to someone else who's preparing her own entree at the same time. And, as has been mentioned by many, it was just a crazy choice for a dish from the FOH person.
Posted by: chrish | January 13, 2012 at 02:49 PM
@ TXGriff - no, the planning/shopping was the same day, the cooking was the next day.
@ doktarr - um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic. they only decided who went first. suspecting that they do it but not being all that familiar with how they use coin-tossing in sports, I looked it upon wikipedia:
"Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. It is used widely in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially; these decisions may tend to favor one side, or may be neutral."
so yeah, it may have given them a slight (albeit not a significant one, by my viewing of how it played out) advantage, but it's still a neutral way of deciding. yeah, it might have been more satisfying to the viewers to decide by quickfire so whoever had it could earn it, but maybe they were pressed for time or wanted to give them a break by not further stressing them out with a quickfire and giving them more time to plan/shop. they didn't air any comments from the chefs (particularly the men) if they thought it was fair or not either before or after, so I'll continue to believe that it didn't really make all that much different to the outcome.
besides, no one here is arguing that dividing them up by gender could have given either team an advantage or not, which could have easily have been the case. In fact, it seems that would have given the men the advantage since on the face of it the men made a stronger-skilled team of chefs. as you said a quickfire is only 50/50 if the teams are equal, and since they might not have been equal then the coin toss is more neutral.
even if they had both cooked on the same day, one team could unknowingly have had an advantage determined by which restaurant the judges decided to go to first, depending on where the teams were in their service and how far they had gotten to working the kinks out (or not). and the only way to even that out is to split the judges up and send a group to each restaurant at the same time, which I vaguely recall they've done before but I don't think that's the norm.
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 13, 2012 at 02:58 PM
chrish: "And sounds like they didn't even get a full night's sleep, which probably isn't that surprising given that they would have had to start very early the day of RW to fit it in."
sounds like from what? both places were in Austin, so they didn't travel. and they didn't cook, so all they had to do was shop and plan (and even that was within time parameters). so just in terms of resting, it still had to be one day and two nights minimum after the BBQ challenge. surely the men would have been relatively ok by then.
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 13, 2012 at 03:03 PM
"sounds like from what? both places were in Austin, so they didn't travel. and they didn't cook, so all they had to do was shop and plan (and even that was within time parameters). so just in terms of resting, it still had to be one day and two nights minimum after the BBQ challenge. surely the men would have been relatively ok by then."
You're suggesting the men did not cook same day? Don't think that's right. One of the men explicitly said after service that they had previously had consecutive nights of no sleep (the night they stayed up) and 5 hrs sleep (night after bbq). I can't remember anything that is inconsistent with that that.
Posted by: chrish | January 13, 2012 at 03:24 PM
"um, they didn't decide who *won*, which makes your analogy a bit hyperbolic"
He was just pointing out the logical endpoint. No one here disagrees that a coin toss is random or "neutral", as per your citation to wikipedia. Indeed, that's precisely the objection. If the advantage becomes big enough (I realize you dispute the size of the advantage), then random chance plays and increasingly bigger factor in deciding the entire contest. If the advantage is overwhelming (and I'm not saying it was), then it is tantamount to deciding the contest by coin flip, which would of course be a perfectly random and "neutral" way of settling things. Just wholly unsatisfactory.
Posted by: chrish | January 13, 2012 at 03:34 PM
"If the men had won as it stood or if the situation had been completely reversed, would people still be crying foul over the coin toss?"
Of course! It has nothing to do with who won or lost the coin toss. It has to do with having a level playing field – or as close to one as possible. Don't see how anyone can defend the random decision (1) to make it boys against girls or (2) to decide who is going to cook on which day based on a coin toss. More than this, a QF challenge to determine who would be on which team – for example – would have added excitement to the episode (which mostly had drama of the negative sort). In general, the organization of the challenges has been awful this season.
Posted by: Vncntdl | January 13, 2012 at 04:16 PM
rewatching...
Padma: "one team will cook and serve tomorrow, and then the other team the day after that."
after men's service: they all talk about the errors they know they made with seasoning, with expediting. no one says anything about not getting enough sleep.
after JT: Ed "we were going on, what, five hours of sleep? and nothing the night before." so that's five hours the night before RW cooking and nothing the night before, after BBQ service. granted, that's not much and probably didn't help matters but no one says they thought the girls did better because they got more sleep. the men fully acknowledge that they made a lot of mistakes and should have done better.
as to your other comment, it seems pretty clear the advantage was not overwhelming. no one made an issue that the girls did better because they had an extra day to plan and/or rest. the guys fully admitted they were hoping the girls would screw up worse than they did and didn't begrudge them doing a better job because they had the extra day. so while theoretically the whole thing could have snowballed from the coin toss, there's nothing to support your assertion that's what actually happened. as I said before, dividing them by gender was just as random as the coin toss and that could have also played into a bigger factor. the guys could have just as easily had an extra advantage by having the team with more skilled chefs, and clearly *they* thought they were the stronger team at the beginning for a variety of reasons. ever consider it was hubris that brought them down and not fatigue?
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 13, 2012 at 04:27 PM
Vncndtl: "It has nothing to do with who won or lost the coin toss. It has to do with having a level playing field – or as close to one as possible. Don't see how anyone can defend the random decision (1) to make it boys against girls or (2) to decide who is going to cook on which day based on a coin toss."
don't get me wrong, I'm not defending either decision. just saying that in the end neither one significantly influenced the outcome (and probably cancelled each other out). and I agree with you that anyone who takes issue with one should take issue with both as either one *could* have created an unfair advantage. just as a quickfire could have, or a knife-pull. I think we all know sometimes luck is a often a factor in these things even though we prefer it to be about skill.
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 13, 2012 at 04:51 PM
"after JT: Ed "we were going on, what, five hours of sleep? and nothing the night before." so that's five hours the night before RW cooking and nothing the night before, after BBQ service. granted, that's not much and probably didn't help matters but no one says they thought the girls did better because they got more sleep. the men fully acknowledge that they made a lot of mistakes and should have done better."
That's the part I remembered. I would suggest that one night of no sleep followed by five hours the next night is way less than "not much". I think I'd have a hard time being functional and would make lots of mistakes as a result.
I haven't rewatched. I'll take your word about what Padma said, but then it seems inconsistent with the quoted part from Ed. The zero sleep night is the night of the bbq challenge. Five hours is presumably the following night, after which the RW challenge started (unless it started the day of the bbq challenge, which would seem a little nuts). I had thought Ed was talking about doing service following the zero and five hour nights. I guess he could have been talking about starting the RR challenge, with service the next day. In thinking about it, it could take a full day to film shopping at both of the decor places and whole foods.
Posted by: chrish | January 13, 2012 at 07:39 PM
When men win (most) women say "congratulations"; when women win (many) men say "it's not fair, I'm tired, it's the wind, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the phrase should be "woman up."
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 13, 2012 at 10:16 PM
There is ample evidence that the team that went first was grossly sleep deprived. If this is true, it was a huge disadvantage. Not acknowledging that it would be a huge disadvantage is ludicrous. Trying to allege sexism in making a logical connection is disingenuous and obnoxious.
Regardless, those of you attempting to minimize the advantage are missing the point: it's not about sour grapes, it's about trying to get the best, most even playing field in order to view the competition as purer test of skill. Handicaps, advantages. And rolls of the dice detract from that and inject other variables that aren't of particular interest, and the intelligent area of discussion revolves around whether or not the sleep deprivation actually occurred, and whether the ladies were able to leverage extra time to plan.
Posted by: Dmantell | January 14, 2012 at 01:15 AM
first day after BBQ: Padma introduces RW, both teams have their organizational meetings, and both teams do their shopping.
second day after BBQ: men's team cooks and serves.
third day after BBQ: women's team cooks and serves.
Maybe sleep deprived on first day -- but was same for both teams. Do not see "evidence" of sleep deprivation for second or thrid day.
The elves obviously did not have the extra time they have had in previous seasons for RW, where the show has been either 1q5 minutes or 30 minutes longer, so had to cut out the QF and get everything started fast.
Do not see any significant advantage or disadvantage to either team on the coin flip or girls vs boys decision.
Posted by: Duffy | January 14, 2012 at 07:07 AM
Seriously?!!!
I've been commenting here for four seasons. Besides food, my favorite thing to talk about regarding this show is game theory, and the third most favorite thing is logistics. You're really going to play that card when it happens to occur during a boys vs girls split (something everyone has acknowledged was idiotic), ignoring the umpteen times we've had identical discussions on other challenges? Or do you not think an extra day to not only plan, but also debrief the other team does not constitute a significant advantage?
Nobody here has said that the girls team did not deserve to win on account of better food. Nobody here has said that the men were in any way superior to the women. It's not a matter of making excuses for the men, it's a question of whether the challenge was designed fairly, which I don't think it was.
Of course, unfairly balanced TC challenges are par for the course. A far more unbalanced setup was during the seasons where the RW teams were determined by one person. But unless they kept the women isolated from each other, I can't see how am extra 24 hours to plan does not confer a huge advantage to the second team. It just happened that it occurred during an idiotic, TV-drama inducing 'boys vs girls' split (which everyone hated when they did it in S6 wedding challenge). I guarantee you I'd be making the exact same points regardless, and I resent it when you throw around an accusation like that.
Posted by: Independent George | January 14, 2012 at 07:08 AM
Resent away
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 14, 2012 at 08:20 AM
Anyone who's been sleep deprived knows that it takes more than a day to recover; it takes several. The more days of rest you have, the better you function afterwards. The men were making mental mistakes that made no sense in light of what we'd seen of them previously. That indicates that their abilities were somehow impaired. Of course, it could have been for some other reason. But the simplest and most likely explanation is that they were still suffering the effects of the BBQ challenge.
And IG is quite correct above. Even were the sleep question moot, there is a very strong advantage in going second and seeing the opposing teams mistakes, so that planning can be done to improve upon and avoid them. This was not an even playing field.
Posted by: Shelly | January 14, 2012 at 10:07 AM
I hear you but it's called the breaks; sometimes you get them and sometimes you don't.
It's the level of indignation that's suspect.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 14, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Just some comments on Hugh's blog.
Fist I find his blog kinda funny, perhaps at times he tries hard but I really like that his writing style is so different from Tom's. If it was too close to Tom's style it would feel redundant.
Secondly we've heard that Gail made reference to a transitioning point with Bev and in Hugh blog he likes compare her to animals.
He called her a slow Tortoise > Ugly Duckling > Swan > Cobra. If these is any indication as to where she will end up I say she's got a good chance at top 3 and with such a transition she's got be around at least for a few more episodes.
Posted by: Libster | January 14, 2012 at 10:34 AM
My memory may be completely faulty, but I seem to recall a season in which one team got along swimmingly right from the start (maybe the Four Horsemen season?), much like the men's team this time around. The planning went smoothly, shopping went great...but when the time came for service, the results were surprisingly blah and the competitors were caught off guard when they found themselves in the weeds. It makes me wonder if a sense of complacency and complete faith in your teammates ends up working against you in RW.
Posted by: Paula | January 14, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Again, the point you seem to keep willfully missing is that we don't want there to be "breaks.". "Breaks" screw up what we'd like to be a purer test of skill. The level of indignation on perceived "breaks" has been consistent over many seasons.
Please stop trolling now ;)
Posted by: Dmantell | January 14, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Lindsay - Preseason I was hoping she'd make a good impression on me, working and living in Florida I was ready to route for her, also her time working with Michelle Bernstein had me intrigued.
but and a big fat but is that I'm not impressed with her at all. The things I remember so far about her are:
* Throwing Keith under the bus (just a tad even though I agreed upon her frozen shrimp dilemma)
* Her QF win with the Vienna sausages and tuna saltine cracker sandwich.
* Getting anxious and firing Ty-lor's steaks to early
* Her freaking out on restaurant wars and being the worst FOH I can remember in recent history.
This is not a good track record.
and while Grayson seems to be learning and working the game Lindsay is just freaking out and blaming others. I think in my personal rankings I'm pulling grayson out of the basement and putting her in there.
Posted by: Libster | January 14, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Paula,
Paul mentioned that friendship got in the way of leadership and that he wished he would have done something about it.
The guys were just acting way too buddy buddy where as the girls were acting way to catty.
Posted by: Libster | January 14, 2012 at 10:47 AM
There are all kinds of situations where the cooking is staggered. It is usual for chefs to start at intervals, so their food is hot and just ready when it is time to serve -- in the editing, the elves may make it appear that everyone is cooking at once, but I suspect that seldom happens.
Here, the physical room apparently prohibited simultaneous wars -- so, it was staggered. The women had an extra day to plan and observe, but
it did not seem to do much good in terms of process mistakes. They appeared to make their own share of process mistakes, just like the men.
If the men would not have made the mental mistakes with an extra night's sleep, how do you explain the mental mistakes made by the women -- who had the extra sleep? It seems this argument is founding upon the premise that the men were better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field." I don't think this will stand up.
Despite a boatload of mistakes by both sides, the women's food, on balance, to both the judges and the guests, tasted better.
Posted by: Duffy | January 14, 2012 at 10:48 AM
Also -- I disagree that everyone accepts the boy girl split as idiotic. It was an obvious and fast division where time was at a premium. No more idiotic that dividing by right handers and left handers, or tattoos versus no tattoos, or drawing knives.
Posted by: Duffy | January 14, 2012 at 10:52 AM
Mental mistakes by men's team are not "evidence" of sleep deprivation. If such, how explain the "mental mistakes" made by women, who had extra sleep? This argument appears to be based upon premise that men are better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field, which is unfortunately, baloney.
At the end, despite a boatload of mistakes by both sides, the women's food, on balance and to both the judges and guests, tasted better,
Posted by: Duffy | January 14, 2012 at 11:02 AM
FWIW, I didn't have a problem with the boy/girl split either. They happened to have 4 of each and it's no less random than a knife-pull determination. It's not like it was obviously unbalanced talentwise.
Posted by: Paula | January 14, 2012 at 11:10 AM
As for all the sexism charges: I haven't seen anyone here say the men should have or would have won if not for x,y,z. The argument simply boils down to whether one team had an unfair advantage...which isn't the same thing as saying that team shouldn't or wouldn't have won anyway based on the food.
Posted by: Paula | January 14, 2012 at 11:16 AM
To not so subtly change the subject, what did you all think of LCK?
I suspect that Nyesha didn't really get a chance to know Ty very well during the short time they competed. The clip they played of him saying something like "put out good food or just shut the F up" I think probably was taken out of context, though clearly Nyesha thought it was directed toward her.
But wasn't she a clever one in her sous chef selection? She understood the power of Ty having worked with Heather before and eliminated that advantage. She was taking a risk with Heather's volatile attitude, particularly since she had just eliminated her. It took Nyesha extra effort to retain her leadership position against such a strong personality, yet she asserted it well.
I like her attitude very much and really hope she makes it through what now is 3 more challenges.
BTW, does that mean 5 chefs in finals, barring a double elimination?
Posted by: Kathy from Austin | January 14, 2012 at 11:21 AM
I am game-theory obsessive. If you troll through my past comments on this site, you can probably find somewhere between 12 and 20 posts where I complain that a Top Chef challenge was configured poorly, and if they had done [insert alternative] instead, it would have been more fair. Suddenly, when I do this for the (13th? 21st?) time, it's because I'm sexist and wanted the women to lose? Seriously, what the fuck? (I'm curious, was my wife sexist because she wanted a quickfire, too?)
Literally every other Restaurant Wars episode, and the vast majority of Top Chef episodes, contain a quickfire. Most past RWs have related the quickfire to the elimination in some way - often by letting the winner pick their team or get first pick. Probably the best point of comparison was in Las Vegas, where the winning team got to pick which of two restaurant spaces they would use. That was certainly a less significant advantage than going second was this season.
The sleep deprivation is an obvious factor, but far more significant in my mind is that the women got an extra day to game-plan (probably before they shopped - I doubt they made the women leave their produce sitting for 40 hours). Even more significantly, then they got to see the other team open a restaurant in the same space, discuss what they were doing and how it was going while watching them, and then re-hash it with each other and with the men (who seemed to be pretty open about their mistakes) before trying it themselves. The advantage is obvious and enormous. It's the largest structural advantage any Restaurant Wars team has ever had, over and above the $200 bonus or choice of space or any of the other things that some teams have won in quickfires.
As others pointed out, you are taking me too literally. An advantage is won in that coin flip, and there is no reason to hand it out randomly.It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has. In football, for instance, the effect of the coin flip to determine the opening kickoff is precisely mirrored in the kickoff to open the second half, thus making the effect of that coin flip insignificant.
The only time the coin flip in football really matters is in overtime... which is why the rules of overtime are extremely controversial, and vary in different divisions and even at different times in the season. I'm sure it would shock you to find out that I've gotten in long arguments on the internet about the best way to play overtime (I think Independent George has been involved in some of those arguments, too...)
Posted by: doktarr | January 14, 2012 at 11:47 AM
Duffy, you are inferring things from my post that I did not state. I state that their behavior was inconsistent with what we've seen before. That implies that something was impairing it.
What I do not say is that if they had not been impaired that they would have won. That is your assumption you're feeding into my words, not mine.
What *I* am saying is that it looks like they were fighting with a handicap and I'd have liked to have seen a more fair fight. Who knows who would have won? But I would have appreciated the contest and outcome more.
And while those were the breaks for this contest, and while Top Chef has handed out unfair advantages on any number of occasion, I don't like those contests as well. I want this show to be about the cooking, not the gimmicks. And all evidence I've seen from this blog in the past four years is that most of the readers here feel the same way. That is the root of any indignation that you may see.
Posted by: Shelly | January 14, 2012 at 01:16 PM
Tom said he regretted going with 5 last time. I doubt that happens again.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 14, 2012 at 01:21 PM
"Mental mistakes by men's team are not "evidence" of sleep deprivation. If such, how explain the "mental mistakes" made by women, who had extra sleep? This argument appears to be based upon premise that men are better cooks and should have won with a "level playing field, which is unfortunately, baloney."
What mental mistakes did the women make? The only mistakes I saw from them were on Lindsay's part -- she made several, from her choice of dish to her method of cooking to asking someone she felt couldn't cook to prepare it, to her ignoring the front of the house when her mistakes caught up with her. And Lindsay has made mistakes in judgement since the show's beginning, like firing Ty-lor's steaks early, so it's just her abilities or lack thereof.
The rest of the chefs on her team were in good form, and made good food, despite the attitude from Sarah.
But I do not know that the other team was in as good a form, because of the way the contest was structured, and I dislike that Top Chef took a contest that should be the highlight of the season and structured it in such a way as to cast doubts upon the outcome.
Posted by: Shelly | January 14, 2012 at 01:40 PM
What Independent George said, 1000 times over. (Well, I don't think "battle of the sexes" was inherently terrible - it's one of those things I'm willing to accept as part of a TV show that wants to gin up fake drama. But I agree with everything else 100%.)
I am game-theory obsessive. If you troll through my past comments on this site, you can probably find somewhere between 12 and 20 posts where I complain that a Top Chef challenge was configured poorly, and if they had done [insert alternative] instead, it would have been more fair. Suddenly, when I do this for the (13th? 21st?) time, it's because I'm sexist and wanted the women to lose? It's you who can't see past gender, not me. (I'm curious, was my wife sexist, too, because she wanted a quickfire?)
The sleep deprivation is an obvious factor, sure. Also significant in my mind is that the women got an extra day to game-plan. By far the most significant is that they got to see the other team open a restaurant in the same space, observe them in operation and discuss what they were doing and how it was going, and then re-hash it with each other and with the men (who seemed to be pretty open about their mistakes) before trying it themselves. The advantage is obvious and enormous.
Literally every other Restaurant Wars episode, and the vast majority of Top Chef episodes, contain a quickfire. Most past RWs have related the quickfire to the elimination in some way - often by letting the winner pick their team or get first pick. Probably the best point of comparison was in Las Vegas, where the winning team got to pick which of two restaurant spaces they would use. That was certainly a less significant advantage than going second was this season.
As others pointed out, you are taking it too literally. An advantage is won in that coin flip, and there is no reason to hand it out randomly.It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has. In football, for instance, the effect of the coin flip to determine the opening kickoff is precisely mirrored in the kickoff to open the second half, thus making the effect of that coin flip insignificant.
The only time the coin flip in football really matters is in overtime... which is why the rules of overtime are extremely controversial, and vary in different divisions and even at different times in the season. I'm sure it would shock you to find out that I've gotten in long arguments on the internet about the best way to play overtime (I think Independent George has been involved in some of those arguments, too...)
Posted by: doktarr | January 14, 2012 at 02:50 PM
Absolutely agree that gimmicks detract. But that said, staggering the cooking time is not a gimmick. It is a reality of every contest where you have multiple chefs and the physical set up prevents head-to-head work.
Here, the planning and shopping, being items of major importance, were on the same day, head-to-head. No advantage either way. Then, one side did get to watch the other in their process steps of operating the kitchen, but it seemed to make little difference -- the women made their own set of process mistakes -- some in exactly the same area as the men -- when their turn came.
In the end, it came down to taste -- not process -- which had nothing to do with the extra day.
Posted by: Duffy | January 14, 2012 at 02:55 PM
As someone who works 24 hour plus shift and spend my life in a constant state of sleep depriavation, I feel more than qualified to have an opinion. One night of sleep after being up for a zillion hours is not enougth to recuperate. This means the girls team totally had an advantage by having an extra day of sleep to catch up.
And as for Sweet Sue, seriously get some help. You seem to be a very angry and unhappy person and your comments seem to be contentious just for the sake of being contentious. Dom set up this site for a forum for people to share a love of food and conversation regarding the show - not a personal diatribe which you seem to launch on to on a regular basis. Play nice with the other kids or get out of the sandbox!!!!
Posted by: Zdendka | January 14, 2012 at 03:16 PM
Please stop trolling now ;)
Posted by: Dmantell
I assume that was addressed to me. I'm going to be a lady and just say that you may disagree with every opinion that I express and that's just fine. It's part of what makes the post mortem fun but it's a real stretch to accuse someone who's been here for three or four seasons of "trolling" just because you disagree-even-vehemently-with her.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 14, 2012 at 03:23 PM
As Dom is on a self-imposed blackout, I have pasted in a slightly modified version of his post from the ep 9 post-mortem. Can we all agree with this and move on to the LCK thread?
*TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET*
Hokay, folks... let me say that:
Let's give this one a rest and move on, please... thanks!
Giving myself the last word is kind of lame, I know. But hey, it's my blog :-)
Posted by: Skillet Doux | January 8, 2012 at 03:40 PM
Posted by: Amanda P. | January 14, 2012 at 04:15 PM
Seriously Sweet Sue, just stop. Your comments & opinons are not "fun" to use your own words. They come across as angry, petty and mean and not even remotly "ladylike" as tiy describe yourself. Please particpate on this board in the spirit it was created... a celebration of food and not the snark fest that you seem to spew every time you post... again... play nice or go away!
Posted by: Zdendka | January 14, 2012 at 06:54 PM
Well, it would appear the next two episodes will be individual challenges at least.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 15, 2012 at 08:31 AM
Zdenka, seriously, please do not address me again and I will, most certainly, retun the favor.
Posted by: Sweet Sue | January 15, 2012 at 09:32 AM
FWIW, according to my wife, I was whining about the use of a coin flip instead of a quickfire before the result was shown.
Posted by: doktarr | January 15, 2012 at 10:39 AM
All I can say is, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to next week's episode, Charlize Theron notwithstanding. Some of that food looked pretty macabre. It's too bad Theron's promoting a sci fi horror flick instead of a movie about a restaurant. :)
Posted by: Edward Sung | January 15, 2012 at 12:26 PM
@doktarr: Jen C did mussels in Season 6 RW and went down in flames. Probably scared everyone else off from going the mussels route.
Both teams' principal mistake seemed to be the failure to designate an expediter. In the women's case, it mostly affected FOH and service. In the men's case, it seemed to mostly fluster Paul and Ty-lor, who produced the weakest dishes.
Posted by: Alamos Road | January 15, 2012 at 12:36 PM
Where's Grayson to shout "STOP! STOP!" when you need her?
Seriously, guys, can we please get back on topic? Reading this thread went from an enjoyable banter about game theory with mild elf-bashing to uncomfortable, cringeworthy posts attacking other posters that ruin this forum for the rest of us.
Now for something TC-related: several people earlier have stated that they would be upset if Paul or Ed don't win the title, but I wouldn't mind if Bev, Sarah, or anyone else take home the proverbial crown, as long as the food is at a high level. Judging by the past few episodes (not counting Texas BBQ), the chefs have stepped it up considerably and I can only hope this upward trend continues. Paul's definitely the #1 seed, but I won't be surprised in the least if Bev, Sarah, or Ed (or even Chris J.) pull the rug out from under Paul's feet.
Posted by: attheapollo | January 15, 2012 at 12:56 PM
Paul has definitely dominated the season so far, but Bev, Sarah, or Ed winning wouldn't be bad. Hosea and Kevin were both probably bigger upset winners than they would be.
Posted by: doktarr | January 15, 2012 at 01:38 PM
lol, this is way more fun than that meme that ran on here about how carrot tops (The food, not the prop comic) will kill us all and eat our children from a few years back.
It sort of covers up just how little there really is to get excited about this season that the challenge format is the only real drama.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 16, 2012 at 01:32 PM
doktarr: "It's funny that you point out the random impact of the coin flip in sports, seemingly unaware that most sports take great pains to minimize the effect that coin toss has."
it wasn't seemingly, I don't follow sports which is why I looked it up first. although I noticed the article said that the coin toss is often significant in cricket and can influence the outcome. so that was my piece of sports trivia for the day. ;)
So we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the option of who got the extra day was arbitrary or not. I think in the end that's how it played out as there was little evidence provided to suggest that anyone felt the sleep deprivation was a factor. The challenge could have been structured better, of course the challenges often aren't optimally structured so it is what it is.
Posted by: Cousin Sam | January 16, 2012 at 02:15 PM
"Judging by the past few episodes (not counting Texas BBQ), the chefs have stepped it up considerably and I can only hope this upward trend continues. Paul's definitely the #1 seed, but I won't be surprised in the least if Bev, Sarah, or Ed (or even Chris J.) pull the rug out from under Paul's feet."
Agreed attheapollo. And while I'm not fond of Bev or Sarah on a personality basis, if they start stepping it up with great looking food, I'll be more than happy to jump on board their train. Sarah, at least seems smart and her execution reasonably crisp...I just haven't been excited by her flavor profiles.
But honestly, I think my expectations were just raised so high with the Voltaggio's, Jen, and Pork Jesus...it's hard for other seasons to compete.
Posted by: dmantell | January 16, 2012 at 02:37 PM
That magical season six sure did ruin Top Chef for future competitions. It really has been hard to work up much interest in the food during the past couple of (non-all-star) seasons. It just seems so...mundane.
I'm gonna go ahead and predict that Beverly makes it to the finals. Now that the season is moving towards individual rather than team challenges, and Bev can just do her thing without being bullied, we'll finally see what she can do.
Posted by: Edward Sung | January 16, 2012 at 06:47 PM
I think that our recollections of Season 6 are so dominated by the Four Horsemen that it's easy to forget that the rest of the pack was really, really weak. Eve, Preeti, Ash, Ron, Mattin, etc? Except for the four standouts (which in my opinion were really three - I always thought that Jen was alone in Tier 2 of that season's chefs), it's not like Season 6 had a stunningly talented cast. I'd say that this season's median chef is probably at least as skilled as the median chef of any other season, including 6.
I like Beverly and have actually loved her focus on pan-Asian flavors. So far she's incorporated ingredients and flavor profiles from Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, India... others? That's a pretty good variety. And even her weak dishes have for the most part suffered from lack of ambition, rather than not tasting good. Unless she screws up majorly in the next couple of episodes, I'd have no problem at all with having her in the finale.
Posted by: MB in MD | January 17, 2012 at 06:47 AM
The early season haircut from 26? to 16? helped deal with the preeti issue. It probably brought up the median to some extent, but the real mark of a bad season is a OH NOES moment when someone leaves far before the preeti's of the world.
Since they expanded the contest to it's size now (S3 on) I'd probably say if you took the Final 10 as an average I'd rate them
Season 3 - IMO the highest Median by FAR to date.
Season 5 - Most underrated season talent wise
Season 6 - Top heavy enough to carry the rest
Season 7 - I can barely recall anyone I'd ever care about hearing from ever again that didn't make the finals.
Season 4 - This was a 2 horse race. The rest were glue factory bound. Yet nobody ever really points that out when discussing Lisa's showing.
Posted by: nomnomnom | January 17, 2012 at 01:16 PM
Ed - Except for S2, we tend to forget the unpleasant "drama" of a season as it recedes into the rear-view mirror. Season 6 spent a ton of airtime on frictions between Robin and Mike and then Robin and Eli because the producers thought that the Volts were boring. For me, that focus detracted from the "magic" of season 6.
3Nom - I probably enjoyed S4 more than any season other than all-stars so I'm biased. But, I object to calling a season that also had Antonia, Dale Talde, and Jen a 2-horse race. It also had the Aussie who looked good early and Andrew, who made some good food and had energy to burn. I didn't think of those chefs as glue factory-bound (except Andrew - from the first episode on, I knew he couldn't touch Blais). I guess I also have to mention Spike given how many high profile gigs he's gotten but ...
Posted by: rab01 | January 18, 2012 at 09:54 AM
@MB in MD - I don't disagree with your analysis - but it doesn't lessen my enjoyment of season 6 at all. Having 4 really strong competitors is, I guess, enough for me - I don't mind that the rest is chaffe.
And perhaps I'm being charitable by putting Jen right up there with the other folks, but I really continue to feel that she's incredibly strong. She has a few problems that are damning (falls apart when sleep deprived, which is exacerbated if she's had alcohol). The arrogance that caused her to take full responsibility in the All-star challenge where her partner screwed her also probably inspired most of what I liked about her, so I wouldn't term that as a fault per se.
All that being said, I find this conversation about which season had the best total cadre of chefs to be pretty interesting too. Unfortunately, with wikipedia down, I can't refresh my memory about the seasons to throw my own cents in.
Posted by: dmantell | January 18, 2012 at 12:41 PM