Man, you guys are killing me here!
What a great episode! We get a quickfire that's a stripped-down two-stage technical challenge with absolutely stunning product, followed by an elimination that simultaneously tests the chefs' creativity, technical skill and real-world performance all in one. In a stunning restaurant with a magnificent kitchen, we see dishes both good and bad, expected and surprising, that beautifully illustrate the differences between the final five. One of the universally accepted bottom two is eliminated, we get to see Stephanie's beaming "Omigod, I won!" face again, three women make the final four, and we have what I think is the most exciting finals setup yet. And what is everybody obsessing about?
Whether or not Rick Tramonto serves frozen scallops.
And I'M the one who obsesses about the minutiae! Okay, okay -- we'll get to scallopgate in a moment. But let's take a look at the challenges first.
Yet another great elimination challenge. They did, indeed, save the really good stuff for late in the season. Once you get over the awesomeness of a hunk of beef that could upend Fred Flintstone's car, this was a beautiful test of technical skill. I love that we got to see the inside of some of the hallowed halls of restaurant supply. I love that they followed their product from start to finish. And I love that they gave them massive chops to keep it challenging. A great challenge for chefs who have proven they can handle the good stuff, a perfect segue into a freeform real-world elimination -- what could be better?
An elimination where the chefs create two dishes and man their station for the night, that's what. Waaaaaaay better than what I erroneously predicted last week. That's two weeks in a row that I've feared gimmicks, and been pleasantly surprised by straightforward but interesting challenges that let the chefs spread their wings. Plus, the added interest of watching Tom expedite and the previous winners critique (mostly intelligently) was icing on the cake for me. This was the perfect episode for people who love the food and want to see what the chefs can do.
Then, of course, there's the whole scallop thing. Honestly, I don't get what all of the hubbub is about. If people weren't reading the blogs, I'd understand it. But that cat's been out of the bag for a while now. As Lee Anne explains in very straightforward and credible fashion, to really let the chefs fly, they needed more variety in the cooler than would be there on a typical night at Tramonto's Steak & Seafood. So they brought in extra product, much of it donated by Allen Brothers and Whole Foods. Since scallops weren't to be found on Tramonto's menu, Allen Brothers provided them. And, lo and behold, here they are on the Allen Brothers website (looking a lot nicer than Spike's, but that doesn't take much). Rick hears about frozen scallops at judges' table and -- on the spot and unsure of how they got there -- chooses not to defensively and speculatively point the finger at the folks who have graciously asked him to host their highly-rated show, and instead takes the heat for allowing, even unknowingly, substandard sea critters to inhabit his walk-in. A classy response from someone who is, by most accounts (except, perhaps, Charlie Trotter's, but that's another story), a classy guy.
So where's the controversy? Were they really Tramonto's scallops and was this all an elaborate cover-up to help him save face? Was this a devious trap laid out by Lee Anne? Did Spike choose the scallops because he couldn't bear to serve Polish sausage?
Sometimes a cigar's just a cigar, folks. Yeah, it sucks that the editors left the audience with the impression that Tramonto uses frozen seafood. And who knows... maybe he does. But in case the first eleven episodes didn't tip you off, the editors aren't generally too concerned with giving the complete picture and ensuring that we don't have any misconceptions when the credits roll.
Anyway, let's get to the rankings, here. Consider this a special edition of the rankings that doesn't completely throw out past performance, but focuses more than I normally would on future potential. If I'm running the illegal Top Chef gambling ring, this is the order I give them on the big board.
| 1 |
Richard |
|
Quickfires |
4
|
7
|
3
|
| Last Week: 1 |
|
Eliminations |
3
|
6
|
1
|
Some people aren't going to like this one, but let me state my case. If this wasn't the finals preview and I wasn't looking forward a little more than I normally do, I probably would've bumped him down. But while it's not nearly the strong bet it seemed a few weeks ago, I still think Richard is the favorite -- albeit a narrow one -- going into the finals. He was weak in the quickfire, which I find a little disappointing. Still, that's a pretty narrow challenge. If you don't have a lot of practice with brontosaurus chops, you're going to have a hard time no matter how good you may be otherwise. His elimination offering runs hot and cold. What's hot is that he turns out the best dish of the evening. What he's playing on, for those who aren't aware, is an Italian dish called Vitello Tonnato, which I absolutely adore. It's very thin pieces of poached veal that are chilled and topped with a cold sauce made with tuna, mayonnaise and usually capers, among other seasonings. Now, Richard's dish was a VERY loose interpretation, such that despite its theoretical origins, it would have been absolutely ridiculous to call it such. Instead, we get Vitello Tramonto. The guy's corny, but he has fun. Anyway, he starts by flipping the proteins, putting the fish on the bottom and the veal on top. He substitutes pristine, raw hamachi belly (from the guy who also uses frozen scallops? C'mooooon) for the tuna, crispy fried veal sweetbreads for the poached veal, smears it with mayonnaise, to pull everything together, and dresses it with explosive flavors like lime, ginger, apple, avocado, yuzu, jalapeno, bacon and truffle oil. It has everything -- hot, cold, crunch, smoosh, spicy, salty, sweet, sour -- and everybody adores it, across the board. This is the kind of dish that wins Top Chef -- wildly creative, brilliantly conceived, perfectly executed, and something the judges have never seen before. That's why Richard is my favorite going into the finals. What's cold about his elimination is that he takes on the most pedestrian of beef cuts, treats it in a very traditional manner (though pickling the Brussels sprouts was a nice touch) and deconstructs the thing into oblivion. It was a perfect example of Richard's Achilles' heel -- getting a little too cute for his own good. And that's why he's barely my favorite going into the finals. But with a few months off to collect himself, reflect on his failures and refine a few signature dishes, I think he's going to explode on the finals with the same burst you saw at the start of the season. That said, this is going to be a battle.
|
|
| 2 |
Stephanie |
|
Quickfires |
1
|
2
|
5
|
| Last Week: 2 |
|
Eliminations |
4
|
9
|
3
|
I was thisclose to giving Stephanie the top spot going into the finals. If I'd been a little more excited by the recipes, I probably would have. But none of this is to discount the fact that she continues to come back strong from her midseason lull, and I consider her and Richard an incredibly tight 1-2. Ironically, the other half of that pair also underperformed on the quickfire, but she clearly made up for it on the elimination. Her dishes in the elimination aren't whiz-bang concoctions, but they have their little twists, they're her personality on the plate, and the judges love them. She also starts by riffing on an Italian classic by hitting her crispy sweetbreads with a saor that's punctuated with pine nuts and raisins, paired with fennel and haricot vert for vegetal crisp, and finished with bacon for... well... bacon. Like Richard's dish, it has everything, both in terms of flavor and texture. And while Stephanie's is a little more comforting, that shouldn't be mistaken for simpler or less challenging to prepare. She also, in puzzling fashion, chooses beef tenderloin (the boneless, skinless chicken breast of the bovine world), but unlike Richard, she keeps her dish tight, adding salsify puree, apples, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and an essence of apple sauce that sweetly ties it all together. If Richard is all about surprising and amazing, Stephanie exemplifies the judges' other weakness -- dishes that just satisfy. Dave did this, to a certain degree, waaaaay back in season one, but he didn't have the sophistication to go all the way. Stephanie does. And I don't mean to compare their food. The two are totally different and I don't think Dave holds a candle to Stephanie as a chef. But they both appeal to that same "man, this is just good" part of the brain, albeit on drastically different levels. She's also going to bring it. If they both execute at their peak, I think it'll be Richard, but Stephanie is breathing right down his neck and I expect that to continue through the finals.
|
|
| 3 |
Antonia |
|
Quickfires |
4
|
7
|
1
|
| Last Week: 3 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
7
|
3
|
Antonia gives us more of exactly what we've come to expect from her. She does a good job butchering and cooking her steak, displaying her technical skill, and she gets a callout on the top. But her lack of creativity colors her elimination challenge, even if her style was very well-suited to a steakhouse entree. Her salad was -- I'm sorry, I'm going to use the word again -- boring. Poached egg, Boston lettuce, bacon, artichokes, mushrooms and an unseasoned Dijon vinaigrette, thereby continuing the puzzling trend of reprised dishes that are dumbed-down versions of those made earlier in the competition. I'll defend her a bit on the texture. When a poached egg is the centerpiece of your dish, that's kind of tough to bring down to a tasting portion without completely throwing off the balance. But even if she made a full-sized version, would it have been that much better? Her steak, though praised for its execution, is very, very basic -- a bone-in ribeye, roasted fennel and onions and a textbook potato gratin. It plays well because it's a steakhouse, but this isn't the kind of thing that's going to win it for her. Now, I've taken some heat for criticizing Antonia as I have, but let me clarify. I don't think she's a weak chef. I think she's an extremely talented chef, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to eat at her restaurant, and I expect I'd have a fantastic meal. But allow me to demonstrate, in the judges' own words this week, why I don't believe she can bring the title home unless both Richard and Stephanie trip. First, Gail said, at judges' table:
"Stephanie showed me something new. And that's what I get really excited about -- when I sit down at a restaurant and I try something that I will remember."
And then, Tom wrote, in his blog:
"Spike's main course -- a beef chop which, though nicely cooked, was served with Brussels sprouts, cipollini onions and a cloying sweet potato puree -- failed to redeem his appetizer. The dish was reminiscent of an old-world steakhouse meal, but it wasn't memorable and it lacked the inventiveness and flair his fellow chefs brought to the challenge."
The common thread? As I've said before, when you're somebody who has dined as widely and as well as the Top Chef judges have, you will always appreciate a great dish, no matter how simple or traditional. But what you drool over, what you dream about, what really and truly impresses you is that memorable dish that caught you completely off-guard and knocked your socks off. No, you didn't necessarily enjoy it more than the perfect piece of simply roasted fresh fish you ate on the shores of the Mediterranean, but you probably don't remember the name of that chef, either. Antonia cooks great food. She doesn't cook memorable food. The judges know, when they're tasting, if it's something they're going to think about five years from now. And while her food is crisp and delicious, it isn't inspiring. And that's the difference between first and second or third place.
|
|
| 4 |
Lisa |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
2
|
5
|
| Last Week: 5 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
3
|
6
|
While she's not embarrassing herself like she has at times, Lisa is clearly the odd woman out when it comes to the top four. In the quickfire where right is wrong, she's also singled out for praise. But she's back to her old ways in the elimination, if not as blatantly as usual. The chilled shrimp really was an odd choice, especially given the amount of butter she used. It's almost as though she wanted to play on shrimp cocktail, but didn't stop to consider whether cold was really the way to go given her accompanying flavors. Her N.Y. strip with spicy apple sauce and peanut butter mashed potatoes was actually one of her greater successes, but again, it was held back by sloppy execution. It's worth noting that not only have we seen this caramel sauce before, atop the steak she prepared with Stephanie for the movie themed party, but it's also inspired by the same Vietnamese sauce that Dale was unsuccessfully trying to riff on with his butterscotch scallops. So give her points for getting right what Dale got wrong, but this is still a rare victory, and a rehashed one at that. She's not without talent. We've seen her turn out good dishes, even if they're very few and very far between. But even if she performs at her absolute best in the finals, she just doesn't possess the kind of refinement necessary to stand out in this crowd. Her food just looks sloppy in comparison to the other finalists, even on the rare occasions when it tastes good, and I think that's only going to be highlighted when everybody brings their A game. If somebody has a fluky performance, she could potentially survive the first cut. But she doesn't have a snowball's chance at going any further.
|
|
| 5 |
Spike |
|
Quickfires |
2
|
4
|
4
|
| Last Week: 4 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
6
|
He wasn't at the top of my elimination wish list, but I'm glad to see at least one half of the dysfunctional duo depart on the way into the finals. In some ways, it was nice to see him rock the quickfire, as though it was a parting reminder that his success wasn't a total fluke, even if he made it much further than he should have. But even with pristine scallops, my hunch is that he still would have been packing his knives. The scallops with mushrooms and hearts of palm were just poorly conceived, and weren't helped by the fact that he overcooked his hearts of palm, making the dish a combination of mushy, mushy and mushy. And though his entree was competent, I've been saying for a while that competent doesn't cut it in the later stages, and it earns him the boot. Incidentally, using the scallops was a shockingly bad call, but it wasn't an unprecedented move. Anybody remember the five ingredient farmers market quickfire from waaaaaaaay back in episode two? He was tripped up by frozen protein there as well, when his tenderloin turned out to be bits and tips. He learns from that mistake and maybe he's still around. But even so, he didn't deserve to be. Much like Lisa with the cold shrimp, it's as though he had a preconceived notion of what he was going to do and simply charged ahead without stopping to think. It's unclear whether or not he had the option of switching proteins after he got started, but even if he was stuck with wet, mangled scallops, there's a lot you can do with them that doesn't involve searing. Make a mousse, think of a creative preparation that involves dicing them somehow and doesn't involve the need to caramelize them. But don't just charge ahead, knowing full well that they're going to be lousy. He knew he wasn't making a grade A dish from the start. In his exit interview, he sidesteps taking responsibility and rails against the substandard product that, to paraphrase, never should have been in the cooler in the first place. But when he follows that scathing criticism by defensively claiming that "frozen scallops sometimes aren't terrible," he's exposing the fact that he knew perfectly well from the start that he was sacrificing quality because he was hung up on doing scallops. It may have gotten him through episode two, but that doesn't fly in episode twelve, and he blows it at the last minute.
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I've already sort of made my predictions, as it were, so let me just say that I'm totally jazzed. We were a Dale short of a stunning finals, but even with Lisa occupying that last spot, I don't think I've ever been more excited going into the final four. Not only do we have three great chefs, but the race even did us the honor of tightening up just in time for maximum excitement. Yes, I think this is really a battle between Richard and Stephanie, but Antonia is going to keep them honest. And hey, you never know -- she could sneak in there. And not only is the talent of the top three remarkable, but their professionalism is refreshing as well. While I'm pulling for either Richard or Stephanie, the truth is that despite my critiques, I wouldn't be upset if Antonia won either -- surprised, but not upset. Then, of course, there's Lisa. The judges have been hinting lately that she's gotten a raw deal from the editors. It's a suggestion to which I'd be a lot more receptive if she weren't turning out so many awful dishes. So I'm just going to stick my head in the sand and pretend this is a three chef finals. It will be soon enough, anyway.
Discuss!
