Top Chef Power Rankings

Top Chef - S9E5 Power Rankings

Okay, that's it. We're having the Airing of Grievances a couple weeks early this year.

• You want to work in the Texas State Troopers, great. Cook 'em a meal. Can we dispense with the contrived, staged roadblock?
• Even more importantly, can we not ask the chefs to act? Because they're not. Actors, that is.
• Why must every season feature a "cook something using crap" challenge? It doesn't test their resourcefulness. Nobody magically turns beef jerky and snack paks into haute cuisine. It's a test of who makes the "dish" that's the least crappy. What's the point?
• But since you're going that route, really, what kind of "survivalist pack" combines Whole Foods coconut milk and hearts of palm with cream of celery soup and Vienna sausages and beer? ... Okay, the beer makes sense.
• Every once in a while, a full meal challenge means that somebody on a team gets stuck with dessert. Okay, fine. But, really? We're going to start arbitrarily assigning wide swaths of chefs to dessert in individual challenges? Lame.
• Progressive dinner in high society? Great. But is this a cooking show, or a freak show? I've never been to Dallas, don't have any feelings whatsoever for the city, and even I think the folks down there deserved better than that.
• Pink food? Really, Kim Whitman?
• Oh, good lord... a book about parties for dogs?! REALLY, Kim Whitman?!?
• Cupcake. Yeah.
• Who are the chefs cooking for, the guests or the judges? Will the judges be judging the food, or the guests' reaction to the food? Because every time we have a challenge like this, the chefs get stuck in the middle and the result is bad, indecisive food.
• Still, chefs, yes, you had "clients." And your clients were... less than adventurous. But you can approach that one of two ways. You can make creative, exciting food accessible, or you can dumb your food down. Waaaaay too many went the second route, and you guys are (mostly) better than that.

20 lashes to everybody except the handful of top performers and the judges for putting up with that debacle. Season Nine may now take its mulligan. After today, let us never speak of this episode again.

Okay, on to the Feats of Strength.

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Paul Quickfires 1 1 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 0 One bright and sunny spot was Paul, who makes me feel better and better about starting him at number one with every recipe I see. Fried Brussels sprouts and grilled prosciutto, right? Check out the recipe. That'd be fried brussels sprouts and grilled prosciutto paired with peaches, set atop a curried creme fraiche, dressed with a reduction of ginger, garlic, green onion, Thai chiles, sugar and apple cider, and garnished with basil and candied pine nuts. It's wildly creative but it looks like it plays simply, and despite the far-flung ingredients and funky pairings, at its heart it's accessible. Let that be a lesson to the rest of the field when staring down the filet and gummy bear set.

2 Sarah Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 1 2 1 With the cochinita pibil debacle two episodes behind her (one for which I'm willing to let Lindsay take the fall if Sarah continues to do well), Sarah seems to have regained her footing nicely and has been one of the stronger performers over the past couple of episodes. And her artichokes looked very elegant and refined. She poached the artichokes with wine, lemon and herbs and finished them on the grill. Then she plated them with a puree made from wine-poached dates, lightly marinated bufala mozzrella and zucchini, and pecans. In terms of flavor it's very straightforward, but it shows a lot of finesse, which is precisely what you'd expect given her background.

3 Heather Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 1 0 I'd like to ding Heather more for the overcooked lamb, but it's hard to when that's basically all we know about what she cooked this week, and there isn't exactly a pack of kick ass dishes breathing down her neck. She stayed out of the bottom, though it sounds like only narrowly. Still, if not for that one comment, we have absolutely nothing to go on. That combined with a weak showing from almost everybody means she basically treads water even though she probably doesn't deserve it.

4 Chris J. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 1 1 Ditto Chris J., though this one bothers me even more. But still, who do I move past him? Dakota, who since her inaugural quickfire win has made a good dessert and a bad dessert? Beverly, who was on the bottom twice last week and largely invisible this week? Edward, whose dessert -- stylish though it looked -- got a cool reception in Gail's blog? Lindsay, who can apparently do wonders with Vienna sausages and sterno, but who can't make a cochinita pibil despite having cooked in Mexico for three years? You see my dilemma. Chris got carried away. He got carried away in exactly the fashion I'd expect somebody who came out of Moto to get carried away -- too in love with the idea to stop and consider whether it's a good idea. Incidentally, I'm not even certain whether it's HIS idea. Moto has been serving a "Cuban Cigar" for a number of years -- going back to late 2008, I believe? -- the creation of which Chris may or may not have had a hand in since he's been there since 2007. But what's doubly puzzling is that Moto's Cuban Cigar is a Cuban sandwich. Get it? A Cuban Cigar. Which if nothing else, is witty. But this version didn't even have the joke going for it. Though it's frustrated me, I have a certain respect for the fact that Moto is a crazy idea laboratory. But crazy ideas won't fly on this show unless they're smartly developed and well-excecuted. Doing so can win you the title. See Richard Blais. But as Blais himself has said, sometimes the hardest thing is knowing when to edit. For Chris' sake, hopefully this is an early reminder that he's going to have to do a little more editing.

5 Dakota Quickfires 1 1 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 1 0 I'm a little surprised to see this myself. First off, I don't care about the bottom appearance in the quickfire. You didn't work wonders with ramen noodles, canned crab and pineapple juice? I'm okay with that. Her dessert plate was busy, yeah, but unlike Chris C's, it had unity. It was unabashedly all about the banana, and the judges dug it. And in a field where precious few are standing out with any consistency, besting everybody in the inaugural quickfire and making a top appearance this week with dessert earns you position number five, apparently. I suppose another way to look at it is to say that she's won with every individual savory dish she's cooked. Doesn't make me feel better about having her at number five, but I suppose I could argue it in court if I had to.

6 Beverly Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 1 To me, Beverly's one of the more intriguing players in the field. She had a rough week last week, but not for reasons that completely freak me out. And this week, the little comments around the fringes suggest that her elimination dish was one of the better ones. It wasn't Korean, for those keeping score. Cantonese, actually, featuring XO sauce, which popped up in Hong Kong in the '80s, a sort of oily chile sauce made with dried seafood. I adore XO, it's a natural pair for a seared scallop (fresh scallop, dried scallop), and I'm curious about the polenta pairing but I can see it working in my head. No recipe, sadly. But getting dinged for not cooking her Anaheim chile aside, she's gotten a mostly warm reception when doing her thing, and I like the look of some of these dishes. And lord knows she's driven. I have a hunch her trajectory is going to be boom or bust, and I'm betting on the boom coming first.

7 Edward Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 Like most everybody else here, it seems, I really liked the look of Edward's dessert -- a cardamom panna cotta with cantaloupe consomme and basil pudding-stuffed raspberries. It looks light, clean and refreshing. But Gail was unimpressed, describing it as "mediocre" in her blog interview. Still, he got top mention in the quickfire, for what that's worth, and he's still kind of stalking the leaders, so we'll basically leave him where he is for another week. Incidentally, I'd like to take this opportunity to call on the elves to release the footage of Kari Klower expressing surprise that Nyesha's filet was "kind of meaty" and the desserts were "kind of sweet."

8 Grayson Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 2 0 There have been calls to put Grayson much higher than she's been, and I understand why. I mean, there have been six challenges and she's been on top three times. But the nature of those top finishes bugs me. Throw out her chicken mole. If she'd been on the losing team, that might've sent her home. I don't want to shortchange what looked like a very nice dessert, but still... you aren't going to win this thing with dessert. Which leaves us with her habanero popper. That's the basis on which we should be moving her up the ladder? Even more than that, though, I'd feel a whole lot better if I'd seen her produce one savory dish with some finesse. Still, it isn't as though Edward's blown us away with anything yet, which is why I've finally moved her to the middle of the pack. But to me, she's still a very, very unproven commodity, and unlike some whose under-the-radar dishes look interesting to me, Grayson's have looked uninspiring. We'll see, I guess.

9 Lindsay Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 0 1 I wanted to position Lindsay as the female analogue to Abe Froman here, but I think that might earn me a red flag from Google Safe Search. No, no, some other folks dropped past Lindsay this week. This isn't a promotion based on that dish in the field. I mean, really, I hate to diminish somebody's win, but when the winning dish is cream of celery soup reduced with onion soup mix and Vienna sausages paired with a saltine sandwich filled with tuna, sardines, mayo, mustard, soy sauce, Tabasco and trail mix... well, I think that says more about the challenge than it does about the winner, unfortunately. Either that or it says something about John Besh's level of sobriety. Take your pick. So... congrats, Lindsay. Please don't do that ever again.

10 Whitney Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 0 Aw, man... I was all looking forward to getting a nice running gag going about the invisible contestant and the elves had to go ahead and finally let Whitney say something. Based on her 20 seconds of screen time -- from which I naturally feel comfortable judging the totality of her character -- Whitney lends the fleeting impression that she may be committing the cardinal reality show sin: being bland. Which is fine by me as long as her food isn't. Sadly, indicators aren't currently pointing in that direction. You know, those piles and piles of indicators the elves have given us. We'll punt on Whitney... again.

11 Nyesha Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 0 1 Nyesha hasn't shown much since being in the basement last week, except she managed not to fall on her face, which is more than I can say for some of those below her. Those fleeting little looks and indicators seemed to suggest that her filet wasn't bad, but looking at that recipe, man, is it the coward's way out. Beef tenderloin with roasted vegetables, creamed corn and a red wine vinaigrette? It's like the very definition of playing not to lose. And without naming her, Tom (rightfully) dinged her in his blog for preparing a dozen steaks rather than seizing the opportunity to cook the whole tenderloin and carve it. She's supposed to have a pedigree, but man, she sure isn't showing it. It seems like she can execute, and that'll carry her for a while, but not for long... and she just has the look of somebody who doesn't want to be there. Maybe this is the Top Chef version of rope-a-dope and she's going to come out swinging in a couple of episodes. But if so, until then, she's hanging out near the bottom.

12 Chris C. Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 1 1 1 While things are relatively quiet at the top, the race for the bottom is fast and furious! After a double-bottom performance, I nearly put Chris C. in the basement, but ultimately decided that botching this season's canned goods challenge and taking his clients' dessert requests a little too much to heart were lesser sins than landing on the bottom for an entree (though that dessert really did look atrocious). Besides, they need to keep him around a little while longer. I think there's a judge or two he hasn't fawned over yet.

13 Ty-Lör Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 2 I think what bugs me the most about Ty-Lör's pork tenderloin is that it's such a low degree of difficulty dish, and yet he still made a mess of it. I'm on Nyesha's case for taking the safe road, yeah, but at least she executed. Ty-Lör's had a couple of interesting looking dishes that haven't gotten airtime, but more than that he seems to have a nose for the chopping block and a kind of, "Yeah, oops" attitude upon arriving there. I'm just not getting the vibe of somebody who's going to be around for long, here.

14 Chuy Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 1 2 1 Well, there's one dark horse pick down. Though I take minor solace in the fact that Tom also said he was surprised to see Chuy go home so early, based on the other food he'd cooked. Clearly, that dish didn't work. But I do feel compelled to defend Chuy somewhat from the notion that this melding of fish and cheese was culinary crazy talk, even if it means challenging Colicchio. Tom goes so far on his blog as to say, "In Italy, we do not put parmesan on fish dishes." And it's true that one of the easiest ways to earn yourself the stinkeye and the instant tourist treatment -- if not a free guided tour to the door -- is to order a seafood pasta and ask for parmesan to go with it. But as with so many things, these are guidelines, not unbreakable rules. I've had cheese paired with seafood plenty of times in Venice and, you know, they handle their seafood pretty damn well. I'm prepared to believe that there was potentially a good dish in there. Chuy mentioned that he sometimes serves it at the restuarant, and I tried to find some reference to it but came up empty. Still, the bottom line is that he overcooked it and then put up a lame defense. We saw that he said the salmon needed to be overcooked to melt the cheese. Stupid statement made on the spur of the moment in a desperate attempt to save himself. We didn't see him blaming the oven, though they made reference to it in the extended Judges' Table video, and seemed extremely annoyed by it. But what they didn't see was his exit interview, where he said in the most plain and straightforward manner possible that he just blew it -- he killed the dish by overcooking it and said there was no question that he was the one who deserved to go home. His exit interview was actually very humble and even-keeled -- the polar opposite of his casting video -- which makes me wonder how much of that personality was played up for screentime. The stories about his father indicate that he's someone unafraid of making an almost self-aware caricature of himself. I know people like that. But in any case, it's the food I'm going to miss. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do, and I didn't see nearly as much of it as I would have liked. Too bad.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE SIX SPOILERS AHEAD

The Mother of all Quickfires... get it?! Groanworthy pun-ditry aside, my traditionalist side loves that there's a challenge based on the mother sauces. Sounds like a random draw of the most minimal, classic set of five (what does and doesn't constitute a mother sauce isn't completely 100% agreed upon), and then the chefs are set loose for NINETY MINUTES. A not-so-quick quickfire, it would seem. Then, a massive team-based beef progression catering challenge for the elimination, wherein Edward continues to be snarky, Beverly continues to get on everybody's nerves, and Ty-Lör goes down bleeding. Somebody gear up the bus.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E5 Last Chance Kitchen

Okay, Chuy in Keith's chef's coat is a devastatingly funny visual.

Who'da thunk this week's LCK would be better than the regular episode?

I love that they're throwing a little variety into LCK. For those who can't access the video, Chuy and Keith participated in a bare bones (ha!) tomahawk chop throwdown. They picked up their rack at a premium meat market, butchered five tomahawk chops, and were tasked with cooking one to a perfect medium rare.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for skills challenges, but I love this. THIS is what I like to see more of on the show... not cooking in a cornfield with canned goods. And it's extra satisfying when both chefs do an excellent job and the margin is so narrow. Though I'm definitely with Tom on one thing. It pains me to see Chuy remove the cap.

Anyway, I still don't think we're at the point where these guys have any prayer of making it to the finish line, but Keith's respectable first streak comes to an end, and a no matter how far he goes, Chuy earns a little bit of redemption.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E5 Postmortem

Are we getting a little bit more separation between the contestants yet? Is Chris too in awe of John Besh's teeth to cook? Has anybody shivved Beverly? I'll check in later... you get started. Discuss!

UPDATE : Kill me now.

UPDATE II : Please, kill me now.

UPDATE III : AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

UPDATE IV : Well, thank god that's over. Here's hoping they crammed most of the ick into one episode. Can I just pretend this episode never happened? No? Rankings on Monday? *sigh*... okaaaaaaay.

I'll wait until I'm less annoyed to write more. But don't let that stop you guys.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E4 Power Rankings

Because I have a bad habit of getting hung up on these types of things, let me just get this out of the way. In my world, chile -- as in the spicy pepper -- is spelled with an e, though I probably couldn't support that as the only "correct" spelling. Chili -- the meaty stew that may or may not contain beans depending on your dogma but definitely includes chiles -- is spelled with an i, and I'm pretty sure reference will back me up on that one. And most importantly, there is no tilde in habanero, which is non-negotiable until somebody presents me with somebody born and raised in Mexico who pronounces it with a "nyuh."

That bit of pedantry aside, we can get on with what I thought was an episode that demonstrated not every show has to be a big Restaurant Wars blockbuster to be great. I love the episodes that are just kind of quietly but smartly conceived and executed, and this was among them. We got two good challenges, both for different reasons, a little local flavor, and a twist that was interesting and non-gratuitous.

I love the concept of this quickfire. It works in some of that reality show whiz-bang (Ghost Chile, $20,000!!!) while still being about the food. And as somebody who is consistently annoyed with the whole hotter=better mentality, I wasn't even bothered by the prize structure. Of course, scovilles and degree of difficulty don't line up so neatly, but there's a certain amount of wisdom in the idea that you have to carefully tame a hotter pepper to ensure it doesn't blow out the dish. And it's always so awesome to see the Too Hot Tamales. I see nothing not to like about that challenge.

And moving on to the elimination, we get a little local flavor, both in terms of atmosphere and food, and it's in a small team format that lets us focus on the contestants a bit, and that lets them focus on getting to know each other a little during an all-night cook-off. Some have pointed out that the rodeo in question seems more like a corporate event space than the genuine article, but I think it's important to keep the difficulties of mounting an actual television production in mind. A smaller, more private location makes perfect sense for a shoot like this. It's easier to manage, easier to cover, easier to control the crowd, and easier to keep spoilers from getting out. Really, my only complaint here was the manner in which the winning chili was named. I don't have a dog in the no beans/beans debate. I like to think there's room for both. But while I'm happy throwing a final determination to the crowd every now and again, particularly for a small group challenge, I'm less keen on the fact that it was thrown to a crowd that is, demographically speaking, so heavily skewed to one side of that fence. I couldn't say for sure without polling the diners, of course, but I suspect any team that used beans immediately surrendered their chance at the win. Texans, generally speaking, don't like beans in their chili. And while I think that's a charming regional quirk (lord knows I have mine), I'm not sure it makes them the best choice of arbiters in a chili cook-off that will involve some chili with beans and some without. I hope it's clear that I'm not suggesting the rodeo crowd wasn't capable of appreciating something a little more creative or less Texas-styled. I'm just saying that I'm not sure a chili with beans is going to get a fair shake in a roomful of Texans any more than a hot dog with ketchup is going to get a fair shake in a roomful of Chicagoans. Though that's partly because ketchup on hot dogs is wrong and evil and evilwrong.

Still, if that's my biggest annoyance with the episode, I figure it's a pretty darn good one. And I even dug the twist at the end. Yeah, it's a little brutal to have the three on the losing team thrown back into the fire one more time. But it beats a squishy JT postmortem where we try to determine who precisely was most at fault for this being the least of the chilis. Valuable for us to know? Sure, and sometimes necessary within the context of the show. But if you can throw the bottom group back in the kitchen, task them with fixing what they messed up, and let a quick bit of solo work determine which one of them goes home, not only do I see nothing wrong with that, but I love that when it comes down to the wire, their fate is entirely in their hands an nobody else's.

On with the rankings!

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Paul Quickfires 1 1 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 1 0 Since we aren't getting individual elimination winners, I'm weighing quickfire winners a little more heavily than normal. But even so, anybody think Paul didn't deserve this for winning the QF with a ghost chile and having a hand in what sounded like the second-favorite chili of the night? The more I see this guy's recipes, the sadder I am that we didn't manage to get to Austin while in Texas this summer. That QF dish looks like a delightful little number, particularly when you consider the weather they were experiencing. He did a simple chilled soup of coconut milk, sugar, lime juice and zest and kaffir lime leaves. He grilled some corn, apricots and ghost chile, sweated some onion and treated it with garam masala, then mixed all of the above to make a relish. Relish in the bowl, chilled coconut soup all around, topped with cilantro, basil, toasted almonds, olive oil and Maldon salt. What about that doesn't sound awesome?

2 Heather Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 1 0 Despite having no wins, heather looked strong this week, and gets a little bump. Sadly, there's no recipe for the Date & Pistachio Couscous with Thai Chiles, but it looked like a plucky little dish, helped to quell some of my concerns about her range, and Susan said some awfully nice things about it. Then, not only was she on the second-place chili team along with Paul (I identify them as second place because they were the only one other than the winner not cut into the "who had the losing chili" discussion), but her pickled peaches (again, no recipe, sadly) were not only unconventional and creative, but they made a total convert of Gail. I know, second place, no wins... but there aren't a whole lot of wins to go around right now. She's a pro, she's been around, she was already near the top, and she looked strong this episode. I feel good about putting her here based on what we've seen so far.

3 Chris J. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 0 1 0 Don't consider it a demotion. Though I still have high hopes for him long-term, he was just keeping the top spot warm last week. I liked his choice of the Manzano chile, mostly because I'm so unfamiliar with it. I was a little less enthused by his dish. He seared off some chicken along with celery and Manzano chile, then made a bleu cheese puree with more Manzano and apple cider vinegar. Buffalo wings. Great, except that reimagined buffalo wings are waaaaaaaay overplayed. Which is fine if they rocked. But apparently they didn't rock enough. Still, Chris hangs near the top on a quiet week.

4 Sarah Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 1 1 Should I let her bounce back this much? I'm not sure. But since this is the early running when we're kind of reaching for indicators, I'm willing to go with the impression that she was driving that team to victory. I actually made the winning chili this weekend. Simmer it way longer than an hour, and don't accidentally use twice as much cumin as it calls for (oops), and it's a pretty good recipe. Not a contest winner, IMHO, but I suspect details are frequently lost in translation from show to site, and those details are particularly important when you're talking about a very minimal, traditional Texas-style chili. Tom indicates in his blog that this would have been the winner even if that task hadn't fallen to the crowd. Plus, she may have a Texas trick or two up her sleeve yet. But I'm still counting her among the Chicago crowd (we're talking culinary scene, not heritage!).

5 Chuy Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 1 2 0 I'd like to ding him more for an embarrassing quickfire lapse, but I don't really have somebody handy to leapfrog him here. Plus, he had to go and end up on the winning chili team, and while I'm guessing Sarah was driving, that's not for nothing, particularly when you're talking about a chef who's familiar with chiles and smoke. No recipe on his habanero scallops (note how the resident Mexican pronounces it... I'm done, really!), so no error analysis there. I'll let him hang onto five, but Chuy's on notice... no more embarrassing slipups like that.

6 Dakota Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 0 0 Dakota's quickfire dish was an oyster shooter with fire-roasted habanero mignonette. Sounds good enough, but there's no recipe and it didn't get any airtime. Then she got aced out of brisket at the meat counter and the resulting stringiness had her team in consideration for the bottom, though I'm not going to fault her for getting bruised in that scrum. Incidentally, Dakota got her start in Southwestern cuisine? Total research fail on my part. Anyway, I don't really have much to go on with Dakota this week, so she'll just hang tight at number six.

7 Beverly Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 1 1 What the heck do I do with Beverly? Though she's been dinged for it in many corners, let me stand up for the choice to serve her Anaheim chiles raw. Why the heck not? This isn't Sam Talbot in the S2 semifinals. It's an episode 4 quickfire. Why not try to highlight the raw qualities of a fresh chile? Whether or not the particular dish worked is another question, but I actually liked that she had the courage to go raw. Sadly, that combined with the chili fail would have earned her a big drop if not for pulling a rabbit out of her hat in the elimination cook-off. She was at least as drained as everybody else, and the fact that she managed to impress the judges as much as she did under that kind of pressure speaks volumes, I think. Even at that point, she didn't survive, she thrived. Great save. Incidentally, her third straight Korean dish provides an opportunity to raise a point. It's been suggested in the comments that she might do great with the judges until they experience Korean fatigue. But which foods we perceive as "ethnic" and how we value them is a hot topic these days, and this, I think, is a great example. Would we ever consider dinging a French chef for consistently putting out creative French dishes, or an Italian chef for consistently putting out creative Italian dishes? Korean is no more narrow within the context of Asia than Italy is within the context of Europe, so why must our Asian specialists cover the entire continent to be considered broad enough to flourish? I'm not suggesting that this assessment of the judging is wrong. It may very well work out that way. But whether or not it should is, I think, a legitimate and good question to consider.

8 Edward Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 0 Another quiet week for Edward, so he'll tread water as well, but at least we got a recipe out of him. His quickfire dish was a Fried Bacon, Crystallized Ginger and Habañero Compote with Habañero Michelada [sic]. He first deep fried strips of bacon, melted bleu cheese over the top, and paired them with a compote made from candied ginger and habanero. Then he made a michelada (seasoned beer, essentially) with tomato, Worcestershire, vinegar and habanero. Says fun bar food to me.

9 Chris C. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 1 1 0 Chris C. is another fellow we didn't see much from this week, but he was on the winning chili team and that's not for nothing. Note that he did a coconut soup with Thai chiles for the quickfire. Does this indicate a good dish might simply have been outclassed by Paul's, or does that very fact demonstrate that he isn't operating on the level necessary to win? Or am I really, really reaching for things to analyze? Probably the latter, particularly given the lack of a recipe. But hey, it's only the second Power Rankings. I'm allowed to do that, right? We'll give him a little bump for the chili win.

10 Whitney Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 0 I stress again, Whitney Otawka is, in fact, participating in this competition. She may have actually said a line on camera this week! Still, there's not much to go on except for her quickfire recipe, Beef Tenderloin with Napa Cabbage and Thai Chili Slaw. She marinated beef tenderloin with soy, garlic, scallion and chiles and seared it. She paired it with shredded napa dressed with a little rice vinegar and soy, and added a superquick cucumber pickle. All of which is almost exactly what I've thrown together on countless weeknights when I didn't have a better plan. Except that I wouldn't use tenderloin. And mine's tasty, but there's a reason I'm not competing on Top Chef. None of this inspires confidence. But we're still seeing almost nothing of her, so again, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt and let her tread water a bit longer.

11 Lindsay Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 0 1 After last week's debacle, Lindsay pulls a disappearing act, which probably isn't a bad thing. Her quickfire dish was an herb salad with charred sugar snap peas and a blackened habanero vinaigrette. I support salads when done well, but it appears "You don't win friends with salad" holds true for the day, at least. Then she was on the team whose chili Susan Feniger described as lacking spice and "flat," which I'm sure has Michelle Bernstein thrilled. But I'm going to punt on Lindsay for now and see what happens next week.

12 Grayson Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 15 Eliminations 0 1 1 A shout out from Mary Sue Milliken pulls Grayson out of the basement! She was also on one of the meh chili teams, but I do kind of like that quickfire dish. Doing a habanero popper is kind of ballsy, not necessarily from a heat standpoint -- it was first simmered in simple syrup for 15 minutes -- but because it was so exposed. But, you know, that was kind of the strength. Yeah, it was a popper with a creamy dipping sauce. But it was creatively done, and it featured the chile, and it sounds like the Tamales loved it. That's something to build on.

13 Ty-Lör Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 0 2 I kind of feel about Ty-Lör down here the same way I felt about Chris J. up top last week. He's keeping it warm until further notice. Still, another episode where I don't really have any reason to move him up, other than an elimination and another near-elimination. I do kind of like the look of his quickfire recipe, which we didn't get to see, billed as Prawns in the Shell with Roasted Chili Caramel Sauce, Raw Chili Crudité, Lime Leaves and Fish Sauce. Note that it employs the dreaded savory caramel sauce that Dale Talde made infamous. Well... except not awful, apparently. Again, that's Vietnamese all over, and when done well, it's awesome. Not awesome enough on this day, though. Hopefully we'll get to see something either positive or negative from Ty-Lör this week. I'm not at all comfortable with how little a grasp I have on him.

14 Nyesha Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 1 Let me state that I suspect Nyesha is a much better chef than this, and I had her at 13 (still lower than she should be) until the last moment when I finally decided she'd earned the basement at least for a week. She could be great, but she's looking like somebody who might flame out before she ever gets going. Her baby fennel and rock shrimp salad, with queso fresco, kalamata olives and piles of fresh herbs, looks nice enough even if we didn't get to see a reaction. But I'm heavily troubled by two things. One, the extended JT table video seems to suggest that they felt she was most in the driver's seat with the chili. They may or may not have had the correct impression, and the video may or may not have given me the correct impression of their impression (meta, dude), but it's still troubling. Then, it sounds like she completely phoned in the elimination cook-off, and was only saved because she executed while Richie really botched his on a technical level. No matter how good she is in her kitchen, these all smell like an early elimination unless she turns it around quickly.

15 Richie Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 1 1 Okay, I realize reactions to that departure are varied, but I found it brutal to watch. Which isn't to say for a moment that it wasn't totally deserved. Still, the fact that he seemed most upset about letting down his restaurant and his comrade-in-arms I find kind of charming. Anybody else notice that was the second consecutive quickfire dish that he killed with too much pineapple? In any case, Richie comes out of this looking a little green, which is fine because he is. I hate to make sweeping generalizations about somebody based on a few episodes of Top Chef, but he seems like somebody who has been given a lot of weapons but hasn't yet developed the wisdom to best utilize them (even if my criticism of the restaurant where he works usually centers around the notion that others who should have developed that wisdom still haven't). Still, what's undeniable is that a lot of interesting, highly creative stuff comes out of Moto, and in that manner, Richie represented his comrades well. And besides... there is another.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE FIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

Precious little in the online previews this week. John Besh is the guest, and we get a cook-off in a cornfield, followed by what looks to be upscale food in Dallas. That and the storyline of Beverly getting on everybody's nerves for being pushy moves further to the fore. There's your editing storyline for the next few episodes. But the chefs appear to be cooking their own dishes in the elimination, so that might do wonders in developing a little clarity in the Power Rankings. Fingers crossed.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E4 Last Chance Kitchen

And we officially have our first LCK streak!

Okay, so it's only two in a row, but Keith takes down Richie to stay in the running.

Y'know, I was happily preparing to talk about how nice it was that they didn't try to pretend it was Thanksgiving in the middle of the summer. Ah, well. For those who haven't watched, this week's LCK challenge was to repurpose Thanksgiving leftovers.

Keith went with multiple components again... a roasted corn and turkey hash, some manner of salad that wasn't described, a ham and bleu cheese fritter, and a somewhat inexplicable smear of pie filling that Tom called him out on. Richie, meanwhile, broke out the toys. I think an LN cranberry noodle was in there somewhere, along with a number of other manipulated ingredients.

I have to believe that this multiple component thing is going to bite Keith in the ass at some point. They can work, but they've got to be cohesive, and his have just seemed like multiple dishes. Still, his actual repurposing of the ingredients trumped Richie's approach, which seemed to be to plate the same dinner with each ingredient manipulated somehow. Is it really all that different than it was the first time around? Is it better? This is a lot of speculation. We don't get much to go on with LCK.

Long story short, however, Keith lives to see another day, and Richie is eliminated for failing to successfully repurpose a dish. Again.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E4 Postmortem

Well, that was totally heartbreaking.

Not that Richie is gone. He's quite confident that he should have lasted much longer, and he could be right. With early eliminations, you never know if somebody just had trouble getting their footing out of the gate. But few have looked that crushed on the way out the door. Ouch.

Sorry, Mary Sue! Didn't see you in the previews, and didn't mean to leave you out in the shout-out to Susan!

Also, we interrupt this postmortem for an important public service announcement. There's no tilde in habanero. You can lose the "nyuh" in the third syllable. It's okay, I was embarrassed when I found out I'd been mispronouncing it for years, too. And this is one mispronunciation that will probably never be widely corrected. But we must fight the good fight. Thank you for your attention.

Great episode. Great challenge concepts, great-looking food, great twists. One annoyance, but I'll save that for the Power Rankings.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E3 Power Rankings

Not a bad start, right?

A couple of pretty decent challenges, some problems to be sure, but overall a high level of competition that looks even better when you peruse the recipes. And oh, buddy, am I glad that the recipes appear to be markedly improved over the last couple of seasons. The list isn't comprehensive -- a few are missing -- but it really helps around the periphery when nudging folks in one direction or the other.

Hooray for snake! I don't believe I've had rattlesnake, but I've had snake a number of times in China... not recently enough to remember the finer points, but enough to remember that I liked it a lot. A dry-fried preparation with garlic, chile and Sichuan pepper stands out in memory. In any case, though not widespread in the States, an honorable protein.

And a great elimination challenge to start as well, diving right into the culture of the city. Some past seasons have been criticized for failing to take advantage of their environs, so it's nice to see the chefs diving in right off the bat. At the risk of getting all rah rah (it may be a theme this season), I couldn't be less surprised to see the team with five Chicagoans take down the team with three Angelenos. One of my recurring crusades is that beyond Rick Bayless, Chicago Mexican doesn't get the love it deserves. Thankfully, it seems that's starting to change. In any case, the Judges' Table edit always brutalizes the losers, but Tom did say at a couple of points that the quality in general was very high for both teams, even in a challenge where some of them were undoubtedly unfamiliar with the cuisine, so I think that bodes well for the season.

I'm a little puzzled by the lack of a winner. Actually, troubled would be more like it. I hope that isn't a trend. For the time being, I'm not giving anybody a win on this elimination challenge in the stats, either. Maybe more information will come out in some other venue.

In any case, let's get down to it. The rankings are always rather volatile at this point in the season. Folks are going to bounce around a lot. That's mitigated somewhat by the play-in round, but still, there's not a whole lot to go on just yet. Here we go:

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Chris J. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 1 0 One of the things I hate is when somebody backs into first place. But you know, we only had one individual winner in this episode and the two above him stumbled a touch, so I'm going to go ahead and give the nod to Chris J. for the time being. Plus, I saw something in one of his recipes that I really, really liked. There's no recipe for his Cumin Braised Rattlesnake with Bacon, but his empanadas are surprising in their simplicity. The empanada dough is masa, water, shortening, baking powder and salt. The filling is poblanos, mushrooms, Oaxaca cheese and onions. That's it. And it seemed as though it was one of the favorites of the evening (though it's hard to tell without a winners' JT). What I love about this is that Chris is CdC of Moto, which is even wackier than Alinea in its techniques and presentations. Of course, just because somebody is focused on modernist cuisine, that doesn't mean he isn't also a fabulous traditional chef. Achatz is fond of saying that any of his guys could kick ass at a French restaurant, and I'm certain it's true. The skills necessary to make great food are the same no matter what techniques and tools you're using to get there. But that Chris was willing, even this early in the competition, to set aside the kind of "look at me" cuisine that he's undoubtedly capable of and bang out a simple, delicious, traditional dish says a lot about his wisdom and confidence going forward, I think. A good early indicator.

2 Paul Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 0 1 0 A little stumble from Paul knocks him out of the top spot, but a nice recovery in the elimination keeps him from falling too far. His BBQ Rattlesnake with Peaches, Fried Peanuts & Southeast Asian Spices is a really, really interesting-looking dish, and it seems his downfall was Johnny Hernandez strong focus on getting the flavor of the snake to come out (which I like, actually). It's true, a really good chef should be able to quickly sear off a piece, have a taste and adapt. But I'm disinclined to ding him too much for this particular stumble. He came right back, though, with Tom's favorite canapé of the evening, and looking at the recipe, that he's bringing together these flavors successfully is really kind of impressive. Shrimp, yuzu, corn, garam masala, sour cream and fennel (among others)? That's one heckuva cross-cultural balancing act. A nice recovery keeps him at number two.

3 Heather Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 0 I wanted to leave Heather right where she was, since there wasn't a whole lot of info to go on, but I just couldn't quite pull the trigger on giving Chuy number three. Her quickfire dish didn't make the edit, and there's no recipe, but there's a photo of the dish on Rate the Plate (no title), and it looks like a chicken fried rattlesnake with biscuits and gravy. Could've been just off the top, could've been just off the bottom. Who knows? For the elimination, she takes one for the team. Yes, she has pastry experience, but still, that's probably not what you'd rather be doing. In her defense, all reports were that the weather was extremely hot, so I wouldn't give her too much grief for the leaning tower of tres leches. But she made the tastier cake, and that doesn't count for nothing. Consider this treading water until we see her cook some more.

4 Chuy Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 0 So the girls get a quinceañera and the boys learn to slaughter a goat? I've gotta say, I'm good with the goat. I'm probably overreaching with this one a bit, especially considering that his cabbage didn't go over very well (though there's no recipe for the cabbage, so definitive attribution is elusive), but I liked the way the guy seemed to take control and help out his teammates. It's always hard to tell from the edit, but one certainly gets the impression that he elevated everybody's game in this challenge. In an early episode with no winners' JT, those kind of intangibles weigh a little more heavily than they ordinarily would. Or maybe I just love that he made birria. Either way, Chuy makes a big jump.

5 Beverly Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 0 Rounding out the upwardly mobile section of this week's Power Rankings is Beverly, who apparently put out a pair of really strong dishes. Dakota nudged her for the quickfire win, but as rare as it is to find good Asian fusion, that Rattlesnake Nigiri looked like a strong dish, expressed some creative flair, slyly referenced eel nigiri, and earned high praise from Hernandez. The Beef Short Rib Asada with Pina Kimchi was straight-up Korean-Mexican fusion, and even if she got an eyebrow or two for mimicking the upscale taco truck grub du jour (yes, Los Angeles, I know, that was so 2009), she made the challenge hers and it seemed like her dish was very well-received. To call her driven would appear to be a gross understatement, and though a commenter pointed out last week that she seems the most likely to crack and shiv somebody, maybe walking the edge a bit will help. Anyway, a strong start from Beverly.

6 Dakota Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 0 As the only chef with an actual win this week, I would have liked to put Dakota higher, but then she had to go and do a faceplant on the elimination. Yes, she had immunity, and yes, she took one for the team by doing the cake, but still, immunity is the only thing that saved her from the bottom. Still, that Beer Battered Tempura Rattlesnake looks really nice, with a "Succotash Salad," Zucchini-Almond Gazpacho, Lime-Almond Vinaigrette and Orange Crème Fraîche. That's worth a bump, if not as big as it would have been without the cake wreck.

7 Sarah Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 0 1 The damage from the cochinita pibil is mitigated somewhat by a top mention in the QF. Her Flash Fried Rattlesnake in a Brown Butter Sauce is exactly the kind of simple, straightforward dish with subtle creative touches that's been playing well with the Top Chef judges the past couple of seasons. She just fried the snake, added some tomatoes macerated with citrus and thyme, and made a brown butter with shallot, capers and lemon. Simple, clean, and apparently delicious. Too bad she went on to make the palest cochinita pibil I think I've ever seen. But I'll get to that in a moment. In short, I suspect she'll bounce back, and unlike her cochinita compatriot, a strong QF dish spares her a huge drop.

8 Edward Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 0 I actually would have liked to give Edward a slight bump up for what looked like a nice gazpacho, but the positioning didn't quite work out that way. Edward was also lost in the QF edit, and there's no recipe, but Rate the Plate identifies his dish as Rattlesnake Gumbo with Habanero Orange Sauce. Certainly sounds interesting. Would have liked to hear more about it. The tomatillo gazpacho was a pretty safe move, but it was well-received and I'm not about to ding him for nailing a safe choice. He treads water until we see more.

9 Whitney Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 0 0 Forget about Whitney? So did the editors, apparently. Talk about flying under the radar. That may be the most invisible edit I've ever seen a contestant get. But while there's not much to go on from the show, we actually have a recipe to work with. There's no info on her Pan Seared Rattlesnake, Fennel, Avocado & Pomegranate Seeds other than the name and a photo, but there's a recipe for her Green Chile Pozole. I believe pozole with green chiles is more New Mexico than Mexico Mexico, but there's nothing wrong with a creative take on a classic. I am, however, a little troubled that the only cut of pork therein is shoulder, and I'm even more troubled by the inclusion of canned hominy. But given her total lack of coverage, we'll let her tread water for the time being... which in this case means that a few folks who got screentime leapfrog her. Don't consider it a demotion.

10 Nyesha Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 0 I feel like I should ding Nyesha a little bit for the bottom appearance in the QF, but overcooking an exotic protein in a quickfire doesn't seem like the worst sin, so I'm going to just let her hang out here for another week. One gets the impression that her ceviche was... okay. There's no recipe to refer to. Though her use of pond chicken (my recent experience with tilapia notwithstanding) is unfortunate and, unsurprisingly, apparently provided questionable texture. As a friend once said, "Can we all just agree not to order tilapia anymore?"

11 Chris C. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 0 We don't get much to go on with Chris. No top mentions. No bottom mentions. No recipes. Rattlesnake Nicoise with Olive Oil Pudding and Olive Panko sounds interesting, but we have no indication of how it tasted. He made corn, which seemed to go over well, and I don't want to dismiss it but without a recipe it still looks like... corn. So for the time being, he'll leapfrog a couple of folks who take a hit. Stay tuned.

12 Lindsay Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 0 1 Seven positions is a big hit, but it's early in the season and that was really embarrassing for a number of reasons. There's one point on which I'll defend Lindsay. It's been suggested here and in some other venues that she should have specified that the shrimp not be cooked. In a word, no. When you're cooking at that level, you shouldn't need to specify that your shrimp not be cooked any more than you should need to specify that your asparagus not be canned. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly, but not much. That little curveball aside, however, talk about whiffing on a fastball right down the middle of the plate. She was the Executive Chef of a Latin restaurant in Mexico for three years. So even setting aside that wrangling a great Latin meal out of a crowd of cooks is precisely her job description, given her time in Mexico, her recipes are really surprising. It seems that the negative response to the pork huarache may have been limited to the slicing on the pork, which was Keith's department, so we'll grudgingly give her a pass on that (yeah, she leads a kitchen all day, she should fix what needs fixing, but absent an official chain of command, that can be a tough trigger to pull). But the cochinita pibil is really inexplicable. It's funny, I was reading the recipes and taking notes, and I thought to myself, "This is so weird, it's completely lacking all of the aromatics," and then I rewatched the episode and noticed that Johnny Hernandez said the exact same thing. So at least there's a pretty good indication that the posted recipes line up with what's going on the plates. And while it's made clear that they couldn't find sour oranges, I'm kind of puzzled by the choice of clementines. Why not cut it with a little lime juice? I'm less sure about that second criticism, but these are some puzzling choices for somebody who really should know a thing or two about Mexican. Contrast Lindsay and Chuy. This was a challenge tailor-made for both of them. One rose to the challenge, one fell flat on her face. We'll see if Lindsay bounces back, but this performance does not inspire confidence.

13 Richie Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 15 Eliminations 0 1 0 So who wants to tell Abuela that the chicharrón she identified as "auténtico" was made with garlic powder, tapioca starch and Ultratex 8? Blend the above with oil, water and salt to make a dough, roll it out, steam it, dehydrate it, fry it, and you have a garlic "chicharrón." Too bad the judges seemed to feel its texture wasn't right for the dish. This was always the issue I had with Moto. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Still, there seemed to be some positive vibe for the dish as well. And I'm going to let Ty-Lör's elimination bottom trump Richie's QF bottom, but he's hanging near the bottom until further notice. Richie's a guy who I think could surprise. But not this episode.

14 Ty-Lör Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 0 1 Ty-Lör ended up on the chopping block, but his Carne Asada was well-received, so one gets the sense he was never in any real danger. Still, starting out at 14 means there really isn't any place to go until he shows something strong, and his Chicken Fried Rattlesnake, Slaw, Pickled Vegetables and Salsa apparently didn't make enough of an impression to stand out either, so we'll leave him down here for the time being. Which isn't to say that I think he's in immediate danger of elimination. I suppose I don't feel that way about anybody near the bottom, though somebody has to go next week. We'll see, I guess.

15 Grayson Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 16 Eliminations 0 1 0 That Grayson officially gets a top elimination is a technicality and a gross miscarriage of justice, because man, it doesn't sound like anybody liked her mole at all. Mole is really, really, really tough to do well. But still, blowing it out with cinnamon is something a good chef ought to be able to avoid, even if it's not a specialty. And it wasn't just the balance... the judges mentioned that the texture was off as well, and there's definitely no excuse for that. It sounds like Grayson dodged a bullet by being on the winning team, and on that basis, I see no reason to move her out of the basement.

16 Keith Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 0 1 Well, I found Keith rather likable and on that basis I'm sad to see him go, but really, this was a no-brainer of an elimination. Frozen cooked shrimp? That's just not okay. Flour tortillas on his enchiladas? Some have suggested that authenticity shouldn't matter if it tastes good, but that's just it... they didn't. Yes, taste trumps tradition, but the reason the latter is valued is because there's a REASON corn tortillas are traditional in a dish like this. In extended Judges' Table, everybody commented that the only good part of the dish -- the salsa -- apparently wasn't even made by him. Should his teammates have picked him up? Yes. Should they have had to? No. And that's the crux of it.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE FOUR SPOILERS AHEAD

Hooray for Susan Feniger! Can't say for certain, but the format of next week's quickfire looks really cool. It's a chile challenge, apparently the chefs can choose their chile, and hotter peppers have a higher dollar value attached. Is that the prize if they win the quickfire? $20,000 for a ghost chile is not chump change. Looks like another opportunity for Chuy to shine, perhaps a shot at redemption for Lindsay, and I have a hunch Paul might rock this one as well. It sounds like the elimination is a chili cookoff (note: chile does not equal chili), and... uh oh, Beverly's losing composure already. Here's hoping that bump up wasn't premature. In any case, I'd say the Texans, present and past, should have a natural advantage here. Let the bean/anti-bean skirmish commence.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E3 Last Chance Kitchen

If nothing else, Last Chance Kitchen makes for a convenient bit of filler between the postmortem and the power rankings!

For those who might have missed it, though details are sketchy, eliminated chefs now go on to Last Chance Kitchen, where those who have been eliminated can work their way back into the competition. There are apparently some reality show analogues with which I'm unfamiliar, but the way it works here is that the winner from the previous week faces the eliminated chef this week, and the winner moves on. At some point, though we haven't been told precisely when, the king of the hill will rejoin the main competition.

A few thoughts on the structure. I like it! I've been a supporter of previous second chance competitions, and this is simply an extended version thereof. And being online, it doesn't complicate the regular show. The fact that the eliminated chefs don't know about it until they're eliminated is either awesome or brutal, depending on your point of view, I suppose.

It's fun to think of an early elimination running the table to get back into the late stages of the competition, but that isn't going to happen. If Keith, for example, is so dominant that you'd give him a 75% chance of winning every challenge, and if he only has to get through ten rounds to get back in (more seems likely, though we don't know), he still only has about a 5% chance of running the table. While not impossible, the odds are incredibly long for the chefs who are eliminated early. More likely, LCK won't matter much until three or four episodes before the point where the winner returns. But it's still fun to watch.

Andrew took down Janine in episode two, and so he went head to head with Keith in episode three. A table full of Mediterranean ingredients seemed to be right up Andrew's alley, but Keith's a seafood man and clams ended up being the focus. Generally speaking, I'm with Andrew... one dish is better than two, unless you really know what you're doing. But apparently Keith did. A hot/cold clam duo impressed Tom, and Keith moves on.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E3 Postmortem

Well, I can't say that's how you want to see somebody go, buuuuut... yeah. His team could have and maybe should have saved him from himself, but the fact that he needed to be saved in the first place makes it a no-doubter.

I trust I'm not the only one who thinks the level of cooking, particularly considering that some of the chefs were undoubtedly unfamiliar with the nuances of the cuisine, looked pretty damn high. There were a couple of boneheaded moves, is sounds like the flavors weren't where they should have been on a couple of dishes, but aside from the enchiladas, did anybody completely fall down?

Could've done without the Snakes on a Plane reference. Not because I found it offensive. Because I found it dumb.

So what's up with no winner's circle?! That's a first, isn't it? Here's hoping the blogs will fill in.

Speaking of supplementary materials, just to space things out a bit I'm thinking making Last Chance Kitchen a regular Friday thing. Postmortem Wednesday, LCK Friday, Power Rankings Monday. Subject to my usual occasional delays and flights of oops.

More Monday (and Friday). Discuss!

Top Chef - S9E2 Power Rankings

Can I just name nobody the semi-preseason favorite?

Seriously, this is a tough field to read. Chefs from big restaurants are lower on the chain of command. Chefs running their own places are from far-flung locales with skimpy coverage. There's a guy named Ty-Lör Boring who models for nude men's magazines and whose business title is "Black Ops." I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with this? Plus, a little DVR snafu means that I'm now back home without any episodes to rewatch and study.

*sigh*... this will not end well.

This isn't to say that it doesn't look like a strong field. Quite the contrary, I don't see much in the way of chaff here. The new opening format seems to have done a fine job of taking care of that (though there might be a few stragglers). But if you asked me to look at this group and point to one who I'm confident will kick ass and take names... well... I got nothin'. Most of them inspire confidence without standing out. Which may actually make for a great competition, if an agony-inducing first rankings.

As mentioned after episode one, we're going to make this kind of a combo preseason/episode1/2 rankings. A little bit of research, a little bit of performance from the first two episodes, a little bit of putting names on the wall and throwing darts... you get the idea.

As is traditional for the first rankings, I present the contestants in reverse order. So let's get the ball rolling:

Wins

Top

Bottom

16 Grayson Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 That Grayson earned a coat by way of the bubble plays no small part in her appearance at the bottom, though I'm a little shocked I just put a NYC chef who spent time at Jean Georges in the basement. But despite that mark on her resume (not to mention a couple of other plum assignments), she was unemployed when shooting started in the summer, and is currently working for a catering company, not her own. Yes, it's an especially stylish-looking NYC catering company, but we all know how well that worked for Jacqueline in season seven. To her credit, Acheson and Emeril really seemed to enjoy her bacon-wrapped shrimp and grits, even if I can't believe somebody actually plated bacon-wrapped shrimp for Top Chef. But the pork dish that nearly sent her packing, even if the meat was a mess, looked like hotel food all the way. I don't know. There are reasons I should probably have her higher, but I'm just not getting a good vibe here. And it's not just because she's the only Wisconsinite in a house full of Chicagoans. As long as we're talking food and not football, Wisconsin and I are totally cool.

15 Richie Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I'm willing to concede that I might have a Moto prejudice going on. Though it's routinely decorated and lumped in with Alinea, based on my experience, there's no comparison -- not enough substance to match the style. Add the fact that Richie cops to oversalting (something that will get you killed in a hurry on this show). Mix in the sense that he narrowly avoided the bubble. Throw in that he's no higher than 4th on the totem pole over at Moto, and he's going head-to-head with his direct overlord. Then, have a gander at a quote like this: "I moved to Chicago three and a half years ago to work either at Moto or Alinea. Alinea didn’t give me the time of day ... so Moto got me." I'm sure the guy can cook, and he's bound to bring some massive creativity. And it's also true that the "Alinea wouldn't give me the time of day" club is big enough to collect dues and print membership cards. Still, this doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

14 Ty-Lör Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Damn skippy, we're using the umlaut. I think I would have preferred to put Ty-Lör one notch lower, but that would mean I'd have the two NYC chefs in the last two slots, and somehow that seems like it's asking for trouble. I don't really have anything against Ty-Lör, it's more that I don't know a damn thing about him. He works in NYC. That's good. Even with a name like Ty-Lör, his pre-TC Google profile is borderline nil. That's bad. Beyond that, he's recently off a sous position at Spasso and currently doing something apparently nefarious for Almond (though his name's nowhere on the menu), and seems as interested in modeling as he is in cooking. But you know, that rabbit dish looked good. And 'staches have magical powers. Which is why this is another pick that worries me.

13 Chris C. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Maybe it just rubs me the wrong way when the only accolade listed on a chef's bio is that he was a nominee for L.A.'s Hottest Chefs... and he's not referring to his career. Chris is currently serving as Chef de Cuisine at Whist in Santa Monica under Tony DiSalvo. Whist, which does some pretty refined-looking Cal-Mediterranean, has gotten nice press, which should come as no surprise. Tony DiSalvo was Chef de Cuisine at Jean Georges right around the time it blew my just forming culinary brain, and he knows what he's doing. But while I'm sure Chris can cook (I'm sure all of these people can cook), as far as I can tell he's basically spent his career with DiSalvo and I can't find any contributions to the menu that I can call his. This is probably too low. I'm actually pretty sure of it. But I keep looking for more chefs to put beneath Chris and coming up empty.

12 Keith Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 If you're looking for a lovable underdog, look no further. Even setting aside the bio that reads like a redemption screenplay, the guy's running a restaurant in Wilmington, North Carolina. Thing is, it looks pretty nice. Keith's restaurant -- Catch -- is seafood-focused, blending Southern and Asian accents (looks smoother than it sounds), the menu reads well and features some really, really pretty plates. There's precious little press about the place, and even Yelpers have only managed to scrounge up eight reviews, which is why I have him so low despite the James Beard nomination (semifinalist, which can include a rather variable level of talent). Still, the hardships of the Top Chef house seem like they shouldn't faze somebody with this kind of life resume, a recent profile talked up the fact that he's an endless font of dish ideas, and there's nothing wrong with chicken fried rabbit. Here's hoping I'm underestimating him at 12.

11 Beverly Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Beverly's one of the Chicago entrants, the EC at Aria, and I recently watched her make a nice black cardamom dessert for Key Ingredient. Aria seems to be doing fine. But what gives me the jibblies is that she came up working at Red Light and Opera, two long-running Chicago restaurants, both of which struck me as clumsy sort-of-Asian when I ate there, and both of which are no longer around. Aria kind of looks like it's in that same culinary neighborhood, as did her dish, and… and… I just don't know... if her food's an extension of her training, she's really going to need to freshen up that brand of Pan-Asian to go deep. This may be completely unfair. Just call it a hunch.

10 Nyesha Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Nyesha has some good signs going for her, not the least of which is that she worked at The Mansion by Joël Robuchon and Cache under Josiah Citrin. That's a solid pedigree. And she's just gotten her first EC gig over at Wilshire Restaurant. But all I've seen of her food is... Tex-Mex Ravioli?!... and I know they were well-received, but that's not a dish that inspires confidence. A mixed bag of indicators puts her somewhere in the middle. But like everybody in the bottom half, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see her do well.

9 Dakota Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Dakota's worked her way around Los Angeles, and seems to have garnered a good deal of respect, if not unbridled enthusiasm. She was recently named EC of Choice Hospitality, which means her crown jewel is Nine Thirty at the W Hotel in Westwood. Nine Thirty hasn't gotten a significant writeup since 2005, so I don't really have any sense of what she's done there other than the current menu, which doesn't push the envelope much in terms of flavors. She got some acclaim at her last post, however, while at Shangri-La, even if this particular passage in the L.A. Times turned out to be hoot: "She's not aiming for the stars or a shot at a "Top Chef" competition, just providing hotel guests and anybody else with accessible, heartwarming comfort food at prices lower than most hotel dining rooms." Heh. Best guess? She's somebody who's talented enough to stick around for a while, and maybe even go deep, but if there's winning potential here, I'm not finding it. Middle of the pack.

8 Chuy Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Here's where I allow myself to play a couple of hunches. Neither of the next two should be as high as they are, but... I dunno... I just have a good feeling about both of them. The first is Chuy, a Bayless protégé, who's been running Chilam Balam in Chicago for the past couple of years. Why do I like him? I dunno... Chilam Balam seems to make most everybody happy who goes there. It's Mexican cuisine that's elevated just enough to make it special without making it snooty. For years, Bayless has been spawning chefs who make great food but seem to elude attention because they're Latin chefs living in his shadow. Maybe Chuy's the one to finally make a mark with Latin cuisine on Top Chef. Add to this a little bit of bravado and the fact that the kitchen at Chilam Balam is, by all accounts, kind of a chaotic mess that manages to spit out great dishes anyway, and Chuy might feel right at home on this show. We'll find out.

7 Edward Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Yes, I realize that I just put a guy who screwed up his rabbit dish and only barely survived the bubble round at number seven, but bear with me here. First, let's note that not only did he make chawanmushi with corn and BBQ sauce work, he did it while bleeding like a stuck pig. He took down Jose Garces in Iron Chef America. He's been toiling in obscurity for years as EC/Partner of 610 Magnolia in Louisville, but just this year was a James Beard finalist alongside Hugh Acheson (neither of them won). If he were to flame out early, it wouldn't be the first time I've been burned by a James Beard nominee (John Somerville, anyone?), but as mentioned above, the jump from semifinalist to finalist is a huge one. I dunno. I like the look of his menu, he's more experienced than most of the field, he's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder and I just get the sense that he came to win. If these had been true preseason rankings, I'd probably have him at or near the top. So I'm not dropping him any lower than this for getting off to a rough start. Despite stumbling out of the gate, I'm betting Edward does well, and I think he has a shot at surprising.

6 Whitney Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Whitney's a strange case. Less than a month ago, she took over as EC of Farm 255 in Athens, Georgia, where they have four entrees on the menu: Vegetables, Bolognese, Shrimp and Grits, and a burger. Before that, she was sequestered in a tiny island inn called Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island, where I couldn’t find anything written about the food, most likely because the only way to eat it is to stay there. Thing is, before that, she worked for years at 5 and 10 in Atlanta under... Judge Hugh Acheson. Will he subconsciously give her an easy time? Maybe. Will he overcompensate by being particularly hard on her? Dunno. But one of the sitting judges this season thought she was good enough to keep her around for years and make her his sous, and that has to count for something in a field that's tough to separate. Plus, that rabbit sugo looked kind of awesome.

5 Lindsay Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Lindsay's one of three (I believe) of Michelle Bernstein's spawn to make the round of 29, but she's the only one to advance to the final 16. She's currently EC of Michelle Bernstein at Omphoy Ocean Resort (an obnoxiously awkward name), which looks to have stumbled out of the gate from the sound of the local press a couple of years back, but seems to have since found its footing. This is actually the second restaurant MB has asked Lindsay to helm, the first one having been blown away by a hurricane... literally. The reason I have her so high? Partly the MB vote of confidence, but mostly Tom's reaction when he tore into her osso buco. You don't get a reaction that strong from Colicchio unless you're doing something very, very right. That reaction alone gets Lindsay a spot near the top.

4 Heather Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 After having trained under Jean-Louis Palladin (nice resume name there), Heather made for Chicago and has been around for a while, mostly heading up Atwood Cafe. A couple of years back, she left to start Sable Kitchen & Bar which has been collecting an awful lot of nice press and online attention. She dubs her food "contemporary new American social plates," which I'd say describes her ribs aptly, and it looks like the kind of creative comfort food that's way overplayed right now, except that by most accounts she does an exceptionally good job with it. On the upside, she's a respected veteran who's already making the judges smile. What gives me pause is that I have a hard time seeing the Top Chef title go to somebody who's making short rib sliders and tuna tartare tostadas, no matter how tasty. There are signs of less snacky fare to be found on the menu, and I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume there's more where those dishes came from. Either way, I expect she'll be around for a while.

3 Chris J. Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 How the heck did I let a dozen spots slip between two guys coming from the same restaurant? In truth, with a resume that lists nothing but Moto, Chris J. looks like Richie plus three years and minus a mohawk. But three years at a premiere restaurant -- even one that doesn't push my buttons -- makes a big difference. Plus, his dish just seemed more confident, and while it had some fun, it didn't take that style over substance approach that has bugged me at Moto. We'll see. He could be this season's Voltaggio, or he could piss Tom off with some stupid plate stunt next episode and be gone just like that. But as CdC of a modernist Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago who's off to a good start, I have a hard time not putting him in the top tier. We'll see.

2 Sarah Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Sarah's positioning at number two can be summed up pretty easily. In five years, she worked her way up from line cook to EC of one of the most famous and decorated Italian fine dining restaurants in the country, under Tony Mantuano. That's not for nothing, even if some feel that Spiaggia is past its prime. Before that, she worked at Brennan's of Houston, which could give her a Texas edge. And she drew pig skin and rocked it. Seems like she earned a high seed to me.

1 Paul Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I may be overstepping here, and the EC at Spiaggia ought to get more respect, right? But Paul at the top is a buzz pick, plain and simple. What to know what every person I know who's gone to Uchiko says to me? "Go there now." Paul started under Tyson Cole (who, BTW, just won a James Beard) at Uchi, and when it came time to open Uchiko, Cole gave him the keys. It's Japanese-inspired, but it works in a lot of international influences in a lot of interesting ways. That grilled trout with Asian tomato salad looked like exactly the kind of style that somebody can ride to Top Chef victory. And as an Austin chef, he's on his home turf. But the thing that puts Paul over the top is the look in the eyes of somebody who's eaten at Uchiko whenever it comes up in conversation. It's a small sample, to be sure. But it's a really, really enthusiastic small sample. I'm nervous about putting anybody at number one, but I have a good feeling about Paul.

There it is. Chicago bias? Maybe. This seems far more fitting as an opening line than a set of predictions. Unless Paul wins it all, in which case I knew all along.

*wince*... here goes...

Discuss!