Top Chef Boston - Episode 3 - The Curse of the Bambino

This week's episode of Top Chef was a lot of fun, with just the kind of challenges I like. Both the Quickfire and the Elimination Challenge allowed the chefs to make upscale dishes that required a bit of creative thinking. Nobody had to trample each other. And I think I want to adopt Richard Blais, because he's just as cute as a button. And here I was thinking that Mei Lin was going to sweep the series, but at the moment it looks like Gregory Gourdet is the one who's fixin' to do that. (Forgive the expression, but I've been living in Houston for ten years now!)


The Quickfire

For this week's Quickfire, guest judge Ming Tsai and Padme explained that in honor of the Boston Tea Party, each chef would have to create a dish highlighting tea as an ingredient. Although the chefs had to hurry up to the front of the kitchen to choose their tea, they didn't really have to stampede because they were choosing the teas blindly. I admit I'm not much of tea drinker myself, but even I can see that there's an almost endless variety of flavors, so a lot of scope for creativity here.

There were a nice variety of dishes created, and Ming picked as his three favorites Melissa King's seared duck breast with toasted nut oolong tea-infused rice; Gregory's tuna crudo with strawberry; and Ron Eyester's chocolate and salt tea-crusted duck breast in "the spirit of mole." Ultimately, Ming chose Gregory's dish as the favorite, giving Gregory immunity for the elimination round. Gregory's dish sounded terrific to me except for the mention of coconut, which happens to be a flavor I don't care for. Because of that, I was actually more interested in Katsuji Tanabe's toasted brown rice tea broth with brown rice crusted tuna.

On the downside, Ming singled out James Rigato's crispy skin trout and quinoa with beurre blanc, noting that he hadn't had a beurre blanc sauce in about ten years, and that there was too much of it. Aaron Grissom had remarked on the datedness of this type of sauce as well, so I guess some things just go in and out of style. Another misstep was Aaron's overcooked monkfish, and the third was Rebecca LaMalfa's cake with strawberries and apples. I know they're nervous, and I would be too, but Rebecca didn't do herself any favors by telling the judges that she made, in her words, "a pretty-much neutral cake" in order to try and soak up the lemongrass tea flavor. I'm sure the judges would have reached the same conclusion anyway, i.e. that she didn't manage to infuse the cake with the tea flavor, but still, it would be better not to have planted the idea in their heads that she had just served them a flavorless cake.

Not surprisingly, Aaron's overcooked fish was chosen as the least favorite dish of the Quickfire. This was a pretty basic mistake for someone who just told a competitor he could cook her under the table. Aaron also said that he he'd wanted the yellowtail, but "Adam grabbed it out of my hand." Did Adam really grab it out of Aaron's hands? Seems unlikely, and if it isn't true, then he should have said instead that "Adam got to it first." Oh a show like this, yes, I'm a stickler for accuracy.

Since this was a sudden death Quickfire, Aaron then had to choose a chef he thought he could beat in a head-to-head challenge. The added twist was that the only heat they could use was boiling water. Aaron chose Katie Weinner, which was fine, but then he spent a little too much time explaining that it was because she teaches at culinary school, and he never went to school, so he really wanted to beat her for that reason. There have been plenty of contestants over the years who haven't been formally trained, and it's one thing to mention it (as in "yeah, I'm a little intimidated because I don't have the training that some of these folks have but I think I can hold my own"), but I take a pretty quick dislike to the ones who have turned it into a chip on their shoulder.

In any case, I was really hoping Aaron would go home at this point based on his behavior so far, but as soon as Katie said she was making pasta, I suspected we'd be stuck with Aaron for a while longer. I bet her hand-cut pappardella tasted good, but it's fairly hard to get a "wow" factor that will impress judges with a simple pasta dish. Also, she said she made "sauce," but I sure couldn't see any in the bowl. In the meantime, Aaron concocted a spring roll with the wrapper made of shrimp that he cooked in a Ziploc in the boiling water, which I thought was kind of impressive. His only misstep was putting raw peanuts in the roll, and I also think he should have tried to actually close the ends of it, but this dish was enough to beat Katie and to save Aaron.


Elimination Challenge

To announce the Elimination Challenge, two ballpark vendors came into the kitchen bearing peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, and a few other ballpark standbys. The challenge was simple: create a fine dining dish based on one of these classic concession snacks and serve it the next day at Fenway Park. The chefs had 45 minutes and $350 to shop, three hours to prep and cook that day, and an hour to finish cooking at the ballpark. (I always wonder how badly the dishes are hurt by some of the cooked ingredients hanging around overnight; I'm not sure why they didn't just give them four hours straight the next day, but maybe they don't want to give them an entire night to spend deciding what to make.) In this case the chefs had to go up and grab the snack they wanted, but they had multiples of everything and it didn't appear that anybody got stuck with something they didn't want. In some ways I wouldn't have minded them drawing knives, because we got an awful lot of peanuts and popcorn this episode, but this way was fine too.

At the ballpark, the chefs served in stages, which I always think is a good idea. With thirteen competing, there was a pretty standard distribution of the great, the okay, and the bad. During service, the judges were most impressed with Katie, Melissa, Gregory, and Stacy Cogswell. Katie had intended to make a popcorn panacotta but turned it into mousse on a blue cornmeal salted shortbread when it didn't set, and apologized to the judges as she served it. She was pretty floored when they really liked the dish, and they all advised her not to try and take herself out of the game like that. Melissa made a corn and ramp soup with bacon popcorn; Stacy served a seared scallop with pickled peanuts that judge Hugh Acheson really loved; and Gregory made a roasted duck and peanut nam prik pao (and no, I won't even pretend I have any idea what that means). Richard called it a moneyball dish, smart and balanced.

More towards the middle of the road were Rebecca's salmon with honey mustard glaze and toasted peanut streusel (I read that as "crumbs" but it still sounded good) and Doug Adams' seared scallop with sweet corn sauce and popcorn. Aaron didn't do terribly, with his pretzel-wrapped rillette and spring pea tendril salad, but Ming thought an actual sausage would have served better than the rillette, which the magical internet tells me is like a pâté. I know I've seen others make their own from-scratch sausage on Top Chef before, and can see how that might have really been stunning in Aaron's pretzel wrap.

The chefs who found themselves on the bottom included Keriann Von Raesfeld, whose beer-braised short ribs were undercooked and underseasoned; Ron, who put a huge fish croquette in the middle of his very thick, very rich corn soup; Adam, who seriously overcooked his fish (the judges loved the rest of the dish); and Katsuji, who ruined what might have been a good bread pudding dish by plopping a tough, dry piece of pork belly on top of it.

Back in the Stew Room, Aaron once again disgusted me, but I have to say that Katsuji really turned me off too. It was obvious Aaron was nervous about his dish; give him any excuse and he will lash out, from fear. For all I know I might do the same under the circumstances, not that I think I'd be as big an ass as he is. But there was no reason that Katsuji had to deliberately poke at Aaron like that. And by starting a testosterone-laden fight in the Stew Room, Katsuji made it miserable for the rest of the chefs. This is a prime opportunity for them to bond a little, but instead they have to listen to a couple of jackasses make everyone uncomfortable. Maybe I am not the typical Bravo TV reality show viewer, but I don't actually like the drama and I don't like to see contestants do poorly and get shredded by the judges. I think they should be challenged to push the boundaries of their comfort zones, but for me a terrific episode is when a bunch of chefs do great and the judges have to agonize over who gets the win.

In any case, this judges official top three choices this week were Gregory, Melissa, and Katie. I thought it could have gone to either Gregory or Melissa, and I was happy enough with the outcome when Gregory was announced as the winner. I do like Katie and was very glad to see her do so much better than she expected, but I don't honestly think she has the confidence or consistency to go all the way.

The bottom three called out were Keriann, Katsuji, and Ron, with Ron being the one to pack his knives. I'm kind of sorry to see him go.


Chefs I Particularly Liked This Week: Gregory's story about his past with drugs was surprising to me, and a little moving. I'm really glad he got his act together. And although I can't say whether he'll be the one I'm rooting for in the end, I do like that he just generally goes about his cooking without being a drama queen about it. On cooking alone, I like that Gregory seems to nail two things every time: balance and details. Interestingly, in his blog post this week, Hugh Acheson says in relation to Gregory, "This industry is fraught with addiction and we need to support those who have fought through that beast of a battle to win." It made me wonder why the culinary industry is fraught with addiction. Maybe because it's full of stress and adrenalin highs, and you want to keep the latter going when the cooking is done for the night. In any case, I recommend Hugh's blog posts, which are kind of funny. (I also like Richard's posts, but somebody needs to proofread them because he doesn't know the difference between "your" and you're." I know, he's an amazing chef and we can't expect him to do everything perfectly!)

I also enjoyed watching Stacy, the one Bostonian on the show, a lot this week. I can't imagine what pickled peanuts taste like but I'd love to find out. She's spunky and I think we haven't really seen what she can do yet.


The Dish I Most Wanted to Taste: Melissa's corn and ramp soup with bacon popcorn. I'm not a fan of the "everything bacon" trend, but wow, that looked good. I also wanted to get my hands on Katsuji's brown rice crusted tuna from the Quickfire.

Til next week! Read more!

Top Chef Boston - Episode 2 - Boston’s Bravest & Finest

Last night on Top Chef, the fourteen remaining contestants cooked for some folks in the Boston police and fire departments, which added a nice feel-good element to the episode. At this early stage in the season, we're still getting to know the contestants, and a few, shall I say, "intense" personalities are already emerging. (Thank goodness Michael Patlazhan was eliminated last week; I shudder to think how his ego would have fit into this week's elimination challenge.)


The Quickfire

For the Quickfire challenge, Padme and guest judge Todd English asked the chefs to cook on the fly, invoking Paul Revere's "one if by land, two if by sea" quote to signal the chefs when they needed to choose an ingredient from the "land" table or the "sea" table. The ingredients were eclectic, to say the least, including as pretzels, Velveeta (does that even count as food?), mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns (I had no idea they were edible), boar bacon, skate cheeks, sweetbreads, and more. I liked the concept of the challenge, although the idea of pretzels as a "land" ingredient seems a bit silly. I can live with that, though; my only real issue is that they made the chefs run to get the first-come first-serve ingredients, which in my opinion is dangerous, demeaning, and non-representative of the reality of professional chefdom.

In any case, the chefs had to pay attention to when the lanterns were lit, because only then could they visit the main ingredient tables. Padme indicated there would be no immunity, but the winner would get $5,000. Considering that the elimination was based on a team challenge, I'm glad there was no immunity; too many good contestants go home because someone with immunity screwed up the team's dish.

Not surprisingly, the assortment of ingredients led to some slightly odd results, but there were several dishes that seemed fairly successful. Melissa King used mushrooms, pollock, and razor clams to make something that Padme likened to a tempura platter and that Todd English called delicious. Katsuji Tanabe made poached sweetbreads and uni with a quail egg and hot pepper jelly, a combination that Todd English loved. Padme was impressed that James Rigato's dish was not overwhelmed by the boar bacon. On the other end of the spectrum, they did not like Joy Crump's combination of buffalo strip steak and veal, calling it an odd combination, or Stacy Cogswell's pork chop, which was underseasoned and not properly cooked. In the end, it came down to Katsuji and James, with James taking home the $5,000 prize.


Elimination Challenge

To announce the elimination challenge, Padme introduced the Commissioners of the Boston police and fire departments, and made a point of calling them "first responders." (May I just say that their accents would have given away their Boston roots even if we hadn't know where they were from!) The chefs drew knives to divide up into five teams, and were told they would have two hours the next day to prep and cook at il Casale, an Italian restaurant located in the former Belmont fire department. The teams would not be doing their own shopping, but instead would have to "respond" to boxes of ingredients already in the kitchen.

If there's one thing I dislike about Top Chef, it's the drama that goes with the cooking. I understand it's inevitable to a degree -- the idiom "too many chefs" exists for good reason. At first I thought this challenge might be overwhelmed by team friction, when Mei Lin and Katsuji immediately butted heads over who would make the sauce for their dish, but they settled down nicely once they got cooking. As the first team (red) to compete, Mei, Katsuji, and Katie Weinner got first choice of ingredient boxes, and ended up producing a pea coconut puree with sautéed halibut, pickled rhubarb, and a cherry and grilled fennel slaw. Mei tasted Katsuji's sauce and admitted to the camera that it was really good (I only hope she told Katsuji that as well). She also said that everyone on the team pulled their weight and that she was proud of the dish. The judges agreed; Padme praised the sauce, while Tom Colicchio said the fish was cooked perfectly and the dish was cohesive overall.

The blue team, consisting of Gregory Gourdet, Adam Harvey, and Rebecca LaMalfa, went second, and unanimously chose a box containing filets and scallops. Their dish was a surf & turf: filet mignon and pan-seared scallops with a parsnip puree and marcona vinaigrette. Tom felt the vinaigrette really tied the dish together, and the beef and scallops were both perfectly cooked. He later said that a surf & turf was perhaps a little too obvious a choice, but that it worked.

The gray team, which went third, had only two members: Doug Adams and James Rigato. By their expressions when they drew knives, I thought they didn't look happy at ending up with each other, but I must have been wrong because they seemed to work together smoothly and produced a dish that the judges seemed quite happy with. Padme had remarked that they would have to see whether having only two team members would be an advantage or disadvantage. This wasn't brought up again in the episode, but I suspect that's due to time constraints and editing, and that Doug and James probably found it to be an advantage. Their dish was a grilled pork chop, grilled stonefruit salad, morel mushrooms, and walnuts. Padme thought the chop was nicely seasoned well, Gail loved the apricots, and Tom commented that the dish was flavorful.

The yellow team, which was fourth, consisted of Joy, Ron Eyester, and Melissa King, and this is where we ran into trouble, after three successful dishes. At this point, there were only two ingredient boxes left to choose from, and the one they picked had both salmon and veal. They decided to go with the veal, and Joy agreed to cook it, but she noted that the chops were large and that she thought they should take them off the bone. I cringed at that point, remembering more than one occasion when chefs have been dinged for losing flavor by taking meat off the bone. Perhaps not surprisingly, the veal was undercooked to the point of being unappetizing. I don't have enough culinary experience myself to know whether Joy could have simply started the chops a little earlier, or whether that wasn't possible within the two-hour cook window. That wasn't the only problem, however; the judges found that the vanilla flavor that Roy had wanted to add to both the veal and the celery root puree was overpowering.

The last team (green), made up of Stacy, Keriann Von Raesfeld, and Aaron Grissom, was a disaster from start to finish. The elimination challenge took place the day after the Quickfire, so the chefs had overnight to discuss their strategies, although of course they could only do so much without knowing what their ingredients would be. Keriann and Aaron managed to start fighting immediately. Because they would be serving last, they were worried they'd be stuck with dessert ingredients, so Aaron asked Keriann, who has been to pastry school, what ingredients they might expect and what they might be able to do with them. Keriann, in my opinion, was deliberately obtuse. Instead of saying, "well, if we get A, we might be able to try B, or if we get C, we could try D," she simply kept saying "we don't know what the ingredients are." Surely, surely she could have said that if we get a lot of fruit, we might be able to do a tart of some kind, or if we have a lot of eggs, we could do soufflés. Aaron understandably became frustrated, but he was also a sarcastic ass. Keriann also kept insisting that they not do anything "molecular," and Aaron insisted that he had no intention of doing anything molecular.

So what did Aaron do the next day, when they found a box with chicken and short ribs? He tried to go at least semi-molecular by making an onion marmalade that was intended to be served on top of Stacy's chicken. The arguments continued when Keriann put onion in her corn salad, which Aaron thought was redundant due to his bourbon onion jam. The only thing the two of the managed to agree on was that Stacy was "in the weeds" and could not possibly get her chicken done on time, which turned out to be completely wrong. At the last minute, Aaron decided that he needed to warm up his jam and try to re-set it; Keriann told him not to but he did it anyway, and put it on top of the corn salad instead of the chicken.

The first comment the judges made at the table is that Stacy's chicken was not only the best thing on the plate, it was the only good thing on the plate. Padme disliked the raw onion and the starchiness / scratchiness of the raw corn. Tom said he didn't know what the jam was meant to be, but whatever it was, it was terrible. Padme asked how they had worked together as a team, and Keriann lied through her teeth by saying that they “came together pretty good in the kitchen.” Aaron started out with honesty by saying that he and Keriann had very different styles, but then he began equivocating by saying that Keriann was erratic towards the end, implying that she kept changing her mind. It seemed to me that whatever bad decisions Keriann made (the onion in the corn salad especially), she was at least consistent about it. In response to Aaron's remarks, Keriann pointed out that Aaron's marmalade was supposed to be cold, but then he changed his mind at the last minute by warming it up and putting it on her cold salad.

Back in the kitchen, Keriann said the challenge was over and she was done discussing it, then joined the others in the stew room and called Aaron a lying sack of shit. When Aaron started to respond, she again said she was "done." So she didn't want to talk about it, but kept talking about it, but didn't want to talk about it.

Suffice it to say that I was pretty disgusted with both of them by this time.

There were no surprises at the judges' table. The red and blue teams were on top, and ultimately the blue team (Gregory, Adam, and Rebecca) won. Tom noted that it was due to the precision of the dish and the nice details, such as the unifying vinaigrette and the way the parsnips were prepared. Here's where it surprises me that the judges didn't choose an individual winner as well as a winning team, because it's clear that Gregory contributed the most successful elements to the dish. There have been individual winners of team challenges before (think "Restaurant Wars" in past seasons), but maybe they only do that when a sponsor has offered a prize to award.

The yellow and green teams were called to the center for the bad news. Tom noted that the yellow team's downfall was both conception and cookery, and Padme asked a pointed question: had any of the three chefs on the yellow team tasted the complete dish? Not one of them had -- they'd only tasted the separate components. Top Chef 101 here, I think.

When the attention was back on the green team, which Tom stated was "doomed to fail," Aaron tried to wiggle away again; Tom asked how much time they had, and Aaron said about an hour and 40 minutes. Tom corrected him: two hours. Tom also noted that "tricks" (molecular!) were not going to get Aaron through Top Chef. Keriann came in for criticism too; Tom said that bad corn and raw onion are not what he expects from Top Chef. Padme pointed out the harsh truth, that Aaron and Keriann needed to thank Stacy, because her nicely cooked chicken kept their team from being on the bottom, and therefore kept one of the two of them from going home.

Ultimately, Joy was asked to pack her knives and go. In her little post-interview snippet, Joy said she should have spoken up more, and that she regrets not having a chance to share her style. I'm sorry to see her go, but I can understand that you're not going to get very far on this show if you cook meat improperly.

Chefs I Particularly Liked This Week: Hmmm, this is actually difficult. Mei's ego is a little large for my taste, but I suspect it's actually somewhat justified by her skill and experience. Although that may be a problem in and of itself. Last week, when hunting around on the Top Chef website, I came across a post in which Tom Colicchio called Paul Qui, who won Season 9, "the most talented chef we've ever had on the show." In fact, Tom said that they had to "dumb down how good he was" because it would have been "pretty obvious that he was running away with everything." That may happen this season with Mei. A friend and fellow Top Chef enthusiast told me that Mei has been on Top Chef alum and winner Ilan Hall's Knife Fight show already, so she's had some experience with cooking celebrity (although maybe she appeared after filming Top Chef Boston? I can't find her listed on it at IMDB). I can't say it's inappropriate for her to be on this show, exactly, but I think I preferred it when most of the contestants were at earlier stages in their careers.

Which means I still haven't figured out who I liked this week. I can't quite say Katsuji; he showed restraint in both the Quickfire and Elimination challenges, but I think he may well revert to type and go a little crazy later on. I was happy for Katie's success this week but still feel like she may be a little out of her league. I guess I'm going to have to go with James and Doug. They didn't get much attention in this elimination challenge, falling squarely in the middle of the pack during the elimination challenge, but I liked the lack of drama, and think they deserve some credit for putting out the same amount of food with one less person (they all served a larger group, not just the judges), and doing it well.

The Dish I Most Wanted to Taste: I was actually not that excited about the elimination challenge dishes this week, so I'll go with James's winning Quickfire dish: the mussels with boar bacon broth. I've never had mussels and am not sure I'd like the texture, but this would probably be a great way to try them for the first time, and how could I resist trying fiddlehead ferns? Read more!

Top Chef Boston - Episode 1 - Sudden Death

I have watched every season of Top Chef since it began airing in 2006, and what's most amazing to me is that after 12 seasons, I still love this show. They've managed to keep it fresh (no pun intended) with new locations, some new recurring judges, and lots of fun guest judges. But I think the show's basic format and the fact that the judges aren't there to scream at or ridicule the competing chefs are what has given the show it's longevity. Plus I find host Padme Lakshmi and head judge Tom Colicchio to be appealing. Over the years, I've also watched some of the spin-offs: Top Chef: Just Desserts (2 seasons); Top Chef Masters (5 seasons); and Top Chef Duels (1 season). That's a lot of Top Chef!

This season, I plan to blog each episode, starting with this past Wednesday's episode titled "Sudden Death." First, let me say that Richard Blais is a nice addition. I liked him during Season 4 and I liked him even more when he won Top Chef All Stars. He just seems like a nice guy, and as a former competitor, I hope he'll be a little more sympathetic to what the contestants go through. Second: wow, the playing field is getting ... incestuous these days. One of Michael Voltaggio's sous chefs, Mei Lin, is competing. Another chef, George Pagonis, is business partners with Mike Isabella. Several of the contestants already own their own restaurants (one of them, Ron Eyester, owns three). I remember the days when the main reason they came on the show was so that someday, they might eventually own their own restaurant.


The QuickFire

Third, while I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the "it's the first episode, let's send someone home right now" mentality, there's no way the chefs can be surprised by it at this point in the show's history. I definitely would rather this kind of quick elimination happen based on the chefs making what they think is a suitable dish to present on the show, rather than a mise en place challenge, and definitely rather than anything to do with a team challenge or relay. I just think the viewers lose out when someone goes home because his team was slow and he didn't do great shucking clams.

So here's how the challenge ran: the chefs were divided into four teams of four and had to decide among themselves who would prepare lobsters, mackerel, oysters, and clams. There were a couple of disagreements, of course. I always wonder why the chefs never insist on rock-paper-scissors in a case where they both really want to do the same thing, but there you have it. Padme explained that the slowest chef on the slowest team would face sudden elimination, which I took to mean would not be sent home just on that basis. Different teams held the lead at different points, but George Pagonis ended up on bottom. His task then became to pick any other chef in the room for a head-to-head showdown; if George lost he would go home, and if he won they would both stay. Here, I would have rather had the slowest person on the slowest team go head-to-head with the slowest person overall in an individual leg of the relay, since they wouldn't necessarily be the same person. The way this was constructed, the absolute slowest person in the room may have gone completely under the radar because they had a superstar on their team, and in fact I suspect that may have happened. Another option would have been to have the four slowest in their given tasks (slowest on lobster, slowest on clams, etc.) all compete in a sudden death challenge and have the worst go home. This would have ensured that someone relatively weak on prep and on competing in actual cooking challenges would be eliminated. As it is, George challenged Gregory Gourdet and lost, and now we don't get to know what kind of a chef George is. Boo.

Onwards to the elimination challenge, but first a short PSA: enough with the "Coming Up" snippets, already! Maybe they do lose a few viewers at each commercial break, but I find it insulting that they assume my attention span is so short that I need a commercial for the show I'm already watching while I'm watching it!


Elimination Challenge

The elimination challenge was pretty exciting, I thought: Top Chef put on its own food festival, and the contestants had to create a dish, for 250 people, based on the first dish they ever remember cooking. Personally I thought that was too limiting, since likely the first things a lot of kids cook is maybe eggs and toast; I have to imagine that many of the chefs didn't go quite as far back down memory lane as they could have. I also thought 250 servings was a little daunting, but maybe that was the right way to go, since the contestants these days generally are more experienced. The chefs had three hours to cook, and then each served at their own table at the festival, alongside booths with other Top Chef alums and celebrity chefs.

I have to say, I wish I had been there, because there were a lot of dishes I would have liked to taste. On the other hand, I'm a spice wimp, and a single sliver of hot pepper can wipe out my tastebuds for an entire day. The dishes that excited me included Joy Crump's grits, greens, and chicken skin; Mei Lin's congee (new word for me); Adam Harvey's fish and chips with tri-color salad and mustard mayo; and Stacy Cogswell's pulled chicken salad. The judges also liked Gregory Gourdet's Haitian stewed chicken with bananas and scotch bonnet peppers. I'll have to take their word for that, because I certainly couldn't have handled it. There were some disasters (and Padme and Richard especially weren't shy with the criticism): Katsuji Tanabe's "petroleum shrimp", which was a mess; Aaron Grissom's pork belly, which was so fatty that Padme spit it out; and Michael Patlazhan's chilled corn soup with sriracha caviar, which the judges found overly fishy and texturely off-putting. I have to say, if Katsuji has ever watched the show before, he should have known that any dish with that many ingredients is going to get reamed. He put everything but the kitchen sink in there.

When it came time, the judges called in the entire group; I wonder if they plan to do that every episode. It's not a bad idea, because then everyone gets the chance to learn from all the critiques. The top three picks, which made good sense to me, were Mei Lin, Gregory Gourdet, and Doug Adams, with Mei Lin taking the top spot. She's very accomplished, and there's a danger that she may absolutely dominate the show from beginning to end.

Then came time for the bad news, which is the part I hate. It's necessary, but I feel terrible for them. The bottom three were Michael, Katsuji, and Katie Weinner, who had served a broccoli salad with bacon powder. Richard had dinged Katie for the dish not being terribly appropriate for the event, and for using bacon snow, which he called one of his least favorite modern cooking techniques. While I agreed with the judges that Katie's execution of the dish lacked refinement, I don't particularly agree that a side dish is inappropriate for a food festival. It just has to be a really good side dish. The comments about Michael and Katsuji's dishes echoed what we'd already heard earlier from the judges, and I definitely agreed in those cases.

In the end, Michael was eliminated. I already disliked him, due to a couple of things he'd said. The first was "I got the personality, I have the look, I have the style. I think I will definitely win this competition." Yeah, but can you cook? Get over yourself. The second was in reference to Tom and Gail saying, at the festival, that the salmon eggs in his dish were too fishy, and they didn't get the sriracha heat. Michael said (not in their hearing) that he was "not sure what went wrong with their palettes." Yes, I'm sure both of them had a simultaneous, complete breakdown of their very experienced palettes! Then, when he was eliminated, Michael showed a moment of graciousness, when he said that sometimes you have to fail. And I thought maybe I was too hard on him.

But then he blew it, saying that maybe Tom should be more open-minded, and "sometimes you gotta grow with age, or you maybe get left behind." I'm sure Tom would be interested to learn that he, with his wildly successful career, is completely behind the times. Jeez Louise, I hate that kind of arrogance.

Chefs I Particularly Liked This Week: Mei Lin, for her confidence and competence, Joy Crump for her ability to put together a great-looking down home dish and for her humility.

My Pick for the Dish I Most Wanted to Taste: Stacy Cogswell's pulled chicken salad with sweet pea "green goddess" and cranberry on a homemade potato chip. I really want to see what those flavors taste like together.
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