After being off last week, Top Chef Las Vegas has returned with all the drama and delights we've come to expect. The cheftestants are down to 10 - a manageable number, which hopefully means we'll get Restaurant Wars in two weeks when we're down to 8. But I don't want to get ahead of myself too much.
Two weeks ago, the episode ended with Ron getting the boot for his not-deconstructed-or-even-constructed paella. But tempers were sour as many of the chefs were still bitter that Mattin went home instead of Robin. Then Robin got immunity and is still around. This episode started off by giving us some more information of the chefs (and if you haven't seen it yet, watch it online here). Ash had never been to culinary school and was starting to feel outclassed and Jenn had come down with a nasty flu or fever.
With that, they headed to the kitchen for the Quickfire Challenge which Padma (dressed like the Jolly Green Giant) told them it was high stakes but didn't say how or why. The guest judge was Tyler Florence, best known for having several food shows over the years. The gist of quickfire was a great: a special slot machine that gave the chefs three keywords to base their meal around: mood, taste/texture and region.
Before I go into it, a note to Bravo: cut back on the cross promotion and endorsements. Yes, we know all about the Gladware family of products, but making BOTH challenges corporate-sponsored? The Cookstr Quickfire and the Macy's Elimination Challenge - in the same episode? It's Top Chef, not Top Integrated Marketing Strategies. It was almost as bad as Heroes a few weeks ago when they talked about how much they loved Guitar Hero and Legal Seafood.
Back to the challenge, after each chef pull the slots there were some creative outcomes, especially Ashley's blue, cheesey, Middleastern. But the biggest thing in the quickfire to me was Eli, who got umami (along with several other chefs) and just took all the mushrooms and refused to share. Yes, it's a competition but that's like winning a race because your opponents tripped. Mike I. may be a dick, but at least you know. Eli may be up there too.
The dishes seemed okay but nothing really ground breaking. Robin was on the bottom for making a basic curry, which isn't even Middleastern. Eli was told he drowned his mushrooms in his ceviche (I'm so sick of ceviche), destroying all the umami flavor. And for the first time, Jenn was on the bottom because her scallops and salmon roe wasn't adventerous but I'm guessing she was so drugged up on sudafed anything looked like a good idea.
The top was a different story. Mike I. continues to impress judges with his dish, which was called "light and refreshing." Michael V. maintains his spot as being in the Top 4 finalist but the winner was Kevin who had to whip together an Asian dish without ever having cooked Asian before. Now the high stakes, Kevin had a choice: immunity or $15,000. He took the money and I can't blame him, he has yet to be on the bottom in anyway and I could easily see him going to the finals. Plus, I tend to trust fat chefs.
Two weeks ago, the episode ended with Ron getting the boot for his not-deconstructed-or-even-constructed paella. But tempers were sour as many of the chefs were still bitter that Mattin went home instead of Robin. Then Robin got immunity and is still around. This episode started off by giving us some more information of the chefs (and if you haven't seen it yet, watch it online here). Ash had never been to culinary school and was starting to feel outclassed and Jenn had come down with a nasty flu or fever.
With that, they headed to the kitchen for the Quickfire Challenge which Padma (dressed like the Jolly Green Giant) told them it was high stakes but didn't say how or why. The guest judge was Tyler Florence, best known for having several food shows over the years. The gist of quickfire was a great: a special slot machine that gave the chefs three keywords to base their meal around: mood, taste/texture and region.Before I go into it, a note to Bravo: cut back on the cross promotion and endorsements. Yes, we know all about the Gladware family of products, but making BOTH challenges corporate-sponsored? The Cookstr Quickfire and the Macy's Elimination Challenge - in the same episode? It's Top Chef, not Top Integrated Marketing Strategies. It was almost as bad as Heroes a few weeks ago when they talked about how much they loved Guitar Hero and Legal Seafood.
Back to the challenge, after each chef pull the slots there were some creative outcomes, especially Ashley's blue, cheesey, Middleastern. But the biggest thing in the quickfire to me was Eli, who got umami (along with several other chefs) and just took all the mushrooms and refused to share. Yes, it's a competition but that's like winning a race because your opponents tripped. Mike I. may be a dick, but at least you know. Eli may be up there too.
The dishes seemed okay but nothing really ground breaking. Robin was on the bottom for making a basic curry, which isn't even Middleastern. Eli was told he drowned his mushrooms in his ceviche (I'm so sick of ceviche), destroying all the umami flavor. And for the first time, Jenn was on the bottom because her scallops and salmon roe wasn't adventerous but I'm guessing she was so drugged up on sudafed anything looked like a good idea.
The top was a different story. Mike I. continues to impress judges with his dish, which was called "light and refreshing." Michael V. maintains his spot as being in the Top 4 finalist but the winner was Kevin who had to whip together an Asian dish without ever having cooked Asian before. Now the high stakes, Kevin had a choice: immunity or $15,000. He took the money and I can't blame him, he has yet to be on the bottom in anyway and I could easily see him going to the finals. Plus, I tend to trust fat chefs.
The Macy's Elimination Challenge got some Chopped in my Top Chef. There were four more guest judges from the Macy's Culinary Council, which sounds more terrifying then it should, and each of them had a bad of mystery ingredients. The chefs drew knives for teams and took their mystery baskets. The challenge: create a family-style dish using their ingredients at the house. Five teams, four burners. You do the math.The teams seemed horribly unbalanced, the remaining chefs are really showing their different tiers of skill left. On one team you had Kevin and Jenn, while other teams consisted of Mike and Robin. How can that possibly even be fair? But with such limited kitchen space, the chefs had to get creative. Eli continued his dickish attitude by sprinting ahead and claiming the space right next to the stove.
Michael V. shows some real brains though, instead of fighting for a burner, he plugs in some woks to boil his water. Reminds me of Hubert Keller during Top Chef Masters when he had to cook in a dorm room and used a shower to reheat pasta. Another rare moment was actually seeing Jenn look like she has was actually having fun! Tom snuck into the kitchen and talked the chefs in what were some of the most awkward conversations. Every wonder what it's like to talk to a person devoid of emotion? Watch the chefs talk to Tom.
But things started going downhill for some of the chefs after that. Circuit breakers kept tripping, so Michael V. and Ash were suddenly without the means to cook. This made their panchetta wrapped halibut both undercooked and overcooked at the same time. But Ashley and Eli's gnocchi was even salty for Tom and the prawns weren't cooked properly. Then in some TV magic editing, we're at the judges table.
But it's the next day. Could you imagine trying to sleep on that? Not knowing who was in the top or who was in the bottom? That's maddening to me. But the top two teams were called in: Kevin, Jenn, Laurine and Bryan. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of discussion, but Tom did mention on his blog that Kevin and Jenn were the only ones to properly serve "family style." But it was Jenn's sauce that put their team over the edge and earning her the win. It was her first Elimination Challenge and a $10,000 shopping spree to Macy's!But then the losers were summoned: Michael V., Ash, Ashley and Eli. That left Mike I. and Robin safely in the in-between zone meaning Robin's around for at least one more episode! Bryan tries to be good and say that since no one tried anyone else's food there's no reason to speculate. But the judges' table is far worse this time around.
Michael V. immediately admitted to there being mistakes with his and Ash's dish and then Ash went on a speech about how Michael was Picasso and he was simply Picasso's brush washer. No, I'm not kidding. We've seen throwing under the bus plenty but proclaiming your teammate to be far more then they'll ever be was new.Eli and Ash had to deal with salty gnocchi and undercooked prawns, showing both a lack of foresight with the plan and execution of skils. And Eli continued his plan of winning by bringing down others and did nothing to help out his teammate. No "I overseasoned the gnocchi" or anything.
And Eli's plan worked, Ashley was the one sent home for undercooking prawns and incorrectly being blamed for the salty gnocchi. Meanwhile, Ash "I'm nothing more then a paint brush washer" is still there.
As for next week, I have absolutely no idea what the preview showed. It didn't make any sense.
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