EFFIN’ TOP CHEF: Hang Me Up To Dry

A Snarky Top Chef Recap: Episode 5

The best part of this episode was clearly the end clip picked up off the cutting room floor and gloriously offered up for dessert to all of us hungry (rabid, even) Top Chef fans.  Whomever decided to put booze in the stewing room during judges’ table is my new hero.   Belligerence is totally my middle name.  Snarky Belligerence Chef.

This week’s Quickfire Challenge is an old Top Chef favorite: the blind taste test.  The chefs’ palates are put to the test when the contestants are asked to pick out the 15 high quality ingredients when put beside their low budget counterparts.  The ingredients ranged from uber-expensive caviar to low-grade maple syrup.  This Quickfire totally reminded me of the time my cousins made up a “club” and entry to said “club” was gained after potential club member ate something (prepared by Cool Kids Club, Membership: 2) while blindfolded.  Members argued that this ritual was necessary in order to prove “trust” and “blind faith” to the sisterhood.  I got in (albeit on a technicality since I barfed which was against the club charter or something) because I cried and my aunt made them.  Luckily, Antonia didn’t have to drink a mayo-shrimp paste-mango-tabasco milkshake (like I did) to get into her club (the Quickfire Challenge Winners Club).  Surprisingly, Stephanie’s palate is declared the worst even though she has won the most Elimination Challenges, so her taste buds must not be completely dead.

The chefs are asked to choose knives and are divided up into 4 teams inspired by the elements and Captain Planet (’cept on Captain Planet they called it Wind instead of Air and they taught viewers a lesson in environmental awareness not self-promoting douchebaggery).  Each team is instructed to make a first course dish inspired by the team element for the 80 guests at Chicago’s Celebrity Chef Meals on Wheels Fundraiser.    

The teams are given 15 minutes to conceptualize their dishes before they head off to Whole Foods to shop with their $500 budget.  Team Fire is effed.  They are all over the place and decide to wing it after realizing another team is using beef tenderloin.  Morale is low for Team Fire, as Dale and Stephanie throw out a ton of fiery ideas only to be shot down by whiny Lisa.  Dale doesn’t want to be obvious, and suggests they show how caliente they can be by preparing a spicy dish.  Lisa hates everything and everyone.  I’m waiting with bated breath for Dale to go ballistic on her ass, but am forced to wait a little longer. 

By Your Powers Combined, I am

 
Team Earth
Members: Antonia, Spike, Zoi
Elimination Dish: Beef Carpaccio with Mushroom Salad and Sunchoke Aioli

Team Fire
Members: Dale, Lisa, Stephanie
Elimination Dish: Grilled Shrimp with Pickled Chili Salad, Deviled Aioli, and Miso-Smoked Bacon

Team Air
Members: Jennifer, Nikki, Ryan
Elimination Dish: Duck Breast with Citrus Salad and Shot of Pomogranate Prosecco

Team Water
Members: Andrew, Mark, Richard
Elimination Dish: Salmon Sous Vide with Parsnip Vanilla Sauce

I was confused by alot of the teams’ choices and how they interpreted their assigned elements.  Seriously, Team Air?  Let’s cook duck because they can flyyy … in the AIR!!  Wheeee!!  And prosecco has bubbles!  How airy!!  I mean, Team Airhead was headed up by Ryan (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and Richard II, who has more lift in her hairstyle than in her cooking abilities but I was still so underwhelmed.  I won’t even talk about how Richard’s head exploded when he connected all the dots and came up with the idea to cook fish in water.  Genius!!

One team that was on point, surprisingly ended up being Team Fire.  The judges loved their spicy shrimp, which was hot but not too hot for a first course.  In an even more shocking turn of events, LISA is declared the winner.  I’m with Dale, she made effing bacon.  Dale should have won because the dish was his idea, and also because he managed not to butcher Lisa beside the meat counter (see what I did there?  Butcher like the guy who cuts the meat!! Wheeee!! I’m so clever like Ryan and Richard.)  Even though guest judge, Ming Tsai, claims the bacon is what made the dish, I’m calling BS like the rest of the world.  Lisa sucks.

Boo Earth.                                             Yay Fire!

Needless to say, the judges are equally dumbfounded by some of the team choices and berate the bottom 2 teams, Earth and Water, for missing the mark.  Chef Tom isn’t a fan of Team Water’s salmon sous vide which lacked texture and had scales (!!) or Team Earth’s underseasoned carpacchio.  The judges are unimpressed with Team Water’s sloppy preparation of ingredients and Team Earth’s bland dish and unearthy ingredients.  Team Earth’s carpaccio is flavorless sans the assload of rosemary that Zoi threw in with her mushrooms which the judges are totally not feeling. 

In the end, Zoi is asked to pack her knives even though Tom Colicchio wishes he could send Spike home too for being a complacent moron.  Ughh, Spike has been in the bottom for the past 3 episodes and is saved each time because someone is always just a little crappier than him.  He is like Ann from ANTM except Ann didn’t have hideous hats and look like a used car salesman.  After a sweet goodbye between Richard II and Zoi (see, I do have a heart) and a nice shot of Zoi packing her knives, the real fun begins!

Bravo abruptly cuts to a clip of the holding room, where everyone is going caaahhh-raaaazzzyy [fast forward to 4:17 in the video].  Spike has a tantrum like a small child and lashes out at Antonia for refusing to make soup.  Antonia wants him to STAND BEHIND [HIS] DISH and (correctly) points out that she did say she would make soup if thats what the team wanted.  Spike and his crazy hats suck.  Maybe his hats are what are saving him??  Like Bret Michaels’ bandannas and Dumbo’s red feather?!  Richard II is piiiisssseeed  that Spike threw her wifey under the bus, and Spike maturely tells her to “cry over it all night long.”  Then Dale calls out Spike’s “weak shit” and Lisa jumps down his throat for being an instigator.  I love Dale for defending Antonia from Spike’s dumb finger wagging and false accusations.  Also for what he does next, which is completely LOSE HIS SHIT on Lisa, while emphasizing his batshit craziness with a signature MJ crotch grab and karate chops.  Hiiii-yah! 

Sigh.  Aaaannnddd I’m spent.