A Snarky Top Chef Recap: Episode 1

 

The first episode of Top Chef featured Chicago-style deep dish pizzas, culinary classics, lesbians, Anthony Bourdain (!) and … the f word. The show started off with the cheftestants doing the meet and greet at Chicago’s famous Pizzeria Uno, the birthplace of the Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Along with the handshakes and introductions, we learned that Richard is a molecular gastronomer, Andrew is a douchebag, Stephanie is a Star Wars nerd and for the first time, there is a couple on the show. After Zoi and Jennifer “out” themselves to the rest of the contestants, Padma and Tom arrive to announce their first Quickfire challenge. Surprise! You’ll be making a signature Chicago-style deep dish pizza (that will later be delivered to famous guest judge, Rocco Dispirito).

After tasting them all, Rocco divides the chefs into 2 groups: sucky pizzas and yummy pizzas. There are both boring and exciting pizzas offered up, but Richard’s peach and taleggio pizza with sweet tea sauce and Mark’s marmite accented pizza are singled out as Rocco’s favorites. These groups are used later in the Elimination challenge, a head-to-head classic dish cook-off between Rocco’s favorites and Rocco’s not-so-favorites.

Each chef from the Quickfire’s winning group, must choose a chef from the loser group to “battle.” The loser chef has the honor of picking what classic dish they will both have to prepare, from lasagna to soufflé, and the winner of the culinary battle is exempt from elimination. Since Top Chef lobbed the contestants an easy first challenge, most of the chefs hit it out of the park with the exception of the unfortunate Zoi and Erik who got soufflé … and Nimma. Poor Nimma was obviously out of her league from the underseasoned “hunter-style” mushroom pizza to her cauliflower flan gone awry. Nimma became our first Season 4 casualty, while Stephanie’s duck wowed Anthony Bourdain and earned the top spot. Deuces, Nimma, I can’t say I’ll miss you since you were the only lame-o who didn’t hang out on your first night in the swanky Top Chef pad. Too bad all that shut-eye didn’t help your seasoning abilities.

 
      the duckin’ winner          pack your knives, sucka

Meet the Chefs:
 

Mark
Quickfire Dish: pizza with chicken, zucchini and marmite molasses
Elimination Dish: silly and pretentious deconstructed Duck à l’Orange (vs. Stephanie) – Loser
What you remember: his hot New Zealand accent and love for Vegemite

Zoi
Quickfire Dish: pizza with broccoli, pesto, lamb sausage
Elimination Dish: rice pudding soufflé (vs. Erik) — Winner
What you remember: wants to bring a softer side to Top Chef by making more spicy pighead soup; Richard II’s girlfriend.

Nikki
Quickfire Dish: white pie with mushrooms and truffle oil
Elimination Dish: sheep’s milk gouda lasagna with homemade pasta (vs. Jennifer) — Winner
What you remember: New Yawker who doesn’t know much about Chicago style deep dish, but made a mean lasagna out of fresh pasta that would have made her Grandma proud.

Evangelos aka Spike
Quickfire Dish: “pizza a la grec” with onions, feta cheese, olives and sausage
Elimination Dish: eggs Benedict with lemongrass sabayon (vs. Lisa) — Loser
What you remember: smarmy Greek guy who wore a wicker baseball cap

Nimma
Quickfire Dish: “hunter-style pizza” with mushrooms, onions and stracchino cheese
Elimination Dish: salty-ass shrimp scampi and cauliflower scramble (vs. Antonia) — Loser
What you remember: was (predictably) the first contestant voted off. Is good at being a Muslim woman and a free American, but NOT good at using salt. In the course of a single show managed to make a pizza that needed salt and a shrimp scampi that needed less of it (plus a vomit-y looking cauliflower “scramble” from a failed attempt at flan).

Lisa
Quickfire Dish: asian bbq duck pizza
Elimination Dish: lobster eggs Benedict (vs. Spike) — Winner
What you remember: can “really touch people with food” … enough to make them orgasm.

Antonia
Quickfire Dish: pizza with burrata, proscuitto, argula and heriloom tomatoes
Elimination Dish: shrimp and lobster scampi with parpardelle (vs. Nimma) — Winner
What you remember: fun Italian who loves to feed people and made a delicious looking scampi that earned her a spot in the judges’ Top 4.

Richard
Quickfire Dish: peach taleggio pizza with sweet tea sauce
Elimination Dish: meaty crab cakes with magic smoke (vs. Andrew) – Winner
What you remember: his questionably gay faux-hawk. You cheered when he stole Andrew’s pizza pan, flaunted his mayonnaise and “smoked” Andrew in the crabcake battle.

Ryan
Quickfire Dish: pizza with escarole, ricotta salata and butternut squash
Elimination Dish: breaded chicken piccata with gnocci (vs. Richard) — Loser
What you remember: when Rocco said he was as dense as his gnocchi. Is cute but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, as his explanation for why he breaded his chicken piccata made absolutely no sense. Loves to talk about being 11, which could possibly be the time when he peaked both as a chef and intellectually. Maybe would have avoided getting a new one ripped by the judges if he had read the Snarky Chef instead of relying on his flawed childhood memory of chicken piccata.

Manuel
Quickfire Dish: sopressata and rapini a la siciliana pizza
Elimination Dish: Mexican steak au poivre with scallion cilantro sauce (vs. Dale) — Loser
What you remember: you don’t.

Andrew
Quickfire Dish: pizza with smoked marinara, proscuitto, onions and cheese
Elimination Dish: bready amalgamation crab cake with cilantro basil pudding, orange peri-peri sauce, pancetta aioli blah blah blah blah blah blah (vs. Richard) — Loser
What you remember: when he sang “phatness” in a high falsetto voice and got served by Richard THREE times in one show. Confused the elimination challenge’s cooking battle with a freestyle battle, as he “spit” his impossibly long explanation of his dish only to get dissed by Dick again. Possibly the new Marcel (aka “the annoying one”).

Jennifer
Quickfire Dish: “harvest pizza” with grapes, bacon, fontina and rosemary
Elimination Dish: Northern Italian lasagna with autumn veggies (vs. Nikki) — Loser
What you remember: her uncanny resemblance to Richard. Also rocks the gay faux-hawk but instead of being questionably gay, is definitely gay … as in Zoi’s girlfriend gay.

  
  TWINS??

Valerie
Quickfire Dish: “meat and potatoes” pizza
Elimination Dish: orange (?) chicken piccata (vs. Ryan) — Winner
What you remember: ::crickets chirping::

Dale
Quickfire Dish: pizza with sausage, pickled kohlrabi, scallions, srirarcha sauce
Elimination Dish: Asian steak au poivre with green peppercorn (vs. Manuel) — Winner
What you remember: Filipino guy who always looks stoned and loves the f word. I like him.

Stephanie
Quickfire Dish: pizza with melon tomato sauce, proscuitto, olives and arugula
Elimination Dish: Duck Breast, Mushrooms, Bok Choy & Duck Spring Rolls with Orange-Soy Glaze vs. Mark) — Winner
What you remember: her Yoda backpack. Was so nervous that she was shaking like a crack addict while saucing her duck dish, but ended up redeeming her gamey (hahahaa — this is a great Mad Libs word) proscuitto from the Quickfire by winning the first elimination challenge.

Erik
Quickfire Dish: pizza with mushrooms, onions, peppers and sausage
Elimination Dish: mashed potato nacho soufflé (vs. Zoi)
What you remember: looks like Zangief from Street Fighter II. Is a tattooed biker dude who just wants to cook in flip-flops and aloha shirts.
 

The Count:

Number of Cheftestants Remaining: 15
Number of Times the F-Bomb Was Dropped: 19
Number of Times Andrew Was Annoying: 3,021