Top Chef 4: Improv
Top Chef season 4, episode 7: Improv. Last night’s Top Chef contestants got a night out at Second City. Strangely, no one was suspicious that there was a hidden agenda.
Spoilers from here:
Only Nikki seemed to twig quickly to the upcoming challenge, three-word non-sequiteurs dishes invented Mad Lib style by the audience. I loved Richard’s idea of cooking tofu in rendered beef fat. Was anyone else reminded of the Buffy fast-food episode? But I find Richard a bit too aware of how clever he is. I think he’d do well to remember how he caved under pressure to produce a dish for 80. He’s a talented, innovative chef, but he doesn’t work in a restaurant like most of the others. Spike, also smug, redeemed himself by producing a perfect soup; he and Andrew did not get the onscreen kudos they deserved for making a pureed squash soup with just a food mill and no processor. As for those at the bottom, I found it discouraging to see only women on the chopping block. There’s a pathetic joke to be made about the lesbian not being able to pull off a phallic presentation of “orange turned-on asparagus,” but I won’t be the one to make it. I think Antonia and Lisa deserved their dressing down–doing a fish dish garnished with chorizo and a tequila sauce for “magenta drunk polish sausage” was extremely lame. Antonia did the same thing she did on the team challenge two weeks ago–refused to open her mind to something because it wasn’t to her standards. Jen did the same thing, sneering both at the polish sausage and the beer. I do think it’s fair that the quality of the food be the standard, I don’t think Stephanie and Jen got enough kudos for being more game to the challenge than Antonia/Lisa.
My guess is that Nikki and Mark, who held the middle ground, won’t be long for this show.
More commentary at The Kitchn but none yet at ALoTT5Ma.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I was really disappointed with the outcome as well, because Antonia and Lisa did not embrace the spirit of the challenge (improv does not mean you get to do whatever you want) , where at least Jen and Stephanie created a dish that, even if weak, clearly embodied their title. Antonia and Lisa’s dish should have been disqualified, and one of those two should have gone home. Seriously, how did they eke by without using the key ingredient? I thought Tom’s argument that the goat cheese upstaged the asparagus was lame, because whether asparagus was centerstage or not, at least it was there!
Also, I’m with you on Richard. I know he does good work, but man, is he pretentious and arrogant! Every time he’s all, “I’m extremely witty and clever”, my boyfriend and I say, “If you have to say it out loud, then it’s probably not true”. I can’t help but root against him. Still, my predictions of a final three are Dale, Richard, and Stephanie, with Stephanie being the first female chef to take it all.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
It’s always a giveaway that there will be epic fail when you hear the chef’s whining about the challenge.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
The more I think about it, the more I agree that Antonia or Lisa should have had their bad attitudes booted, especially because they admitted looking right at the polish sausage and skipping it.
I thought Richard’s dessert that won the quickfire looked like it had a big turd on the plate. Not v appetizing.