You know how the judges on Top Chef are always stressing that each challenge gets judged separately, and you can't think about a chef's past work? Well, Lindsay missed that memo, because at the start of this week's episode she was still complaining about Restaurant Wars. Padma was also still wearing a terrible outfit, so apparently we just can't forget about things gone wrong this season.

This week's Quickfire was the traditional mise en place race that happens every season (though usually earlier on). Padma teamed up Grayson and Chris, Lindsay and Sarah, and Ed and Paul to peel and devein two pounds of shrimp, shuck a crate of corn, and make two pounds of fettuccine, and then cook them, in 40 minutes. The fact that they all accomplished it in time (though Paul and Ed forgot to put their shrimp on the plate) was a testament to the fact that these people really are quite talented cooks. And we'll grant them, it's not their fault that Bravo decided to drag this season out until the end of time. Anyway, Grayson and Chris won for their fettuccine with toasted corn, oil-poached shrimp, and deep-fried bacon, and got $10,000 to spend on cute outfits for Chris's cute baby.

In a twist that was so un-shocking it seems odd to even call it a twist, everyone's teammate then became his or her opponent for the elimination challenge. Each pair was tasked with making different versions of the same dish (their choice) for 200 people for a block party to support the food bank of San Antonio. Ed and Paul chose Korean barbecue, Sarah and Linds went with meatballs, and Grayson and Chris picked chicken-salad sandwiches. Then Padma threw in another "twist": All the dishes had to be healthy. Ed wasn't fazed a bit, remarking that "all Asian food is healthy." O rly?

It's pretty clear that at this point even the show's editors aren't sure why they're bothering with the shopping montage (this week at Central Market, not Whole Foods; WTF, product placement?). This week's included but a mere multi-second shot of the sign telling you what's in the aisle. Hours of footage, and that's what they chose. Once in the kitchens, about half the chefs had a chat about not really knowing what a block party was, having never been to one. How is that possible? We grew up in city limits and attended many. Not that it mattered, because the event was technically a picnic in a park and not a party on a block.

We were pleased with Top Chef when they took the time before showing the event to talk about the importance of ending hunger and helping out food banks. We really, really hope Bravo and named-a-million-times sponsor Healthy Choice donated a significant amount to San Antonio's food bank and didn't just make the guests do it. Food banks really do need help! Go donate to your local one, please! [End PSA]

We also hope that Bravo had a lot of EpiPens around because of all the bees swarming the event, considering every child these days appears to be severely allergic to everything. Which brings up another question: Why on earth did they do so many outdoor events in Texas in the summer? No one spends time outside in climates like Texas's in the summer if there's not a pool involved.

Despite all this, everyone managed to serve their dishes without too many hitches. Paul made turkey kalbi and eggplant in a lettuce wrap with white peach kimchee, while Ed served an open-face kalbi with homemade buns and kimchee chipotle purée. Grayson's chicken-salad sandwich came with arugula, pickled red onion, and a watermelon-and-feta salad, while Chris's had tofu "mayo," red lettuce, and a watermelon salad with pineapple ice. Sarah used turkey meat in her Calabrese meatballs (paired with summer vegetable salad), and Lindsay used lean veal and lamb in her Greek-style meatballs with lemon yogurt and quinoa salad.

The picnicgoers named Paul, Lindsay, and Grayson's dishes their favorites in each category, though Tom wanted to know how Grayson thought she could possibly win a round of Top Chef with a chicken-salad sandwich. We happen to think mayo is gross, so touché, Tom. The judges thought Paul's dish was the healthiest and most flavorful, and awarded him the win. He's the least-unlikable of this batch, so go Team Paul? Chris then proved that the only thing the judges hate as much as underseasoned food is dry food (he let his sandwiches sit out rather than serving them to order), and got sent home. Farewell, scrunchies!

Next week: Pee-wee Herman oh my God. Riding bikes! Pee-wee. Are the chefs being delivery people?! Pee-wee. Gail is back! Pee-wee oh Lord what is even happening?

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Filed Under: overnights, top chef, top chef texas

It only took eleven episodes to figure out what this "wickedly" boring season of Top Chef has been missing: Eric Ripert! Nothing like a little silver fox to shine things up. He was waiting for the chefs when they returned to San Antonio for last night's Quickfire. (Fun fact, producers: There are more than three cities in Texas. Why not hit, say, Houston?) The Ripper and Padma gave the chefs 30 minutes to make a "sophisticated" dish using at least three ingredients from the conveyor belt behind them, with a fairly reasonable catch (for once): The people running the belt would start off with crappy ingredients and only send out better ones when there was less time to cook. They definitely weren't kidding — the first ingredients out were Pop Rocks and a half-eaten container of Oreos.

"I see a bowl of macadamia nuts and I grab them because this challenge is nutty," Ed informed us, as he then grabbed a jar of sauerkraut. Most chefs tried to wait it out, but in the end everyone ended up with at least one crappy ingredient. We'll be honest here: This was our favorite Quickfire yet. Watching the chefs freak out about having to serve horrible food to Eric Ripert is truly the best, most pleasurable thing we've seen all season. Anyway, Lindsay won immunity for having the least awful food and wasn't too sad-faced about it.

We almost missed what the elimination challenge was because we were too busy wondering what on earth was going on with Padma's jumpsuit, but it turned out the contestants would be making a dish "fit for a queen." Sadly, this did not mean that Kate Middleton was the guest judge. Instead, they had to create a seven-course gothic feast for Charlize Theron, who is playing the evil queen in the upcoming film Snow White and the Product Placement. (Surprisingly, the movie is not called Wicked, despite the number of times they used the word over the course of the episode.)

The shopping montage was boring and pointless as usual. Why do the producers insist on showing everyone continually shouting how much time is left around Whole Foods? Has anyone ever once gotten to the register too late to buy anything and been stuck with no ingredients? No. Next time just skip straight to informing us that Creeper Chris is married. Is that why he always wears scrunchies? Because he misses his wife and they're hers? Eh, doesn't matter; there is no excuse for scrunchies.

The cooking montage mostly involved everyone worrying about cooking for Charlize Theron. We know she's the big name here and that this episode was all about the product placement and being as gimmicky as possible, but we'd personally be a little more concerned about what Eric Ripert thought of our. Either way the cheftestants clearly tried to pull out all the stops. Paul worked on fourteen different components for his dish while Grayson decided to try to cook black chicken for the first time. We get that black chicken is fancy, but when it's raw it looks like a dragon fetus.

Dinner service involved a lot of not-very-funny jokes with unnecessary amounts of laughter in response, but also, for the first time this season, some good food. Ed played on light versus dark in his tuna tartare with black garlic ponzu, pear ginger sauce, and fried fish scales. Paul put a "bloody" handprint (with a glove, thankfully) on each plate of his "forbidden forest" foie gras with bacon, beets, pickled cherries and jalepenos. Beverly cooked a seared halibut with forbidden black rice, and Lindsay followed with seared scallop over a "witch's stew" of braised short rib and dragon beans. Sarah made a red wine risotto with lamb hearts, Grayson served that black chicken with roasted pickled beets and quail egg, and Chris finished off the meal with a "poisoned" apple and cherry pie.

The judges had positive things to say about everything, with Ripert considering it the best meal he's had on Top Chef. Tom Colicchio was finally not disappointed, so congratulations, chefs, on only taking 2/3 of an endless season to get to that point. In the end, the judges decided the dish with the best combination of flavor and presentation was Paul's, who nabbed the win. As he is the least unlikable out of the remaining contestants, we were pleased. Grayson, meanwhile, was shocked to find herself in the bottom alongside Beverly and Sarah, especially after the lovefest over all the dishes. She apparently forgot that someone has to go home every week. Lucky for her the judges found the most to nitpick in Beverly's sauce, and sent her home just as she was hitting her (both cooking and crying) stride.

Next week: A head to head battle! Chris throws chairs! Tom wears a dad shirt! Grayson disses meatballs!

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Filed Under: overnights, eric ripert, top chef, top chef texas

It only took nine thousand ten episodes to get here, but we're down to eight chefs which means … restaurant wars! Why do they always try to present this as a treat? Because it's a bigger disaster than usual? It never actually replicates what these people would do with a restaurant. However, there is a bright side to restaurant wars: We get to skip the Quickfire. So, on to the challenge! Padma split the chefs into a battle of the sexes. Both the chefs and the judges spent the rest of the episode referring to the teams as boys versus girls, but since these are all quite grown, professional adults and we find that weird, we are going to refer to them as fellas versus ladies.

Other than the gender-specific teams, the rules were pretty much in line with previous years' wars (although they did serve on separate nights and not simultaneously): Make a three-course meal with two options for each course for 100 guests, everyone's responsible for at least one dish, and one person handles the front of house.

The producers went back to giving the teams a raw space to decorate, but thankfully the shopping montage (where they were given a cool $7,500 each) was pretty quick. The fellas quickly decided to put Ed at front of house since he owns his own restaurant; Paul dubbed their spot Canteen, as it reminded him of a communal, nostalgic experience, which they aimed to emulate in their cooking.

The ladies put Lindsay in front of house (since she's helped open a lot of restaurants), and called their restaurant Half Bushel, hoping to evoke a rustic, organic, ingredient-driven feel. Their menu planning did not go as smoothly as the fellas', with Sarah continuously shooting down every idea of Beverly's, as apparently she is the new Heather. But for once Bev finally got an ally, in the form of Grayson. When Sarah tried to shoot down Beverly's idea to do short ribs again, Grayson excellently retorted, "Why not? She's fucking good at it." At least one person on this show remembers that it's supposed to be Top Chef and not Top Ego.

Team Canteen "lost" the coin toss and had to cook the first night. Creeper Chris opened their day with a lengthy speech comparing restaurant wars to Star Trek, a metaphor completely lost on us despite our love of The Big Bang Theory and our father forcing us to know about the borg as children. Ed got very dramatic while setting up, complaining that he had to clean the bathroom all by himself. We'd be willing to bet all of Chris's scrunchies that they were not given a dirty bathroom to work with, but okay.

The fellas didn't realize until they were in the middle of service that they hadn't chosen someone to expedite, a problem that grew exponentially when the servers had issues as well. Paul blamed their friendships for getting in the way of bossing each other around, a sentiment not heard very often on this show. Paul put quite a bit into this challenge: he also made a ham and pork pate with mushrooms and duck fat crostini for the first course. He worked on both second courses — solo on a crispy-skin pork belly with sweet potato puree, and alongside Ty-lor Boring on poached salmon with clams and tomato water. Ty-lor also made a Thai-style crab and shrimp salad for the first course, while Ed and Chris took on dessert. Ed made an "Almond Joy" cake with malted chocolate mousse and banana-coconut puree; and Chris made homemade Cracker Jack with cherries and peanut butter ice cream.

The ladies' team noticed Canteen's problems as they dined, and swore that they would stay strong and stick together when they cooked the next night. Naturally, they instead spent almost the entire time yelling at each other. Sarah yelled at Grayson and Beverly for how they did things, Beverly complained that Lindsay didn't give her a good fish-cooking demo, and Lindsay worried that Bev would mess up her dish. In fact, Lindsay seemed much more concerned with her fish than she was with her front of house duties, also complaining about how hard it was to seat all the tables (which is, you know, a main part of the job of being restaurant wars front of house). Most shots of her during service showed her in the kitchen, yelling at both the other chefs and the servers. Who knew such a quiet person had such an angry streak?

Grayson and Sarah took the first course. Grayson made a peach salad with picked shallots and bacon vinaigrette, and Sarah made a mozzarella-filled arancino with sweet and sour eggplant. For the second course, Beverly made her braised short ribs, while simultaneously executing Lindsay's grilled halibut with chorizo and fennel salad. Dessert included Grayson's schaum torte with vanilla meringues and Champagne berries; as well as Sarah's hazelnut cream doughnuts with banana sugar glaze.

Despite their more severe problems with service, the ladies team's dishes pleased the judges quite a bit more than the fellas', and the ladies were awarded the win, prompting them to hug each other like they hadn't just been screaming an hour earlier. But their love fest was short-lived. When the judges announced that Beverly was the challenge winner, Sarah and Lindsay's faces dropped like Tom had just canceled Christmas. Beverly cried, obviously.

Tom was, once again, severely disappointed with the losers, remarking that he could send all of the fellas home. (DO IT, TOM, PLEASE.) The judges didn't like how greasy Paul's first course was and wondered why he did so much while Chris did so little. They also didn't like how Ed named his barely coconuty dish after Almond Joy, but they found the most fault with Ty-lor, who severely underseasoned all his dishes and whose "Thai-style" dish was not flavorful at all. As the judges notoriously get offended by dong shots underseasoning, it came as no surprise that Ty-lor got sent pack-ing. Farewell, Mr. Boring.

Next week: We have no idea, because Bravo HD froze right before the scenes so … come up with your most creative episode ideas and leave them in the comments!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, restaurant wars, top chef, top chef texas, top ego, tv

Is anyone actually excited when Top Chef does an extended episode? This is a rhetorical question: Obviously the answer is no. And yet, Bravo continues to torture us with a superfluous extra fifteen minutes and present it as a treat, kind of like when the cafeteria proclaims salad day. This week's very special long episode kicked off with Padma giving the chefs a homework assignment: Study the books of Modernist Cuisine, presented to them in a glass case. The chefs voice-overed about them in a product-placement-y way, but considering this is a product that needs no promotion we're not so sure what was going on. Either way, the assignment made our cheftestants nervous.

Naturally, author Nathan Myhrvold — described by Ed as a "weird Renaissance man dropped in from outer space" — awaited the chefs for the Quickfire. (By the way, have you ever listened to the "Planet Money" piece on Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures? You really should.) He gave a nice little explanation of modernist cooking for the audience, and a nice little reminder that molecular gastronomy is only a small subset of what most chefs do. Obviously, many of them ignored this after Padma tasked them with creating a modernist dish, breaking out the chemicals and liquid nitrogen to molecular whizzbang stuff anyway. Malibu Chris explained that he is very modern because he likes to make paintings of naked women, but sadly for him he was not modern enough to win. That honor went to Ty-Lor Boring for his watermelon with vanilla bean honey and powdered olive oil. Yum? He also got a set of the books and immunity, which was a pretty sweet prize.

The elimination challenge was basically the Quickfire's opposite: Make the best traditional Texas barbecue. The chefs broke themselves into three teams of three with pretty minimal drama and headed off to the famous Salt Lick restaurant to learn the secrets of good barbecue (our friend who lives in Austin assures us that the restaurant is indeed excellent and that they serve the best beans ever). The teams (Sarah/Ed/Ty-Lor, Paul/Grayson/Lindsay, Bev and the Chrises) got all night to cook chicken, beef brisket, and pork short ribs, plus two sides. "You can take elegance and throw it out the window," said Ed, who clearly has never had Texas barbecue before.

The tour of the Salt Lick gave us the first drool-worthy moment this season (only took nine episodes). The owner then gave the teams a ride in a product-placement mobile to replicas of the restaurant's barbecue pits, where the chefs got to start cooking at 10 p.m. Unlike the chili cook-off, they really did not get to sleep at all with this challenge, and quite a bit of delirium ensued. Beverly set a pot of bourbon on fire and then left it in the grass ("When it comes to common sense it seems like she's missing a few chapters"), while creeper Chris took the time to talk to his beer-can chickens. For some reason, most teams opted not to use the smoker in the barbecue challenge based in Texas, a place where people buy smokers for personal use in their own backyards.

The lack of sleep followed by the heat of the day was too much for Sarah and sent her to the hospital, prompting Ed to ask, "What's wrong, is she dead?" To be fair, this did make things rather difficult for him and Ty-lor, and forced them to change their game plan and slice their meat ahead of time, a big no-no in Texas brisket.

Team Paul/Grayson/Lindsay went with Asian flavors for their proteins and served them with charred Brussels sprouts, kimchee okra, and watermelon salad. The Chrises and Bev made beer-can chicken, spicy smoked brisket, and Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce pork ribs with beans and coleslaw. Team Sarah/Ed/Ty-lor showed off their roots and made Texas-style chicken, Kentucky brisket with salt-and-pepper rub, and Kansas City–style pork ribs with a dry rub.

Not to say we told you so, but the win went to the only team who used the smoker: Paul, Grayson, and Lindsay. Tom even asked for the chicken recipe, which we don't believe he's ever done before. Oh, and if you're keeping tabs, Paul has now won $35K on this show, which is more than we made in a year during our first job out of college, so that's nice. The remaining two teams shared the bottom two for their "failure" (Padma's word) with their proteins. She, Gail, and Nathan had a long debate over whether the fault went to Creeper Chris for cooking the meat incorrectly, or to Malibu Chris for messing up the rubs and sauces. Alas, beauty did not trump salty rubs, and Malibu Chris was sent home. (What are the chances he's already painted a naked picture of Padma?)

Next week: Restaurant wars, 9 bajillion episodes later than usual! It's boys versus girls! Ed wears a suit with a pink shirt! A forgotten mushroom nightmare! Sarah yells! Hugh Acheson's eyebrows return!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, barbecue, modernist cuisine, recaps, salt lick, top chef, top chef texas, tv

We're going to Austin! Well, sadly, we're not, but the remaining nine million ten chefs are. Naturally, it took a road trip in the product-placementmobiles (with product placement camera confessionals) to get there, but we did learn that everyone calls Cute Chris "Malibu," that Paul sold weed for seven years before getting into cooking, and that Beverly is a huge believer in karma.

This week's Quickfire was the Twitter challenge we told you about way back in July. Padma and Tom asked followers to come up with challenge ideas and called out instructions for chefs as the challenge went on. Sadly, they did not take our suggestion to cook with armadillo meat, but they did tell the chefs to make a dish with bacon, add a hash to it, and pick an ingredient for another chef to use. Most people were nice and gave each other ingredients like lemon and sriracha, but everyone complained anyway. The judges liked Beverly's crispy pork belly with corn and bell-pepper hash, as well as Sarah's burrata-stuffed squash blossom with bacon-zucchini hash; but they gave the win to Paul for his bacon many ways, including crispy bacon and chorizo-mushroom hash.

Our cheftestants were then instructed to go hang out at the hotel bar, where they got to enjoy the musical stylings of Patti LaBelle ("she looks exactly the same," noted this recapper's roommate) while Sarah cried and fanned herself. Either this group of chefs is made up of excellent actors or they are all incredibly oblivious, because they were quite surprised when Padma walked in and explained that Patti would be the guest judge for the elimination challenge.

For the first time this season, Padma doled out a challenge that was both interesting and a good way for the chefs to showcase themselves: Make a dish honoring the person who inspired each of them to cook. The Whole Foods montage was the usual snoozefest, so we spent the time thinking about what we'd make to pay tribute to our Nana. These happy thoughts were rudely interrupted by a nice long shot of Creeper Chris's butt crack. Next time just show us more pictures of Beverly's cute, fat baby, please.

During service, the judges also talked about their inspirations and what they would make. Emeril, finally making an appearance, would honor his mom, while Patti would cook macaroni and cheese with eight cheeses and lobster and shrimp. Question: How do we get an invitation to the LaBelles?

Most chefs' inspiration came from moms and grandmas, though Malibu Chris paid tribute to his uncle while Ty-lor Boring explained his fondness for the Japanese nanny he had growing up. The top dishes were all more modern interpretations of food the chefs had as kids: Sarah's grandparent-inspired cabbage stuffed with sausage and brown butter; Beverly's mom-honoring Korean-braised short rib with edamame puree and mushrooms; and Ed's grandma-inspired vegetarian modern bibimbap with lemon-chile sauce. The judges seemed more pleased with these three plates than anything they'd seen all season, and gave Sarah the win, causing Patti to be the one tearing up this time.

Grayson, Heather, and Malibu Chris ended up in the bottom three, which were called before the top three, a twist no one saw coming even though the judges do it every season. (Like we said, great actors or naïve beyond belief?) Grayson's grilled rib eye steak with German potato salad was unimaginative and not cooked well. Incorrect cooking was the theme of the bottom: The fish in Malibu's sockeye salmon with brown sugar carrot puree was cooked too quickly at too high a temperature, while no one could even tell what cut of meat Heather used in her beef stroganoff with herb spaetzle and mushrooms — Patti assumed it was meat from Bigfoot. And reminding people of Bigfoot got Heather the boot (see what we did?), prompting Beverly to be all "HA! Told you so, biatch! Peace out, suckaaa!" (we paraphrase, but that was pretty close). Karma, indeed.

In two weeks: Fires! Fire alarms! A giant barbecue! Food that's like sex in your mouth! Sarah gets dizzy! Ed gets pissed! Salty food!

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Filed Under: overnights, beverly rising, recaps, top chef, top chef texas

We went into last night's episode of Top Chef with high hopes; after all, Tom Colicchio himself promised us that this season would stop being boring. Apparently "not-boring" means contestants whining about each other and catfighting, because that's what much of this episode was about. Luckily, this episode was also about a double elimination, which took this near-endless pool of chefs down to ten.

But first, the Quickfire. Padma, Tim Love, and a table full of product-placement tequila awaited the chefs at Le Cordon Bleu, where they were tasked with creating a dish to pair with the tequila of their choice. Ty-Lor Boring felt certain he could rock the challenge, as he had been to Mexico, while other chefs expressed their familiarity with shots of the stuff. Ty-Lor Boring's vacations definitely helped him out, as he was in the top for his steamed clams with Thai fish caramel sauce, along with Lindsay and her salmon with fennel puree and Cute Chris with his raw oysters with tequila tapioca pearls. The win ultimately went to Ty-Lor Boring, and also to whoever touched up Padma and Tim's makeup between takes, since the two of them managed to keep from looking red-faced and drunk despite putting back all that tequila.

The elimination challenge paired the chefs up, based on whom they were standing next to, a move that surprised them all despite the fact that it's been used before this season. Each team was assigned a type of wild game and instructed to serve it at a game dinner for Tim Love's chef friends, which included fellow New Yorker Anita Lo. Make her a guest judge in her own right, producers!

The prep period included much more complaining and worrying than usual, owing to everyone freaking out about Padma's promise that one whole team would be going home at the end of the meal. Grayson got right to the point about Creeper Chris's crazy sweet-potato idea, asking, "You promise this shit's gonna be bangin'?" To be fair, that is a good standard for professionally prepared food. Paul went on for a while about how passionate Sarah is about sausage, causing us to giggle because we are apparently 12 years old.

There were no giggles on Heather's end of the kitchen, though — girl was not pleased about being teamed up with Beverly and made absolutely no attempt to hide it. In fact, she spent most of the prep period shooting down Beverly's ideas while explaining that doing things Heather's way was a fair compromise. "Honestly, Heather's being a complete bitch," remarked Ed, voicing the opinions of most in the kitchen and putting into words exactly what the producers wanted you to be thinking. The whole situation was made more uncomfortable still when Beverly confessional-ed that Heather's behavior reminded her of the abusive relationship she was once in and from which she had to run away. Sadly, for a place with so many personalities, not one person apparently told Heather to calm the fuck down.

Service took place in Tim Love's room full of stuffed animal heads, which seemed to freak out Tom a little bit (hi, Tom!). Lucky for him, there were six courses' worth of meat to provide distractions. There was not, on the other hand, much judges' table to distract anyone: As soon as service was done, Padma called in Ty-Lor Boring and Ed and immediately gave them the win for their sorghum quail with pickled cherries and eggplant. There was no discussion of what made the dish their favorite, let alone another top team to compare to. They win, here's ten grand, the end. We suppose it was done to fit in more chef fighting, but it was still weird.

But oh boy, the chef fighting. The cheftestants had to vote among themselves to decide the bottom three dishes. For the most part, everyone was careful to be politely honest, because as Ed pointed out, "If you try to screw over one person today you might be on their team tomorrow." (Just don't stand next to them and you'll be fine, duh!) The group finally decided on Heather and Beverly's rubbery and weird five-spice duck breast with polenta and pickled cherries (pickled cherries are the new pea puree this season, apparently); Dakota and Nyesha's undercooked venison with kombucha squash and beet gratin; and Creeper Chris and Grayson's juniper-roasted elk with mushy, messed-up sweet potatoes (that shit, sadly, was not bangin'.)

Dakota and Nyesha immediately admitted that they knew their venison was undercooked, and Creeper Chris and Dakota agreed that they played their dish too safe and didn't do the sweet potato right. Heather didn’t see what was wrong with their dish, but used most of her time not to defend her cooking but to rant about her dislike of Beverly and complain about her work ethic. "I feel like I had no say in our dish," Heather said, which was interesting, since it was the exact opposite of what we saw. Not to be shut down, she continued her rant once back in the kitchen, while we continued to wonder what was going on with Padma's necklace.

This is Bravo, and manufactured drama sells, so naturally Heather and Beverly were not eliminated. Instead, that honor went to Nyesha and Dakota, which is pretty on target with the judges' usual behavior: They do not like their food undercooked. Keep that in mind if you ever cook for Tom. Speaking of Tom, he was certainly right that this episode was not boring ... but it was not boring at an uncomfortable cost. Chefs have always disagreed on Top Chef, obviously, but this episode took that to a new level. Is Real Housewives rubbing off on Top Chef?

Next week: Leaving Dallas for Austin! Patti LaBelle is there! Heather is negative! Emeril finally makes an appearance!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, dallas, pickled cherries are the new pea puree, recaps, top chef, top chef texas, tv

Last night's Top Chef kicked off by pointing out a rare event on this show: More dudes than ladies have headed home. It still surprises us every year when the female chefs head home first, considering they're all at about the same level, so this news reverse-surprised us. Creeper Chris, however, does not care, so don't talk to him unless you want to talk about winning.

The chefs met their Dallas home base: Le Cordon Bleu. They also met guest judge Dean Fearing, who along with Padma assigned the chefs the Quickfire task of being a saucier. Each chef had to do their own take on one of the five mother sauces: hollandaise, béchamel, veloute, tomate, and espagnole. Cute Chris thought the hardest part of the challenge was making a roux, which at first seemed odd to us as we make roux all the time and are not on Top Chef. However, once judging began it quickly became clear that not making a proper roux was a sin as far as Dean Fearing was concerned. Grayson got the win for her complicated (and correctly rouxed) charred-corn hollandaise with scallop and ravioli, and scored the only immunity.

The elimination challenge asked the chefs to cook as one team and make a four-course dinner for the Cattle Baron Ball (Texas!), with at least two courses involving steak (Texas!). Guest judge Dean warned that all 200 steaks needed to be delivered to the tables medium rare, no big deal. The chefs all got six hours to cook, and there was the promise of a product placement mobile for the winner. On the way to Whole Foods, they all yapped scriptedly about the stupid car, making us less likely to ever buy one. (Send us samples of the good food, Top Chef producers, and then maybe we'll remember the name of the car.) The important takeaway from this was that Creeper Chris would be equally happy to win the car, or $2.

Prep time led to the second drippy, bloody injury of the season, though this one was so bad that Ty-lor Boring needed to go spend half the night in the ER getting stitches. Lucky for everyone, he came back in time for the second half of prep the next day, as not one person wanted to step up and take his role as steak-cooker outside in the 112-degree heat.

An alternate title for this episode really could have been "Everyone Hates Beverly," which was understandable, as it took her more than three hours, as a professional chef, just to prep the shrimp for the first course. Thankfully for bossy Heather, Beverly finished them in time for the dish, which was a tomato-watermelon gazpacho with olive-oil-poached shrimp. Ed, Paul, and the Chrises made a seared New York steak carpaccio with mushroom "bacon" and heirloom tomato salad for the second course, while Ty-lor Boring, Whitney, and Nyesha made a grilled rib eye with potato gratin, Brussels sprouts, and compound butter. Heather, Lindsay, and Grayson brought up the rear with a Texas peach cake for dessert.

The chefs seem to be a lot more into throwing each other under the bus before judges table this season, no? Heather spent most of the pre-judges' table time scolding Beverly for taking so long with the shrimp.

Not that Heather needed to find people to blame, as she and her cake ended up on top along with Creeper Chris's carpaccio and Nyesha's compound butter. She even took home the win, further proving that the judges aren't hating on desserts as much anymore. Ty-lor Boring, Whitney, and Ed ended up in the bottom, where Tom did the parental "I'm-not-mad-I'm-disappointed" move to a T. In the end, Whitney went home for her undercooked potato gratin, which is really fine with us since we're still not entirely convinced she was there the whole time in the first place.

Next week: More meat! A double elimination (yessssssss)! The cheftestants have to judge each other! Heather yells a lot! Tom is not excited! Sarah cries!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, dallas, recaps, southfork ranch, steak, top chef, top chef texas, tv

Peace out, San Antonio: After four episodes with you, our chefs are moving on to Dallas! No one seemed too pleased to be leaving, and Beverly wasn't quite sure what Dallas even was, remarking, "Dallas Cowboys rings a bell." While she busied herself figuring that out, everyone else piled into the product-placement mobiles and started talking about relationships (side note: did anyone else notice how all the tattooed people ended up in the same car?) and about how fat Cute Chris used to be.

If this episode of Top Chef proved anything, it's that these people are indeed chefs and not actors. Not a single one of them was good at acting surprised about getting "pulled over" on the tiny road through a cornfield that is apparently the only way from San Antonio to Dallas and not, say, one of the bazillion five-lane highways that run through the state. Sadly, the fake cop was not anyone fun or famous, but stunning-white-teethed (Chris's words) John Besh was waiting in the field with Padma in tiny shorts, so there was something for everyone. There was also a Quickfire that required the chefs to cook ingredients found in "survival kits" using Bunsen burners in the middle of the field. In other words, we've gotten the inevitable "ewww cooking with canned food!" challenge out of the way early.

Apparently, survival kits in Texas include ingredients like lemongrass, tofu, and chiles in addition to canned fish and rice. Ed quickly made it clear that he is not cut out for an outdoor cowboy life, pulling his back and grumping about having to make "Flintstones food." To be fair, most of the food looked pretty gross, including the winning dish from Lindsay, some sort of tuna "club" on saltines with Vienna sausages (we have been to Vienna; their sausages do not come in cans). However, her win marked the first time she stopped looking so sad, so maybe we need good news for her more often. She even WOOed!

In the first non-team challenge, the chefs then headed into fancy Dallas neighborhood Highland Park to cook for a progressive dinner party in three different houses. Rather than drawing color-coded cornstalks in the field, Padma simply split the group up based on where they were standing. Naturally, the group at the end who got desserts was pissed. Do the producers of this show get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of watching cheftestants whine about making dessert season after season? Just wondering.

Anyway, once in their respective groups, everyone went to the hosts' giant, beautiful houses to find out more about them, all six of whom could be summed up thusly: unadventurous and hates cilantro. The chefs were all easily able to do their cooking in the host couples' own kitchens, as the spaces were huge enough to fit five chefs cooking at once. See, that's not even a challenge. Let's get the chefs cooking in one of our one-foot-of-counter-space New York apartment kitchens and watch the real fun begin.

We took three things away from the service portion of this episode. No. 1: Ty-lor Boring and Heather are pals, which is nice. No. 2: One of the Dallas host couples had TWELVE HUNDRED PEOPLE at their wedding. Even Gail (who can really rock the red lipstick, we must say) didn't think she knew that many people. No. 3: The saying "everything's bigger in Texas" apparently applies to cleavage, too, because holy boobs, Padma and Gail. Are they trying to up the male demographic of this show?

The top dishes were Sarah's Roman artichoke with date puree, Paul's fried Brussels sprouts with prosciutto, Dakota's banana-bread pudding with banana mousse, and Grayson's chocolate sponge cake with caramelized bananas and pretzels. The win went to Paul, and Brussels sprouts and bacon went on our grocery list. The dubious honor of being the worst dishes went to Creeper Chris's roasted chicken cigar with collard greens; Chuy's goat-cheese-stuffed salmon filet; Ty-lor Boring's grilled pork tenderloin with summer slaw; and Cute Chris's strawberry cupcake with banana filling, chocolate frosting, and ice cream. Creeper Chris's dish was too gimmicky and not elegant enough, while Cute Chris's dish was like a kid made it, with too much going on. Ty-lor Boring's dish insulted the judges with its overlarge portion size (but this is Texas, no?), messiness, and lack of finesse. However, Chuy's overcooked salmon with mealy cheese incurred the bulk of Tom's wrath and was bad enough to send him home. Guess we'll never learn whether his dad invented cooking or not.

Next week: Grilling! Southfork Ranch, which apparently we should have heard of! Steak! Emergency rooms! Someone's too slow! Tom gets disappointed!

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Filed Under: overnights, dallas, recaps, top chef, top chef texas, tv

The restaurant-devoted-to-one-thing concept is nothing new in this city. We've got all cupcake, all macaroni and cheese, all tiramisu, and countless more. But what we didn't have was a spot selling pudding, and only pudding*. Enter Puddin NYC, opening in the East Village next week. They've got the classics like vanilla (made with Madagascar beans) and chocolate (with 70 percent chocolate all the way from Iceland), but they've also got banana, coconut, and a variety of parfait combinations. The shop also features nineteen different toppings, ranging from homemade sprinkles to red velvet cake. You can check out the full menu here for now, and in person when the shop opens next week. No word yet on how Bill Cosby feels about this. [Urban Daddy]

Puddin NYC, 102 St. Marks Pl., nr. First Ave.; 216-513-5074

*Rice to Riches, as it sells only rice pudding, does not count.

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Filed Under: openings, east village, puddin nyc, pudding

No, there was not a new episode of Top Chef last night. Instead, we're recapping last week's episode today, since the show aired the night before Thanksgiving, and we like days off as much as everyone else. So: “Either have something really good to put on the plate, or shut up” remarked one of the cheftestants to kick off an episode that no one watched live because they were prepping for Thanksgiving by drinking with their high-school buddies. (Did you have a good feast, by the way?) Rather than the usual Thanksgiving-themed Quickfire that occurs this time of year, Padma presented the chefs with chile peppers that ranged from mild to, oh, the hottest pepper in the world — and instructed them to create a dish highlighting one pepper, with the hotter peppers giving the chefs a chance to win more money should they emerge victorious in this Quickfire. This seems like a generally great premise for Quickfires from now on — the chance for better prizes if you challenge yourself more. Let’s hope they return to this idea, since it spices up (heyo!) what is already proving to be a seemingly endless season (how are there still fifteen chefs left?!).

Beverly picked one of the most mild peppers, explaining that she chose it to make the best-tasting dish, and not for the money. Which is all well and good, except the point of the Quickfires is to win money. She also didn’t cook her chile at all, despite the very important lessons last week (see: shrimp, tortillas) that you must cook things to win on this show. Unsurprisingly, her chile crudite ended up in the bottom, along with Little Richie’s Fresno slaw with seared scallops and “spicy guy” Chuy’s sautéed scallop in achiote. The win went to Paul, who was brave enough to use the ghost chile, thus winning $20,000.

The elimination challenge had chefs do a different type of chili cook-off, focusing on the stew as opposed to the peppers. Apron colors separated the chefs into five teams of three, and everyone immediately started complaining. Nyesha didn’t want to be teamed up with Beverly and Little Richie, while Cute Chris didn’t want to be on the same team as Sarah after she was so mean to Black Hagrid, even though (as she reminded us 85 times throughout the episode) her dad was a bull rider and she is from Texas. Because every challenge must have a twist, the chefs were given all night to cook, and they had to cook in their fancy house. Fire up the fireplaces! (Seriously, they did.)

Creeper Chris wasn’t too happy about cooking outside, because it was hot out. It’s hot in Texas? No kidding! Some cheftestant named Whitney talked a lot during the prep period. Do you remember seeing her before? Because we most definitely did not. Has she been there the whole time? Or was she cleverly planted by the producers to ensure that this season does, in fact, never end? While we were busy being surprised by Whitney's mere existence, tattooed Dakota was very surprised when Tom showed up at the house. Apparently she has never seen an episode of this show before. Tom’s looking very tan, no? Makes sense: We hear it's hot in Texas.

Everyone started complaining about being tired and acting delirious around 11 p.m., which seemed a little odd, as chefs’ days are typically over later than that. Naturally, this meant we got a complementary scene in the morning of everyone being soooo tired, with Sarah proving she is the most not-a-morning-person at all. However, the lack of sleep meant a lot of people were a little funnier than usual in the morning. Ty-Lor Boring started threatening sad-faced Lindsay to smile more, while Chuy started doing a great Texas accent and Gail spoke of having a “weird bagel accident.”

This was another the-people-pick-the-winner challenge, but that didn’t stop the judges from talking extensively about their least favorites. Tom was especially not pleased with the black team’s (Beverly, Nyesha, and Little Richie) chili mole with cornbread and the red team’s (Creeper Chris, who-the-hell-are-you Whitney, and Dakota) braised brisket and short rib chili, while other judges thought the white team’s (Lindsay, Ty-lor Boring, and Greyson) three bean and beef chili had no heat.

In the meantime, all the chefs got to go to the rodeo and have a great time — well, all except Beverly, who spent the rodeo crying that her husband wasn’t there with her. “You can’t let your emotions show with the rest of the group because then they’ll perceive you as weak,” said Nyesha, because she seems to have confused Top Chef with The Hunger Games.

Cute Chris didn’t notice the crying, because he was too busy watching Padma ride around on a horse, reminding him of Fabio on the cover of a romance novel. How many of those has he read, exactly? Chris loved her even more when she announced that his team (with Sarah and Chuy) had won the cook-off with their chili con carne. She then proclaimed the black team as the losing team, but gave Nyesha, Beverly, and Little Richie 30 minutes to each transform their chili into something good for a chance to stay. This, plus a judges’ table of mostly joking about being assholes, was also a huge improvement over fifteen minutes of bottom chefs throwing each other under the bus and yelling. Beverly’s seared tuna with habanero creamed corn kept her safe through her tears, but Little Richie’s Frito-crusted pork tenderloin with ricotta and chile puree was bland enough to get him sent home. He and Creeper Chris had a very sad and tender good-bye, ruined by Richie telling Chris to go be the Jedi that he is.

Next week: Moving on to Dallas! Cops! Cooking in a field! Someone pulls their back! It smells like money!

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Filed Under: overnights, chili, recaps, top chef, top chef texas, tv

As we're reintroduced to the actual sixteen Top Chef contestants, after having taken two entire episodes just to get there, we see Beverly putting up an inspirational sign for herself: You see, if she believes she's already won the competition, then she will eventually win it. We're going to hang a sign up in our office that says, "This season will get going eventually," because maybe if we believe that, the editors at Magical Elves will make it so.

The chefs were greeted at their first Quickfire by a tank of snakes and Padma wearing a bandana, because you probably weren't aware that they're in Texas. Naturally, the cheftestants have to create a dish using rattlesnake for guest judge Johnny Hernandez, who explained that rattlesnake is traditional in Texas cuisine. We've eaten quite a few meals in Houston and never seen rattlesnake, so this was news to us. Not that it matters, because it was clear that the only purpose to this challenge was to allow Padma to say, "I better see some motherfucking snakes on some motherfucking plates."

Everyone was grossed out except Chuy, who mentioned yet again that he grew up slaughtering animals, so he's cool with everything. Dakota was the most freaked out by the snakes, but won despite her fear for her beer-battered tempura rattlesnake. We'd also like to give an honorary win to creeper Chris for making a Dazed and Confused joke.

Knife-drawing separated the chefs into Green Team and Pink Team for the elimination challenge: Cook elegant Mexican cuisine, and a great cake, for more than 100 guests at the lovely Blanca Flores's quinceañera. Chuy was very excited for the challenge, as he is the season's "resident Mexican" and also knows how to slaughter a goat. What are the odds that he brings up animal slaughter every week? We'll put them at even. The first shopping trip was the usual yelling mishmash, but with an extra side of hypocrisy from the pink team: When sad-faced Lindsey found out Black Hagrid bought precooked shrimp for a mystery dish, she made a speech about how baffled she was that someone thought buying something precooked was okay … and then proceeded to buy store-bought tortillas, an equally egregious offense in our book. She and Sarah then decided to team up on Black Hagrid, making him feel very alone.

The green team sailed during their prep period, with Chuy falling into the leadership role for this challenge pretty naturally. Their dishes, even their leaning tower of flowery cake, impressed the judges and Blanca more, and they got the win. (It should be said that the real win goes to Blanca, who was a perfect hostess at 15, checking in on all her guests repeatedly. Go enjoy your party, girl!)

The entire pink team did not get called in to judges' table; only Ty-Lor Boring (fire-roasted summer fritter with avocado mousse), Black Hagrid (chicken enchiladas), and Sarah and Lindsey (chochinita pibil). "This is my first judges' table," Sarah informed us, which was weird, because the season just started, so, like, yeah. She quickly threw Hagrid under the bus about buying the precooked shrimp, but Hagrid fought back pretty well, pointing out that there were others that let him do that. He also gained some defense when the judges realized that Sarah and Lindsey never told him that enchiladas should be made with corn tortillas, not flour. Unfortunately, Hugh's concern about Hagrid's shopping skills (and he was quite concerned — he makes the most exaggerated facial expressions, is it the eyebrow?) was too great, and our gentle giant was the first to go home. We veto this. Look at those pants! We're pretty sure our mom has those as pajama pants! How can you send those pants home, Umbridge Padma?

Next week: a chili cook-off! A rodeo! No sleeping! An A League of Their Own reference! And … what's this? There's a chance to get Black Hagrid back? Go online and vote or whatever it is you have to do to get him back, loyal commentarati!

But of course, next week is also Thanksgiving, which means we'll have the recap up the following Monday, after everyone has had a chance to finish their turkey.

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Filed Under: overnights, come back black hagrid, recaps, top chef, top chef texas, tv

Last night's Top Chef immediately kicked off in The Bubble, as a friendly reminder that the competition hasn't even really started yet. Group Three then entered the kitchen and forced us to come up with even weirder tricks than last week to remember who everyone was. (Highlights from our notes: "Chaz has a crush on Padma and we have to DEAL WITH IT"; "Beverly has a really cute fat baby"; "Bernice … makes me think of 'Crazy Old Maurice' since Beauty and the Beast was on last weekend.") The producers were kind enough to make up for this cluster…fudge of people by actually giving us another decent twist: Only after the chefs fought over normal ingredients did they find out that they'd only have 20, 40, or 60 minutes to cook what they chose.

Less-jolly-looking Yukon Cornelius was very concerned about only having twenty minutes to cook mushrooms, while Redhead Ashley decided to use her full hour to try cooking her oxtail in a pressure cooker, despite not being familiar with the technique. Has there ever been a time on this show when trying out something new in the heat of the moment has worked? You should probably save that for the Quickfires, kids. Meanwhile, Padma-lover Chaz made some weird comment about how this situation was like being a Navy Seal versus being a G.I. Joe, because that is an excellent metaphor for cooking. Tom Colicchio doppelgänger Laurent also taught us a really interesting lesson this episode: If you grow up in France, you can become a cook, a priest, or an army guy. That's it, guys — just un, deux, trois jobs in France. No wonder they're always striking.

Because being in the last group is the worst, only three chefs got a coat: From-Austin Paul (he made trout), Sad-faced Lindsay (veal over polenta), and Cute-baby-haver Beverly (Korean-style octopus). Yukon Andrew and Laurent got the joy of going to the Bubble, while all the chefs at the house discussed how terrible it would be to have to cook again. We'd hate to be the ones to break it to them how Top Chef works.

Over in the Bubble, which finally got dealt with and did not get drawn out to a third episode, the six chefs were allowed to use any ingredients to make a dish that proved why they should stay. Janine did math for some reason and informed us that this meant everyone had a 33 percent chance of staying, while Cruiseship-chef Molly complained that this challenge was too hard. This challenge where the chefs were allowed to cook to their strengths.

This segment of the show gave us some other interesting insights into the cheftestants. Grayson Schmitz (whom we want to either call Schmitzel or Schmutz, please advise in the comments), for example, shared that when she was 15 years old all she wanted to do was drink, while Edward wanted to prove that you don't need to be in New York to cook good food, an odd sentiment considering this season features hardly any NYC chefs and about 87 from Chicago. He then sliced his hand open and filled some rubber gloves with blood, which was a delight to see.

The Bubble dishes were almost entirely seafood with the exception of Ed: stuffed prawns with soy-glazed watermelon from cruise chef Molly, seared scallops with watermelon from Janine, bacon-wrapped shrimp with figs from Schmitzel, scallops two ways from Laurent, mussels from Yukon Andrew, and duck with barbecue sauce (or is that blood?) from Ed. The judges dragged this judges' table out for fifteen minutes, as they are wont to do. This was incredibly boring at this stage in the competition where we only know people's names because they flash them on the screen every time. We know this is the "biggest season ever" because Texas, but this was a pretty boring way to kick things off. Anyway, Ed and Schmutz got coats (and Ed got a fixed hand), as well as warm greetings by Black Hagrid when they arrived at the house, because he is Hagrid.

This season: The chefs go all over Texas (three cities)! Padma makes a Snakes on a Plane joke! More people bleed all over the place! People cry in cowboy hats! We get reminded that this is the biggest season ever approximately 200 more times! There will also be online episodes where chefs that got kicked off get to come back, because apparently biggest season ever means even more episodes!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef texas, tv

Howdy and welcome to Top Chef Texas! Padma kicked off season nine by taking literally not even one second to make a Texas joke: "Get ready for our biggest season ever." Because everything is so big in Texas! Get it? If this first second is foreshadowing, we think we can expect more puns and jokes than we've ever seen before. And cowboys!

Speaking of jokes, season nine also started off with 29 chefs (also the New York logo and a screen shot of Grub Street. We're famous!). Some of the cheftestants haven't even been alive 29 years! Because you probably can't remember who everyone was, and because we couldn't either, we've given most chefs a nifty nickname to help you keep track until Tom, Gail, Padma, and new judges Emeril and Hugh Acheson whittle this pool down to sixteen. To help with the whittling, the ginormous cast of characters got broken up into three groups, with each group getting a different challenge.

Group one was pretty excited to see Emeril. Chris, who has a pink backpack and looks like a creeper, was "like Bam!" Does Emeril still do that? Emeril himself said he was excited to be there in the least excited voice ever, so maybe he actually wasn't. He and Tom explained that each chef would get one of ten cuts of pig and one hour to cook with it. They also announced that they would be judging on butchering and cooking techniques, a first that we were completely down with.

Creeper Chris turned out to be a kindly creeper, as he helped vegan-chef-for-ten-years Colin out with butchering his pig. Not so kind was Tyler, who at 22 and on the show just ten minutes repeated many, many times that he's a personal chef for famous people and wrote a cookbook in just three and a half weeks. He probably should have spent that time learning how to butcher meat, as he attacked his pork chops with what appeared to be a hacksaw. "I don't usually butcher big pieces like this," he explained to Tom, who replied, "What do you butcher, then?" It turned out Tom has no patience for bad butchering, and he sent Tyler home before he could even get cooking.

Can we have more of badass Tom, please?

"This is a serious competition for serious chefs," said someone, in case you got confused by the hacksaw and thought this was Kitchen Nightmares. This meant no spills were allowed either, so Vegan Colin also got sent home before chefs tasted his food, which included spilled soup. A bunch more chefs got sent home because of their actual cooking, while Sarah (pig skin ravioli), Kindly Creeper Chris (caramel apple pig thing), Nyesha (Tex-Mex pork ravioli), Little Richie (onion soup with pig ears), and Heather (maple and citrus baby-back ribs) got official spots in the top sixteen. Cruise Ship Chef Molly and From New York Grayson got sent to "the bubble," a room filled with wine and Shiner Bock (they're in Texas, did you know that?), where they had to wait to cook yet again.

Group two was introduced even faster than group one, so quickly that our notes say things like "lots of Chicago," "Black Hagrid from North Carolina is James Beard nom," and "Dakota is from L.A. and oh my God the tattoos." Group two received a different challenge: choose just one ingredient from a table of the judges' favorite ingredients, and everyone must make a different dish with that ingredient. Little Nina wanted sweetbreads and Hagrid wanted seafood, but everyone agreed on rabbit, probably because it was the tamest ingredient in the bunch. "Rabbit orgies are awesome," remarked Dakota Tattoos, so maybe there were other reasons, too. Chuy, also 22 and looking like a child, explained in an eerily happy way that his family used to eat their pet rabbits for dinner. Chris Gary decided to name-drop all the past popular Top Chefs whom he cooks like, which would have been more annoying if we hadn't been distracted by his rugged good looks, something we expect he'll use to his full advantage with the judges. Ty-Lör Boring started talking about cooking his rabbit Thai-style, but we got distracted once again, this time by his name. Has there ever been a cheftestant with a better name? Can he win just so we can see the name Ty-Lör Boring plastered everywhere?

Lucky for us, Ty-Lör Boring (we're only ever going to call him by his full name) went through to the top sixteen, along with Keith/Hagrid (rabbit three ways), Whitney (rabbit sugo), Pet-Eating Chuy (adobo-marinated rabbit loin), Cutie Chris Who Is Right Near Our Age (duo of rabbit), and Dakota Tattoos (rabbit crepinettes). Edward and "this is like being in a wax museum" Janine went off to the bubble. Because this is Top Chef Texas and everything is BIGGER, this was a two-parter, so no group three, the Bubble, or Hugh Acheson until next week. Who do you think will lasso the final spots?

Next week: Group three doesn't know that there are only five spots left! There are finally more Southern chefs in the mix! The Bubble! Someone cooks while his hand gushes blood! We continue to hope for an armadillo challenge!

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Filed Under: overnights, seriously we want to see armadillos, texas, tom colicchio, top chef, top chef texas, tv

If there's one thing New York is not short on, it's sandwiches. From the bodega across the street to the fancy sandwiches peppering the boroughs, it seems like we have it all. However, one can never have too many sandwiches, so a couple of national chains have moved on in to join the city's sandwich scene. Earl of Sandwich and Potbelly's both arrived in New York this summer and have already started expanding. It's easy to see why they're doing well. But are they any good? We decided we needed to grab a man who knew his way around a sandwich and have him decide. Enter No. 7 Sub's Tyler Kord, the man who has even managed to elevate humble bologna into a special meal between bread. We set out with Tyler, and an open mind, to see if the featured sandwiches at these chains are worthy of your lunchtime dollars.

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Filed Under: sandwiches, earl of sandwich, no. 7 sub, potbelly, tyler kord

If we could make one complaint about Top Chef (we know, just one), it would be that recent Quickfires have jumped the shark. For example, how can you bring Paula Deen on as a guest judge and not have the contestants make a butter-based dish? We can only remember one Quickfire that we liked from season eight, and that's only because Muppets were involved.

It seems we're not the only ones complaining, because Tom, Padma, and Gail have put out a call for you — yes, you — to come up with a Quickfire for season nine, filming in a top-secret location Texas. Tweet your ideas at @bravotopchef now (apparently they're doing this while they film) with the hashtag #TCQuickfire. If they pick your idea, we will brag about you all over our recap of that episode. And if you're stuck for ideas, here are a few to get you started:

• Make a Lunchable.
• Make a haute doughnut that doesn't use foie gras.
• Armadillo meat for everyone!
• Figure out how we can make cookies in this Texas humidity without turning the oven on.
• Make a whole-animal feast in 45 minutes.

Your turn. Good luck!

Tom and Padma Need Your Tweets! [BravoTV: The Dish]

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Filed Under: top chef, quickfires, top chef season 9, tv

Because we are such dedicated journalists who selflessly strive to bring you every bit of New York food news we can get our hands on, we stood in line for 45 minutes today to try the ice cream sandwiches from the city's latest food truck, Coolhaus NY. The L.A. export is handing out Firefox-themed treats for free all weekend. Is the wait worth it? For the cookies, yes — the chocolate chip ones are fabulously buttery, with lots of salt to balance out the sweetness. As for the ice cream, our vanilla scoop, despite copious flecks of bean, just couldn't stand up to the cookie, and its flavor was lost to the butter. But whatever! They're free all weekend, so we highly encourage you to try the other flavors (Earl Gray ice cream on brioche cookies, Nutella ice cream on oatmeal cookies, and blood orange sorbet on chocolate cookies), and report back. They'll be at Bryant Park tomorrow, Union Square on Sunday, and Madison Square Park on Monday, from 12–4 p.m. each day. Follow them on Twitter for updates.

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Filed Under: truckin', coolhaus ny, free food, ice cream sandwiches

Last night's Top Chef finale continued the grand tradition of Top Chef finales and got right into the final challenge, though this one was a bit bigger than usual. Padma and Tom asked Richard and Mike to give them a glimpse into their futures and to create their dream restaurants, while promising no twists. So as we predicted last week, a very high-stakes version of Restaurant Wars, though this version was a lot more successful than the usual mid-season challenge.

Of course, when Padma says no twists, that just means the twist comes up pretty quickly, as Top Chef simply does not know how to function without twists. All the chefs of this season were back, including the ones who went home early and whom we didn't even remember, and they had to make an amuse bouche for Richard and Mike, at which point our finalists would pick their sous-chefs. Naturally, our finalists didn't get to see the cooking and had to choose their sous-chefs blindly, based on taste alone. But you know, no twists. Mike and Richard tried their hardest to figure out which dishes belonged to Asian Dale, Angelo, and Jen, because duh, while Mike tried to avoid Marcel at all costs. Richard ended up with Spike, Antonia, and Angelo; Mike got Tiffani, Carla (who won the fan-favorite award, hooty-hoo!), and Jamie, who made his face fall like Christmas was canceled. Hope everyone else had fun Jet Skiing!

During prep, the chefs looked to be in pretty good shape, with both leading their teams fairly well. Richard, despite the comfort of liquid nitrogen, worried about his proteins and dessert, while Mike insisted that he was calm because all of the pressure was on Richard. Actually, Mike, half the pressure was on you, but okay sure. Richard rightly pointed out that Mike's strength and weakness are the same: confidence and swagger. Also, snarky jerk faces. But to be fair, he did seem to really pull out the leadership skills with almost no dickishness, unlike he has throughout his two seasons. (Side note: Did anyone else notice how they cut Gail off in her promo for the after-show? Think she gave the winner away?)

This being a bigger finale challenge than usual, we had two groups of judges last night: Group one consisted of Lidia Bastianich, Hubert Keller, Alfred Portale, and Bill Terlato, dining with Padma. Group two was made up of Art Smith and Curtis Stone dining with Tom and Gail. Group one started off at Richard's restaurant, Tongue & Cheek, while group two kicked their night off at Mike's restaurant, Iz.

Both groups of judges preferred the first half of Richard's meal: a refreshing and creamy amuse bouche of raw oysters with crème fraîche pearls; a harmonious first course of raw hamachi with fried veal sweetbread, garlic mayo, and pickled celery; and a second course of pork belly with black-cod cutlet, bone marrow, beets, Brussels sprouts, and kumquat. While they loved his beef short rib, they didn't think it was very creative, and his foie gras ice cream dessert fell flat for the first group of judges.

The favorites were switched over in Mike's meal, where the judges didn't totally love the mozzarella in his first course of mozzarella, truffle, and chocolate vinaigrette; and didn't like the long wait between that and his second course of halibut with kumquat marmalade, cauliflower puree, and pancetta crumbs. However, they absolutely loved his braised pork shoulder with roasted cabbage, turnips, and a pepperoni sauce that Gail just could not get over, and preferred his dessert of a rosemary-caramel custard and pine nuts with citrus, celery, and apple.

Judges' table appeared mostly nitpicky, which should be the case considering these are supposed to be the best two chefs. Mike and Richard emerged from the stew room to cheers from their families and all the other chefs and Jen's crazy hair. Despite the judges seeming to be split down the middle, it was fairly clear through the discussions that everyone liked Richard's meal more, and they declared him the winner. Yay! Mike tried to ruin the moment by saying that he still thought he beat Richard, but he couldn't conquer everyone's incredible happiness for Richard, including that of his very sweet and surprised uncle. Anyway, kudos for a much-deserved win and a pretty good season overall.

Next week: There is no next week! Well, there's a reunion, if you're into that sort of thing. Thanks for sticking with me through all these episodes in this longer-than-usual season (including Gail, who apparently reads these — Hi, Gail!). Grub Street will be recapping Top Chef Masters, but I'll see you again when regular Top Chef is back! Hooty-hoo to all, and to all a good night.

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Filed Under: overnights, mike isabella, richard blais, top chef, top chef: all stars, tv

Were you expecting the Top Chef finale last night? Guess again! Only two people are going to the final episode, so it was Quickfire time! Wolfgang Puck greeted the chefs in the kitchen, and As for Padma, let's say: Padma pointed out seven Quickfires from previous seasons, and then explained that the chefs would be assigning them to one another. See, this is more like what we thought All-Stars would be about! Glad we're just getting into this now.

Mike gave Antonia canned foods, Antonia gave Richard hot dogs, and Richard gave Mike cooking in one pot. This being Top Chef, Padma stopped in in the middle of cooking to deliver a twist, and this being Top Chef, the twist had a twist. She had the chefs assign three classic twists to one another in reverse order. Richard gave Mike no more utensils, Antonia forced Richard to cook with one hand, and Antonia was tied into an apron with, yay, Carla. What, no one has to swap dishes with anyone else? As Mike cooked most of his dish in a pressure cooker, he had lots of time to walk around laughing like a fool. Unfortunately, laughing like a fool while cooking pork shoulder with black beans, chili paste, and a salad will get you the win and $5,000. Ugh ... we mean, congrats! (Nope.)

The chefs then headed out to meet Padma and some special guests, whom Richard speculated could be aliens but were actually the aforementioned Wolfgang Puck, Michelle Bernstein, and Morimoto. Everyone got to make someone's last supper (oddly, the title of this episode was not "Seeing How Many Past Challenges We Can Reuse in One Episode"). Mike got to pick, and gave himself Michelle, Morimoto to Antonia, and Wolfgang to Richard. Way to stick it to your family, Mike. Oh, and there was a secret envelope to be opened later with ... wait for it ... yet another twist.

All the guest chefs wanted a dish that reminded them of childhood: miso soup, rice, and sashimi for Morimoto; apple strudel, goulash, and spaetzle for Wolfgang; and fried chicken with biscuits and gravy for Michelle. Mike tried to claim that he picked Michelle because he knew she'd be the hardest, a lie so blatant even our grandmother who doesn't have cable could smell it a mile away — and one that obviously didn't fool the other cheftestants or Tom.

The guests arrived while Richard struggled to open his pressure cooker and Antonia discovered that the hamachi they provided for her was almost rancid, which is always nice when you're on an island surrounded by fish. She went with tuna instead, and served it in her bento box with rice, miso soup, and picked daikon, mushrooms, and eggplant. Mike went quite a ways out of the box, and served his sous-vide-then-fried chicken with mustard gravy, an egg-yolk empanada, and, yup, pea purée. So glad that's making a comeback. But neither dish could stand up to Richard's beef goulash, spaetzle with sour cream, and apple strudel with tarragon cream. Finally a win we can get behind. But of course, before a loser could be determined, it was time for that pesky envelope.

Except, of course, in our living room, where our DVR froze just before Padma revealed the contents, and despite being on just a ten-minute delay, pressing live and rewinding didn't work either. Apparently this happened to all our friends, too, but because we are such dedicated journalists we, for once, took advantage of Bravo's immediate repeat showing and bravely fought to stay awake stayed up writing this recap and eating Trader Joe's bagel bites to find out the special challenge, which, of course, we guessed right the first time anyway. Mike and Antonia were tasked with creating one last bite in 45 minutes, and whoever created the perfect bite would be the one to move on. So, no pressure.

Mike announced that he would take the time to be super creative and made tempura lobster over beef tartare with red chili potatoes and olive caramel. Antonia strived to create a dish she connected with and made seared grouper in coconut lobster broth with yam, apple, and dill pollen. It came down to Wolfgang Puck to break the tie between the two, which unfortunately meant that Antonia went home. She sadly interviewed that the show reminded her how much she loves cooking. Richard, you better kick Mike's ass all the way back to Vegas next week!

Next week: finale time! The chefs must create the restaurant of their dreams! So the finale is actually Super Restaurant Wars! All the old chefs come back! Mike is in the weeds! And he quit his job for this? But the food is good!

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Filed Under: overnights, pea puree, recaps, top chef, top chef: all stars, tv

"Let's see what today holds," Tiffany wondered as last night's Top Chef began. "I'm guessing it's cooking with not enough time and not enough equipment," replied Richard, which, now that he points it out, really has been the theme of every single challenge for eight seasons. The Quickfire, naturally, continued in this vein. Guest judge Lorena Garcia of America's Next Great Restaurant helped explain that the challenge would be all about synergy consistency and precision: Make 100 dishes identical in presentation and taste in one hour in two teams.

The chefs split into boys versus girls but took the same approach to cooking: Make all the components of each dish in one big batch. Yes, this is a sure-fire way to have everything taste the same, but is not exactly reflective of how restaurants maintain consistency and precision. We know, we know, we're getting nitpicky on something ridiculous five thousand episodes in, but at least come up with more accurate challenge descriptions/not crappy challenges next time, okay, writers? Anyway, the ladies' seared beef tenderloin with chimichuri beat out the fellas' pork Bolognese with homemade pasta, and Mike looked like he wanted to cry, which was a win for everyone.

The celebrations were short-lived as Padma explained the elimination challenge: Cook a lunch to celebrate the Nassau Yacht Club's 80th anniversary with a deserted-island-themed lunch, on an actual deserted island a small island off Nassau that no one has put a hotel on yet. Richard got confused and thought that the challenge would be a reenactment of Lost and wondered if he would have to catch a wild boar and kill it. But nope, the theme was conch. Sorry, Locke Richard. It was okay, though, because Richard prepped for this finale by having twenty pounds of conch in his freezer, and by growing a beard and buying the same toothbrush as us.

Obviously, Padma greeted the chefs at the boat to the island in a bikini and heels, because what else would you wear to stand on a dock? Is Top Chef losing male viewers that badly? Off on the boat to the island (the third boat ride this season, as this is apparently Top Boats, not Top Scallop), Mike went on about how he was happy they'd have everything waiting for them on the island, so of course instead of conch there was snorkeling equipment. Everyone seemed very shocked that they had to swim for the conch, even though they were clearly all told to wear bathing suits. Luckily, there were tons of conchs just naturally there and definitely not planted by interns fairly close to the beach.

Richard was pretty concerned at the "survivalist cooking" they had to do, what with all the pots, pans, fresh ingredients, and seasonings … but no liquid nitrogen, which was the biggest challenge facing both Gilligan and the Oceanic 815 survivors. The rest of the chefs had more realistic concerns, namely how on earth to get a conch out of its shell. However, no one seemed perturbed by the fact that they had to cook and serve food with swamp butt.

Many hammers, rocks, and boiling-water baths later, the chefs were ready to serve the judges, yacht club commodore, and his guests, all of whom were wearing white as apparently this Dharma station yacht club has a dress code even on other islands. Everyone did pretty well, with some small caveats. Richard's sweet potato "linguine" with conch and spiny lobster impressed everyone, but his lobster was unevenly cooked. Antonia's red snapper with conch tartare really delivered a good flavor punch, but her conch was cut too small. Mike's banana-leaf-steamed grouper over braised pineapple with warm conch vinaigrette was smoky and well-cooked but slightly overwhelmed by butter; while Tiffany's conch and coconut chowder with sweet potatoes and conch seviche had good, unexpected flavors, but was too sweet and not hot. In the end, the judges loved Mike's unusual flavors, giving him the win and us agita, and sent Tiffany's too sweet and cold chowder packing. The loser, at least, we'll agree with: Tiffany was not up to par with the rest of the chefs.

And no, we are not going to discuss the commercial for Marcel's new show, because we can't even begin to handle that.

Next week: Finale time (hopefully?)! The judges' last supper! Haven't we done that before? Mike and Antonia bicker! Food tastes rancid! Padma pulls out an envelope and asks the chefs if they remember it! Are we supposed to remember it?

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef: all starts, tv

Last night's episode of Top Chef opened with shots of the glorious beaches and colorful houses of the Bahamas — basically, a cruel kick in the face to the rest of us, as it's probably torrentially downpouring/flooding/monsooning as you read this. The chefs had a nice reunion where we almost didn't recognize Richard without his Pauly D hair, and Mike's rounded-out face provided proof that he really did spend the break learning about things like pastries. However, their happy moment together was short lived, as they quickly had to head into Fort Charlotte to do battle.

No, really, it was a battle. Each chef had to cook a (boringly ordinary) mystery ingredient head-to-head with the chef who won their respective season: Michael Voltaggio and duck for Mike I., Hosea and lamb for Carla, Kevin and pork for Tiffany, and Stephanie and veal for Antonia and Richard. Oh, and the winner of each face-off got some pocket money in the form of $10,000. Hosea was happy to be there because he saw this as an opportunity to prove to "all the haters" that he did deserve to win. Considering it looked like he only beat Carla because her burners kept turning off, we're going to keep on hatin'. Sorry, Hosea! Tiffany beat Kevin, securing her first win (seriously) of the season, and somehow Mike I. managed to beat our boy Voltaggio. The three-way Stephanie-Antonia-Richard battle had mixed winners: Stephanie's dish beat out Antonia's only because it was less crappy, so Richard easily took a win over Steph, despite the fact that he seems to have returned to the finale episodes without any of his confidence.

Tom and Padma then gave the chefs their elimination challenge: cook a meal for Bahamian royalty — and don't screw it up, please. Richard's confidence returned long enough for him to announce that he has cooked every fish within 100 miles of the Bahamas and would even chase down a goat and kill it to win, which was a nice image to have in your head if you watched this before you went to bed. Mike just got annoyed that the ladies were playing it too safe. Oh, Mike, don't be jealous of the sisterhood.

After prep time the chefs headed to what they thought was the palace kitchen to finish cooking, but what in reality was local restaurant Twin Brothers, with the king of Junkanoo (a celebration of life and the Bahamas) and his crew dancing awesomely outside. Naturally, Mike danced with one of the scantily clad ladies before heading in to cook. Once inside, Antonia became increasingly concerned with a smoking fryer, voicing her worries that it could burst into flames at the exact moment that it did burst into flames. The timing could not have been better if it were planned. The chefs were more concerned about their food than they were about their lives, but we were mostly concerned that the restaurant's fire alarm sounded eerily similar to the alarm in the hatch on Lost.

The fire department's visit meant that all the food in the kitchen got contaminated with chemicals, and the chefs were all forced to start over. The hasty editing left a lot to be desired: How did they replenish all that food so quickly? How did they clean all the pots and pans so quickly? At what ungodly hour did they finally eat? Dare we say this might actually have been an episode where we'd have liked an extra fifteen minutes? All we really saw were Richard and Antonia taking advantage of the do-over to totally change their dishes.

The Junkanoo crew appeared to enjoy most of the meal (perhaps because they had to wait so long), but the judges were not so thrilled. They only really liked Richard's roasted lamb loin and malted braised lamb leg with turnip "cannelloni," and Mike I.'s sous vide chicken with lobster hash and lobster jus. Eric Ripert, however, did not like the turnips in Richard's dish, and the win went to Mike I. If that clown wins this whole thing, we are going to … [insert your own "or else" here. Best one gets an EP]. As for the bottom, Tiffany's spiced pork tenderloin with dirty rice and curried slaw wasn't exciting enough, and Antonia's fried shrimp with grits and pickled vegetables was dry, and oddly flavored and textured, but in the end the judges couldn't get over the undercooked pork tenderloin Carla served Gail and sent our girl home. We kind of knew it was coming, but still. Boo hoo-ty hoo.

Next week: Bikinied Padma! Sending the chefs off to a non-deserted island! Snorkeling! Richard can't really swim! Sharks?

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef: all stars, tv

Last night's episode of Top Chef opened with a show of Antonia's psychic abilities, as she was apparently able to predict that Padma was going to show up at the chefs' apartment. Or, or, call us crazy here, but perhaps she saw the producers and cameramen discussing it before Padma arrived. Maybe? Anyway, Padma led them all up to the roof and instructed them to jump off take a ferry to Ellis Island for the Quickfire, where she'd meet them with the guest judge. Unsurprisingly, since we all saw last week's previews, they actually had to cook on the ferry, using only the ingredients they find on board, and only using the time it took to get to Ellis Island. "It could take five minutes or it could take five hours," said Mike, who apparently thought the ferry might be a rowboat.

Naturally the boat kitchen was filled with junk food, but Richard looked for fresh herbs (and probably liquid nitrogen) anyway. Everyone was forced to MacGyver: Carla extracted rosemary for her orange-papaya salad from some rosemary potato chips, while Mike thickened his Cheddar-and-pork-rind soup with bread and Antonia made grilled cheese on the rotating hot-dog cooker. The chefs also took some time out of cooking to put down everyone else's food. At Ellis Island, Padma and guest judge Dan Barber of Blue Hill (totes the opposite of this kind of food, GET IT? HE'S SO NOT A JUNK-FOOD GUY — SO TONGUE IN CHEEK, BRAVO) declared Carla the winner.

Padma then shared some Ellis Island history as a segue into the elimination challenge, the last in New York. The chefs were instructed to use their family history to create a dish based off their ancestry, handily compiled by a genealogist who researched everyone, which is kind of awesome. They got some research help from secret, special guests: Their families! Carla's husband, Richard's wife, and Antonia's, Tiffany's, and Mike's moms walked up, and it was a genuinely happy moment for all … until Mike ruined it by saying he hadn't seen his mom in six months. It doesn't take that long to film this, so perhaps he's got some of his own family issues there? Maybe it's that his mom doesn't think he looks at all Italian.

All the chefs had some fun moments with their ancestry reports (Richard loves Worcestershire sauce, and he has family from there; Carla's great-great-grandfather was in the Civil War), but none so much as Mike and Antonia, who discovered that they are distant cousins. Antonia took this first family moment to humiliate Mike by showing everyone a photo of him in a pink and green unitard from dance class, quite possibly the best child photo we've ever seen.

As they got cooking, it became clear that this was one challenge the chefs were really taking seriously, and it seemed to be more because of the presence of family than for the opportunity to move on to the finals, which was sweet (Carla even used liquid nitrogen!). Mike honored his grandmother's memory with braised-pork ragu over potato gnocchi and whipped burrata cheese, while Antonia celebrated her father by making braised veal, rapine leaf, and fava-bean risotto with lemon zest and grated Parmesan. Richard took a page out of his Irish-English-American history and made short ribs with potatoes, fried bone marrow, picked glassworts, and corn puree. Carla and Tiffany both honored their southern roots, making, respectively: braised pork shoulder, fried grits, corn-and-sweet-potato hash, and Cheddar biscuits; braised short ribs with mustard greens, stewed okra with pig feet, and oxtail marmalade.

The judges (and family members) loved all the dishes, which is what one would expect at this stage of a competition among professional chefs, but sadly hasn't happened until now. Mike was even genuinely likable for once in his life as he remembered his grandmother, though Richard made a weird angry/confused face for the entire duration of judges' table. They easily declared Antonia the winner of the challenge and a car, but despite their nitpicking could not find enough fault with anyone to send anyone home … and thus we have a Final Five. Over/under on a double elimination versus an extra episode (and extra commercials for Bethenny Ever After)? You tell us. But, producers, don't you dare pull that fake-eliminating-Richard trick ever again.

Next week: Not the finale! Padma in a bikini in the Bahamas! Everyone in a bathing suit! Going head-to-head with the chefs who won their respective seasons! Richard has a spiky beard! Fire trucks!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef: all stars, tv

Congratulations are in order, Top Chef: You've featured two good Quickfire judges in a row! Last night's gem was the one and only Paula Deen, whose appearance immediately made us shout (yes, out loud) "BUTTER CHALLENGE?! God I hope it's a butter challenge." It wasn't, but it was close — Paula and Padma gave the chefs 30 minutes to create a deep-fried dish, with Paula specifying that she did not want anything on a salad.

Dale's fried steak-wrapped oyster with egg-yolk omelette and Carla's catfish with Dijon and hush puppies did not wow Paula, but for once there was actual drama with the top contestants. Antonia was Paula's fave, but as Antonia forgot to make enough plates, she lost on a technicality and left the win up to Mike's fried chicken oysters with mustard gravy and Richard's fried bacon with liquid-nitrogened, deep-fried mayo. Multiple chefs accused Mike of allegedly stealing a recipe from Richard's books of notes that he had shown Mike in the morning. At three separate points, Mike claimed he saw the dish in the book, then that he saw it somewhere else, and then that he saw a picture of something similar in Richard's book … so we're going to venture a guess that he stole it. Regardless, he won, and Richard was not pleased.

The producers learned their lesson about keeping good guest judges around and let Paula stay on (not that we're still bitter the Muppets weren't in last week's whole episode), while second guest judge John Besh came in to explain the elimination challenge: Cook southern-style seafood for 300 guests at a fund-raiser benefiting displaced fishermen of the Gulf of Mexico. (Like the Fashion Week Quickfire with Isaac Mizrahi, this was another challenge that seemed out of place so many months later.) And in a twist that no one could possibly see coming as it has never, ever happened in the history of this show, each cheftestant was allowed to choose a previously eliminated chef to help him or her cook. Of course, each chef came with a specific protein. Mike chose Tiffani/brown shrimp; Richard chose his bro Fabio/snapper; Carla took Tre/red grouper; Antonia picked Spike/crabs; Dale got stuck with Angelo/amberjack; and Tiffany very grudgingly took the Marcel that came with the white shrimp.

Prep time seemed a lot louder than usual with all the extra chefs in the kitchen. Carla couldn't believe that Tre got his collard greens out of a can, while Fabio explained to Richard that they get along so well because Richard reminds Fabio of his ex-wife. Marcel obviously whined while Tiffany tried to keep him in check, and Mike just heckled everyone. Go join the cast of Jersey Shore, Mike. Also, did anyone else notice that they kept putting pots full of food on the floor?

At the party, the judges immediately beelined for the bar, perhaps because it is impossible to get through these challenges without drinking. Maybe they could send us a bottle of that Terlato wine they keep showing to drink while we recap? All the chefs were pretty overwhelmed by the number of people at the party, but our girl Carla did hooty hoo at those who asked.

The wine-fueled judges loved Antonia's blue-crab cake with corn, jalapeño, sausage, and blue-crab sauce; Richard's crispy gulf snapper with pulled pork and citrus grits; and Mike's grit-crusted shrimp over sour cream and chive potatoes, all of which sound like things we'd love to eat (perhaps they could send recappers at-home tasting kits, too. Bravo, are you reading this?). Richard was the best at achieving balance and scored the win, plus a six-night trip to Barbados he planned to invite Fabio on for a beautiful bromantic getaway (seriously, he said he's inviting Fabio). In the bottom, that left Tiffany's overcooked honey-glazed shrimp and grits with jalapeño and cheese, Carla's overseasoned fried grouper with collard greens and something called chou chou pico, and Dale's blackened amberjack stew with andouille sausage and undercooked potatoes. In the end, the judges couldn't get over Dale's overly mustardy crouton and sent him home. While his crying was genuinely sad, this means a woman officially has a better chance of winning this season, so yay. Sorry, Dale. We will actually miss you.

Next week: Padma comes to the apartment! Cooking on another boat! It's a ferry to Staten or Ellis Island! Family reunions! Richard breaks down! Tom's funny little goatee becomes very pronounced!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef: all stars, tv

Remember a few weeks ago on Top Chef when Carla casually let it slip that she used to model? We did some extensive Google searching after that episode, but all we learned was that she did it in the late eighties and early nineties. Well, the folks over at iVillage had a Twitter chat with her and managed to dig up a photo, and it is awesome. She's aged pretty well, though it looks like she was a lot sassier in her modeling days. Hooty-hoo on over and see the full image. [iVillage]

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Filed Under: top chef, carla hall, top chef: all stars, tv

Last night's episode of Top Chef kicked off with the usual reflection-on-who-went-home shenanigans, and we are over it. We know the chefs do these interviews right after it happens, but it's been a week since we saw Fabio go home and we're over it. (Also, WHAT is that coffee shop/bar they're always at?) Surely that time could have been better spent showing us more Muppets?

That's right, some Muppets left Sesame Street to come visit the Top Chef kitchen. Padma introduced everyone to Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Telly, because that was necessary. Padma, may we introduce you to the letter D, for duh? She explained that the challenge was to make a cookie, and then asked if the Muppets had any requests. Elmo wanted zucchini or carrots, Cookie Monster wanted chocolate chips, and no one cared about what Telly wanted. Really, was he anyone's favorite Muppet? Did they even make Telly dolls?* (For the record, our missing-furred, scratched-eyes Elmo is still in our parents' attic.)

The Muppets provided commentary while the chefs cooked, though none of their remarks — even Elmo's thyme joke — were as good as Dale's about Mike I, saying, "It's funny that someone who eats so many cookies would be so uncomfortable making cookies." Ouch. Angelo's dry chocolate chip Belgian hazelnut cookie was not a Muppet fave, nor was Richard's ice cream "cookie" with chocolate chips, zucchini, and mint. Our furry pals loved Antonia's dark-chocolate cookie, even though it looked like cow chips, but declared Dale's pretzel and potato chip shortbread with salted caramel chocolate ganache the winner. Can we have Muppets on this show more often, please?

Padma then announced that the chefs would be heading to Target for their elimination challenge, where they would get three hours in the middle of the night to shop and cook for 100 Target employees. After her product-placement spiel about how you can now get fresh food at Target and blah blah blah, the chefs headed out to a Target that was clearly not even remotely close to city limits, because it was huge.

Once they arrived, a flashback to Supermarket Sweep occurred, with everyone running around like fools, filling as many shopping carts as they could with appliances, tables, and food. Carla clearly thought she had switched shows, because she was comparing coffeemaker prices. Antonia tested the heat of the appliances she picked out by placing her palm flat against the plugged-in surfaces, while Mike and Angelo started a bromance and teamed up in their shopping and cooking. Mike told Angelo his baked-potato soup was missing something, so Angelo added both bacon and a giant handful of salt. Naturally, his soup ended up too salty, and we quickly got a shot of him pouring water into it. Don't raw potatoes absorb extra salt? He didn't have one or two around, having just made potato soup?

Obviously Mr. Salty Soup did not make the top, but Dale, Antonia, and Richard did. Antonia's risky Parmesan-cream eggs over-easy with garlic crostini came out perfectly, while Richard's gamble with cooking pork two ways paid off. However, Dale proved that a successful gimmick wins every time, as the judges (including Ming Tsai, who once made us try our first soup dumpling) loved his grilled-with-an-iron cheese with rib eye and spicy tomato soup the most, and awarded him the win and $25,000. Angelo, of course, was in the bottom, along with Carla for her curried-apple soup with tomato-ginger jam, and Tiffany for her jambalaya with chicken, sausage, and shrimp. Tiffany's mushy chicken and Carla's underdeveloped flavors were no match for the judges' hatred of oversalting, and Angelo went home. And cried.

*Note: We asked our co-worker if she thought this was too mean, and she responded by Google imaging him and saying, "Gross. He's like if Grover and Cookie Monster mated and ate red dye number 5."

Next week: PAULA DEEN! (So, a butter challenge?) Fire! Kicked-off chefs return! Last-minute Fabio! Carla makes great faces!

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Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef all starts, tv

Last night's Top Chef kicked off with the chefs walking into a kitchen full of fondue pots, prompting jokes about bell-bottoms and being naked. We were born in the eighties, so any fondue parties we've attended have not included these things. Mom, we know you're reading this, but if you knew firsthand what Richard was talking about, we can skip that convo (however, we'd love more details from non-relative commenters).

Anyway, moving on … For the Quickfire, Padma asked the chefs to skip fondue's usual conventions of chocolate and bananas and make a unique version of the dish. Naturally, Richard immediately grabbed chocolate, bananas, and the liquid nitrogen. Padma had our beloved cheftestants look around to figure out who the guest judges were, and they were all bewildered when she announced that they would be judging each other. ZOMG, WHAT A TWIST! Never been done before, ever. Antonia set off to re-create Jewish deli in fondue, while Dale decided to make a fondue version of pho, which he called phondue. Even if you don't win this season, Dale, you win the Grub Street Award for Best Terrible Pun.

Padma announced the results of the non-secret ballots and that Fabio's caviar billini with crème fraise and fromage blanc, Tiffany's apple-ricotta fritter with hazelnut chocolate, and Mike I.'s feta fondue with spiced-lamb kabob were on the bottom. Taking advantage of their non-secrecy, she called people out and asked why Dale put Mike on the bottom. Dale was honest like a "New York Times reviewer up in this bitch." Apparently the other chefs appreciated that and puns that are so awful they're wonderful, because Dale got the win and a trip to Napa.

For the elimination challenge, Padma sent the chefs to Rockefeller Center. They spent a minute or so walking around NBC studios claiming they had no idea where they were or what was going on, yet no one looked surprised in the slightest when they walked onto the set of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Maybe it was all the signs they passed announcing Late Night With Jimmy Fallon? Jimmy then made them play Cell Phone Shoot-out and take pictures of his favorite dishes, which they would then have to cook for his birthday lunch. Of course, the chefs couldn't get to cooking before opening their freezer containing only Buitoni products and having a conversation about their favorite Buitoni raviolis. Nor could Dale get started before he admired Angelo in his tight purple pants, calling him a "stunning man."

Kitchen madness at Colicchio & Sons mostly involved Carla yelling and running around while Fabio continuously pronounced burger as "booger." Meanwhile, Mike complained that Richard (who doesn't need 40 pounds of dry ice and a flame thrower to make his food exciting) was being too helpful to everyone, while simultaneously asking Angelo for advice on his peppers. During all this whining and yelling, Jimmy explained that he hates mayo because he once got his head stuck in a railing and they had to mayo up his head to get him out of there. And no one brought in a photo to share with the producers? Come on, Mama Fallon.

The judges, Jimmy, and his family loved Carla's chicken potpie with carrots, celery, and pea salt; Angelo's barbecued pulled-pork sandwich with coffee, all spice, dill, and cilantro rub; and Antonia's pressure-cooked beef tongue on pumpernickel rye with caramelized onions and dill slaw. But considering everyone at the table couldn't stop eating Carla's potpie (with extra crust at the bottom, a key component that often gets overlooked), she got the win, a trip to Tokyo, and a cooking segment on Late Night. Yay! Hooty hoo, girl.

Mike's sausage and peppers Fenway (boo) style and Richard's ramen with seared pork and duck egg ended up in the middle, putting Tiffany, Fabio, and Dale in the bottom. Tiffany's chicken and dumplings weren't very comforting and had too-flat dumplings, Dale's Philly cheesesteak was overpoweringly salty, and everyone could tell that Fabio had treated his hamburger like a meatball. His dish's lack of beefy moistness, plus its grainy cheese sauce, was enough to send him packing, sadly ending his bromance with Richard. Though before he left he did give Richard something of his to wear. An apron? Boxers? You tell us what you think it was.

Next week: Sesame Street muppets! Elmo yells at Richard! Cookie Monster is thrilled! Playing what appears to be Supermarket Sweep in Target! Cooking in Target! Urine tests?

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, hooty hoo, jimmy fallon, top chef, top chef all stars, tv

Top Chef is back! Somehow that week off felt like a month, and we forgot Marcel got kicked off last episode. Yay! Mike I. was happy about this, but Antonia just wanted him to go home, too, and Tre was worried by Marcel's elimination. Once everyone reflected on Marcel, the chefs headed to the Quickfire, where Isaac Mizrahi was waiting for them. Angelo got excited because apparently fashion is one of his passions in life, much like Asian food, carpaccios, and mail-order brides. Padma explained that he was there because it was Fashion Week, making this episode seem horribly outdated considering the next Fashion Week starts next Thursday. After multiple assertions from Padma and Isaac that fashion and food are closely related, they instructed the chefs to create a visually appealing dish. Taste would not be a factor, and the best-looking dish would win immunity.

The chefs got to cooking, but once Carla admitted that she used to be a model we stopped paying attention and started Googling, since the producers were so rude as to not provide photos. They can give us footage of Fabio walking his turtle down the street, but they couldn't get us one measly shot of model Carla? As we said, rude. The rest of the chefs had far more boring inspirations — Dale's was graffiti, Richard's was Issac's favorite color of black, and Antonia's was The Giving Tree (admittedly a great book). Fabio's, of course, was a poetic story about a woman walking in the rain, while Angelo again got excited because he also once wanted to be a food stylist. What challenge do you not have a personal connection to, Angelo? Isaac was not a fan of Tre's finger-paint dots of smoked salmon and beets; Dale's beet puree, cantaloupe, and onion mess; or Angelo's "crocadile"-inspired [sic] pineapple skin. He gave the win to Richard, who smartly appealed to Isaac's palette with black ice cream.

The next round of guest judges came out to announce the elimination challenge: Frankie, Frankie Junior, and executive chef Dino of Rao's. The chefs had to create a dish inspired by the Rao family and the traditional Italian meal, so they were split up into teams of three to serve antipasti, a primi, and a secondi. Fabio, Mike I., and Antonia immediately announced that they would win this challenge, being Italian and all, though Mike was a bit nervous, saying that he doesn't like to cook in situations where he's the favorite to win. News flash, Mike: Being Italian does not simply make you the obvious winner.

More guest judges came out for dinner, including Lorraine Bracco and some other Rao's staff members whose names we missed because we were too mesmerized by the bartender's sequined patchwork vest. Instead of showing us the usual footage of the chefs whining about not having enough time, the show's editors instead included some nice scenes where Lorraine reminisced about the first time she came to Rao's, right before filming Goodfellas. Overall, the table loved the first (Antonia, Carla, Tiffany) and third (Fabio, Angelo, Richard) courses, but despised the second (Dale, Mike, Tre).

Judges' Table reflected this, with Antonia, Carla, Tiffany, and Fabio called in as the best dishes of the night. Lorraine loved the sausage inside Tiffany's polenta terrine with mozzarella and tomato salad, and adored Carla's minestrone soup with basil oil and foccacia. Everyone had good childhood memories stirred up by Antonia's mussels in white wine with fennel, while the pecorino polenta with Fabio's chicken cacciatore pulled Anthony Bourdain out of a dark place. The judges gave the win to the dish that was best at leaving well enough alone, Antonia's mussels. Fabio, naturally, looked utterly shocked at not having won and complained that his dish was much more Italian, not realizing that what the judges were really looking for in this challenge was the best Italian-American dish.

Mike, Dale, and Tre were called in as the bottom three. Mike's severely undercooked homemade pasta ruined his entire dish of rigatoni with spicy calamari, and Bourdain explained that he wouldn't have been in the bottom at all had he just used pasta out of a box. Dale's fresh pasta with pancetta and Brussels sprouts had no sauce and left Lorraine feeling baffled as to how someone could make pancetta bland. But the biggest offender was Tre's fresh-vegetable risotto, which completely missed the mark on proper risotto consistency and sent him packing. He was sad to leave, but happy that being on the show made him a better chef. Aw.

Next week: Going on Jimmy Fallon! Carla yelling! Sausage loving! Antonia singing!

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Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef all stars, tv

Everyone's favorite challenge took place last night — Restaurant Wars! But first, we got a very important lesson from Richard that bananas and Nutella go together like tomato and basil, which is true. For the Quickfire, the chefs visited a sadly Eric Ripert–less Le Bernardin, presumably because when the producers planned the season they, like us, assumed Jen would be a contestant the whole way through. Instead they met fish butcher Justo Thomas, who butchers almost 1,000 pounds of fish a day, which, damn. Naturally, the chefs were tasked with taking on his work and portioning out one cod and one fluke each into "Le Bernardin–quality portions." They were given ten minutes — a gift, really, since Thomas does it in eight. "Woo hoo, I say to myself," Carla deadpanned. "Woo hoo." You know it's bad if there's no hooty.

It turns out she was right to be worried, as she ended up in the bottom, along with Tiffany and Fabio, who sliced his finger open but continued working without bandaging it up. We understand needing to be tough in the kitchen, but surely there was some sort of blood-staunching device available? Anyway, the best fish butchers were Richard, Mike, Dale, and Marcel, who were then tasked with a second challenge to win immunity: Cook a dish in 45 minutes using the discarded fish parts. The win went to Dale and his fluke-back sashimi with fluke liver sauce and bacon dashi with cod collar. Yum?

Ludo Lefebvre stood waiting for the chefs back in their own kitchen, where Padma explained that Lefebvre had just finished a pop-up restaurant. Obviously none of the chefs could tell this was a very blatant clue that this week's challenge was Restaurant Wars. However, once she announced it, Fabio exploded with glee (let us all remember the line, "We could serve monkey ass and empty clam shells and still win") and we were treated to some flashbacks that mostly served to remind us just how much nicer the picture is in HD. Dale got to be a team captain for winning the Quickfire and was also allowed to pick the other team captain. He decided to go with the person he didn't want to work with the most: Marcel. "Restaurant Wars is about assembling a motherfucking team," Marcel told us, proceeding to pick Angelo, Mike I., Antonia, and Tiffany, while Dale assembled Team People We Want to Win: Richard, Fabio, Tre, and Carla. For once, the quality of the food all-around mattered, as Padma let the chefs know that the diners would pick the winner, not the judges.

The producers kindly skipped the shopping-at-that-giant-restaurant-food-emporium montage this year, going straight to menu planning and prep. This sequence basically consisted of Team Dale happily coming up with a bodega theme and instantly putting Fabio at front of house, a close-up of kosher salt (does salt really need to advertise?), and Team Marcel arguing incessantly. Almost all of the arguments were between other people and Marcel, whom most of his team didn't listen to as he yelled instructions and admonitions.

At Bodega, "regular diner" Dana Cowin (editor-in-chief of Food & Wine) was delighted with the concept, as were her "regular diner" companions, who included Eater founder Ben Leventhal. Bodega's menu consisted of potato chips with herbs and sea salt (Dale/Richard); bacon, egg, and cheese with homemade foccacia (Dale); raw tuna belly with fried chicken skin, chile, and lime in a can (Richard); chicken-fried codfish with Brussels kraut (Richard); pork shoulder and grits with Cheddar and Corona-lime sauce (Tre); blueberry pie with dry-milk ice cream (Carla); and amaretto cheesecake with candied lemon and cappuccino mousse (Fabio).

Marcel's team went with a Mediterranean concept and thankfully called it Etch and not Medi. Their menu was made up of a frisée and asparagus salad with egg and chorizo sauce (Tiffany); a fluke crudo with grapes and pink peppercorns (Angelo, whose theme this season instead of Asian is apparently raw fish); roasted monkfish with olives (Marcel); braised pork belly and octopus with cannellini beans (Mike I.); fresh ricotta gnudi with oxtail ragout (Antonia); slow-cooked lamb chop with cauliflower puree, which diners constantly sent back to be cooked more or heated up (Mike and Angelo); and a duo of peaches with coconut foam and coconut powder on dry ice (Marcel). This isn't Top Foam, Marcel.

Bodega was the clear winner, "killing it" per Tom. Anthony Bourdain found Dale's food to be "stoner food at its finest," while Dale and the rest of the team gave Richard (whose first job was making Filet-O-Fishes at McDonald's) credit for helping everyone conceptualize and refine their dishes. The judges rewarded this, giving him the win and $10K. Team Etch took second/last place, with only 17 out of the 76 diners choosing it as their favorite. The judges had a lot of criticism, too, from the saltiness of Antonia's dish to Tiffany's lack of flavor to Marcel's use of foam, again. A fighting match ensued at judges' table, with Marcel yelling "look, bro" and Tiffany laughing the way you used to when your mom yelled at you when you were little. Unsurprisingly, and thankfully, Marcel went home. Again, unsurprisingly, he was shocked, and noted that he must be the most misunderstood contestant in Top Chef history. GOOD-BYE, MARCEL.

Next week: Mafioso guys! An Italian challenge! Things on fire! Food that would make you leave a boyfriend! People not getting laid!

P.S. We're sorry we just got the Filet-O-Fish song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, give me that filet o fish, recaps, restaurant wars, top chef, top chef all stars, tv

Last night's episode of Top Chef kicked off with Marcel being pissed off at Dale for winning the last challenge, yelling at him on the roof as he chugged a bottle of Sapphire gin, flapping his arms like a chicken, and growling like a baby dinosaur. He must have been very hung-over when the chefs' alarms went off at 4:30 a.m. the next day for them to head to the Quickfire, only to discover … no Quickfire this week! Instead, a trip to Montauk. We would love to show up to work only to find that we need to go spend a day in the sun in Montauk! Tough life, chefs.

Once in Montauk, Padma and Tom told the chefs that they would have five hours to catch enough fish to cook and serve to 200 people at a beach party, working in four teams of three. And b-t-dubs, it would be a double elimination. The chefs drew wooden fish to end up in teams of Antonia/Jamie/Tiffani, Carla/Dale/Tre, Mike I./Tiffany/Angelo, and Fabio/Marcel/Richard. Angelo then remarked how he was scared to go in the boat because he's watched Jaws too many times, while Fabio let everyone know that he'd be great at this challenge because his dad was on Italy's national fishing team, which apparently is a thing that exists.

The chefs proceeded to fish with a lot of help from the charter-boat captains, who were very nice considering the chefs disregarded most of their advice as to how to shake the poles. Tiffani thought Tre's fishing technique looked like he was going into labor, while Dale (who caught a fish "as big as Marcel") thought that the fish Angelo was most like was a mermaid. Fair enough. After their day at sea, the chefs shopped at a farmers' market that made us very, very sad that it is the middle of January and that the only things in Union Square right now are meat vendors and slush piles. For unknown silly production reasons, they then went home and didn't cook for another 24 hours, which kind of defeats the purpose of getting up early to catch fresh fish, no?

During cooking time at Water Taxi Beach, most of the chefs were pretty calm except for Jamie, who complained about everything from the sand to the sun to her cucumbers. Tom popped by to visit, finding doubt in almost everyone except Mike I., whom he appeared to be flirting with. Meanwhile, once service began, diners all rushed with glee to Carla while Padma was awed by how close Queens was. It's almost like it's the same city, isn't it, Padma? Don’t you come across the river every day for the Quickfires?

Team Dale/Carla/Tre and Team Mike/Tiffany/Angelo made the top. Everyone loved Dale's fish tacos with avocado corn relish, Tre's striped sea bass with gazpacho salad, Carla's smoked bluefish lettuce wrap with bagel croutons, and the teamwork behind Mike/Tiffany/Angelo's pickled bluefish with spicy watermelon and striped bass with corn puree, tomato, and watermelon, all of which sound delicious. The win went to the dish that Tom considered "brilliant": Carla's! Yay! She bounced around in her wonderful, genuinely happy way until Marcel rained all over her parade when she returned to the stew room. You are on our List now, Marcel. He was on the judges' list, too, along with Richard, Fabio, Antonia, Jamie, and Tiffani. Well, Antonia wasn't quite on the list, with Tom pointing out that she might have even won the challenge had she not been on such a team of losers.

The judges were very unhappy with team Marcel/Richard/Fabio's decision to only make one dish, especially since it was so heavy and unedited, but they were even more unhappy that Tiffani didn't take the fishy bloodline out of her smoked bluefish salad with tomato, and that Jamie's striped bass with watermelon and cucumber water was so bland, and sent them packing. Did anyone else know Tiffani was doomed the second they showed her interviewing at the start of the episode with uncharacteristically nicely styled hair? Not that it matters, since we're just so happy that Jamie is FINALLY gone.

Next week: Restaurant Wars! Cooking outside again! Everything's cold! Fabio's front of house again! And trying to date Dana Cowen? Dale is yelling! Anthony Bourdain is back!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, our dad is a sport fisherman and we are going to ask him if national fishing teams are real and get back to you, recaps, top chef, top chef all stars, tv

We're back from our vacation, and so is Top Chef! Last night's episode kicked off with reflections on Spike's elimination and Angelo defending himself, while Richard complained that Jamie is like an octopus — never seen except to come out of its hole and cook some chickpeas. We like Richard a lot more than Jamie, but might have to change alliances if he keeps making "points" like that. (Kidding, obviously.)

At the Quickfire, Padma wore a larger version of a shirt we owned in 1989 and explained that the chefs would need to compete against the clock, whose time would be set by a very famous chef — Tom (not exactly a nail-biter, considering we saw this in the preview two weeks ago). Tom explained that "people come to restaurants for the food, but they come back for service" [Editor's note: For us peons, it's mostly the food], and then proceeded to make black sea bass with clams, tomato, and zucchini in eight minutes and 37 seconds. Everyone was amazed at how organized and quick he was, with not one of them stopping to think that maybe, just maybe, Tom knew what he was going to make well beforehand.

The cooking madness was even more maddening than usual, with only Marcel having a cool enough head to take from Tom's unused ingredients at the front of the room, rather than fight with the rest of the chefs at the fridge. While most chefs reflected on the difficulty of the challenge, Jamie remarked that speed is only important in certain contexts, like being fast when you're dating. Go home, Jamie. Her clam amuse bouche with bacon and tomato ended up in the bottom, along with Dale's very unfinished pad Thai with egg noodles and Angelo's branzino crudo. Tom's favorite dishes were Richard's foie gras and Marcel's black sea bass with dashi broth, but he gave the win, plus immunity and a Prius, to Mike I and his pan-roasted branzio with olive and caper stew. Marcel thought Mike in the Prius was something straight out of Jersey Shore, proving that he has not seen a single episode.

The elimination challenge asked the chefs to go to Chinatown ("essentially going to China" —Marcel) and serve continuous dim sum during the lunch rush at Grand Harmony. But first the chefs had to menu-plan back at their apartment, where Jamie announced she wanted to do a scallop dish and the producers gave us a belated Christmas present of a montage of every time Jamie made scallops in her season — including, of course, Fabio's famous line about this not being Top Scallops. She then proceeded to whine her way out of being on the floor, leaving Casey and Carla to step up to that plate. After menu-planning, the producers showed us some footage of just how drunk (and scared of bras) the chefs get when they're not cooking — all except Dale, who was busy looking at pictures of an incredibly cute baby with very giant cheeks.

At the Asian supermarket, Tiffany felt confident in her knowledge of Chinese cooking, having spent a month in China, while Fabio was sad to see turtles being chopped up into soup, as he keeps a pet turtle on a leash at home. Back at the kitchen, however … well, chaos doesn't even begin to describe what went on. Suffice it to say, continuous dim sum service did not happen, despite having Mike as an expediter. Most tables ended up with none or very little food, while the chefs spent their time intricately plating their dishes. Had not one of them eaten dim sum before? Elaborate presentation is most definitely not part of the experience.

Not everyone totally screwed up, of course. The judges loved Fabio's "first Top Chef miracle" soy-honey-glazed pork rib, Tiffany's authentic steamed pork bun, and Angelo's shrimp and pork spring roll that was so good it didn't need dipping sauce. But they gave the win to Dale and his sticky rice in a banana leaf (our dim sum regular mom's favorite dish). The bottom group was crowded this time around, consisting of Casey, Antonia, Jamie, Carla, and Tre. Tre's dessert just didn't work in the hot kitchen, Carla's Vietnamese summer rolls were pretty but bland, and Antonia's shrimp toast was great but her longbeans with Jamie were not. It basically became a showdown between Jamie's beans and scallop dumplings and Casey's almost-inedible chicken feet … and the judges sent Casey packing, surprising gasp-out-loud Jamie most of all, who, like everyone else, knew she should have been the one leaving. Here's hoping for next episode.

Next week: Field trip to Long Island! Fishing! Like idiots (seriously, who does that with a fishing pole?)! Yelling on a rooftop! Dale is going to beat some ass! And also we are now probably going to go eat dim sum this weekend.

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: overnights, recaps, top chef, top chef all stars, top scallops, tv

Last night's Top Chef started off with the chefs deciding to go to a bar to unwind after the tough elimination. Apparently they have a different idea of unwinding than we do, because all they seemed to be doing was drinking coffee and munching on plates of fruits and vegetables. Don't get too crazy with the apples there, Angelo! You don't want to be too full of fiber for the Quickfire!

Tony Mantuano from Spiaggia in Chicago helped give the chefs their Quickfire, which was to settle the debate of who has the best product-placement stuffing, a challenge that would have made a lot more sense about a month ago. Oh, and no knives or kitchen tools were allowed, but Padma explained that it was totes worth it because the winner would get immunity and $20,000. We cook without basic kitchen tools in our teensy kitchen all the time! Where's our $20K?

Fabio completely flipped out about not being able to use tools and likened the challenge to asking a surgeon to perform surgery with just his fingers. Not quite the same sense of doom there, Fabs. It seemed that Padma had a loose definition of kitchen tools, though, because Tre quickly busted out the liquid nitrogen. Carla's "un dente" quinoa and Thai-inspired vegetable stuffing, Tiffani's soy-maple stuffing with quail and grilled mushrooms, and Casey's mushrooms with crispy chicken liver and miso cake all made the bottom, supposedly owing to flavor but probably because of none of those things really being stuffing. The judges debated between Tre's southwest stuffing with bacon, Cheddar, and chile powder, and Marcel's whole squab and stuffing with raisin brioche, but gave Tre the win, probably because bacon makes everything better.

The chefs were split into two teams for the complicated elimination challenge. They each had to cook a healthy, high-energy dish and then serve them one at a time, head-to-head, with the first team who hit four points getting the win. All the chefs from the winning team with winning dishes would be up for the win, while all the chefs who lost a point would be up for elimination (as soon as Padma stopped talking, our roommate asked, "Wait, what was the challenge?").

Anyway, Carla, Fabio, Mike I, Asian Dale, Richard, Marcel, and Antonia ended up on the orange team, while Tre, Spike, Tiffany, Tiffani, Jamie, Casey, and Angelo made up the yellow team. We immediately began cheering for team orange, because our love for Carla is undying and also Richard is the best. A number of chefs took the interview time during prep work to explain that they were or are athletes and thus knew exactly what to make, but Antonia brilliantly stated, "I never played sports in high school. I smoked a lot of pot and did nothing else." For that, Antonia, you win this episode, and also life. Meanwhile, team yellow decided that they needed a strategy for this challenge and agreed to send out their worst dish first, assuming orange would send out their best first. They tried to act smug and quiet about it, but Tom would have none of that when he came in to check in and got team gossips Angelo and Spike to tell him the secret.

However, out on the court (where Angelo felt like he was "in a fighter jet"), the yellow team could not get worst dish-maker Jamie, whose chickpeas wouldn't cook, to go first, and Casey was forced to take one for the team. She proceeded to lose round one to Fabio's whole-wheat gnocchi. Yellow was able to take round two, with Tiffani's black-bass sashimi beating out Dale's edamame dumpling with spicy-carrot froth, and round three with Angelo's smoked tuna and yuzu gelée winning over Marcel's cauliflower couscous, but orange tied it up again in round four when Antonia's sea scallop with Indian lentil puree beat Tiffany's spiced tuna with lentil salad. At this point, yellow started to get worried, and Jamie started hiding as Angelo started working on the remaining dishes. Mr. Asia's influence backfired, as Richard's Thai-bouleh with lamb beat Spike's tomato-tamarind soup with shrimp and Carla's African groundnut soup with sweet potatoes beat Tre's salmon with parsnip puree, giving orange the win for the challenge and causing the entire team to dance and jump around like little kids. Meanwhile, Jamie was happy that now she wouldn't be up for elimination, claiming, "it just happened that way." Is anyone else liking her less and less each week?

At judges' table, Richard explained that he, Carla, Fabio, and Antonia were there because they didn't have a strategy. The judges raved over everything, but gave the win — including a trip to Italy and a giant bottle of wine — to our girl Carla (who kept competing even after slicing her finger off *cough Jamie cough*). Hooty hoo! Casey, Tiffany, Spike, and Tre went into the bottom, where the chefs pointed out that their strategy didn't work at all. Tom, who apparently enjoyed stirring up drama this episode, asked Tiffany if she thought Angelo was sabotaging other chefs (like they all thought last season), but she managed to give a politician answer. Gail then called her salad flaccid, but it wasn't enough to send her home, and Spike and his pink shoelaces got the boot instead.

In two weeks: Cooking against Tom! Going to Chinatown! Fabio is screwed! Diners are pissed! Tom is pissed! Caucasian dim sum! Hopefully Jamie goes home!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef all stars, tv

Last night's Top Chef went back to form, kicking off with everyone being shocked at Jen's elimination. But we jumped right into the Quickfire, where Padma split everyone up into four teams for a race against time. We got excited that perhaps this was mega-Restaurant Wars come early, but no. Instead, the chefs were asked to prep three ingredients to guest judge David Chang's mise en place standards. Whoever finished first got to hit the Staples "that was easy" button, setting off a timer that counted down fifteen minutes until the hatch imploded until everyone had to be done with both prep and a finished dish.

Despite finishing first, the green team — Fabio, Tiffany, Mike I, and Angelo (wearing black aprons, though, hilariously, because apparently it would not be okay to have a black team) — and their lamb with garlic and tandoori-spiced yogurt ended up in the bottom, along with the red "Hi ladies ... and Dale" team (Antonia, Jamie, Casey, and Caucasian Dale)'s lamb carpaccio with capers and Reggiano cheese. Chang liked the white team (Marcel, Tiffani, Asian Dale, and Carla)'s lamb carpaccio with artichoke salad and garlic oil (apparently having a white team is okay), but gave the win, and $5,000 each, to the blue team (Spike, Richard, Tre, and Stephen)'s crispy lamb chop with artichokes three ways.

The teams were then each assigned an elite New York restaurant to eat dinner at, which would be followed by each chef cooking a dish that could go on that restaurant's menu. The white team met Wylie Dufresne at wd~50, blue met Michael White at Marea, red met David Burke at David Burke Townhouse, and green met David Chang at Má Pêche. Obviously, Angelo was beside himself at getting the Asian restaurant, prompting Tiffany to complain about how annoying he is. The blue team got an annoying dinner companion, too, as Stephen talked about Marea like he wrote his thesis on it, while Tre (who some people call the black Italian) marveled at how perfectly cooked the food was. O rly? Never would have guessed that! Carla got nervous at wd~50 while Marcel bugged out in excitement, and we just wondered why Wylie's hairstyle reminded us of Betty Draper. Oh, and the folks at David Burke had fish swimming in their cocktails.

Thankfully the producers skipped over the shopping at Whole Foods and went straight to the cooking (though not before showing us a shot of Stephen in a white suit and polka-dot tie). Marea was the first stop, where the judges loved Tre's grilled swordfish with artichokes and mushroom panna cotta, but couldn't get over how fennel-y Stephen's salmon with black mission figs was. Anthony Bourdain compared the flavor to a head shop and, well, chances are he would know. The judges then hailed a cab (sadly, not the Cash Cab) to Má Pêche, where they loved Angelo's tumeric-marinated fish with chorizo, salmon roe, and white chocolate, but were overwhelmed by all the flavors in Fabio's roasted lamb with hoisin plum barbecue sauce and homemade ricotta.

At Townhouse, most of the judges seemed to favor Casey's halibut "scallop" with tapioca "caviar," but David Burke himself really loved Antonia's seared scallop with carrot puree and, of course, pea puree. There was one thing the judges did agree on — Caucasian Dale's roasted veal loin with peanuts, popcorn, French toast, and thyme caramel was just an overly sweet dish with veal on it. The last stop was wd~50, where the favorite was Asian Dale's sunny egg dumpling with braised pork belly and milk ramen with bacon, probably because Dale smartly played to Wylie's favorite food, the egg. Tiffani's broken summer heirloom tomato, frozen melons, and powdered ham and cheese was not nearly so successful.

Judges' table was fairly quick, as they've finally stopped supersizing the episodes. The judges gave the win, and a trip to New Zealand, to Asian Dale, while sending Caucasian Dale and Stephen (who was feeling a lot of different emotions) packing. Dale suggested he'd return for season sixteen, Top Chef Seniors. Perhaps we'll recap that one from the retirement home.

Next week: Cooking at the U.S. Open! Someone's bleeding! Angelo schemes! Everyone's mad at Jamie! Something is flaccid! That's still what she said!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, pea puree is going to be on every episode for the rest of eternity, recaps, top chef all stars, tv

Last night's Top Chef kicked off with the chefs reflecting on flashbacks of the previous episode, proving that there is indeed something more annoying than "previously on Top Chef." Luckily we then went right into the Quickfire, guest-judged by Joe Jonas, whom we're glad Bravo I.D.'d because we, being older than 14, do not know him immediately by sight. Does anyone in Top Chef's demographic love the Jonas Brothers? Most of the chefs certainly didn't. "I had no idea who Joe Jonas was. I thought he might be a pastry chef," remarked Asian Dale.

Anyway, the chefs had to make a midnight snack for the kids attending the American Museum of Natural History's annual night at the museum sleepover. The usual crazed antics ensued, with everyone getting pissed at Asian Dale (who wanted to spike his dish with NyQuil) for keeping the sugar at his station. Surely the Top Chef kitchen, with its seemingly unlimited supply of liquid nitrogen, has more than one bin of sugar? Wonderfully, we got some great nuggets of childhood memories in between the billowing nitrogen, including baby Stephen shoving a humongous piece of matzo in his mouth, Richard's fond memories of eating cereal with heavy cream instead of milk, and the charming Mike I.'s insults of his mother's cooking. Padma and Joe weren't fans of Tiffany's coconut rice pudding, Mike's chocolate-coconut corn bar and horchata, or Richard's white bread with spiced apples and whipped honey and chocolate. However, they also "couldn't pick a winner" and announced that the tie between Spike's homemade potato and carrot chips with marshmallow mascarpone dip and Tiffani's Rice Krispies snowball with malted milk would be decided by the kids at the museum. So they're going to get their elimination-challenge assignment at, what, 2 a.m.? (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

The chefs split into teams to make 150 snacks, with Richard, Asian Dale, Marcel, Stephen, Angelo, Mike, Carla, and Fabio joining Spike ("the tough guys and Carla") and Jen, Antonia, Caucasian Dale, Casey, Jamie, Tiffany, and Tre ("like the Spice Girls and a bodyguard") joining Tiffani. Richard, naturally, immediately got sad that he was not participating in the liquid nitrogen fest going on at Tiffani's team, while Asian Dale, full of quips this week, likened working for Spike to "making chicken soup out of chicken shit." However disgusted the chefs were at each other, though, it became clear at the museum that most of them share a disdain for kids, with comments ranging from "[they're] like cows" to "these kids are horrific." Did anyone else feel bad for the parents of that one kid who wouldn't stop bugging out at the camera? Joe Jonas came out (to less fanfare than we would have guessed) and asked the kids which dish they liked better. Unsurprisingly, it was Tiffani, because why on earth would children pick vegetables over sugar?

Sure enough, Tom then appeared to hand out the elimination challenge: Cook breakfast for the kids and their parents and serve it at 7:30 a.m., using only what you can find in the museum pantry. Tiffani got the option of choosing to be Team T-Rex, only cooking with meat, eggs, and dairy, or Team Brontosaurus, cooking with just vegetables, fruits, and grains. After she picked T-Rex, the chefs enjoyed a little pajama party next to the taxidermied moose (meese?), and Tre complained that this was going to complicate his preference of sleeping naked. Also, by "pajama party" we mean "45 minutes of sleep," as the chefs' alarm went off at 3:44 (we set our alarm for weird times, too). The fact that they had not showered was not lost on us.

Cooking madness was more maddening than usual, as Team T-Rex realized that only cooking with meat, eggs, and dairy meant no flour or herbs. Meanwhile, they whined, "You look at brontosaurus and it's like sunshine, puppies, and rainbows." And also Stephen calling Fabio his "fellow paisan." Jamie proceeded to slice her finger open and left to get stitches, at which point Fabio immediately reflected on when he broke his hand finger and kept cooking, while Casey went off on some monologue about Jurassic Park that we didn't understand. Jamie returned in time for service, which consisted mostly of Fabio flirting with everyone over the age of 50 and Marcel warning Angelo not to fuck with his mise en place.

The judges picked Team Brontosaurus for the win, with extra love going to Fabio and Stephen's gnocchi with leeks, spinach, and mushrooms (which apparently counts as breakfast), and Richard, Angelo, and Marcel's banana parfait with different fruits and maple something. The parfait garnered the win, prompting Angelo to remark that it's hard to beat him when he's on a streak (so, two = streak).

Team T-Rex immediately started complaining as soon as they hit judges' table, whining that they didn't have an advantage because their ingredients were so limited. Obviously, Tom and Gail shot this down immediately. Honestly, when has that argument ever worked? Most of the team quietly conceded to the judges' criticism (inconsistent frittatas, salty sauce), but not Jen, who went off the rails. She refused to agree with the judges that the eggs on her braised bacon with hard-boiled eggs were bland and said she would fight them to the death over them, which, whoa. Calm down, Jen. It turned out that her strategy of cooking to the judges and not the people the challenge is for (and also yelling at the judges) doesn't work, because they sent her home. So if you were in a reality-TV pool for who would make the finale, you just lost.

Next week: Two people go home! So hopefully these extended episodes get normal! Tre sasses Stephen! Wylie Dufresne! Plagiarism accusations! Tiffani freezes her melons! That's what she said!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, american museum of natural history, overnights, top chef all stars, tv

Top Chef is back! And possibly way better than ever, since this season we've got tried-and-tested "all-star" chefs. Of course, fame doesn't get you everything — our cheftestants still have to share rooms, have awkward encounters on stairs (even though they're living in an elevator building … ?), and sleep on bunk beds (except for Fabio, who "squashed his balls" on a bunk bed in season five and will never do so again).

Naturally, everyone kicked off the season by remarking that they were "that close" to winning their season, that they are going to kick everyone's ass, and that they're angry they lost — everyone except our girls Carla (who's going to cook from her heart) and Tiffany (who's just happy to be there). Hooty-hoo, Carla. Hooty-hoo.

The Quickfire asked the chefs (donning hilarious aprons with their names on them), who are always complaining that their season was the best, to work as a team with their season-mates to make a dish that best represented their edition of the show. Despite everyone (a) having done this before, and (b) being established chefs now, the usual bugging out and mad running ensued. The judges didn't love L.A.'s bland shrimp tacos, San Francisco's cioppino gazpacho, New York's apple trio, or D.C.'s crab-cake essence (yeah, we'd rather have a crab cake minus the essence too), but gave the win (and the immunity) to Chicago's pork-and-black-pepper sausage with mustard ice cream.

The elimination challenge, for once, was actually interesting, requiring the chefs to remake and improve upon the dish that sent each of them home. The contestants were basically split down the middle in thinking that their dish was just fine the first time or thinking that they still hate that dish, though Tre just thought that Stephen didn't come "out of the trenches, but out of the Macy's [Thanksgiving] Day Parade." What part of the parade involved people wearing vests and ties at all times, exactly? But, fair point.

The chefs were split during their cooking time, allowing the non-cooking chefs to eat, and comment on, the other chefs' food. Since there were eighteen chefs (please, Bravo, start with the double-eliminations), the show breezed through this part pretty fast, but don't think we didn't notice that Antonia made pea purée, which we will always think of as a dramatic food after last season. New judge Anthony Bourdain squeezed in some good one-liners, too, the best being when he said that Asian Dale "un-fucked up" his dish very well. (Side note: Does Bourdain's presence have anyone else hoping for a return of his obvious man-crush, Eric Ripert?)

Spike, Jamie, Richard, and Angelo were the judges' favorites, but Richard was deemed ineligible for the win after a look at the tapes showed that he plated after cooking time had stopped. Top Chef, just as intense as the NFL. Jamie said she still wouldn't serve her pan-seared black bass with celery hash even with the improvements, though both Spike and the judges were impressed with the way he hid his frozen scallops in his seviche with pickled mushrooms. Unfortunately for both of them, the win went to Angelo's (Asian) dish of homemade ramen with glazed pork belly and watermelon.

Fabio, Stephen, and Elia got called in as the bottom three, and Fabio immediately started arguing with Bourdain. Fabio was fine with constructive criticism, you see, but he would not let anyone make fun of him or his pasta and crawfish and crab stew. He's got a long season ahead of him if he expects Bourdain to stop teasing, though, because our pal Anthony then proceeded to remark that Stephen's appetizer trio reminded him of his last colonoscopy. Despite Elia's demand to the judges not to send her home because she has "a lot more to do," they sent her, her knives, and her bright-green shoes packing. We didn't watch her season, so to be honest we weren't that sad.

So, how did we do with our predictions? Richard brought out the liquid nitrogen as soon as possible to make his mustard ice cream, and Elia definitely hit the mini-breakdown quota despite lasting only one episode. Sadly, the first blatant product placement didn't occur until Padma pointed out the GE appliances a whopping sixteen minutes in — though did everyone else notice the Fiji water everywhere? Maybe they could have used that sponsorship money to pay the tax increase that's putting them out of business in Fiji.

Later this season: Chopping with two knives at once! It's not called Top Chef Mediocre (or Top Scallops)! The U.S. Open! Paula Deen! The Museum of Natural History! Elmo! Screaming children! Cooking head-to-head with Tom! Hospitals! A very angry old Asian lady! Someone insults veal! Jen sasses the judges!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, seriously they need to stop with the pea puree it's basically baby food, top chef all stars, tv

Last night's Top Chef finale began where the last episode left off, with our top three chefs — Angelo, Kevin, and Ed — called back to the judges' table to receive their final challenge, which was to cook the most amazing meal they've ever made in their lives (no pressure). Unlike previous finale challenges, the chefs were not given free range. The first course had to be a vegetable dish, the second a fish, the third a meat, and the fourth a dessert, with Tom and Silver Fox Ripert choosing the proteins. However, as always the chefs got some assistance, with this season's batch of sous-chefs being made up of previous winners: Ilan, Hung, and Michael Voltaggio.

Lo and behold, Angelo wanted Hung BECAUSE HE IS ASIAN AND THEY ARE COOKING IN ASIA ZOMG!!!1! He got his wish, while Kevin got his wish for Mike V., leaving Ilan for Ed. Back at the suite, the old chefs gave our cheftestants advice as they reflected. Ed remarked that his dad would be stoked if he won Top Chef. Really, Ed? That's so weird! Our dad would definitely be really upset with us if we won a huge, awesome competition! Kevin, needing to one-up Ed, explained that he's doing this for every single one of his family members.

The next morning, Kevin and Ed enjoyed a romantic breakfast while Angelo died in bed of an Asia-love hangover. Dr. Gary Chee stopped by to tell Angelo he had a 20 percent chance of being able to cook the next day, which meant that Hung had to do all the shopping and prep work solo while Angelo gave orders over the phone. Ed's advice was that Angelo tell his body "fuck you," since $125,000 was on the line. The chefs then shopped at a Western-looking supermarket called Vivomart, which looked like it was in a mall. Given, we have shopped at a supermarket in a mall in a foreign country before, but that was only because we were looking for Kellogg's Extra (which is the best granola ever and is not sold here, annoyingly) and that was the only place that had it. Also, we aren't professional chefs.

In the kitchen, Ed proceeded to boss Ilan around constantly, showing himself to be more egotistical in one episode than Angelo showed all season. He also made some weird comment about Jesus serving duck necks that we missed. Is that true? We don't remember seeing any paintings of duck necks in the Uffizi. Hung got a ton of prep done solo, with just a handful of instructions from Angelo, who was too busy getting a needle, which they inexplicably insisted on showing many times, in his butt. Lucky for Angelo, the shot worked, because the next morning he was cleared to cook. "It's time to jump into my cape!" he announced, insisting on being weird up until the last second.

Despite the same proteins, the chefs served very different menus. Kevin's first course was an eggplant, zucchini, and roasted pepper terrine that needed more spice. His pan-seared rouget with cuttlefish "noodles" and braised pork bell was a good pairing, and his roasted duck with duck dumplings was cooked perfectly. Plus, the judges couldn't get enough of his "Singapore sling 2010" with coconut panna cotta and tropical fruits.

The judges loved Ed's Asian take on chilled corn soup with crispy black cockles and duo of duck with greens, but were polarized over his sweet-and-salty dessert. They also noted that he didn't feature the rouget in his fish course, as was requested. The panel found that Angelo's extreme first course of royale mushrooms with noodles, pork belly, and watermelon tea needed work, but they loved his Asian-style bouillabaisse and dessert. Overall, the judges seemed to love everyone's meal, but could only pick one winner, and they picked Kevin. We are going to take the high road here and listen to our mother's advice that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. You, however, should definitely give your full opinions in the comments!

Until next season, kids!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's first half of the Top Chef finale brought us to Singapore, where our final four cheftestants — Angelo, Kelly, Ed, and weird-hat-wearing Kevin (strike one) — took a tour of the city's street-food market, otherwise known as the most appetizing food we've seen all season. Angelo, who of course knows different dialects, thinks it's destiny that the finale is in Asia.

At the end of the tour awaited, of course, Padma, Quickfire in hand. She instructed the chefs to make their version of Singapore street food using only a wok and local ingredients, all of which were labeled in Cantonese (shockingly, Angelo couldn't read them). Padma called Kevin out for having never used a wok before, pointing out that he had plenty of notice that he was going to Singapore and could have practiced, which, DUH. Strike two. The win — and the last-minute immunity — went to Ed's stir-fried noodles with black-pepper sauce, lobster, and gai lan. Angelo was unsurprisingly pissed, being the king of Asia and all.

For the elimination challenge, the chefs had to work as a team yet again to create a cohesive menu for a party for Food & Wine magazine, where they would have to cook the food to order. Despite being given $200 to shop in an awesome local market, Ed pocketed jam from the hotel breakfast. He then gave an odd monologue about how he used to have a learning disability and he is taking this time to prove to the people he grew up with that he's not a "fucking idiot."

Tom certainly thought all the chefs were idiots when he strolled into the kitchen during prep and found out that each was only planning one dish, and ordered them all to make a second when Ed announced he was making two dishes. Kelly then sliced her hand open on something and bled all over the floor, and potentially all over her food, because it took her a while to notice. After prep the chefs went prawn fishing in a pond, and Kevin refused to touch them. Personally, we wouldn't, as they look like giant bugs, but aren't chefs supposed to be okay with these things? Strike three, Kevin, strike three.

The chefs, astonishingly, didn't kill each other during service, choosing instead to take their frustrations out on the confused servers. But despite the yelling, the food went out fairly well. The win went to Ed's "holy Asian extravaganza," especially his "perfect stoner food" banana fritters with red-chile paste. Does Tom do more than just drink at judges' table? The judges loved Angelo's lamb tartare, though his spicy shrimp broth with ginger was a little too thick and salty. Kevin's congee with 63-degree egg was a huge hit, though his clam chowder needed more heat. Kelly's guava-apple salad was a judges' table favorite, but her roughly handled fish (and the judges' recent apparent inability to send women to the final episode) sent her home.

Next week: the finale! Finally! We find out the twist! Angelo is sick! Old chefs, which better not be the twist as it happens every season!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, singapore, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's Top Chef continued to bring out the big (judging) guns, as Food & Wine editor-in-chief Dana Cowin (who happens to be Facebook friends with Ed) arrived to judge the Quickfire. She came with wines in tow and asked the chefs to choose a wine and create a dish to pair with it. Ed and Tiffany headed for the Wagyu ribeye, while Kevin, originally convinced he could braise big hunks of pork belly in less than an hour, had to settle for quail. In the end, Padma, wearing a weird suit, gave the win — and a trip to London — to Angelo for his sautéed foie gras with black-salt-and-fennel salad.

Over a commercial break, Padma then drew out the announcement that the chefs would go to Singapore for the finale, which we already knew. Shocking no one, Angelo couldn't contain his excitement to go to Asia. But first, the elimination challenge, which sent the chefs to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/the set they used for Apollo 13. A NASA scientist with very shiny braces and some astronauts via satellite from the international space station instructed the chefs to, sigh, create a dish that was "out of this world." The winner's dish would get freeze dried and sent into space, so the cheftestants had to follow some space guidelines, including use of spices, cutting things into smaller pieces, and cutting back on the sugar.

Ed decided to go Moroccan, Angelo decided to sketch his dish out and crash his shopping cart into a random lady, and Tiffany decided to moonwalk. Back in the kitchen, we finally got to see Tom take some time to chat with the chefs and reflect on their work so far (and also make fun of Kelly for being a space-loving nerd). Tiffany shared an awesome picture of her teenage self working at IHOP, but this happy memory was short-lived once she discovered her mussels had accidentally frozen and died, and that she would have to change her dish. "We have a problem," she said, forgetting to address this remark to Houston.

At service, the parade of impressive guest judges continued, including appearances by Buzz Aldrin, Anthony Bourdain, and a number of other astronauts. Tom asked Buzz Aldrin how the moon was, and Buzz told him "magnificent." DUH, TOM. What else was he going to say? That it was lame? (Though, to be fair, we suppose he could have yelled about it.)

The judges found pluses and minuses with every dish. Kelly nailed the artichokes she served with her pan-roasted halibut, but didn't take risks. Ripert found Ed's yogurt-marinated rack of lamb with eggplant purée and a couscous croquette too complicated, but Bourdain thought he hit the Moroccan flavors perfectly. Tiffany's pan-seared halibut with coconut curry and pea shoots didn't connect, and Ed's grilled New York–strip steak with bacon-jalapeño marmalade and onion rings was well-cooked but safe, so the win went to Angelo for his ginger-lacquered short ribs with horseradish crème fraîche and pea purée. It turns out that "making love" to your food can give you a challenge win (as well as a copy of Bourdain's book, a trip to Cape Canaveral, and a Toyota Avalon). So, so sadly, Padma sent Tiffany home, who graciously accepted defeat. We wanted to cry with her. We guess we'll root for Ed now, even though we know he's not really from Queens.

Next week: We're going to Singapore! Cooking on the street! Padma yells at Kevin! Tom yells at everyone!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, anthony bourdain, buzz aldrin, nasa, overnights, pea puree yet again, recaps, Singapore, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's Top Chef finally dropped the pea purée discussion so Ed could walk around in Tiffany's dress. That was some walk of shame! (Kidding, Tiffany's fiancé, kidding.) Sadly, Ed didn't wear it to the Quickfire, where Padma made a number of terrible jokes before announcing that the challenge was to create a dish based on a food idiom, ranging from "bigger fish to fry" to "spill the beans." Because we all know how much D.C. loves idioms! Wait, what?

Ed announced that he doesn't like Amanda because she's an annoying slob, but Angelo thought she was the dark horse. Turned out Angelo was wrong, as Amanda's "big cheese" macaroni and cheese with bacon, jalapeños, and a pork chop ended up in the bottom, along with Kelly's "sour grapes" pan-roasted chicken with caramelized Brussels sprouts. Guest judge Rick Moonen from RM Seafood/Top Chef Masters liked Kevin's "bring home the bacon" bacon three ways, but gave the win to Ed's "hot potato" herb-and-garlic-roasted gnocchi with spring vegetables. He scored his dish being turned into a frozen meal, which Angelo applauded, as he could see Ed's face on some packaging.

For the elimination challenge, the cheftestants were asked to cater a Washington Nationals baseball game, working as a team to create "fine-dining versions of ballpark food." Angelo was excited because, being half Dominican, he loves baseball. Way to stereotype yourself (however, Angelo, if you know Robinson Cano, please call us). We also learned that Ed, despite trying to rep Queens, is actually a Red Sox fan and should therefore lose immediately (not that we're biased). Everything was all fine and dandy until the chefs realized that someone would need to take orders at the game. Angelo stepped up, only to back down briefly before Ed agreed to help plate his food for him, mostly to shut up Kevin's screaming. However, even though Kevin went on a yelling spree, Tiffany still offered to taste his food and offer up honest criticism, remarking, "no one's going home because of me." Tiff, girl, you better win this!

Ballpark-goers ordered a lot of Kelly's open-faced crab cake* BLT with sweet-potato fries, as well as Tiffany's messy Italian-sausage meatball sub with fennel, pesto, and fresh mozzarella, but the judges gave the win to Ed's wonderfully textured, tidy shrimp-and-corn-risotto fritters. Kelly ended up in the bottom, along with Angelo's sweet-glazed pork on a too-bready hot-dog bun; Kevin's super-long-skewered chicken with romesco sauce, shoestring fries, and paprika aïoli; and Amanda's gray tuna tartar with Meyer lemon and fava-bean purée. Amanda wanted them to judge based on taste, but ultimately the judges couldn't get over the unappealing oxidation of her fish, and sent her home. No surprise there.

*Commenters: Didn't Amanda say during the planning session that she wanted to make a crab cake, and Kelly steered her toward fish instead? But then Kelly made a crab cake? Is she responsible for Amanda's loss?

Next week: NASA! Another corny challenge! Buzz Aldrin! The last challenge before the finals! Until then, please enjoy this clip of Angelo discussing his Russian fiancé, whom he's only seen "a couple times." Is he marrying a mail-order bride?!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, mail-order brides, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv, washington nationals

The big names came out again on last night's Top Chef, with this episode's guest-judging duties going to Wylie Dufresne and CIA director Leon Panetta. We'd like to think this, and the return of Eric Ripert, is a reward for sticking with the season, but we're guessing it's because August is ratings month. Anywho, the Quickfire asked the chefs to create a dish using ingredients from not one, not two, not three, but four mystery boxes, carted out by extras from Men in Black.

The mystery ingredients ranged from normal (rock fish, passion fruit) to less common (ramps, black garlic). Angelo appeared to be falling apart without having Kenny there to battle/bromance with, and sweated into his food "for the first time." Please tell us this is not a regular occurrence. And of course, almost everyone complained about Alex, who finally noticed, saying, "This situation kind of sucks. I'm not getting along with anybody in the kitchen. I don't care." You know what else sucks? Being in the bottom, which Alex was for his rockfish with fava-bean purée and ramp fondue, along with Amanda for her crispy-skin striped bass, squid fricassée, and leek-and-mushroom fondue (Future chefs, take note: do not fondue things that are not cheese or chocolate). Despite not being amused by the task ("I don't like surprises and I don't like this challenge"), Tiffany took the win for her fish stew with hominy, fava beans, and saffron. She also won another $10K, ensuring that her upcoming wedding will be awesome.

Padma informed the chefs that they were "recruited as secret agents by the CIA" for the elimination challenge, and we're not sure what infuriated us more: the fact that Padma referred to the challenge like the show was actually Top Chef Kids, or that the cheftestants reacted like they really were now secret agents (oh Lord, someone's going to develop that into a show now, aren't they?). "I could seduce some secrets out of the KGB," said Amanda, who always wanted to be a spy named Natasha with a garter. Tiffany just loved La Femme Nikita, but Alex's favorite spy is from Get Smart because "he had a phone for a shoe." OF COURSE that is Alex's favorite spy.

The real adult challenge was to give a new identity to a classic dish by disguising its appearance but keeping its flavors the same, which really wasn't a bad idea. They also got to cook at the CIA kitchen, which Ed hilariously checked for hidden cameras and speakers. While most chefs got the flavors down fairly well, many struggled with the "disguise" aspect of the challenge. "I'm thinking I didn't disguise it enough. Helen Keller could guess what this dish is," an interviewed Amanda said, offensively. Considering Padma stressed that the dish had to be immediately recognizable by flavor, we'd hope for her sake that Ms. Keller could indeed recognize it.

The top three honor went to Tiffany's elegant, deconstructed gyro; Ed's inside-out chicken cordon bleu; and Kelly's kung pow shrimp as soup. Even though silver fox Eric Ripert thought Ed's dish was perfectly executed, he gave the win — and the free trip to Paris — to Tiffany (the dark horse! We called it).

Alex's veal parmigiana disguised as tortellini, Amanda's French-onion soup with oxtail marmalade, and Angelo's beef Wellington tartlet took the bottom spots. Amanda's dish wasn't disguised at all, and Angelo's dry store-bought puff pastry (used even though that's what felled crazy-dreadlocks guy in the first episode) almost sent him home, but ultimately (thankfully) the judges told Alex to pack his knives. Of course, of course, he didn't leave before he brought up the freaking pea purée yet again. Oh Alex, crazy Jewish uncle Amanda never had, we will not miss you.

Next week: We're going to a ball game! Running concession stands! Kevin yells at everyone! Raw fish!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, cia, overnights, recaps, seriously what is with the pea puree, top chef d.c., tv, wylie dufresne

The producers spared us the usual five minutes of nonsense at the start of Top Chef last night to save space for everyone's favorite challenge: Restaurant Wars! But first, the Quickfire, which featured the classic blindfolded tag-team cook-off. Kevin picked Kenny, Kelly, and Amanda to join him on the blue team, while Ed picked Tiffany (duh), Angelo, and last-man-left Alex for red. For a second we thought it was weird that Kevin would pick Kelly before Angelo, but then we remembered how much the producers love the Battle of Kenny and Angelo and realized he was probably forced to.

The blue team killed it during cooking, with each successive chef understanding exactly what to do next, while the red team struggled, oversalting their roasted red snapper after Alex seasoned it too early. The brief appearance from actual-big-D.C.-name Nancy Pelosi brought out excitement in all the chefs, but none as much as Kelly, who has her same haircut. Nancy, after explaining that Congress's motto for every meeting is "first, we eat," gave the win to the blue team's sautéed shrimp with angel-hair pasta in mustard sauce with marinated tomatoes and basil. Cue interviews of everyone on the red team complaining about Alex. We'd feel bad, but based on his performance we're going to have to agree with the other cheftestants that he needs to leave.

For the elimination challenge, standard Restaurant Wars rules applied: three courses, with two options available for each course, and everyone had to be responsible for at least one dish. The red team devolved into chaos as soon as they hit Restaurant Depot and stayed that way through both kitchens. As in the Quickfire, most of the blame fell on Alex, whose kitchen work was mostly made up of prep. Angelo tried to run around fixing his mistakes, which included gaffes like leaving scales and bones on pieces of fish, getting so worked up that even Kenny was concerned. "You don't want to see me mad," warned Angelo. The blue team, meanwhile, stayed cool as cucumbers, though Angelo pointed out/foreshadowed that it's dangerous to be too confident.

The red team's distrust of Alex put him at the front of house, where he proceeded to introduce himself to the servers by saying, "I'm the chef here. You guys are helping me out today." His rudeness stood out even more when contrasted with Kelly's kind, quiet manner with her team's servers. This behavior extended into service, with Alex not even noticing when the judges, including guest judge Frank Bruni, arrived at "Mediterranean inspired" EVOO (Rachael Ray would be so pleased). From the first course, they loved Angelo's confit tomato soup with olive crouton and squash, but found Tiffany's crudo of black bass and yellow-tail snapper too salty. Tiffany's second course of seared striped bass with clams, chorizo, and spinach also fell a bit flat, but Frank was a huge fan of Ed's baked turbot with eggplant caviar and black olive jus. And while they found the third course's seared lamb with Parmesan foam and pea purée well cooked, they didn't think the sautéed rib eye with crushed walnut potatoes was very Mediterranean-y. Needless to say, Alex did not see them out.

Kelly (who pronounced Frank's last name as Bru-NI, like he was French) definitely provided much better service at "progressive American" 2121, but the food didn't quite please the judges' palates. Kelly's first-course corn soup didn't have corn flavor, while Kenny's beet salad with endives and chroizo-citrus vinaigrette had too much going on, and everyone hated Amanda's New York strip steak with Swiss chard, maitake mushrooms, and sunchokes (though perhaps not as much as they hated Kenny's "monstrosity" of fried goat cheese on strawberry-rhubarb relish). The only dish they seemed to all love was Kevin's pan-roasted halibut with fennel marmalade, tomato-fennel emulsion, and white beans.

Despite the team's disorganization and Alex's incompetence, the red team managed to pull off a win thanks to Ed's perfectly cooked turbot, which grabbed the individual win. [Side note: Queens represent!]. The losing blue team was shocked, though Gail pointed out that diners don't judge a restaurant based on what happens in the kitchen, but what comes out of it. This was a fair point, but Kenny and Kevin found it absurd, letting the judges know that Alex barely did anything in the kitchen (see clip below). Frank made some great metaphors, comparing the sauce on Amanda's terrible steak to a great pair of shoes with a mediocre suit, but, very surprisingly, Kenny went home, marking the first time we've been surprised by a decision. You'd rather keep Amanda over Kenny, judges? Really? We'll let this one slide, but we expect Alex in the bottom next episode.

Next week: We're going to see the inside of the CIA! Angelo uses store-bought puff pastry! Angelo feels lost! Wylie Dufresne!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, frank bruni, nancy pelosi, overnights, pea puree again?, recaps, restaurant wars, top chef d.c., tv

Everyone was still talking about last week's pea-purée fiasco on last night's Top Chef, but thankfully Ed dropped the pea talk in time for the Quickfire, which required the chefs to make a dish inspired by the international cuisine that dominates in D.C.: Ethiopian food. Guest judge Marcus Samuelsson explained some Ethiopian basics, including berbere spice and injera, a spongy bread often used as a utensil.

Except for Ed, Kenny, and Angelo, none of the chefs claimed to be familiar with the cuisine. We're thinking they got some additional priming that we didn't see, because everyone made a spiced meat with some sort of yogurt sauce. Kevin, Stephen, and Alex found themselves in the bottom, while Amanda (stewed goat on grilled injera), Angelo (berbere-spiced doro wat chicken with egg, mango yogurt, and mint), and Tiffany (beef goulash with poached egg, currants, peppers, and yogurt) nabbed the top spots. Tiffany took the win, which was completely unsurprising considering the producers spent a good minute showing footage of her remarking that she was ready to win. Oh Bravo, it's not foreshadowing if you do it every time.

For the elimination challenge, Padma and Marcus rolled out a chalkboard with nine countries on it, explaining that each chef would make a dish inspired by the country they chose. The breakdown: Tiffany: Mexico; Kelly: Italy; Amanda: France; Kenny: Thailand; Alex: Spain; Angelo: Japan (shocking); Kevin: India; Ed: China, Stephen: Brazil. Kenny offhandedly mentioned that he's fought cancer and had four surgeries, so he wants to win. Wait, what? Shouldn’t we spend a little more time on that? Nope! The producers instead decided to cut to a shot of Stephen, who doesn't know about Brazilian food, buying Brazil nuts. Oy. Meanwhile, Alex was sure he'd be fine because he's been to Spain and loved it, and Tiffany was excited to cook Mexican because she's from Texas.

This week's episode actually featured quite a number of silly moments. At the kitchen, Alex falling and almost hitting his head on an oven. At the house, Kenny in his boxers, Kelly receiving a care package of stuffed animals, candy, and booze, and, of course, Angelo wrapping the toilet seat in plastic wrap.

The next day in Serious Chef Land, the chefs had to serve their dishes to 100 ambassadors, dignitaries, and diplomats, with just chafing dishes available on site. While we appreciate that the producers actually rounded up some foreign dignitaries, why were they only able to match dignitaries from Italy and China? A Swedish person remarked on the Brazilian food, while an Austrian diplomat talked about the Japanese cuisine. Surely someone, anyone, from Japan was available?

The top three included Tiffany's deconstructed chicken tamales with queso fresco and tomatillo sauce, Kevin's stewed chicken in his own curry with leek and parsnip purée and crispy lentils, and Kelly's beef carpaccio with spring-vegetable salad and parmigiano reggiano. Tiffany took her second win of the episode, with other guest judge Jose Andres remarking that her food really looked and tasted like Mexico. (Being from Texas probably helped her.) She also snagged $10,000 both for herself and for charity. (Sidenote: Anyone else think she's this season's less-kooky Carla? She's another genuinely nice chef who's happy to be there and who starts pulling ahead halfway into the season.)

Alex, Stephen, and Ed (despite being familiar with China, having had Chinese girlfriends) landed in the bottom three for braised veal cheeks with jamón torta and olive-and-tomato salad; flank steak in chimichurri sauce with black beans and rice; and tea-smoked duck breast with pot stickers in Szechuan jus, respectively. Alex tried to describe his dish as tapas, but Jose said it was like a little nightmare. Ed could have cooked his duck better and underdelivered, but in the end the judges couldn't get over the fact that Stephen overcooked his rice, and sent him home. "I'm disappointed of my fatal errors," he exit interviewed. We're disappointed with your terrible grammar, Stephen.

Next week: restaurant wars! Finally! Angelo doesn't allow talking in the kitchen! Kevin goes off on someone! Kelly's front-of-house outfit is an oversize sweatshirt!

Read more posts by Alexandra Martell

Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's Top Chef finally paid proper homage to its home city by bringing in special local traditions like complaining and some political guests. We skipped government class for AP microeconomics, but our education gap was filled during the high-stakes Quickfire. Padma instructed the chefs to serve their dish on a toothpick to guest judge Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois, as the Ethics Committee requires that food served to congressmen be on toothpicks, lest their votes be swayed by lavish meals. Who knew?

Unfortunately, the Quickfire also served as a flashback to season five, better known as Top Scallops. Kelly, Stephen, and Alex all decided to make them, and Alex (who referred to Stephen as a "talented culinarian," which we're pretty sure isn't actually a word — Microsoft Word agrees) and Kelly unsurprisingly landed in the bottom three. Can we get Fabio in as a guest judge to put a stop to this, please? Angelo proclaimed at the start of the Quickfire that he "actually want[ed] to be creative" … but made Asian-inspired food as usual. Stephen's scallop ended up in the top with Kevin's grilled-pork-and-mushroom kabob and Angelo's cucumber cup with spiced shrimp and cashews, but Angelo grabbed the win. Cut to the standard shot of Kenny looking pissed.

The elimination challenge brought in the other D.C. tradition of the power lunch at the Palm and asked the chefs to serve 24 regulars using five ingredients found on the menu — lamb chops, lobster, swordfish, porterhouse, and salmon. Angelo and Ed were concerned by the four-pound "mutant" lobsters, having never seen specimens so large. Angelo was also worried about the challenge itself, not being too familiar with power lunches, but Kevin had served a mayor before, so he was confident he knew what the diners would want. Kelly was just certain that Amanda needed to go home.

Of course, not everyone was so confident. When the chefs went home that night, Alex still wasn't even sure what he was making. Perhaps it was because he was distracted by the awesome wardrobe choices of his fellow cheftestants — Kenny walked around in his Black Angus robe, while Andrea rocked a skull-and-bacon-crossbones shirt that we want in our closet.

At the Palm the next day (with Tom looming in the background), the main kitchen drama surrounded Ed/Alex's pea purée. Ed made pea purée in the Hilton kitchen the day before, but couldn't find it upon arrival at the Palm. Alex, despite no previous shots of peas, had a lovely pea purée at the restaurant kitchen. Most of the other chefs, including Ed, thought this was bullshit and that Alex stole Ed's pea purée. Our DVR sound cut off when Alex was talking about his purée, so we turn to you, readers: Did he make it himself and there was strategic editing, or did he steal Ed's?

The chefs served quite a plethora of guest judges, including Joe Scarborough, Art Smith, Luke Russert, and Savannah Guthrie (hi, NBC synergy!). It was a little hard to keep track of everyone, but for the most part the judges agreed on their love of Tiffany's swordfish with olive-raisin tapenade and broccolini with bacon, Ed's butter-poached lobster ballontine with eggplant caviar and English peas, and Alex's applewood-smoked salmon with black forbidden rice and the infamous English pea purée. The pea purée was the judges' favorite component of the night, and Alex took the win (remember that Carla won for her peas last season — future cheftestants, take note). We have never seen anyone look so mad as Ed looked as Alex celebrated his win. So much for world peas!

The bottom dishes were Kelly's porterhouse with crispy potato-arugula salad and shallot demi glace, Andrea's pan-seared swordfish with vanilla Israeli couscous, and Kevin's double-cut lamb with olive-and-goat-cheese rissole. The judges were unhappy about Kelly's oversalted meat, but ultimately asked Andrea to go home, as they could tell through her cooking that she wasn't happy making swordfish. Kelly seemed pretty upset with Andrea's loss, hugging her sadly for a long time, but Padma wanted none of it, snapping "that will be all" after the hug went on too long. Guess those judges' tables really do last up to five hours.

Next week: Cooking for ambassadors! No one likes Alex! Marcus Samuelsson! And Stephen doesn't think Brazilian cuisine exists!

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, peas, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Top Chef's producers know how creepy Angelo is, and the challenges in last night's episode enhanced this quality. Hence the Quickfire, which asked the chefs to cook using exotic proteins ranging from yak to llama to duck white kidneys — which, as Angelo discovered only after he selected them, are not kidneys at all, but testicles. "I just poked around the testicles, and it's kind of soft," Angelo remarked creepily, as he decided to make a testicle marshmallow. That is one s'more we would not want to try.

A number of chefs freaked out, but none so strongly as Andrea, who wasn't so much concerned about her protein, but about guest judge Michelle Bernstein, her fellow curly-blonde-haired rival in Miami. The rest were troubled by their dish; it took Amanda quite a long time to figure out how to break into her emu eggs (with a hack saw, in case you decide to try this at home). Just as she was ready to get crackin', Padma strolled in with a curveball, perhaps because Angelo was getting a little too pokey with those testicles.

She announced that the chefs had to stop what they were doing and begin cooking with the protein to their left, sticking Kevin with the duck balls. "I have never worked with duck testicles or any testicles," Kevin panicked unnecessarily, as Stephen, Alex, and Andrea made the worst dishes. Kelly took the win for her goat-cheese-and-emu-egg omelette, giving her both immunity and a pass from cooking in the elimination challenge. Considering she couldn't tell the difference between the emu yolks and whites, she got a pretty good deal.

Speaking of the elimination challenge, the judges really hammered home that the name of the prepare-a-cold-dish challenge — where the chefs would be judged by their peers — was the Cold War. Both the chefs and judges mentioned the Cold War so many times that we began to wonder if this was some sort of product placement for history. The chefs planned their menus on a boat ride around the Potoma, and Captain Kenny Obvious pointed out that the paranoia during the Cold War tied into how the chefs felt about being judged by their peers. The Cold War boat ride was certainly a hotbed of scheming, as Angelo hopped around offering advice while the others glared suspiciously, and Ed and Tiffany whispered sweet nothings to each other on the side of the ship. Ed wasn't too worried about Angelo's scheming and creeping, as he used to bang Angelo's girlfriend in college.

Back on the mainland, Angelo picked out some "sexy" salmon while Tamesha got scary. After trying as hard as she could to be P.C. about Amanda ("she needs to take a chill pill," "we have personality differences") she suddenly threw in, "I could probably strangle her in a heartbeat." Whoa. This is Top Chef, not Survivor (or Top Scallops, as Tamesha later learned).

Group A (Kevin, Ed, Kenny, Amanda, and Alex) cooked first, with Group B (Tiffany, Angelo, Tamesha, Steven, Andrea) judging, and boy, was this group harsh. Angelo and Tamesha hated on pretty much every dish, but Tom called them out on complaining about a lack of acidity in Kevin's tuna and veal with romaine, pine nuts, and Mediterranean condiments, as the dish had both tomato and lemon. Since they ended up picking Kevin as the winner of the group, we're guessing the acidity was just fine. Andrea's main problem was with the chunk of cartilage she found in Amanda's chicken galantine, but the chefs ultimately voted Kenny and his grilled-lamb salad and lamb carpaccio into the bottom.

Group A was a lot easier on Group B, even though as soon as they sat down Tom gushed, "You should have heard what they said about your food, oh my God." The chefs quickly voted Tiffany's peppercorn-and fennel-crusted ahi tuna in gazpacho the group winner, while knocking Tamesha's seared scallops with rhubarb jus, long pepper, and basil into the bottom. The judges were quite happy with the top two and gave the win to Kevin, who also won a six-night trip to Hawaii. As for the bottom two, the judges took issue with Kenny's use of too many ingredients and flavors. Kenny stood by his dish, arguing that he got voted into the bottom because he posed a huge threat. Guest judge Michelle snappily replied that not knowing our Mr. Black Angus, she could talk to the end of the show about each piece of his dish. Despite her rant, the loss went to Tamesha's overpowering pepper and weirdly cooked scallops. We're sorry, but DUH. Was anyone really surprised? Were you expecting food to win out over potential drama? The battle of Kenny and Angelo is just too good to send him home so soon.

Next week: Tiffany flirts with Ed even though she's engaged! Kenny drops his food! Alex steals Ed's pea purée! But how will Angelo take the loss of his ladyfriend?!

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's Top Chef gave us the flirtier side of the contestants. Ed and Tiffany channeled Hosea and Leah, giggling together, trusting each other, and telling each other when they were going to shower. Angelo and Tamesha looked like they had a thing going, too, but Angelo immediately moved things to the creepy side of the spectrum by commenting, "There's an inner passion, but she holds it in. That's something I'd really like to extract from her." Like a lemon?

The Quickfire presented the chefs with a table full of wriggling crabs, causing our boyfriend to swoon and us to shudder (we prefer to see our crabs in cake form, rather than waving their claws meekly as they slowly die in a hot oven. Also, last night we learned that crabs still move around after you've chopped them in half). Angelo, a big fan of the overshare, told the audience that he once had crabs — not the Maryland kind. That's nice.

Shockingly, no one made crab cakes, aiming mostly for chowders and salads instead. Our hometown boy Ed grabbed the win for his jumbo lump crab with Thai basil, mango, and cucumber salad, while Angelo, who made blue-crab broth with lemongrass and ginger, stood to the side, flabbergasted that someone would make something more Asian than him. You may have the monopoly on STD sharing, Angelo, but you're not the only one who can cook with Asian flavors. Ed remarked that he was just happy that he was coming out of his shell, oblivious to his fantastic pun.

For the elimination challenge, the chefs traveled to Virginia's first certified organic and humane farm, where they had to work as one to serve family-style dishes to 40 local farmers and chefs. But first, they had to go back to the house and plan their meal. Kenny and Angelo both took charge and began arguing the second the group sat down, surprising absolutely no one. Tim looked distraught; Andrea called it a train wreck; and Tiffany just leaned back and said, "Lord mercy!" "We're grown up enough that we should act like civilized human beings," Tamesha told the camera, a reality-show contestant who has clearly not watched a reality show.

Even rural farms are not free from product placement — the chefs commented about how awesome the Toyota Mobile Pantry was numerous times. Angelo took time out of the three cooking hours to be creepy, calling Tamesha Tamesha's cherry compote "tart, luscious, super sexy" as well as referring to his cooking technique as "making love to that duck." However, making love to his food didn't put him in the top four — that honor was reserved for Kevin (whose fallen cauliflower and fear of cow pies led him to make broccoli couscous with lemon zest), Kenny (hot-and-sour curried eggplant with peppers and carrot tops), Andrea (garlic and five-spiced grilled pork, which was cooked perfectly despite her many, many fears about over- and undercooking it), and Kelly (five-spice-roasted apples and beets to go with the pork, plus a strawberry-rhubarb crisp). Guest judge Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington thought Kevin's fallen veggies were fortuitous, and Tom loved Andrea's sauce, but the win went to Kenny and his curry that even Padma praised. Kenny also earned several nicknames this week, including (but not limited to): Isaac Hayes, Big Daddy, Black Angus, Black Magic, and the Beast.

Tim's roasted turnips and asparagus with honey, Amanda's country-vegetable minestrone, and Stephen's farm salad with balsamic onion, egg, and apple landed in the bottom, which wasn't a surprise considering Bravo's love of foreshadowing (Stephen: "I'm showing how many different components you can fit in a salad." Amanda: "I feel totally confident. Progresso, eat your heart out." Tim: "The bottom never came to my mind. They can't be serious"). The judges pointed out that Stephen's wet, overseasoned salad shouldn't have been served in a tiny bowl, but the ultimate burn went to Amanda, who received a serious cooking-school lesson for her minestrone:

Tom: When we cook, why do we cut things uniformly?
Amanda: So they all cook the same way.
Tom: Why did you not cut things uniformly?

And don't even get Eric Ripert started on the fact that her soup didn't have pasta, a main ingredient in classic minestrone. But despite Amanda's talking-to, Tim took the loss for his flavorless turnips. Sorry, Tim; looks like they were serious about you being on the bottom.

Next week: Angelo plays favorites! The others get suspicious! Alex sabotages Amanda! The guest judge is … the other chefs!

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's Top Chef never really left the Hilton kitchen, perhaps since last week's Just Desserts shilling gave the producers a hunger for more product placement. For the (Dial-sponsored) high-stakes Quickfire, the chefs entered the kitchen to find a display of baby toys. "They can't have us cooking baby food!" exclaimed Tim, who apparently has not watched a second of any reality-competition show ever. Tom and Padma, who have a new 8-month-old and 2-month-old, respectively, asked the cheftestants to create an adult dish and a baby-friendly version. Technically, the only cuisine appropriate for 2-month-olds is breast milk or formula, but we'll let that slide owing to procurement difficulties.

Every chef with a child immediately began pining for home, while childless chefs like Alex complained that they "practice making babies, not baby food." Sadly, Tom and Padma, and not their surely adorable children, tasted the food. Tom gave his winning pick to Tamesha's vegetable chowder with licorice flavor and grilled salmon, while Padma gave hers to Kenny's curried chicken with Bulgar wheat and mushrooms. Angelo, of course, glared in the background while we tried to think of a single child who would prefer puréed duck to mashed bananas.

The elimination challenge, to be cooked in the Top Chef Hilton kitchen, required the chefs to make a new signature dish for Hilton's restaurant menu, which had to please guest judge Beth Scott, Hilton's VP of restaurant concepts. Did you know that Hilton is a sponsor this season? You do now. The chefs competed in teams of two to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner tournament-style, with the best two teams safe and free to stop cooking after each round. Unlike past team challenges this season, after the dinner round, two chefs were going home. Extra guest judges also popped up, including Nora Poullion and old Top Chef contestants Mike I., Bryan Voltaggio, and Spike. (Of course, none of them could hold a candle to silver fox Eric Ripert. But we digress.)

Breakfast began with some interesting cooking advice when Amanda asked Stephen how to tell when hollandaise sauce was done. His response: "When it tastes really good." OH. Okay. However, semi-useless advice turned out to be a big help, as Amanda and Stephen were immediately safe for their poached egg with pancetta confit and potato rösti, along with Tim and Tiffany for their crab-cake Benedict with bacon-potato hash.

At lunch, Kelly got upset that the judges weren't giving feedback, complaining that if she ended up cooking dinner, she'd "feel like [she's] cooking to not go home." Perhaps she felt that way because that was exactly how Padma explained the challenge. Angelo expressed his frustration with a strange metaphor: He wanted to get out of the pool because a piranha was trying to bite him. What kind of pools does he swim in, exactly? We didn't get to find out, as his and Tiffany's beef carpaccio with jicama-Asian pear salad was safe, as were the ricotta gnudi and sea scallops that Ed and Alex "cooked the shit out of." Not everyone was so lucky with seafood — Padma remarked that if she'd received Kelly and Andrea's crispy red snapper at Le Bernardin, she'd send it back, to which Eric Ripert replied that he'd never even send a dish like that out. Don't say we didn't warn you about cooking seafood, cheftestants.

Both Team Kenny/Kevin and Team Andrea/Kelly made braised short ribs for dinner (side note: Has anyone noticed how Kelly always sounds like she's yelling out what she made?), while Arnold and Lynne opted to go a bit more outside the box and make pineapple-red-curry mussels with squid-ink pasta. Lynne reassured both Arnold and the audience many, many times that she knew how to make pasta and that it should get cooked at the last minute, so no one was surprised when her pasta turned out to be undercooked. The judges liked both the short ribs, but the lack of glaze on Kenny and Kevin's gave the win to Kelly and Andrea, who also won weeklong trips to Venice and Barcelona. Padma didn't think Lynne and Arnold's "avant-garde" and "direct reflection of who [Arnold] is as a person" black mussels on black pasta would work on a hotel menu, and they got sent home. Plus, it's much too soon to break up Kenny and Angelo's budding bromance.

Next week: cooking in teams! Again! The battle of Kenny versus Angelo heats up! Outdoor cooking! Pushing food over! And (we hope), Tom gets all the glaze his heart desires.

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Last night's episode opened with another act in the Battle of Kenny and Angelo: Kenny worried that the "Angelo Show" was taking over while Angelo sat by himself in a corner, brooding over Kenny's words at the previous Judges' Table. Could their war actually be a budding bromance in disguise?

The Quickfire asked the chefs to participate in the most American of traditions —product placement shilling for a new show baking a pie. Turns out guest judge Johnny Iuzzini will be a head judge on Top Chef: Just Desserts with Gail. (The second mention of this spinoff in three episodes, mind you.). Johnny took this episode to prove himself worthy of snappy quips during Judges' Tables: "I think it's kind of a cop out to say you're not a pastry chef," he scolded Angela. "My grandmother's not a pastry chef either and she can make a pie." Angelo and Tamesha admitted they had never before made a pie, to which we can only say how is that possible? (We were trained as journalists, not cooks, but we can make lattice crust with the best of them.)

The pies ranged from curried apple to chocolate ganache to mango, but Kenny grabbed the win for his bananas foster with currants and Chinese five spice. The other chefs got upset they didn't win, but no one so much as in-the-bottom Tracey, who remarked, "I feel like I was called out for something embarrassing, like living in a trailer park." Because that's the same as messing up a pie crust.

Continuing the Americana theme, the Elimination Challenge required the chefs to prepare a picnic of one main and two sides for Capitol Hill interns. Sadly, the only scandal involved not interns but ovens, when Alex took Amanda's oven and she got revenge by removing his dish from it. When Tom asked what was going on, Amanda explained that the cheftestants abide by prison rules. Tom, having never been to prison, had no idea what this meant, and neither did we. Back at the house, all the other chefs smoked while critiquing Amanda's techniques, and everyone just looked so mean and ugly that we realized this would be a great anti-smoking commercial.

The picnic began by showing us those other great American traditions of croquet and badminton (what?), perhaps as a ruse to distract us from the fact that the editors forgot to show us a single second of footage of what the chefs were preparing as sides. They did include yet another tradition, sexism, with Tim arguing that only the men were happy to be grilling. Alex was definitely pleased to be outside cooking pork butt, remarking that he wanted to "eat the ass out of this pig all day." Guest judge and Top Chef Master Jonathan Waxman (of Barbuto) helped the judges pick Arnold, Ed, Amanda, and Angelo for the top four. Jonathan was in love with Amanda's grilled asparagus and baby-back ribs, and Tom loved how picnic-friendly Ed's spiced tuna loin was, but the win went to Arnold's sesame-lamb meatballs with tabouli salad and gazpacho.

Timothy, Stephen, Tracey, and Kevin ended up in the bottom four. Timothy got scolded for his lack of seasoning, leading us to assume that he's never watched the show before, since that is always what Tom harps on (to be fair, Tim did get pooped on by terrorist birds while cooking). Padma called Kevin's grilled flank steak with rice and beans "the safest Puerto Rican food [she'd] ever eaten," and Gail told him to start cooking like a professional. However, the loss ultimately belonged to (clairvoyant) Tracey's Italian sausage and fennel sliders, which Tom found to be "insulting to Italians." We wonder if her psychic abilities helped her see that one coming.

Next week: Double elimination! Cooking in teams! Yelling about hollandaise! Plus, Eric Ripert returns, but even his dreamboat-y looks can't save the judges from the horror of canned beans!

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef d.c., top chef just desserts, tv

Last night's Top Chef started off with household high jinks (Ed shaved by his bed; Jacqueline ate a lot of butter) that we assume were there to make the Quickfire's pun seem less terrible. Bi-partisandwich? Really? We're huge fans of puns, and sandwiches are our favorite food (yes, that is a legitimate favorite food), but even for us this took things a tad too far.

The chefs had to make sandwiches while attached at the apron, and thus could only use one hand each. Guest judge and assistant White House chef Sam Kass (no Ripert this week) told the cheftestants to leave their egos at the door. Has he met Angelo? Speaking of Angelo, he claimed he would shut down Xie Xie if he lost this challenge. Luckily, he and Tracey (who has a crush on him even though she is raising her girlfriend's kid) won with their flounder with spicy sriracha. Kenny and Ed's Korean chile-ahi-tuna sandwich also made the judges' favorites, reinforcing our suspicions that this season will be a giant showdown between Kenny and Angelo. Angelo confirmed this with an evil cackle and picked Kenny and Ed for his Elimination Challenge team, since he and Tracey had won immunity.

The Elimination Challenge asked the chefs to take part in Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to fight childhood obesity by making a school lunch for 50 using a public-school budget of just $2.60 per kid, or $130 total. Naturally, the cheftestants struggled to get enough food for four courses (a main, a side, a vegetable, and a dessert with fruit) under budget. And obviously, it had to be stuff kids like. Amanda made it clear that she would not take one for the team and make a dessert, as people who make desserts get eliminated. (Someone's been watching the past six seasons.) Instead, she braised chicken with sherry. Because, you know, kids love (budget-friendly) sherry. Wait, what? Tom likened her dish to a turd, so it didn't exactly please adults either. A few other chefs also struggled to appeal to kids, including Ed, whose sweet-potato purée was far too spicy, and Stephen, whose rice pilaf with assorted vegetables was described by one student as "just rice and all that nasty stuff."

Team Angelo/Kenny/Ed/Tracey and Team Amanda/Stephen/Tamesha/Jacqueline ended up in the bottom (announced before the top teams to mix things up), and the school kid in everyone came out. Stephen threw Kenny under the bus for not speaking up about a lack of veggies. Kenny pointed out that Jacqueline used two pounds of sugar in her banana pudding. Amanda called Angelo out for using processed peanut butter, which she claimed was the worst thing in the world, and Ed replied by bringing up Amanda's use of sherry. In not so many words, Tom asked Angelo if he sabotaged his non-immunized team members by counting celery with peanut butter as a vegetable, and Angelo refused to answer. The battle between Angelo and Kenny just got dirty, folks. But in the end, Jacqueline went home for her grainy, oversugared pudding dessert. Amanda's no fool.

Of course, not everyone struggled. The judges loved how Team Alex/Kevin/Tim/Andrea hid yogurt in a coleslaw and a whipped-cream presentation, but the highest praise went to Team Kelly/Lynn/Tiffany/Arnold, whose meal included tacos, a salad, and vegetables hidden in the dessert. Kelly grabbed the win for her pork-carnita tacos with pickled onions. Did you know that Kelly made tacos? Were you clear on that? Because she only announced her credit for them at least six times (yes, we counted). Wait, which part of this episode was supposed to feature children?

Next week: We're going on a picnic! Complete with fights over ovens, Amanda whining, and everyone giving each other dirty looks while smoking cigarettes. Ah, health.

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Filed Under: top chef, overnights, recaps, top chef: dc, tv

The first episode of Top Chef: D.C. didn't feature any of the many political guest stars we've been promised, but politics reared its head almost immediately as the cheftestants vied to establish themselves as front-runners. The battle lines were established between cocky Angelo (of Xie Xie) and speedy Kenny during the Quickfire, a typical Top Chef opener of a three-legged race to prep food (a mise en place, if you want to get fancy like Tom). Watching people peel potatoes isn't the least bit exciting, even with dramatic music and people slicing their hands open in the background, but Kenny really was a machine. The four fastest chefs prepared their chopped potatoes, onions, and chicken. Flavor trumped speediness, and Angelo won the Quickfire (and $20,000, since high-stakes Quickfires didn't stay in Vegas). He vowed to be the first contestant to win every single challenge. Looking for the out-of-control ego? You just found it.

In the elimination challenge, chefs created a dish reflecting their own community (their constituency) and served them to 300 yuppies celebrating D.C.'s famous cherry-blossom festival. (If it's so famous, why not make the challenge relate to the event? Just a thought.) The four top chefs from the Quickfire selected teammates from among the other contestants in reverse gym-class style, from worst chef to best. The best was New York's hometown boy, Ed Cotton, representing our home borough of Queens. Angelo dispatched him to Kenny's team and developed the narrative for a season-long battle. Both chefs landed in the top four, but Angelo's smoked Arctic char–and-bacon mousse won. "I will set the presidence [sic]," he said.

L.A.'s Alex channeled Michael Voltaggio with a judge-pleasing deconstruction of borscht that recalled his Russian roots. Expect him to clash with Angelo, as they both spent the meet-and-greet with the other chefs name-dropping. Tracey's a great candidate to provide snippy asides like Vegas's Mike I., such as "Stephen's a little hick from some country town. I'm sure he has no idea how to cook." Laughs will definitely come from Arnold, who spends his introduction dancing and explaining that he got a stylist and a facial before coming to the show.

The minute kooky hippie John announced he would make a dessert, we knew he was a goner. His no-maple-flavor mousse made the first elimination easy. Much like Fight Club, Top Chef only has one rule: Don't make a dessert in the first episode if you don't want to go home. Other low-scoring chefs were four-nippled Jacqueline, who made a low-fat chicken-liver mousse (you didn't read wrong; it doesn't make sense); Stephen, who overcooked his potato-crusted rib eye until it looked like "chicken nuggets," according to new regular judge Eric Ripert; and Tim, who messed up his fish so badly that Ripert commented on how terrible his technique was three times. Beware, all ye who cook seafood; Kenny wasn't kidding when he called Ripert the Seafood God. We're sorry, Toby, but you are not missed.

Later this season: fireworks! The other CIA! Aliens! Baseball! Schoolchildren! Joe Scarborough! Also, Dial is the lead sponsor this time around, so don't be surprised if a future Quickfire involves speed-washing dishes with a new product of theirs. Plus, look out for mousse to be D.C.'s seviche — we saw three versions of it in the premiere alone.

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Filed Under: top chef, recaps, top chef d.c., tv

Harlem: Best Yet Market opened this weekend. Shoppers are saying the space is true to its name, and that it is the best supermarket in the neighborhood. [Uptown Flavor]

Lower East Side: South African spot Bunny Chow — and its liquor license — are for sale. [Bowery Boogie]

Midtown East: Get two hamburgers for 88 cents today at Pop Burger. [Midtown Lunch]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, best yet market, bunny chow, cafe on clinton, kill devil hill, kumquat cupcakery, liddabit sweets, pop burger, sweet shop, tully's gluten-free bakery

Meatpacking District: Kiss & Fly reopens tonight after being closed for renovations. New features include an expanded dance floor, new lighting, and booth seating. [Eater NY]

Midtown West: Virgil’s celebrates Mardi Gras February 9 through 16, with Zydeco music, a menu featuring po’ boys, and free necklaces with no flashing required. [Grub Street]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, blue marble, brooklyn heights, gowanus, kiss & fly, meatpacking district, midtown west, the bell house, virgils

Midtown West: 2 Bros. Pizza will open a second location in the next week or two on Eighth Avenue and 38th Street. [Midtown Lunch]
Soho: The former FROG space will reopen as a Mediterranean restaurant called Beba. [Eater NY]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, 2 bros. pizza, balade, beba, dewey's, frog, sunburnt cow

Cookbook author Dorie Greenspan will open a pop-up cookie shop called CookieBar in Mizu hair salon. Her son plans to open a permanent CookieBar by the end of the year. 505 Park Ave., nr. 58th St. [Feed/TONY]

Prospect Heights: A new soccer bar called Woodwork just opened. 583 Vanderbilt Ave., nr. Dean St. [Brownstoner]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, armani/ristorante, atlas cafe, cookiebar, uncle jack's steakhouse, woodwork

Harlem: Settepani Bakery closed. [What About the Plastic Animals]

Midtown East: Koglin Royal Hams in the Grand Central Terminal Market put all their hams on sale for half-price because the store is closing next Friday. [Midtown Lunch]

Upper East Side: To celebrate Café Carlyle fixture Elaine Stritch, mixologist Brian Van Flandern will introduce the Stritchy (gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Champagne) to Bemelman's Bar on February 2. [Grub Street]

Williamsburg: Young and Hungry Blog hosts its first birthday party at Public Assembly tonight with free food from the likes of Co., One Girl Cookies, and Cupcake Stop, plus live music. [YAH]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, co., cupcake stop, greenpoint coffee house, koglin royal hams, lox bar, one girl cookies, public assembly, settepani bakery

Harlem: Settepani Bakery closed. [What About the Plastic Animals]

Midtown East: Koglin Royal Hams in the Grand Central Terminal Market put all their hams on sale for half-price because the store is closing next Friday. [Midtown Lunch]

Upper East Side: To celebrate Café Carlyle fixture Elaine Stritch, mixologist Brian Van Flandern will introduce the Stritchy (gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Champagne) to Bemelman's Bar on February 2. [Grub Street]

Williamsburg: Young and Hungry Blog hosts its first birthday party at Public Assembly tonight with free food from the likes of Co., One Girl Cookies, and Cupcake Stop, plus live music. [YAH]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, co., cupcake stop, greenpoint coffee house, koglin royal hams, lox bar, one girl cookies, public assembly, settepani bakery

The Jets face the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in the AFC Championship game, and the winner will go to the Super Bowl. If you decided not to head to Indianapolis this weekend (after all, it sucks), and you're not so emotionally invested that you prefer to watch the game alone in your apartment, we've got a few suggestions about where to eat and drink while you’re cheering for Gang Green.

• Pregame at overlook's Jets Tailgate. Pay $15 for unlimited Bud Light drafts or mimosas, plus your choice of brunch items, including the huevos rancheros wrap, eggs any style, pancakes, cheeseburgers, or a buffalo-chicken wrap from 1 p.m. on. Once the game starts at 3 p.m., Bud Light drafts are $3.

• McFadden's is offering a number of specials during Sunday's game, including $3 drafts, $10 pitchers, and half-price appetizers. Call 212-986-1515 to reserve a spot.

• Wear your Jets gear to Southern Hospitality and get a free shot. Everyone gets a free "mean green" shot every time the Jets score. Pitchers of Coors Light, Miller Lite, and Soho's Acoustic Amber are $10; munch on $5 wings, nachos, jalepeño bottle caps, and fried pickles.

• If your jersey is at the cleaners, you don't need to dress up to take advantage of the specials at Bar 108. The bar's selling $15 pitchers of Bud Light, $20 buckets of beer, and 50-cent wings. Reservations are recommended; call 212-505-2015 to secure a seat.

• Third and Long doesn't promise a solely Jets-themed celebration, but it will definitely have $4 pints of Bud, Bud Light, and that Bud Golden Wheat you keep seeing all those commercials for on Hulu.

• For those looking for both quality and quantity when it comes to suds, Chelsea Brewing Company will serve $2 pints of one of the winter brews, Checker Cab Blonde Ale.

• Heckle some NFC fans at Bar None. Line up at noon to pay $10 to get into the bar in time for the game. Ticketed admission is first come, first serve, but those who miss out can head to sister bar Boss Tweeds, where all spillover fans can drink a free Bud Light draft.

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Filed Under: user's guide, bar 108, bar none, chelsea brewing company, jets, mcfadden's, overlook, southern hospitality, sports, third and long

Padma Lakshmi was not shy about sharing some of Top Chef's secrets at Saturday's Times Arts & Leisure Weekend event, also featuring Eric Ripert and Gail Simmons. Frank Bruni moderated the panel and Tom Colicchio was out of town, but that didn't stop Padma — who seemed ready to give birth any second (her doctor was sitting in the front row) — from dishing on his drinking habits. If we could peek underneath that judges' table, we'd find a gin and tonic nestled between Colicchio's legs. Padma suggested watching the top of Colicchio's pate — astute viewers will notice a shiny red glow growing as the debate rages on. Judges' table can last for as long as five hours, said Gail. We'd need a drink, too. Judging the finale lasts even longer (Eric Ripert almost missed his flight out of Aspen in season three), because the winner must be a unanimous decision. Producers sometimes seek the opinion of an unofficial fifth judge named T-Bone: He's the camera operator who takes all the still-life food shots and then eats the dishes.

The judges had plenty to say about the contestants, too. They're all proud of Herold Dieterle and Perilla, especially, Gail explained, because he stayed true to the concept he wanted before, during, and after the course of the show. And, like the audience, they all loved Kevin from season six. When describing his dishes, Kevin would often go on for 45 minutes or longer — but the judges, completely transfixed, wouldn't notice how much time had passed until a producer stepped in to tell him to wrap it up.

Other than Kevin's soliloquies, however, the judges don't know anything about the contestants' personalities until the show airs, as they're barred from contact with each other until after the finale. Of course, this doesn't stop all contestants from trying — Stephan, from the New York season, once gave Padma a dozen roses, only to have them yanked out of her hands by a producer a second later. And despite limited contact, Padma, who sees the contestants more than any other judge because of the Quickfires, occasionally gets some insight into how the contestants feel about one another. This season, she knew that everyone hated Robin because whenever she would bring up her cancer, Padma would see all the other chefs start rolling their eyes in her peripheral vision.

The judges would love to take the show international in future seasons, but the logistics of taking a crew of 80 to 120 abroad means that probably won't happen any time soon. Production for the seventh season begins in the spring; Bravo is waiting till after Padma has her baby. ("They've been through like twenty pregnancies with Heidi already," she joked). So, would Padma want her child to grow up to be a chef? "Only if she's a really good one."

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Filed Under: top chef, eric ripert, frank bruni, gail simmons, new york times, padma lakshmi, tom colicchio

Last week, we brought you our personal favorite lunches for nursing a hangover. But as we enter the peak of holiday merrymaking, we thought we should turn to professionals for some hangover cures, especially since "toast and a chocolate covered marshmallow" probably doesn't work for everyone. After all, hangovers are pretty serious — CNN recently reported that hangovers cost U.S. businesses $148 billion in lost productivity each year. We can't promise guaranteed results for the methods below, but as we sign off for a day or so (See you Monday! Happy holidays!) we do plan on trying a few of them out over the next week.

Lana Kalaitzis, Village Pourhouse: "Coconut water. It's like babies' tears and angel feathers. If you wake up hungover and you take two aspirin and 11 ounces of coconut water, you can do anything — you can save the world. It has more electrolytes than Gatorade and it hydrates you better than water does. If you don't have coconut water, take really, really cold passion-fruit pur
e, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of lime juice. It's pretty disgusting. It might just work because it's so awful that you forget you're hungover."

Patrick Kitson, Mad River Bar & Grille: "Keep drinking in the morning. Otherwise, I try to prevent it the night before by pounding a gallon of water before I go to bed, with a Tylenol."

Bill Ottinger, Turtle Bay Grill & Lounge: "To rehydrate, Champagne with a little bit of orange juice, for nutritional value. Another good option is beer with a little Bloody Mary mix. You're going through alcohol withdrawal, so it helps you deal with that."

Deedee Patton, Bowery Electric: "Definitely Tylenol, comfy clothes, Bloody Marys, and French toast with friends reminiscing about the night before. That's what I'm doing after New Year's."

Michael Asch, Down the Hatch and Jake's Dilemma: "Besides aspirin and a glass of water, I like Code Blue recovery drink. It has triple the electrolytes of Gatorade, an anti-inflammatory, and vitamin B, which is what they give you a shot of when you have alcohol poisoning. It's like Gatorade on steroids. It's the closest thing that I've ever experienced to truly curing a hangover. Hydrating yourself in any way definitely helps, but this helps get the crap out. We sell a lot of them at early Saturday and Sunday football games. Some people will mix it with vodka, too."

Catherine Grennan, MJ Armstrong's: "I generally do the Bloody Mary and a side of beer, a Bass, just to rehydrate. Hair of the dog, that'll cure you."

Christina Morales, SideBar: "Jameson with lemon. It works every time. Otherwise, coffee and Red Bull."

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Filed Under: hangover cures,

Lower East Side: Russ & Daughters received its first shipment of the season of double-smoked Danish salmon. [Lox Populi]

Red Hook: Botanica owner Dan Preston says the restaurant will remain closed until it can restaff. [Fork in the Road/VV]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, baoguette, botanica, dub pies, michael huynh, russ & daughters

Midtown: Financier Patisserie opened its new location yesterday in Grand Central Station. [Blondie & Brownie]
Williamsburg: The Yogurberry at 209 Bedford Avenue has closed. [Brownstoner]

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, baluchi's, bamboo 52, esperanto, financier patisserie, holey cream, matsukado, yogurberry

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Filed Under: neighborhood watch, brother jimmy's bbq, go go curry, green kitchen, ocean restaurant, permanent brunch and burger, vine wine