Sudden Death Quickfire- intense!!! Challenge: prep seafood- the slowest chef on slowest team is up for elimination. There is interesting dynamics seeing who does what and who does not want what. Mai is crushing the lobsters- damn she's a killer! Adam is kind of a dirtbag and Rebecca is SLOW, ugh. The Blue Team is ON FIRE until Katsuji starts to do clams- it's funny seeing everyone watch him and their reactions!
Red team ends up being the slowest and the slowest Chef was George. He then got to pick 1 chef to go head to head with. If he wins, they both stay, if he loses, George goes home. He chose to go against Greg because he was pissed Greg didn't do the clams. Interesting these are both "no team name"'s Chefs. (By the way- I need a team name here!)
George made: Pan-seared mackerel with fennel orange and kalamata olive salad
Greg made: Seafood trio of Oyster with yuzu ginger mignonette, mirin marinated Mackerel and Lobster with chilled coconut and spiced tomato sauce
And the winner is Greg which means George is donezo! Mike Isabella is gonna be SO pissed!
Elimination Challenge- Host the first Top Chef Food Festival. Everyone gets their own booths next to famous local Boston chefs. 250 locals will attend and they have 3 hours to cook. They also have to cook a version of the first dish they can remember cooking.
Tiffany and Kristen are there! That is awesome!
Everyone made some very interesting dishes! I am loving Joy and foresee fan-favorite! Rebecca didn't live up to my expectation at all. Adam has a lot of personality and is still very cocky. Stacy is doing really well, I like her. Ron really went spicy- too spicy. Dougy is funny- I really like him, glad he was our 1st pick! Katsuji went too complex and insane. Keriann was put off by the comments, thought she would have done better too. James meh, unmemorable. Melissa did well but not stand-out. Mei did great- judges really liked her's. Katie did her broccoli salad which was more of a side dish. Micheal's was too fishy and not enough heat. Greg did a good job riding the line of love/hate. Aaron ran out of food and had to give Padma all fat- BAD!
The judges asked to see everyone- that is interesting and new! I thought maybe they would keep them all...
On Top: Doug, Mei & Greg! They all did a great job and took risk. The Winner is Mei!!!
In the bottom we have Katie, Michael & Katsuji. Unfortunately for Michael it was him, fortunately for Pickley that was our hope!!! Woot!
Yay our evil plan worked! Okay, so we didn't actually choose terrible, sore loser Michael, but had we been given the choice, picking him in the dreg round is probably a sound strategy in this pool. Cut your dead weight early before it drags you down, like the prolonged, slow death of Katsuji will be for LCE.
ReplyDeleteEvery time Joy came on screen this episode I chanted "be the next carla!" I hope she stays true to herself & doesn't get intimidated by the other chefs.
Gonna be a good season!
Wow, pretty impressive that the top 3 picks in the draft were the 3 chefs with the best dishes in episode 1. Well done BOCO Top Chef Pool!
ReplyDeleteGlad they cut two chefs in episode 1. Let's get down to business! Still lots of thinning out to do on this crop of cheftestants.
Pickely is lucky to drop Michael so early - especially since you didn't actually 'pick' him. It's pretty freaking stupid to have your guests pour their own soup into a plastic bowl at an outdoor festival. Where do you think you are sir? Gone.
I have a feeling new judge Richard is going to be very critical of the dishes. He also kind of slow rolls them with an "Oh, we need to talk about _____." But, so far, every time it's been like, "Yeah, this is a bad idea." Haha.
Not only is it impressive that the top 3 picks were the top 3 Chefs and look to be the early front runners, the bottom 2 picks are both gone this first episode. So far the pool is batting 1000. Nice work everyone.
ReplyDeleteWe were very happy to "trim the fat" off our team and not have George pulling us down with negative points. Lean and mean moving forward hopefully.
I'm pretty worried that Doug is "the beast" that they keep referencing in the previews. Hopefully the rest of Pickly's team ends up being duds.
Richard is a tough judge, and is kind of a dick so far. No "oven mitts" on his judgment so far. The reactions of the contestants faces are pretty priceless though.
Can't wait to watch more of Katsuji. For some reason clown music plays in my head when he is on the screen. Fitting that he is on le chefre.
We'll have a team name to you hopefully before next episode.
I think you secretly WANT Doug to the be "the beast" so that you can hear us all saying "Doug's a beast, Doug's a beast" all season long. :) Nice try.
ReplyDeleteDougs being beasts is fairly standard. Except Dealin' Doug. Screw that guy.
ReplyDeleteSo we landed on a team name. Our name should now work with future seasons and isn't tied to a current event, so you don't have to change it each season. We will be Team: Victory, Deconstructed.
ReplyDeleteCoolio.