Next Food Network Star – Season 4, Episode 2

The second episode of Season 4 begins with Robert Irvine, chef of Dinner Impossible waking the contestants at 3am, of course this means that this must have been filmed before Food Network found out about his forged resume and fired his butt, but that is another blog.  They pull colors and are teamed into teams of three, who will go on a food hunt, once at the location they will answer a food question, if they get it right they get an ingredient, if they get it wrong, they have to perform a food task. Humm, this might actually be good.  Once they make it through the food hunt, at the last stop, they find out that they will be making brunch for 30 people, plus the panel, on a train and will have to introduce their menu to the diners, oh and one last thing, all three indgredients that they picked up before must be featured in the menu.

Gray Team, this is Aaron, Adam and Jenn; they tended to run in the middle of the pack on this challenge, they got to the first location second, but got the question right, and they got their second question right, and on the third they had to perform a task, but still got to the trains first.  Their menu would be French Toast, Sunny Side up eggs and Steak.  Adam made the eggs, which were still raw, although Aaron told him more times than I want to count that they didn’t have time to fry eggs, Jenn made the bland french toast and Aaron made stask, which was called AWESOME.  For their presentation, Adam said they should do this “train robber” thing, where Aaron held back and came in at the last minute, Aaron didn’t want to being black and from NJ, but in the end they ended up doing a version of it, where Adam and Jenn cam out and said their thing and then Aaron burst out and introduced his awesome steak. At judging, the panel said they liked the presentation, and kudos to Aaron because he gave Adam credit for the idea, no backstabbing here.

Blue Team: This was Nipa, Shane and Lisa; you know I knew this team would bethe last ones out of the house, but I figured it would be Lisa getting all dolled up that put them behind, but it turned out to be Nipa. They got the first question right, the second right and the third wrong, but even after performing their task they still made it to the trains second. Their menu was more french toast, lamb kabob and a blue cheese and fig salad.  Shane did the salad and it was ok, a little over dressed and not original, but good. Nipa did the lamb kabob that was way too spicy for a brunch, and Lisa did a french toast that was wonderful. At judging, the panel mentioned that the plate looked disjointed and that Shane was way too fast (nervous) during his presentation and that Nipa didn’t seem engaged in the whole process, at which point she WALKED OUT of the judging!!

Green Team:  This was Kelsey, Kevin and Jeffery and they made it out of the house first, only to miss the first question and have to do a task and watch the other two teams race in front of them while they were doing it. They ended up making the train last, so they served last. Their menu was duck salad, bread pudding ( thank heavens it wasn’t another french toast) and a crustine with mozzeralla, fig and honey.  The judges felt the crustine was way too sweet, the bread pudding was tough and the duck was overcooked. They also felt there was a plating issue, which they didn’t hear about but Kevin put out 20 plates and told everyone it was 30 and they started plating only to realize that it wasn’t 30 and they they had to tear apart plates to make the 30. Also, the judges really questioned the “romantic cooking” theme that Kevin is trying to sell, they just don’t see it.

Okay in the end we find out that the winners will be featured in USA Today Weekend Magazine in the papers, and you know I am thinking that no team did well enough to win, when the judges announce that the winners are Aaaron and Lisa! What, here I was thinking it was a team win thing, and it was individuals! WOW! Anyway, I was surprised at Lisa but really glad about Aaron.

As to Nipa walking, she did come back in a apologize to the panel and the others, saying it was her anger, but I didn’t really see anger in her, in the end it came down to Nipa and Kevin and they let Kevin go, but they told Nipa she was on warning from the judges, because if a star had done what she did that would have been their last show.

Can’t wait for next week!! 

 

Top Chef Chicago – Restaurant Wars

Top Chef Chicago last night left a bitter taste in my mouth. One of the better cooks, in fact I had him down to be one of the final two, left last night and I am a little mad, to say the least. But that is putting the cart before the horse, let’s get down to business on the show last night.

For the Quickfire Challenge Tom takes the chefs to a place in Chicago that is famed for it’s breakfasts and tells the chefs they are going to work the egg station, and whichever one the owner would hire is the winner.  Some people were better at this than others, Anotina and Dale came in as the owners top picks, and I have to say, for watching them I agree. Antonia went first, was calm and collected and took care of the few orders we saw her do. Dale was calm and efficient and I thought, given that we saw him handle four orders shouted at him at one time, the better of the two, since we only saw Antonia handle one order at a time. But in the end, Antonia was choosen the winner.

Okay, now I need to saw that in the recent challenges she has stepped up and acted and cooked liek a chef, but in the beginning, she was a mess and I am surprised that she managed to stick it out this long. I still don’t like her, and her constant digs at Dale in almost every PI is driving me nuts, I mean, last night he was the Dale only cooks asian food, well no, I think we have seen other things from him too in this challenge, but that is his comfort zone, but why is that a negative and why do you need to bring it up every chance you get, does it make you feel better about yourself?

The Elimination Challenge was the Resturant Wars, but with only three to a team, hummmm this might be hard. Antonia, as winner gets to pick her team, and she picks Stephanie and Richard, no sirprise, in fact, even Dale said he would have picked the same two people, but I think if he had been with Richard and Stephanie he would have been so much better off.

Antonia, Richard and Stephaine picked a Gasto Pub concept and worked it to prefection, there wasn’t a single complant about anything they did.

Dale, Spike and Lisa….oh you knew there was trouble when this team was left. I mean really, can Lisa actually work with anyone? And what I hated even more, everything that we all say about her, how she has a negative attitude and is hardto work with, she goes into her PIs and says that Dale is that way, humm have you ever heard of the pot calling the kettle black, excuse me Lisa, but you are projecting your own shortcomings on Dale, fess up, you stink! Spike, decided to take the front of the house, and in the shopping trips he takes credit for being the one to pick all the decor and he just gets completely out of the kitchen, probably because he can’t cook and he knew that Lisa would hang herself. Dale made a bad choice in making the butterscotch something (shrimp or scallops), but Lisa screwed up a soup and a desert and then triedto blame the desert on Dale, because she had to make it because he was making his halo halo, excuse me, no one said you had to you could have made Spike do a desert.

Okay, so to judges table…Spike is called out on the table decor, the purple and sliver linens and instead of taking responsiblity for the choice he claims that they all chose them, to which Dale and Lisa roll their eyes. Dale takes responibility for his butterscotch mess, and doesn’t try to blame anyone. When Spike tries to take credit for the short ribs, Dale reminds him that it was Spikes receipe, but that Dale did the cooking while Spike was in the front. Lisa, where to start, she wanted to make a soup and then can’t flavor it to save her life, and to futher illistrate how poor a cook she is, she has no clue what to do that might fix it. Then the desert, another trip into yuck. She just really doesn’t have an idea, and she caleld out Dale, not in front of the judges but in the kitchen because he moved the rice and she said it wasn’t done, is someone always messing with her or is she just that bad of a cook.

The comments from the judges table were that Spike moved himself to the front of the house and avoided the conflicts. Dale should have stepped up more and pushed Lisa aside and fixed her messes, although I am not sure that would have went over in the kitchen too well, and that Lisa, well she is just bad and then she comes in with her arms crossed and Anthony Bourdinv (guest judges) said she is unwilling to take critism from the panel or anyone, and I almost thought they were going to go ahead and send her home, but they sent Dale and I was so mad!!! How could someone as stupid and negative as Lisa still be there and dale have to go home, he is a great chef, and I am sorry, but his attitude has never bothered me this season! I am so sad to see him leave, but from the previews, it looks like Lisa is again in her blame everyone for screwing with my dish form, so lets see what happens. Spike and Lisa need to go!!

 

 

Top Chef Chicago – Wedding Wars

Okay, so last night was a great night for Top Chef, two former challenges were revisited for tonight, so let’s get started.

Quickfire:
First off, the chefs are told that from this point on, there is no more immunity. Yep! About time! Then they divide into two teams, and I can see problems already. Team One is Richard, Andrew, Anotina and Stephanie. Team Two is Dale, Spike, Lisa and Niki (trouble in the making). So the challenge is the relay race, the frist person has to segment five oranges, the second cap two artichokes, the third clean and filet a munk fish and the fourth make mayo. Starting with the decisions on who does watch we see big problems for dale’s team, the girls haven’t made mayo by hand since school! UGH! None of them seem to have any idea how to do any of the tasks except Dale.
So the challenge starts and it is Lisa vs Antonia on the oranges, and Lisa wins and build a hugh lead, then comes Spike and Andrew on the artichokes, well, Spike not only loses Lisa’s big lead but ties with Andrew, third is Dale and Richard fileting the munk fish and it’s a tie, then we get Stephanie and Niki on mayo, and since Stephanie does this all the time she is a quick winner.
Now, Dale gets a little upset at losing and hits the lockers, and yes it was a little over the top, but if you watched them they were all jumping and cheering and the aderaline was flowing so I can understand it. Now Antonia’s PI the dale had a temper tatrum and needed his diaper changed was just WRONG! I wanted to climb through the tv and smack her, I mean really, isn’t that a little childish, well…the pot just called the kettle black, duh!

Elimnation Challenge:
This is going to be a take off the resturnat wars, only this time it is Wedding Wars, the winning team picks the Bride and does a buffet for 125 people, and the losing team gets to cater to the groom. Let’s start with the Bride’s Team.
So the Bride’s team mets with her and she wants meat and potatoes, southern food, so they do alot of meat and then Andrew revisits his chicken from the neighborhood challenge, with about the same bad results. Stephanie bangs out a great looking cake, but one that doesn’t taste that bad, but the groom’s cake actually ends up tasting better. Bride’s team wins, because most of their food is better, and Richard actually wins the challenge but he opts to give the win to Stephaine because she did the cake.
Groom’s team, well he wants italian food, which is Nikki’s specality, and she starts out really in the lead and talking about what to do and how to do it and all that, but about the time everyone starts asking her how to do something or what she wants, she backs off and tells them she is not the leader, make a decision. I think if she would have stepped up and been the leader she shoudl have been we would have had a different result. In the end, it seems like they all decided to make Dale the gunt, and have him do all the work and yet no one wanted to let him take the credit for it, yeah it was all half-cocked and not the greatest, but he had too much to do, and when he mentions it, espically Spike pawning the zucchini grilling off on him, it comes to light that there was no leader to say this is too much stuff, and Dale just wanted to do what he could so he just banged out everything that everyone else just left on the side, and although it wasn’t that good, he did it all because he knew if wouldn’t get done if he didn’t do it.
In the end, the judges called Spike out for not doing his part (pawning off the veggis and spending three hours on the fish….even if it was good, it wasn’t that good), Dale for trying to do too much, he should had stepped up and said it was too much and atried to get everyone to listen (although we know that would never have happened because Lisa and Niki and Spike all seem to have something against Dale, maybe the fact that between him and Richard they seem to win almost all the challenges and quickfires) and then Nikki was called out for being the person that had the experience to be the team leader, should have been the team leader, but who flaked on it and refused to be a leader. In the end they send Nikki home. Thank you!

You know, the call in asked “who annoys you more Lisa, Dale or Spike? Well, for some reason people picked Dale, but personally Lisa and Spike annoy me more than Dale. I think Dale knows he is a good cook and sometimes he comes across a little cocky, reminds me a little of a mix of Stephen and Harold from season one. He doesn’t annoy me at all. He wants to win and he is invested in this, but at the same time i don’t see him being mean to annoy.
Lisa annoys me the most! She is cocky and yet at the same time she doesn’t have the skills to back up the cockiness. She is in the bottom all the time and never has a clue as to why she is in the bottom, and she never listens to the judges and always tries to spin whatever they are saying. She needs to pack her knives and go asap.
Spike, well I was over him a long time ago, but since Lisa has annoyed me more than him and I have though he is fine, this week showed me that hi needs to go just as bad as Lisa. I would love for next week to be a double elimnation, Spike and Lisa pack your knives and go!! He is alot like Lisa, he has a little better skills than she does, so he is doing a little better in the challenges than her, but he thinks his way is the only way and he voices it all the time!

Looking forward to next week, and hoepfully we can say goodbye to Lisa and/or Spike! I still think it is between Dale and Richard as to who wins this, they are both just good and they work well together, although sometimes Dale can let others bring him down, but I am lookign forward to watching more of them.

Top Chef Chicago – April 23

Last night was Top Chef night, and boy did I need my Top Chef fix! It was great, in fact I even watched the re-run of it right after the original, two hours of Top Chef, what could be better? Well, blogging about it of course.

Okay, so the Quickfire Challenge is to make a dessert. Now to preface this challenge Padma even says if you have watched in the past you know that dessert has been the downfall of many a chef. So explain to me why we have people who have no idea what to do going into this? Antonia says she has never mae a dessert? Excuse me? Once you knew you were going to be on Top Chef, and espically her who said she practiced for the palette challenge, wouldn’t you be learning at least one or two desserts that you could do when the challenge came? Why are you not prepared? I was floored!

To be honest though, I was surprised, all the dishes were pretty well received. Antonia, Mark and Spike (or Andrew, they are beginning to look alike to me) were in the bottom. Dale, Richard and Lisa were in the top, with Richard winning for his Bananna Scallops. I actually thought his dish looked good and I would want to try it. I liked Dale’s too.

Elimination Challenge, after a trip to Second City they get a five course menu. The audience at Improv throw out a color, and feeling and a food, and that was what each course was to be. This time, they were allowed to pick their own teams, and so Richard and Dale teamed up, and I thought ok, this will be good. Those two cook alot alike and they get along well, so there can be nothing bad come out of this one, and I was right as they ended up winning for their “Green Preplexed Tofu”.

Andrew and Spike teamed up and made a squash soup, which during the PI’s Antonia says during the last team challenge he wanted to make soup and she said no, so if he wins with this she is going to throw up….Eat your words girl, he is a better chef than you, because he ended up in the top two, and Antonia was once again in the bottom. Andrew and Spike were “Yellow Vanilla Love” and they made a Squash soup with a Vanilla Creme Fresh. It actually looked good and the comments were all good.

Now that being said, and before I move on to the bottom two, I have to say that the comments from the judges and people eating the dinner, were once again all good. The food has stepped it up a notice, and even the bottom two were good dishes, so it came down to technicalities for the bottom two. This is awesome! i can’t remember a season where the quality of the dishes were this high throughout, where all the dishes were good, no on bombed and they have to knit-pick to get to the bottom. I loved it! I am so pumped for the rest of the season!

Antonia and Lisa teamed up and were suppose to make Polish sausage but they added a little Chrizo at the end to the dish instead. Okay, wait….you were given a theme, stick to it. And at the end, judges table, shut up and listen! I wanted to just smack Lisa, but then we all know she is not my favorite. She just wouldn’t listen to what they were saying. It was nuts.

Jen and Stephanie were in the bottom too, and I don’t think Jen understood that she was to listen to what they had to say either, she was surprised, well. Let’s just get to it, in the end they sent jen packing and you know what, I am not sorry. I would have been happy to see Jen, Lisa or Antonia either one go.

Now I just have to say about Lisa, wash your motuh out with soap girl! I am over it! Every time she opens her mouth it is f*&%ing this and f*&%ing that and I am tired of it! I know in the first episode they were all cursing, but once the nerves settled, you hardly ever hear any of them saying anything except when warranted, and then there is Lisa who adds it to every sentence whether it needs it or not. I am done with her, she is negative and doesn’t listen. Proven by last week when Dale told her her negative attitude was wearing on people, and she told him to f*&% himself, that right there is an example of the negative attitude, you can’t take criticism. I am more than ready to see her go home!

As to who I think might win this? It’s between Dale and Richard. They are hands down the best chefs out there this season, and they can cook circles around the others, proven by the fact that no matter who Dale is paired with he ends up in the top, and although Richard had the one bad turn in the bottom with Andrew and Mark, other than that he ends up in the top all the time too. I think it will be exciting to see them continue to cook and wow us throughout.

I think Mark might be in over his head, and I am wondering if he might be going home next week, he does pretty well in the team challenges, as he works well with people, as long as he is with someone strong, he is good, but by himself or with a weak teammate he falters.

Only time will tell…..