Top Chef DC – I Was THIS Close To Being Disgusted And Boycotting The Whole Thing Plus Girl Fight!

Top Chef DC – Cold War

Various chefs say they miss Timothy. I do too!

This week's Quickfire is totally weird and has nothing to do with anything. There are disgusting proteins on the table when the chefs come in. Then in walks Padma and Michelle Bernstein.

Wouldn’t it have been better to have Andrew Zimmern with all that funky stuff? Oh wait, they did that on Top Chef Masters. It didn’t particularly interest me then either.

The only funny thing is when Angelo picks Duck “White Kidneys” and Michelle tells him they’re actually Duck Testicles. Who knew?!! That ducks even HAD testicles, I mean. He decides to treat them like sweetbreads. I suppose that’s smart.

The other noteworthy thing is that Andrea is concerned that Michelle Bernstein is the judge. They compete in the Miami market and Andrea thinks the food in HER restaurant is every bit as good as Michelle's. Of course, Michelle is famous and Andrea is…a contestant on Top Chef.

For whatever reason (and I’m totally with Andrea that it wasn’t entirely food oriented), Michelle puts Andrea in the bottom of the Quickfire. Michelle delights in telling her that her boar needed to be cooked longer. She says twice, in a very patronizing way, that her sauce was wonderful BUT…there were problems with the meat.

Alex and Stephen are also in the bottom. Michelle likes Tamesha’s Duck Tongue, loves Amanda’s Llama and Kelly wins with her Emu Egg Omelet.

Oh, one more thing about the Quickfire. Halfway through or so, Padma comes in and barks to the chefs to step to the left and take over THAT protein. I hate that! It’s soooo pointless. But it was positively amazing what the chefs came up with. Many of them DO have quite developed culinary chops.

The Elimination Challenge is to make a cold dish. Big deal. Oh, the way it’s going to work could get ugly, and thus, exciting. They’re divided into two teams by knife pull.

Absolutely amazingly, Angelo and Kenny are on different teams. Why is that important? Because the chefs from team A will taste AND JUDGE the food from the chefs of team B and vice versa.

THEN they’ll vote on one chef from the other team to be a winner and one to be up for elimination. Obviously, Angelo will engineer it so that Kenny is up for elimination. And probably, Kenny will do the same to Angelo.

They go off on the USS Sequoia to plan their dishes. WHY are they going for a pointless boat ride? AND in their chef’s coats, although there’s no cooking going on.

We learn that JFK held important Cuban Missile Crisis meetings on the Sequoia and Kenny makes the point (to us) that the tension between Russia and US during the Cold War is reminiscent of the tension between the two chefs’ teams. He understands very well that Angelo’s team is going to try to get every advantage and vote him in the bottom, which is a perfect tactic. (There may a touch of hyperbole there, but I guess when you’ve been trapped in a house for weeks competing tirelessly, you’re allowed a bit of an overstatement.)

Ed, sounding weirdly slurred, says the other team of Tamesha, Tiffany, Angelo, Stephen and Andrea will be judging his food and he doesn’t “think there will be no personal attack” on him or his food. Poor English aside, why are his eyes dilated?

This is good. Amanda gives Alex a piece of her Chicken Galantine to try and he doesn’t tell her he tastes a bit of cartilage in there. Funny.

The judges and first group of cheftestants go into the dining room. Angelo’s team is tasting the other team’s food first.

Oy, back in the kitchen, Kevin isn’t that sure about his dish. Ed presents his dish to the judges as a Vichy-Sway. Why are people so dumb? Vichy-SWAZZZZZZZZZ. There’s an “E” on the end of Vichyssoise, so you have to pronounce the “S”. It’s a simple as that. I vote for ED to go home, because he can’t speak clearly or correctly and he looks a bit cross-eyed at the moment.

Tiffany and Angelo are being horrible about Kenny’s lamb. OH, COME ON!!! Angelo even uses the word slimy. They weren’t nice about Alex’s dish either, but not as bad as what they said about Kenny’s.

They move on to Amanda’s dish. Angelo actually holds it up and SMELLS IT and says Amanda’s Chicken Galantine wasn’t cold enough and he could taste it congealing on his tongue. Goodness! Is he going to describe how he’s digesting it too?

Tom looks appalled at their reactions. Luckily, he stands up for Kevin’s dish. Oh, I think Kevin will win. Padma asks about the least favorite. Angelo speaks up, of course. THIS IS APPALLING. WHO do you THINK he says? He says Kenny’s vision was convoluted. It’s pretty clear that HIS isn’t and he wants Kenny out now. PULEEZZZZZ.

Surprise, surprise, Kenny is up for elimination and Kevin is up for the win. I am sooooo tempted to fast forward and see what happens…but I won’t. I DO always read the ends of scary books, though, and I love to hear EXACTLY what happens at movies. I can’t relax if I’m worried about who is going to be offed. If I know the end in advance, I can enjoy the whole thing much more.

BUT here, I don’t want the outcome to color my view of what’s happening. Plus it’s fun to almost always guess wrong.

The second team is no way as horrible as the first. Let’s see what they say about Angelo’s. Kenny says the topping on Angelo’s fish overpowers the rest of the dish.

Padma asks first who is up for the win. Kevin says he prefers Angelo’s. SEE? He’s nice and not going for all this gamesmanship. Tiffany is also a favorite of the others. The least favorite? Even Kenny says Tamesha, so he’s not skewering Angelo at all costs.

It's Tamesha and Kenny up for elimination. Whew, I feel better. It’s obvious it will be Tamesha who goes home. It has to be. IF Kenny gets sent home, I'm boycotting Top Chef and going home too. Oh, I AM home...whatever.

In the stew room, Angelo actually says in front of Kenny that Kenny was his least favorite. Kenny is amazed, but takes it like the man that he is.

Kevin and Tiffany are called in and told they had the top dishes. I think Tiffany will win. And it’s…Kevin. Gosh, I AM bad at this! My local guy wins 6 nights at the Hilton Hawaiian village (including airfare, Padma adds. Duh!). He’s thrilled.

Kenny and Tamesha are called in.

If Kenny goes home, then I will eat my…I don’t know what, but I’ll be disgusted. It was soooooooooooo obvious that Angelo was spearheading a challenge.

Michelle is kind of witchy and tells Kenny that she didn’t enjoy ANY part of his dish.

OMG, ANOTHER commercial, promos, finally we’re back. Who’s going home?

It’s (it better be Tamesha)…so, WHO is it? Tamesha. WHOA, of course, it’s Tamesha. It couldn’t have been Kenny. Thank goodness, how could I ever have thought that it would be Kenny?

Tiffany says (to us) that Tamesha shouldn’t have let Angelo take so much control over her dish and Tamesha herself says that (to us). Whew, that was a close one. I need a drink(s).

Two interesting things on the Top Chef site:

In Tamesha’s exit interview, she says that when she saw Padma stroll into the dining room in high heels, she was absolutely awestruck. Well, actually, I couldn't understand a word she said, but that seemed to be the general sentiment.

And Eric does a video blog after each episode, which I usually skip because I have no patience for videos...after watching these episodes as closely as I do. But, I did watch this one.

(There was a transcript of his, unlike Tamesha’s. I guess that’s for folks who can’t stand videos like me or because his accent is a bit too strong.)

Anyway, Eric mirrored my remarks from the beginning of this post about Michelle. Describing Michelle’s treatment of Andrea, he makes a growling cat noise (or maybe it was the motion). I don’t like stereotypical portrayals of women’s dealings with each other usually, but I don’t think he was wrong. And, actually, even if Andrea had been a MALE chef from Miami, Michelle still might have peed on her (proverbially speaking) in a quest to establish Miamian dominance.