Top Chef: It begins

Posted by Dan June 19th, 2007 at 03:16pm In Top Chef

Top Chef’s back. And since I need something to do to keep me off the streets, I’ve opted to recap this season. That said, I reserve the right to skip episodes without warning, phone it in with a three paragrapher or drop the venture entirely if I get tired. These aren’t threats — I’m just saying that this is free pop culture/comedy/time killing labor, so I can do what I want.

Lovely to see you too. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Padma’s back this season, so that gives her a sense of permanence within the series. She’s not a one seasoner (remember Katie Lee Joel? Yeah, me neither). She still has a strange demeanor — like the most sultry robot you’ve ever seen — but you can tell she knows food pretty well, she’s got opinions and her wardrobe will always entertain. Furthermore, ever since I became aware of it, I’ve now become fascinated with her scar.

This season they’ve moved the competition from L.A. to Miami and the impact so far is negligible.

People start arriving at the airport and the introduce themselves. Sara M. makes cheese and therefore wins my heart; Lia is from Brooklyn and that’s about it for her; Micah talks about how cooking is art and then says something about Michaelangelo; Howie’s big and bald and talks about how he’s not interested in socializing.

Clay describes himself as the “dark horse” because he didn’t go to culinary school and he’s from the south; we learn nothing about Sara N. the entire episode except that she’s foxy and she exists; Brian is also kind of hot and wears a soul patch and silly hat that make him seem like should be auditioning for Top Ska Band; Tre seems good-natured and has an embarassing tattoo down the inside of his forearm that reads “gottahavepassion.” Nonetheless, he is very proud of it — so I say god bless.

C.J. is distractingly tall and, in the biggest non sequitur of the episode says that he is a private chef because he is a cancer survivor (huh?). Much like my colorblindness has inspired my non-career of television blogging.

Dale is gay and has a mohawk. Sandee is gay and has a mohawk. It’s weird.

We’re not even halfway through the first episode and there are two contestants I’m already sick of. Number one is Joey who greets us with unexpected and unneeded hostility, dropping f-bombs left and right as he explains that he is Italian and from New York. Take every negative connotation of those two characteristics and there you have it. The second contestant is Hung, who describes himself as a “certified professional asshole.” We already know from the Season One Vs. Season Two Showdown that he’s friends with Marcel from season two (best known for his freestyle rapping and being socially maladjusted) — so that should speak volumes on its own.

The contestants meet and greet at a lavish buffet and soon enough Padma and Judge Tom emerge to welcome them. Tom starts off by emphasizing that he’s a judge and not a mentor — I’m guessing for two reasons. First, so people won’t think he’s Top Chef’s secondhand Tim Gunn and, second, it’s an excuse to not to be nice and supportive.

With that, Padma surprises the contestants with the announcement of the quickfire challenge (that’s Top Chef-speak for immunity challenge): to make an amuse bouche out of the ingredients in the buffet. An amuse bouche is something that rich people eat before they actually eat. It’s meant to be consumed in a single bite and tantalize the taste buds for the meal to come. (Fun fact: I considered calling this series Amuse Douches, but that seemed too negative. And inaccurate, considering that — unlike last season — the cast is populated by fairly likable folks. I’m sure that’ll change within a few episodes. So far I’m refraining from a sexy title until I come up with something I like. God forbid I end up with feature titles like “The Funk” and “The More You Know” — which I totally hate now, but am stuck with.)

They’ve got thirty minutes. Go.

The contestants start running and there is a mass panic. People are pushing. Sauces are prepared in champagne flutes. Sandee interviews that they are only allowed to use the disposable cutlery and she is seen desperately stabbing at a kumquat with a plastic knife.
In the end, Tom decrees that Tre, Dale and Clay are the bottom three. Clay, who clearly had no idea what an amuse bouche was, basically served a fruit cup in a hollowed-out Granny Smith apple and it was called gazpacho.

Let me say this about Clay — he is a dear. Goateed and possessing an adorable drawl, he’s the kind of guy you’d love to have living next door to your grandma so that he can trim her hedges once in a while or call the ambulance if she has a fall. That said, from what we see on this episode his culinary know-how is extremely limited.

Micah wins for a Tuscan Sushi Revisited — basically a ham and fig roll-up with some balsamic dressing. She’s happy and she wins immunity.

The class is dismissed and sent to the hotel where they will be living — called the Fountainebleu. It’s a very chic and attractive joint and the contestants are all very first-day-on-The-Real-World, jumping on couches and leaning off the balcony with their arms in a V. The drinkfest begins and Clay begins hemorrhaging insecurity about his dish at the challenge. No one has the heart to tell him they thought he had a shot in hell. He begins writing his own Top Chef epitaph by cracking jokes and saying that there will be no one to make them laugh when he’s gone.

It’s devastating.

Flash-forward to the immunity challenge. The contestants line up to face an array of proteins as Padma and Tom explain that the challenge this week is surf and turf with an array of fucked-up, disgusting meat — basically Jack Hannah’s House of Horrors. Alligator, eel, rattlesnake, sea urchin, kangaroo, geoduck (which is, disappointingly, pronounced gooey-duck. A duck made out of rocks would be awesomely reminiscent of a Ducktales villain) and more.

It’s really tremendously disgusting. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m not particularly adventurous when it comes to meat and the idea of eating rattlesnake makes me want to vomit until I’m inside-out.

Furthermore, we find out that this week’s guest judge is Anthony Bourdain. He’s famous among chefs for being a chef and author. Top Chef viewers might remember him as the dickish guest judge from last year’s Thanksgiving episode.

The contestants have thirty bucks and thirty minutes to shop for ingredients. Micah coddles a panic-stricken Clay. Joey says something obnoxious about how she shouldn’t try anything like that with him — as if he had anything to do with the situation.

Back at the kitchen, Sandee is injecting things into her frog legs, Clay is sweating profusely, Lia is chopping haphazardly chopping her boar ribs, and Howie, during the last seconds of the competition forgets to put the turf portion of the surf and turf on the plate.

Brian chose rattlesnake and eel, which sent me to the bathroom to vomit at least twenty times as he chopped it up and made it into what he calls “electric venom soup.” Hung makes a sauce out of innards.

Tre and Hung are top two and when Padma tells them the news they don’t crack a smile. To which she, in a refreshingly goofy display, exasperatedly tells them that it’s okay to smile. She says that winner of first challenge immunity challenge in seasons one and two went on to win the competition.

Although Hung’s dish looked pretty gross, like anemic luncheon meat, everyone says it was delicious and sophisticated. They say the same thing about Tre’s dish, except for the part about it looking gross. So Tre wins.

The prize for winning the competition is a pretty huge anti-climax, as Anthony gives Tre a messy pile of all his books in addition to a promise to get him completely drunk the next time they’re both in New York. It’s reminiscent of when you’re eight years old and its your parents’ birthdays. You don’t have any money so you give them handmade coupons for taking out the garbage and cleaning your room. Sweet enough, I guess, but it would be totally weird if Tre actually called him to take him up on the offer.

They send Hung and Tre to the kitchen to get the bottom four: Howie, Clay, Dale and Brian. They are charged with, respectively, forgetting half their dish, being technically incompetent, not knowing how to cook alligator and lack of nerve.

There’s the usual back-and-forth as the contestants try to put the best spin on their dishes and minimize the weaknesses. However, there is one glorious moment worth mentioning. At one point jerk judge Anthony asks Howie flat out “What is your major malfunction?” As if he is supposed to do something besides stumble and look like an ass as he tries to answer the question. Anthony specifies the question by asking why he would work so hard at perfecting the forgotten frog legs while neglecting the big picture of needing to have it on the plate in time to be served. Without missing a beat, Howie cites a anecdote from Anthony’s own book (something about Ecuadorian chefs) that perfectly refutes the accusatory question and therefore makes Anthony look like a bigger ass than he already did.

When all is said and done, however, there is really only one decision to be made. Howie’s dish was good, it was just incomplete. Brian’s was misguided and Dale was out of his element. Only Clay stood out as just not being able to cut it in the kitchen, so Padma gives him his walking papers.

He packs up in the Top Chef kitchen and heads back to Mississippi, presumably throwing stones in the crik the whole way there. Bye, Clay!