Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Top Chef goes to the Zoo!

Edits: For spelling and grammar because JSum is a nag.

Much jubilation in this camp as our kiwi favorite Mark won immunity during the quick-fire despite leaving his lettuce at the market. Maybe it was his sideburns. The quick fire challenge itself seemed a little uninspired this week. A visit to the farmers market had a lot of potential, but the rules limited each dish to five ingredients without any other guidelines to shape the outcome.
The chefs next faced a zoologically themed elimination challenge, which combined two of my favorite things, zoos and food. Teams of three were each given an unlikely animal totem (vultures, penguins) to emulate the diet as they catered hor doeuvres for the Chicago Zoo staff. I think Chef Collicio came up with the challenge concept considering his beaming inquiry of how the chefs enjoyed it.
Desiree's favorite spaz Andrew won the elimination challenge with a penguin-themed squid dish (although he got caught cheating during the quickfire). Somehow, an anchovy dish almost gave Mark his second victory of the episode, making converts of everyone's favorite judges, Padma and Gayle. (Well, they're my favorite judges.)
Valeri, who we didn't see or hear enough of to care much about, took the long hike after making blinis 24 hours ahead of service, but it looked like there were others just as worthy to go with her. It looks like tensions are beginning to build with some teams close to implosion by service time.
My early pick, Richard, had a lackluster performance (I had high hopes for the eucalyptus) even with a fellow student of molecular gastronomy as a guest judge. I still stand by my prognostication.

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive


S

4 comments:

Los said...

I gotta say, I'm surprised the girl who wore the blue glasses didn't get booted. She made a dish that looked like turds, and wasn't even being served at the zoo dinner. How didn't that get her kicked off? Plus, those blue glasses were enough to get her booted.

Steve and Des said...

Good point. And that brings up something that this season seems to be lacking...ready for prime time eye candy.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Steve, please spell and grammar check...the nationwide misuse of "their, they're, and there" is slowly killing me. I will allow the "anchovie" to pass, as you properly spelled both "eucalyptus" and "prognostication".

I thought the episode was pretty boring overall. Boo.

Anonymous said...

Mark looks like Hyde from That 70s Show. He needs some aviators!

JSum...got any left from that birthday party order that you can lend him?