Restaurant Wars

We missed last week's episode of Top Chef, so here is my reaction: I CANNOT BELIEVE ANDREW WAS SENT HOME! He was my favorite from the beginning - well, him and Mark. And now they're both gone!

Onto this week.

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT DALE WENT HOME INSTEAD OF LISA! I REALLY REALLY REALLY THOUGHT LISA WAS GOING HOME.. She just sucks. Her sticky rice and laksa probably sucked so much because grease from her hair dripped into it. Ew. Dale wasn't my favorite person, but I thought his food seemed really good, he was a great chef, and I don't buy this sending people home because of leadership skills. Maybe that can be a factor when looking at two very comparable chefs who performed similarly. But when someone's food is sooo bad, you cannot send someone home because of leadership skills in a COOKING SHOW!

It was nice for Bourdain to be on. Maybe they're auditioning him to take over as judge for someone. I really like his show, No Reservations, but I don't get the chance to watch it too much.

The commercials. First, if you were an actor/ress, even if you couldn't find any other work, would you really be on an Arbor Mist commercial? Second, I am really sick of hearing about the Grand Pumbaa of Pasta. Enough. Glad - you get enough air time just on the show, can't you nix Erica?

It kind of seemed like Restaurant Wars was a bigger deal in other seasons than this one. Warehouse Kitchen seemed to have no difficulties or even criticisms from the judges, which is amazing. But I would really enjoy eating there - everything looked good! I may have to check out the recipes on bravo.com. And Stephanie got an amazing prize. A few episodes ago, Richard gave his pretty amazing prize to Stephanie (for no reason - it turns out that even though he admired her cake-baking skills, the judges thought the other team's cake tasted better). I think it would be only considerate for her to take him on her prize trip to Spain.

Til next week (unless I can muster something up to blog about before then),

D

Mal-Mal-Moo-Moo

A happy belated birthday to my sister Mallory, who turned 22 yesterday! Also, a con"grad"ulations to Mallory for graduating from college on May 11!

We have a picture of Mallory around somewhere, but thought we'd continue with tradition and post another picture of the cats in celebration instead.

I hear its not good...

Thanks to Jess Sum, our guest-blogger this week! Steve and I missed Top Chef last night, as we were at a party celebrating the end of my 1L year at law school! I'm sure we'll catch the ep at some point during the week - I'm pretty sure Bravo only has about three shows, and they just constantly re-run them to fill the schedule. So here is Jess' take on last night's Top Chef:

We all should have known it wasn't going to end well when one of the first shots included Richard climbing out of bed with the perfect faux-hawk and purple clogs in full display.

So the quick fire was hosted by "Tall, Dark, and Boring as Corrugated Cardboard" Sam from Season Two, AKA the season Steve, Desiree, and I all fell in love...with Top Chef. Salad? Salad! Padma, fighting a love-hate relationship with all things Botox, fights the power and informs the remaining seven contestants the challenge is the nebulous vegetable/fruit/???? presentation. Forty-five minutes is a ridonculous chunk of time, yet underdog Stephanie still fails to plate her artichoke chips. To sum up? Blais is a looooser and Spike is a weeeeiner. We've officially entered bizarro foodieville. Dead face, er, Padma informs the chefs that the challenge is a health one, where they must incorporate a whole wheat, lean protein, one fruit, and one veggie. The prize (Spike) consists of a 10 minute shopping advantage and the "I saw it first so it's MINE" rule: Anything he picks, no one else can have. Of course, our be-hatted Lame-poleon is in it to F--- it...so he elects BREAD, TOMATO, LETTUCE, and CHICKEN. If there were only some way to rearrange those letters to "Yeah, you're right, I'm the world's supreme d-bag. It's cool. Bartender?"

So, we're off. Our audience? The Chicago police force, a group of hard-working, well-deserving citizens. As a member of Kill-a-delphia, we love our boys in blue!! False Maki by Andrew (the allegeded nutrition expert), "DO YOU LIKE BURRITOS??" by Richard, grease-follicle rice with Lisa, and I-bought-every-standard-ingredient-I-could-think-of-to-f----over-my-competitors Spike and his "Pedestrian" lunch. With supremely subtle editing and pedamtic teasers, we often can call the ending twenty minutes into an episode. And thing would be an example.

I do not agree with the eliminaton. Rules certainly do exist, but garbage is what it is. Restaraunt Wars awaits us all.

Wedding Wars

Top Chef started with a little bit of mourning for our fallen hero, Mark the Kiwi. Then mean ol' Tom surprised the chefs at the quickfire...the dreaded relay prep race. I love monkfish, aka poor man's lobster, but man is that one ugly looking fish. So ugly that it's kind of pretty, actually. Dale's outburst at the end of the challenge reminded me of a time or two that I punched my locker in high school because I was pissed off about getting detention or something. Or the time a few months ago when I punched a door because Des was needling me.
Padma also disappointed by proclaiming a moratorium on Restaurant Wars for the season, in favor of Wedding Wars. Pretty bold move on the part of the bride and groom I guess, but a pretty lousy reward for winning the quickfire...the winning team got to choose whether to cater to the bride or the groom. Big deal. Were they given any clue as to which one had more challenging tastes or who would be most difficult to deal with? It didn't appear so. I don't see how that was such an 'important advantage' for the winners considering immunity was kaput.
The coolest part about Wedding Wars was the all-nighter the chefs were forced to endure, kind of like a spiritual journey inward, only less miles traversed. But a heck of a lot more food prepared. I'd like to try a brisket that was cooking for 24 hours, I bet it would fall apart when you tapped it with a fork.
Around 10:55 I remembered that this was an extra long episode, and the glass of wine I had with dinner had me feeling like I pulled an all-nighter...OK, maybe not really. But I'm ready for the judge's table.
So how about my main man Richard deferring the big win to Stephanie for her wedding cake heroics? Pretty classy move...maybe a little too classy. As it turned out, the judges liked the other team's cake better (not so much its look, but its flavor).
Dale and Spike got into a little spat at the judge's table, and I can't wait to read David Dust's description.
I personally didn't hate Nikki as much as everyone else seemed to, but I can definitely see why she deserved to go home. She didn't display the kind of leadership that a top chef needs to show. Yeah, pretty heavy stuff.