Top Chef: To El(k!) With It

Well, hello. It's been a while. Check out my blog for last week's Top Chef recap.

We're at the semifinals in Aspen. We have some lovely shots of mountains, smoky streams, and....AGH!...my retinas explode.

Malarkey is sporting a totally loud argyle sweater. Seriously, that sweater is loud. Talk to the sweater, people. He is, however, sans hat which is good because my poor nerves can only take so much. Dale, by the way, is in a heartburn-inducing combo of lime green and banana yellow.

We have our gratuitous sponsored car-porn shot, and then we come upon a hot air balloon! The chefs are taken aboard, plied with Champers (clearly a sponsor) and taken to a secluded mountain area. I also like to be plied with champers when I fly.

On the trip over we have some dramatic voice-overing from our "Queen for a Day" Cheftestants, who tell us some sad/inspirational back stories. Apparently before Dale signed up for Top Chef, he'd just gotten dumped, his restaurant closed, etc. Then, Dale went to Jamaica, hooked up with Taye Diggs and got his groove back.

So the Chefs land in the mountain valley by a gorgeous stream, and standing there is some hag (in comparison) to... BE STILL MY HEART! ERIC RIPERT! The man is gorgeous. And he's a famous famous chef. Chef of Le Bernadin, a 4 star NY Times restaurant. I'd say he's right up there as one of the most prestigious chefs on this show - with Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulod. But, who cares about his silly puttering around the kitchen? I'm here to objectify him. The man's a dreamboat. Better than Tre. Better than Tom. Gorgeous! Ah, French men. I'll be in Paris from Oct. 13th-20th. Eric, email me.

The quickfire challenge is to make a trout dish with fresh, uncleaned trout. They have 20 minutes, a little campfire to cook over, a frying pan, and a few pantry ingredients.

Hung makes a fillet of trout 'dusted' with curry. He finishes with 7 minutes to spare and sort of sits there, forgetting to put on his lemon sauce. He remembers this right before judging.

Malarkey makes trout cooked in rendered bacon fat, trout eggs, red pepper, brown butter and probably a panoply of other ingredients including a caramelized kitchen sink. Casey makes a trout fillet with crisped skin.

Dale makes a fillet of trout with cayenne, bacon, apple and fennel.

Malarkey doesn't do that well, and he says that "when chefs consider seafood they don't consider trout seafood at all." Um?

Eric loves Casey's and Hung's the most. He says that Hung was "very precise" but Casey's "has a soul." Blech. That seems to fit into our storyline of Hung as the Robot and Casey as the heart and soul of cookery (which is how they get around the fact that she can't cut onions).

But wait! Maybe he's NOT a robot. We get some more back-story from Hung about his Dad escaping from Vietnam -- Hung didn't even meet him until he was 9! Hung grew up cooking with his mother, sleeping in the kitchen, and learning so much from her. I actually tear up again -- which I suppose is no great feat since I cry during cotton commercials -- when Travis interrupts saying, "He's very precise with his well-placed sob story." Cynics!

Elimination!

The challenge is to create a dish, on a ranch, to appeal to some rodeo riders. Eh. Basically it's just cooking I think. Casey, as the winner of the quickfire, can use some of the ingredients she brought from home in the finale.

Hung is perplexed as to what cowboys and cowgirls (cow people to you) will eat: "Baked beans and baked beans and baked beans?" he asks, dramatically, as if he were saying "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

Dale remarks that he's never cooked for cowboys but he's "slept with a few." Ah, the age of over-sharing. Unless you slept with Tre, I don't need to know.

So the "protein" is going to be Elk. Apparently Elk is extremely lean and strong in flavor. Almost gamey. Dale says that "understanding the ins and outs of those kind of meats, I'm in a good place." He also talks about his 'saucework.' Seriously, after his comment last week about people being able to tell if the chef got "laid" from tasting the main course, everything he says sounds dirty to me.

Malarkey is attempting to do a 3 hour braise of the Elk meat (Dale thinks Elk would need more like 10 since it's so lean.) Malarkey wants to "put everything into this one dish." Uh oh, classic Malarkey. Hung is doing a seared Elk (bold!) saying that "cooking for cowboys and cowgirls does not mean anything to me. I'm going to cook great tasting food for the judges." See, now if someone else did this, they'd say the chef was staying true to their vision -- with Hung, I bet they see this as a weakness.

I actually shriek with excitement when the "cow people" show up. I'm expecting some dashing, rugged cowboys until I see it's just a lot of old people in matching, frilly outfits. They're probably all from New York. Ugh. Padma hits the triangle and the cowpokes pour in for dinner. Or, as we say, CHOW!

Casey, working her "down home" accent harder than a miniature pony at a children's birthday party, drawls, "Y'all come on in!" Mad Hatter Malarkey is also working the folksy angle, wearing an enormous, creamy, 10-gallon cowboy hat. Malarkey is making something called "Honkey Tonk Whiskey River Drunken Elk." Of course he is.

JUDGING!

There were no huge flops. The Judges (Tom, Gail, Eric and Padma) liked everything, except Malarkey's. Although Malarkey's wasn't a flop so much as unfocused. Still, I'm pretty sure he's going home, because Dale also had a "carnival" on his plate, but they really loved his.

Eric Ripert praises Hung's dish as "technically perfect, but his flavors were almost too controlled." What do they want Hung to do? Go to Jamaica and get his groove back? Cook drunk? Cook sloppy? Cry?

Malarkey is getting criticism for his totally overloaded plate - the fact that he then topped this dish with a choice between two cheeses "put it over the edge" for Padma. Eric Ripert also finds this very wrong: later he goes on about the wrongness of letting the diner have a choice which I do think is funny of him -- wasn't Tom Colicchio's Craft known for that at first? Until they ditched the idea because diners didn't want a choice?

Casey is getting some criticism for turning out some very, very rare Elk, but Eric Ripert is loving her smoky tomato butter.

Tom says to Hung, "You are technically the best chef up here." !!!

Interesting slip, Tom. A producer off camera stares daggers at Tom. Tom continues. "TECHNICALLY. But we don't see that in the food. Somewhere we need to see Hung." What's this mean? He has to cook Vietnamese food just because he is from there? Please. Hung fervently swears that if they send him to the finals, he can prove himself.

Malarkey's fate is not looking good. Padma jokes, "Brian, is there anything in the pantry that you didn't put on the plate?"

Then, in order to make the decision, the judges ask each chef to tell them why they should go. Basically, they're being put on the spot for some emoting. Give it to us! American demands a grossly emotional display of personal back stories!

Dale gives it up first, talking about how before he started Top Chef he was in one of the top 20 restaurants in the country, when the owner retired and it fell apart. It "slipped through his fingers...I fell apart...I entered this to find myself again...I have been reborn...now I'm a chef again." Who knew!?

Casey gives it up next. "I bust my ass to make my restaurants the best...coolest, cleanest" (huh?) " to be..I'm a young chef..." Tom looks emotional. Tom, you bear icon. Who knew?!

Hung emotes with the best of them: "I cook with so much love and I get that from my mother. I grew up in the kitchen. Sleeping in the kitchen! I don't see myself doing anything else in the whole world! My mother, my aunts, my cousins, everyone in my whole bloodline is in this industry. This is what I love to do. For the love of food." Who knew?!

Malarkey is the least compelling. Something about how "I've cooked for cowboys, everyone under the sun, but I haven't cooked MY FOOD." Really?

The winner? Dale.

Brian, please pack your knives (and hats) and go.

Brian says (paraphrased): "I've enjoyed the entire ride. I've cooked great dishes. I was a little cutting edge and maybe a little ahead of my time."

(huh? He was? I didn't notice him being particularly innovative?) But as much as I've mocked old Marlarks, I do like him. I kind of think he should be in the final three. However, as a back-seat cook, I think maybe he should streamline his palate.

And then, Malarkey of the Fedora, Malarkey of the Newsie Cap, Malarkey of the Knit sleeping Cap, Malarkey of the billion gallon cowboy hat...Malarkey of the Toppers Gone Wrong, is gone.

Comments

[elevate]

just wanted to say that i love your blog.

[BUBBY]

Hung is not worthy of the title. He brags on himself all the damn time and in the end his food sucks. The presentations are mostly good but the food is not out of this world tasty. It takes more than presentation to have a successful restaurant. GO CASEY!!!

[animatedAlan1113]

I do love reading the Top Chef blog and would love to read your take on Project Runway. I think they've consciously made an effort not to make Hung the "villain" of this season because he ends up winning it. There's no real "baddie" this season (like season 1's Tiffanie and Stephen and season 2's Marcel). Everyone seems to get along. It's almost scary! Looking forward to your "super-sized" take on the "super-sized" finale!

[Wilsonfisk89]

I think Hung deserves it. He is consistently exciting and progressive, as well as "refined." So what if he's a little brash? He has serious skills to back it up. Casey seems to be a decent chef, but TOP chef material? Im not sure. Dale is also pretty fun and original. But, I'm rooting for Hung.
This episode was a sort of sub-par as Part One of the Finale. The gimmicky and ultimatly silly quickfire, serving catering to cow-poke, etc. Its as if it should have been swapped with the previous one in which the chefs had to impress the "Last Supper" of French master chefs. That was en exciting episode in which each chef was able to "Show themselves" in their cooking. And Im glad Sara M got the boot, I never felt right seeing her stick around with Howie gone.
And seriously, Ted over Gail any day of the week!
Great Post as always, do stick around for Runway.

[JaneMcGivney]

Agree with you 100% - last week's challenge was pretty exciting, seeing what they could do with just a chicken and an onion and a potato.

My take on Hung (although yes, I'm biased - I think he's more socially awkward than evil) forgetting the lemon sauce was that he was nervous around Eric Ripert. Remember the scene in the elimination where he was talking to Ripert about the food? He seemed SO NERVOUS.

[Philippa]

For the first time three chefs will be competing at the finale. Hmmmnnn...

Hung definitely has the knowledge and skills of a Top Chef, but his over confidence could be his downfall. Imagine, no lemon sauce with 7 minutes to spare! He could have made a pitcher in that amount of time.

Casey has been consistent all throughout. She still leads with the most wins.

Dale got his first elimination challenge win. At the first part of the finale! Wouldn't it be absolutely stunning if he wins the title?

[ceu]

I liked Brian - hats & all. (the sweater, not so much)

"ERIC RIPERT! The man is gorgeous" Huh? You're serious, aren't you? Gorgeous? With that sneer? (halfway thru the show I realized it was not a put-on - it was his normal expression!) Ewwww!

And, Jane - what's up with your personal blog? The last two entries that I checked appeared to be truncated, although it's possible that you got tired of writing before you recapped the end of the show.... At any rate, thanks so much for blogging about Top Chef this season. Your writing is delightful & I've looked forward to Thursday mornings so that I could read your observations.
Any chance you'll be following Project Runway??

[JaneMcGivney]

Hmm, thanks for pointing that out - there's something weird going on there where my archives also aren't showing up either. I'll fix that tonight!

As for Project Runway, I'm definitely thinking I might...

[Philippa]

Please do. I'm sure I'll enjoy that as much as your Top Chef blogs.

[JaneMcGivney]

Thank you! I was here silently all week...CURSING GOSSIP GIRLS for usurping my Top Chef post. You can always check my personal blog for posts if my recap hasn't appeared for a few days.

However...can you believe next week is the end?

I will miss Top Chef!

[OtayPanky]

The end of what?

[OtayPanky]

Jane McGivney: Well, hello. It's been a while.

===

OMG, it's so good to see you again.

We've missed you SOOOOO much.