Bravo's Top Chef Season 2

[coquus]

Very interesting interview with Emily.

Exposes some of the behind-the-scenes stuff in the show.  Take it with a grain of salt, though.

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I like the pun, but I don't think it has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's perfectly seasoned.

Which leads me to my biggest problem with this show, the judges sitting down with the firemen was the biggest example yet of them influencing the guest judges. And that F&W girl, I could care less what she has to say about anything. I would gladly accept Mrs. Joel back if I didn't have to see her anymore. I think the only thing that made me loathe Mrs. Joel so much last season was how much she looked like the F&Whine girl.

A few misc. thoughts about last episode.

It was so fitting that Betty get's put on the Friday's menu, that what she's all about.

I'm convinced that keeping what's his steak with the crappy attitude was the fact he worked at Friday's once. It was knee jerk for Tom to kick Emily off. I think her dish was the only one of the bottom three that could have been rectified to the Friday's menu with a simple salt fix. It's too bad she had to go down, she was hilarious during the ice cream challenge. The judges were complete asses this week.

Cliff's never having made ice cream before really brings him down a few notches in my book. But still well above the average competition.

[BryanZ]

Yeah, there's not much to say about this episode besdies the fact that it was kind of unfullfiling. Stupid judges, stupid challenge, Chef Collichio's heinous leopard print shirt.

Did anyone catch what Elia said to Marcel about her work at Mansion or L'Atelier, I missed it? I personally think they should get it on.

[Swicks]

Did anyone catch what Elia said to Marcel about her work at Mansion or L'Atelier, I missed it?  I personally think they should get it on.

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I heard that, I thought she said she was one of the sous' for the opening of L'Atelier. But now she is the room service cook, that seems wierd to me.

I don't know the exact heirarchy of the Robuchon restaurants but I find it interesting that Marcel is listed as a "master chef". Do all the cooks, sous, line, whatever, have this title if they work at JR at the Mansion? He seems young...but then again, what do I know?

[laurelm]

After listening to the interview on Chow.com with Emily it is

clear to me what a sniveling bitch she is.

Emily takes no, that is zero responsibility for her food.

ITA, the whole interview was a litany of excuses.

The entire group of contestants all had the same disavantages. It is called a competition, the show is not about giving ideal situations to cook. Working in a kitchen can lead to tons of suprises, it is better to see work under pressure.

[BryanZ]

Did anyone catch what Elia said to Marcel about her work at Mansion or L'Atelier, I missed it?  I personally think they should get it on.

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I heard that, I thought she said she was one of the sous' for the opening of L'Atelier. But now she is the room service cook, that seems wierd to me.

I don't know the exact heirarchy of the Robuchon restaurants but I find it interesting that Marcel is listed as a "master chef". Do all the cooks, sous, line, whatever, have this title if they work at JR at the Mansion? He seems young...but then again, what do I know?

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Yeah, I thought I heard that, too. And yeah, that doesn't seem to make sense from the perspective of Elia's career. But perhaps she worked at L'Atelier and knew Marcel from the Mansion?

[robert40]

Something that caught my eye was how Marcel's frog leg dish looked very similar in its presentation to the one served at L'Atelier.

Thought nothing of it at the time to this week when out he came with mashed potatoes. Seriously influenced by Robuchon or what?

[johnsmith45678]

I've watched the first three episodes and think I like it. I watched some of last season's episodes and didn't care for it.

Marcel obviously has a Wolverine wannabe fanboy complex. I think he's pompous and annoying too. But I admire/respect/like him a bit. edit - actually I take that back - his frog legs lolly pops, avocado & bacon ice creams, and uncooked soggy onion rings were all horrible.

I don't like the tattle-tale pastry chef chick.

I think I like Sam to win.

Good riddance to Emily, who was too snobby ("I only cook high-end food.")

I wish Suyai had stuck around for at least a few more episodes.

Ilan seems like he might be a contender.

The rest of the group seems okay -- wouldn't mind hangin' with them.

Ming Tsai was good. TGIF -- ho' hum. Looking forward to Ripert. Hopefully Bourdain's not all schtick.

I'll be watching, unlike last season (whose winner seemed rather stiff).

Edited November 4, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[scordelia]

What was that mushroom forest Frank made? 

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I think he has childhood memories of H.R. Puffinstuff.

[Ling]

Thought nothing of it at the time to this week when out he came with mashed potatoes. Seriously influenced by Robuchon or what?

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That's what I thought when I saw his dish, but the potato recipe posted on Bravo is very different from the Robuchon potatoes.

[Nathan P.]

Something that caught my eye was how Marcel's frog leg dish looked very similar in its presentation to the one served at L'Atelier.

Thought nothing of it at the time to this week when out he came with mashed potatoes. Seriously influenced by Robuchon or what?

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Isn't the recipe generaly credited to Bernard Loiseau as a nouvelle update on a classic? Looks like Marcel missed the multiple garlic blanche steps based on the judges comments.

Loiseau's Recipe from Great Chefs

I thought Elia said that Marcel worked for her but perhaps his hair was still confusing me too much to listen closely. I'm finding the show a bit less entertaining than last years but it may just be that its harder to follow and love/hate the characters until they narrow it down to a smaller group.

[Tess]

I thought Elia said that Marcel worked for her but perhaps his hair was still confusing me too much to listen closely. 

She said they worked together to open L'Atelier.

[Kim Shook]

I haven't seen much this season - not terribly interesting what I've caught. But I saw the end of the TGIF show tonight. WTF? Fridays? Top Chef? I hate this freaking show. It is so stupid. The judges, the contestants, the challenges - the whole deal is so stupid.

[orangeman747]

Tonight's episode was the worst one I have ever seen:

(1) the quickfire was just stupid, it was a great idea for a quickfire, and that woman seemed to be a good chef, but they just totally messed up with that stupid vending machine thing....

(2) I don't want to watch professional chefs make food for kids any more! Especially when they can only make bad, dried out food under 500 cal! Let these cooks actually COOK!

(3) Bravo obviously wanted the drama of the cheating (hint who do you think put those squirt bottles of olive oil there?) and if they had in fact wanted people to play by the rules they would have just had the nutritionist come back the next day!

(4) the point of this show is that someone goes home each week! the reason no one went home was because Bravo wants to extend the show another week....

i loved the first season of this show, but unless they start coming up with some good challenges, this season is really bad!

[Lochina]

I agree that it's just stupid to have two challenges that involve cooking for children. Especially for two weeks in a row!

[Grub]

As bad as last week's show was, they easily outdid themselves this time...

I would like to walk away away from a cooking show with some kind of inspiration, or knowledge. I've never cooked anything that was shown on the original Iron Chef, but damnit, I felt hyped up to cook SOMETHING, after seeing those geniuses at work.

The only think I have gleaned from this season is that human beings are shifty, cowardly, backstabing hypocrites and should be avoided at all cost. And that's just the contestants -- the Bravo staff must be truly bad people.

Quickfire: cooking out of a vending machine -- gimme a freaking break. Is this to placate the retard viewers who got upset with the "snobbery" from the contestants who thought TGIF was too lowbrow for a Top Chef challenge? Maybe next week's contest will involve the culinary challenge of figuring out which Taco Bell hot sauce goes best with what burrito? What a fucking idiot challenge.

As if the challenge wasn't idiotic enough on its own, the vending machine ran out of items. Of course, this happened to Michael. I can't quite blame him for not taking the challenge seriously -- except that he's been browbeat mercilessly for not taking the competition seriously... I dunno about that dude -- he doesn't come across as Stephen Hawkins, but damn, he's gotta be real dumb to do that -- or else maybe he really doesn't give a damn... But then again, after the main challenge, Tom went after Michael's team for even allowing him to present the menu to the kids -- I think that was a good choice; Michael is a goofy, child-like guy. Maybe he dated Tom's daughter at some point?

Main Challenge: Bite me. I mean, kiss my ass. Cooking for kids AGAIN? At least they let the contestants KNOW that they were cooking for kids, I guess that was a saving graze.

But what the hell happened to those high ethical standards they made so much hoopla about during the Lychee thing? Betty's addition of sugar to her cookie recipe the next day was a helluva bigger deal... The way she tried to weasel her way out of it was depressing. One moment, she's ripping the flesh off of Marcel's face and the next, she's kissing him -- then she starts crying when she gets caught cheating. Creepy Oompa-Loompa hosebeast.

I don't know who it was that spoke up about the use of oil, but to only speak up about it once you're called in as the losing team -- and then to try claim the moral high ground by refusing to say WHO had done these things, was completely spineless and pathetic.

Bravo had the footage -- they knew who did what. That they decided to not send anyone home is the absolute most surefire example of the production staff manipulating the competition. Sad.

[Kim Shook]

As bad as last week's show was, they easily outdid themselves this time...

I would like to walk away away from a cooking show with some kind of inspiration, or knowledge. I've never cooked anything that was shown on the original Iron Chef, but damnit, I felt hyped up to cook SOMETHING, after seeing those geniuses at work.

The only think I have gleaned from this season is that human beings are shifty, cowardly, backstabing hypocrites and should be avoided at all cost. And that's just the contestants -- the Bravo staff must be truly bad people.

Quickfire: cooking out of a vending machine -- gimme a freaking break. Is this to placate the retard viewers who got upset with the "snobbery" from the contestants who thought TGIF was too lowbrow for a Top Chef challenge? Maybe next week's contest will involve the culinary challenge of figuring out which Taco Bell hot sauce goes best with what burrito? What a fucking idiot challenge.

As if the challenge wasn't idiotic enough on its own, the vending machine ran out of items. Of course, this happened to Michael. I can't quite blame him for not taking the challenge seriously -- except that he's been browbeat mercilessly for not taking the competition seriously... I dunno about that dude -- he doesn't come across as Stephen Hawkins, but damn, he's gotta be real dumb to do that -- or else maybe he really doesn't give a damn... But then again, after the main challenge, Tom went after Michael's team for even allowing him to present the menu to the kids -- I think that was a good choice; Michael is a goofy, child-like guy. Maybe he dated Tom's daughter at some point?

Main Challenge: Bite me. I mean, kiss my ass. Cooking for kids AGAIN? At least they let the contestants KNOW that they were cooking for kids, I guess that was a saving graze.

But what the hell happened to those high ethical standards they made so much hoopla about during the Lychee thing? Betty's addition of sugar to her cookie recipe the next day was a helluva bigger deal... The way she tried to weasel her way out of it was depressing. One moment, she's ripping the flesh off of Marcel's face and the next, she's kissing him -- then she starts crying when she gets caught cheating. Creepy Oompa-Loompa hosebeast. 

I don't know who it was that spoke up about the use of oil, but to only speak up about it once you're called in as the losing team -- and then to try claim the moral high ground by refusing to say WHO had done these things, was completely spineless and pathetic.

Bravo had the footage -- they knew who did what. That they decided to not send anyone home is the absolute most surefire example of the production staff manipulating the competition. Sad.

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Yeah. That's what I meant to say instead of the babbling found in my above post.

[Swicks]

Ditto everyone...just dumb challenges.

That quickfire challenge had so much potential. The results were still impressive though.

Suzanne Goins is an amazing chef, both her places in LA are excellent and very highly regarded.

[Dave Weinstein]

I wasn't particularly surprised by the challenges, nor did I think they were stupid.

A number of things about the competition are (to me at least) fairly clear:

1. The competitors are going to be forced outside of their comfort zone by limiting ingredient options or mismatching the ingredients and what would normally be expected

2. The competitors are going to be forced outside of their comfort zone by being required to cook to target audiences and guidelines that they would not normally chose to do. It is clear that the judges are looking for a Top Chef who can handle a wide range of types of cooking (for example, previous challenges on street food) even though many or most are not going to range that widely during their professional careers.

3. The less constrained challenges and the greater range of ingredients are "earned" by appearing later in the competition. Would the quality and breadth of the ingredients available in the final challenge have been as interesting if the competitors had had the chance to work with them whenever they wanted during the entire season?

In short, if you want to be able to use top ingredients and aim for fine dining, you had best be able to handle the strongly limited challenges early on. So this challenge didn't bother me, and I thought the Quickfire was really interesting.

That being said, I would have sent Betty home. Then again, I would have sent both Marisa and Otto home in the earlier challenge, so I'd be on track to a short season...

Oh. And if you aren't willing to actually make the full accusation, don't even bring the issue up. Accusing "someone" of cheating is meaningless.

[lcdm]

I don't know, I sort of liked the challanges. Making something out of a vending machine - some of the dishes were really imaginative; although I didn't like that the last couple people got scraps. I thought the glucose challange was a good one also, it really surprised me that some of the contestants had no idea how many calories were in what. Colicchio bought up an interesting point when he was in the kitchen, he asked one team why would a kid want a fruit drink when they could have fudge cake? One of the team members said because they are watching their weight and they should get used to it (or something like that). Even though the kids are on diets they should have access to things that taste good.

[annecros]

Betty should have gone home, IMO, following the Otto precedent. I don't think Betty committed less of a sin than Otto, and considering that this was "Camp Glucose" and I do know that at least one child was diabetic, it really should have been driven home the issues a "little bit" of sugar could have introduced into the situation.

I liked the challenges. As a chef, who knows when you are going to get that diner in a party of 20 for a special event, that has some dietary restrictions that are health related and reasonable to accomidate with a bit of knowledge. I was also appalled at the ignorance of the contestants concerning calories and sugar content of ingredients. As one opined, you may as well use butter in some circumstances rather than olive oil, depending on the situation. The vending machine challenge actually produced some interesting solutions.

[ken T]

The whole crap about testing the "range" of a Top Chef is ridiculous....cooking from vending machine ingredients....give me a break. Just put some quality ingredients in a basket and ask them to do the same thing. Can we please cook for someone other than kids? Is the prize being given your own TGIF franchise? Betty being given a pass proves the producers have a big say (just as they advertise in the disclaimer) who stays and who goes....you can't justify it given what happened with Otto. I really feel sorry for Tom as he is a Chef to look up to but this stuff lessens his credibility in my eyes when you're pretending this is actually a serious competition.

[Brad K.]

I had no problem with the challenges - think out of the box, be creative. (In fact, I recall a passage in Buford's book Heat in which Andy Nusser decided to become a chef after he saw Mario Batali make a sauce for foie gras out of melted Starburst candies!).

I did have a problem with chefs totally disregarding the special dietary needs of KIDS!!! Is there a special level of Hell devoted to this? Do these same chefs add peanuts into a dish for someone deathly allergic to nuts??

I'm also so disapointed with the show - that sucked last night! Umm, let's see, give the judges access to the tapes and see who cheated?

[BryanZ]

I thought the disclaimer said the opposite, that production staff does not play a role in deciding who goes.

In any case, that's the way it should be, and under that assumption the fact that the production crew had the footage of Betty cheating is irrelevant. The judes have to judge based on what they see in competition and are told by the competitors. Given that there could have been cheating by a number of individuals on all teams I don't necessarily blame the judges for not sending anyone home. Doing so would have only perpetuated the idea that cheating is acceptable if you can get away with it (as Betty seems to have done).

In regards to the Otto situation, you have to keep in the mind that he took himself out and that the "cheating" was limited to one team. In that case, the "cheating" team lost anyway so the judges could eliminate someone with minimal ethical controversy. This was not the case in this week's episode so, again, I stand by their decision.

I'm not sure I agree with those of you who are critcizing Sam for speaking up but not pointing fingers. The judges clearly had no idea this was going on and were better of for being informed of it. At the same time, Sam did not have to single out any individuals by any means and in doing so possibly increased his chance of being sent home.

[Dave Weinstein]

Betty being given a pass proves the producers have a big say (just as they advertise in the disclaimer) who stays and who goes....you can't justify it given what happened with Otto.

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Actually, if you recall, Tom was going to let Otto stay as long as he admitted his mistake. Otto chose to withdraw.

[tammylc]

I'm also so disapointed with the show - that sucked last night!  Umm, let's see, give the judges access to the tapes and see who cheated?

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According to the Bravo blogs, the cameras didn't catch any evidence of the alleged olive oil squirting.