Watch What We Say: Top Chef

Episode 5

By Jason Lee

December 12, 2008

I really thought the dishes were good.

New at BOP:
Share & Save
Digg Button  
Print this column
The knife block is brought out and each chef draws a knife – we find that every knife has one of four words written on it: old, new, borrowed or blue. Okay, so we're cooking for a bridal shower and each team is a culinary theme based off of that famous wedding rhyme. But whose wedding is it?

DUM-DA-DA-DAAAAAAAA!!! Praise be to heaven, it's Gail! And although she always looks fantastic, her smile is even more radiant today. I love her. She looks so extremely excited about getting married. I instantly decide that I will hate whichever chef cooks a bad meal for her bridal shower as it would ruin the start of Gail's wedding week.

The chefs confer within their team (there are four teams of three) to decide on their dish. Jeff, Stefan and Hosea (who has immunity) have the theme of "old" and decide on a trio of tomatoes, using Heirloom tomatoes (which are grown on old vines, I think) and some traditional (meaning, old) cooking techniques. Though they are technically the opener of the meal, I wonder if the tomato dish will be too boring for the guests, which will include many of Gail's colleagues from Food and Wine magazine.

The team that has "new" theme includes Carla, Eugene and Daniel. They decide (in an absolutely bizarre application of logic) to do a surf-and-turf sushi. Because that's really new. And has never been done before. This is about the third time that Eugene has done sushi this season and I'm starting to think that this week, with this inexplicable choice for a dish, he may be going home.

The "borrowed" team includes Radhika (who I'm really starting to like), Ariane (our beloved underdog) and Jaime (who has been in the top three challenges that I can remember offhand but has yet to win anything). Jaime is really driving the design of their dish, deciding that they'll go Indian both to "borrow" Radhika's culture (culinary imperialism, anyone?) but also so that they can use a spice that Jaime brought from home. I'm rooting for these girls. I like all of them.

Finally, there's the "blue" team and they include crazy, Italian Fabio, Leah and Melissa. Through their disccusion, I'm surprised to learn that there is no food that is truly blue. Judge Tom confirms this later – blueberries are purple, blue corn is not really blue, etc. So what are they gonna do? Fabio has the brilliant idea to take blue as a theme and cook a deep water fish: Chilean Sea Bass. Top Chef fanatics will remember that Hung cooked this fish in Season 3's airplane challenge, as this fish stays moist through almost any cooking technique.




Advertisement



Rapid shopping and cooking ensues. A couple things stand out at this point. One, Stefan does not like the tomato sorbet that Jeff is cooking. Two, I question the "new" team's sanity when they allow Eugene to convince them to pile surf-and-turf ingredients on their patron's plates and let them put their own sushi together (cause that's really new). Three, Eugene has messed up the rice and confidently tells us that he knows how to fix overcooked rice. Four, Ariane is cooking the lamb and I'm scared.


Continued:       1       2       3       4

     


 
 

Need to contact us? E-mail a Box Office Prophet.
Thursday, March 28, 2024
© 2024 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.