Top Chef Recap

By Jason Lee

January 9, 2009

Two guys, a girl and a bitchy face.

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Jaime is not happy and feeling defeated. Yeah, we guessed as much. She seems like that kind of friend who's super fun to be around when things are going well, but who you wanna run away from when things are bad.

On top are Radhika with a delicious looking bread pudding, Jeff with a stonefruit/filo dough dish and Leah with a crepe that was accompanied by a creative dash of balsamic reduction. The winner for the second week in a row is Radhika and she's ecstatic. I don't blame her. With two chefs being eliminated this week, there is no better time to have immunity from elimination.

At the end of the challenge, Padma warns them that the new judge at Judges Table will be British food critic, Toby Young, and that there will be a special challenge to honor his arrival.

Instantly, Fabio realizes what's at stake. "He's a badass British food critic that makes everyone angry," Fabio grouses in his broken, Italian accent. At the loft, everyone starts to realize the hell they're getting into. Everyone except for Radhika, I suppose.




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In the morning, to everyone's surprise, Tom Colicchio shows up at the loft and calls everyone over to lay out the challenge. Today's challenge will be a blind tasting by the judges – no diner will know which chef made which meal. Totally fair, I think to myself. They'll be cooking family style for the judges and a group of foodies and critics. They've been complaining that they haven't been able to cook their food so far? Okay fine. No limits. No holds barred. "Show us who you are and what you're capable of as a chef," Tom challenges them.

Oh yeah, and there will be two chefs eliminated at the end.

I'm over the moon. This is a FANTASTIC challenge. No more whining about "I couldn't use this ingredient" or "I couldn't do this because of the theme" or "the challenge wouldn't let me do this." The chefs will have no reason to complain if their food isn't excellent. I CAN'T WAIT!

I think the chefs are excited, too, about being able to finally present who they are as a chef to the judges . . . but Hosea splashes a dose of cold water. There are 11 chefs left and one has immunity, which means that with two chefs being eliminated by the end of the day, 20% of the team is being cut. Hey, it's still better than the American unemployment level.

The chefs are split into two groups and the first group shops and then starts prepping their dishes while the second dish shops. Watching the first group at work, I'm not seeing anything to convince me that anyone other than Melissa and Eugene will be going home. Melissa, for some reason, has taken the directive of "show us who you are and wow us" to mean "make fish tacos." Eugene, on the other hand, has gone off the deep end in the complete opposite direction by making his own version of a Nightmare For Taste Buds, which includes daikon fettuccini paired with fried fish (that will look like it's swimming on the plate) and tomatoes with basil.


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