Top Chef Recap

By Jason Lee

February 5, 2009

I would rule on Top Scallop.

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Stefan prepares his dish to be served and is totally confident. He knows that the lobster tastes exactly the same and while his sauce is a little thicker, it tastes like Eric's. He's right on both counts. Toby and Tom are totally happy with the dish and Padma warns Eric that Stefan is nipping at his heels. Yep, this is exactly what happened with Hung in Season 3. Sigh.

Carla prepares her dish and she's struggling with finishing her potato chips, which accompany her fish. The entire Top Chef team pitches in and the dishes go out on time. Though the potato chips are not quite as crispy as Eric might have liked, Tom thinks that this is probably the most difficult of the six dishes and that Carla did a good job. Eric concedes that point and says that she was very loyal to the original dish.

Stupid Hosea goes next and he's concerned about the monkfish, saying that he knows that it wasn't cooked the same way as the original. While the sauce is apparently very close to the original, the judges have a big problem with his application of the spice, Za'atar, on top. "It's crusted," says Padma. "The sauce isn't close," says Tom, "it's overcooked and didn't get a chance to rest before cut it." Then Tom goes on a big rant about how Hosea has the most to lose since he works at a seafood restaurant.

Jaime is last and she feels good about her dish, saying that she knows how to cook good fish. She's worried, however, about her celery. She left them to cook a little longer before serving because they weren't soft enough, but what ended up happening was the sauce reduced to the point where the celery is now really, really salty. She realizes that there's nothing she can do, time has run out, so she serves it.




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All the judges immediately react very badly to the celery. "It's like a salt lick," says Tom, though he admits that the fish is well cooked. Toby disagrees, calling it remarkably poor as a whole and hates everything on the plate. Oh boy.

At this point, I think Stefan, Carla and Fabio are on top with Leah, Hosea and Jaime on the bottom. I think that Stefan has this one in the bag but that Leah will go home since Jaime actually cooked her fish correctly.

I'm right about the chefs on the top. Stefan nailed the flavors in the dish, Fabio cooked his fish perfectly and Carla overcame the fact that the dish was misleadingly named and applied the correct technique to properly execute the dish. As expected, Stefan ends up on top and receives one of the more spectacular prizes in the history of the show: he gets to follow Chef Ripert around for one week into three of his restaurants and then accompany him to the Food and Wine festival in Pebble Beach. Wow, that's like a dream come true for any chef. Even I'm jealous.


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