Top Chef Recap

By Jason Lee

February 26, 2009

He's smiling because Leah got voted off. He wouldn't have won otherwise.

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I'm fearing for Carla's viability as a Top Chef at this point. If she wants to BE a Top Chef, she needs to stop letting someone who bombed in the finale direct her dishes.

The chefs return the next day to prepare for their meal...but they enter the kitchen and see Head Judge Tom standing on front of a table full of crab, red fish and a dead crocodile carcass.

"It wouldn't be a finale without a twist," concludes Hosea. Ah, so your WERE paying attention during those earlier seasons.

This finale's twist is simple: each chef will be assigned one of the aforementioned proteins and must create a hors d'oeuvre to go along with their meal. To determine which chef gets to assign the proteins, they're using a New Orleans tradition: the King cake. A bundt cake is baked with a small gold figurine inside and whichever chefs eats their 1/3 of the cake and finds the little man gets to dole out the proteins.

Hosea finds the little figurine in his food and gives the red fish to himself, the crab to Carla and gleefully gives Stefan the alligator. I'm thrilled. "Bite on THAT, Stefan!" I think happily to myself.

Unfortunately, Stefan is a pretty good chef and he also has Marcel's inventive mind on his side. They decide to make a soup out of the aligator's tail, which sounds good on the surface but a potentially strange hors d'oeuvre in my mind.




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The chefs begin putting together their menu. For lunch today, the guests will be having:

From Hosea, a trio of sashimi followed by scallops & foie gras and ending with venison loin with mushrooms (deliberately not doing a dessert).

From Stefan, we see a halibut & salmon carpaccio, squab with braised red cabbage (his cabbage was such a hit in the Blind Tasting challenge in episode 9) and and ice cream and chocolate mousse with lollipops (doing a dessert) .

From Carla, a seared snapper with saffron aioli, sous-vide New York strip steak (courtesy of Casey) and a cheese tart with apple coins

Of course, Casey wants to change up Carla's cheese tart. She'd rather do a soufflé. "DON'T LISTEN TO HER, CARLA!!!" I yell but alas, Carla cannot hear me and she acquiesces to Casey's suggestion. I am really worried about Carla's food.

The other storyline going through the preparation is the fact that Stefan has decided to freeze his raw fish in order to cut very thin slices off of it for his first-course carpacio. Strange that you would do this for a food that's served raw...even his sous-chef Marcel questions this move. I rejoice in it.

Service begins and we see that the majority of the guests are chef / owners of prestigious restaurants in New Orleans. Hosea appropriately calls them "legendary" and admits that his heart is beating out of his chest.

The appetizers are served with Hosea putting out a blackened red fish on a corn cake with a creole remolade. Everyone agrees that Hosea nailed it. Stefan serves his alligator soup with a puff pastry floating in the middle and again, all the guests love it. Carla serves a shiso soup with blue crab and a chayote salad on top and like the two chefs previous, everyone likes it. Sounds like everyone is off to a good start.


Continued:       1       2       3       4       5       6

     


 
 

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