Top Chef Las Vegas Recap

By Jason Lee

November 20, 2009

Eli, it's been 17 seconds. You need to let go of my hand.

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Before we know it, the cheftestants begin presenting their dishes. Kevin goes first with a lamb loin poached in lamb fat and olive oil. It's paired with some cherry-glazed golden beets and a baked asparagus with sunchoke cream. It's not the prettiest dish you've ever seen, but it apparently tastes quite good. Tom loves the incorporation of the swiss chard and the overall lightness of the dish. Paul Bocuse, however, notes that for the time he was given, Kevin turned out a pretty elementary dish.

Michael is next and he brings out a large platter with small, tiny dishes. To me, I don't see an entrée plus two garnishes. I really see three hors d'oeuvres. In any case, Michael says that his menu is Mediterranean-inspired and serves a cauliflower and chickpea cake, salmon sous-vide with crab, and something else with tzatziki. The diners remark that his dish is pretty but lacks flavor. Tom doesn't think the ingredients are Mediterranean at all. Another diner finds a fishbone in his dish. Wow, sounds like Michael has had his first bad dish of the season. What a time for that.




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Bryan goes next and he's so discombobulated that he has to have Jennifer help him out. I scream at the television, "NO, JENNIFER! WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN DISH!!" vowing that if spending her time helping Bryan gets her sent home, I will never forgive her. Bryan, with Jennifer's help, gets his dish out, even as he notes mistakes. He's not happy. The diners get a crusted loin of lamb stuffed with tenderloin crusted with parsley. He also has a crépinette (a small, flattened sausage) with shank. Lastly, he has an orzo pasta with gratin, which is his play on macaroni and cheese. Bryan gets compliments on his plating, but gets knocked hard for undercooking his lamb.

Eli carves his meat tableside with a lamb sausage wrapped around three different loins – this is the second time this episode he has made a sausage, having done so in the Quickfire. He also has a carrot puree with yogurt foam, as well as a tomato and pepper marmalade on a caper berry over a crouton. No one enjoys the lamb – it is extremely undercooked, leaving most of the diners to feel the raw fat on the meat as they chew.

Lastly, we have Jennifer, who uses every minute of her extra time in the kitchen. She says that her salmon is 98% there, but not 100%. She serves a lightly poached salmon with caviar and mushrooms, a shrimp flan with a cold salad of snap pees and truffles, and celery root with shitake mushrooms. Some of the diners have undercooked salmon and others have perfectly cooked salmon. The men criticize her vision for being too simplistic with Tom saying that it's not fully thought-out, while the women seem to like it – Padma says that it's the most interesting visually and another woman says that she had the more impressive platter than the other cheftestants. Kind of a mixed bag.


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