Top Chef Masters Recap
By Jason Lee
May 9, 2010
The Red Team has flaming ouzo shrimp and au gratin potatoes from Jonathan, plus pasta with fire roasted potatoes (three dishes in all). That gets paired with Carmen’s corn salsa. Marcus has a roasted beef tenderloin. The potatoes and shrimp from Jonathan get rave reviews, though his rigatoni pasta is overcooked. The corn from Carmen is good, but James isn’t sure what it’s designed to be paired with. Finally, Marcus’ beef is mushy.
Since the entrees and hors d’oeuvres were so good, I think it might come down to the dessert course for the win. The Blue Team brings out their barfy Mayan temple cake, which is roundly criticized as being too dry, and Jody’s bananas foster, which are “something special,” according to James. Meanwhile, Susur has created not one, not two, but FOUR dishes including two cakes. There’s a French wedding cake, an upside down raisin pudding, chocolate cream for the kids, plus carrot cake. It’s amazing.
The Critics start discussing who should win, and Gael is torn because the entrees from the Blue Team were so good, but their desserts were a mess, while the Red Team had great desserts.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Blue Team won anyways.
The Blue Team gets called before Critics Table and indeed, they have won. I whoop and thrust my fist into the air before predicting that Jody, with her risky lamb and delicious bananas foster, will win the challenge. AND SHE DOES! W00t!
The Blue Team heads back and sends the Red Team in so that they can enjoy a rich round of criticism. I’m personally worried for Carmen because she spent most of the challenge helping out her other Masters instead of cooking her own dishes. She was the organizer, the runner, and the spare hand. While this might have made things easier for her teammates, it meant that she didn’t put out very much. And that’s almost always a disastrous mistake on Top Chef.
And yes, she gets called out on that. While her crab cake was a “perfect example” of the dish and her corn was great, they knock her for not putting out more in 12 hours. Marcus and Tony stand up for her, saying that she was a team player and had an important role, but Gael points out that she didn’t put out a dish that showed “Carmen” the Master.
As for the other chefs, Marcus gets slammed for his overly-sweet, mushy beef tenderloin, Tony gets compliments for his shrimp and potatoes but hammered for his overcooked pasta, and Susur...well, the Critics mostly stand in awe of how many desserts he was able to put out.
So we know that Tony and Susur are safe, and it sounds like it’ll come down to Carmen and Marcus. And I’m praying that Marcus is the one who goes home.
Tony gets 3 ½ stars from Gael, 4 ½ from Jay and 4 from James. The diners gave him 3 stars for a total of 15. He’s totally safe.
Susur gets 4 ½ stars from Gael, 4 from Jay and 3 ½ from James. The diners gave him 4, so he tops Tony with 16. Safe again.
Carmen gets 2 stars from Jay, 2 ½ from James and 2 ½ from Gael. The diners gave her 4 stars, which totals 11. Sigh. There is no way Marcus gets less than that.
Marcus gets 3 stars from all three judges, plus 4 ½ from the diners. He has 13 ½ and is going onto the next round. Carmen is going home.
Carmen kind of anticipated this result, I think, and as a result, she’s not overly depressed. She confides in her interview that her main regret is that she’s going home for something she didn’t cook, instead of something she cooked. She wishes that she had taken more of a risk.
I feel the same way. She admitted to the Critics earlier in the episode that she didn’t take a prominent role in cooking because she thought that her Puerto Rican style of cooking might have been too spicy or too strong for Mr. Meat and Potatoes Groom. While she might have been right, I wish she had taken a page from Jody’s book and just cooked something that she knew would taste good.
Oh well, Carmen goes home and the show goes on.
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