Top Chef Recap

By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower

August 31, 2010

Does this gray fish taste bad? No, taste it!

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The fans seem to be extremely fond of Angelo’s pork and Kelly’s crabcakes, which seems to go against the grain of the judges.

Before we leave Nationals Park to go to Judges Table, we get to see the Nationals getting a home run off of David’s beloved Atlanta Braves, giving the home team a 3-2 victory. It’s hit by Adam Dunn, who is obviously powered by caterpillars.

David swears the Braves would have won if Jason Heyward had been healthy that day.

Padma arrives at the stew room and tells the chefs that they’d like to see all of them at Judges Table. This makes sense because 1) they worked as a unit (and Tom complimented their teamwork) and 2) there are only six of them left.

Tom notes that the group collaborated nicely, and Angelo steps up to take credit for having volunteered to take on the serving aspect of the meal. He notes that because he has a sandwich shop, he was the natural choice. This rankles…all of the other contestants, but Tiffany is the first to say, “Oh, hell no.” Angelo is surprised to be contradicted, thinking that he wouldn’t be called out for his bad behavior, but this does appear to be the first point when he realizes that people know exactly what he is.




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The judges proclaim the top two dishes to be Ed’s caterpillar and Tiffany’s sausage, calling both delicious. Rick says he’d line up for either dish, but in the end, it’s Ed who gets the victory and a copy of Rick’s book (um, yay?). Even better, he’s awarded a trip to Australia, which means he can take Angelo’s girlfriend on a trip.

That leaves the other four on the bottom of the heap, and they immediately hit Amanda for the color of the tartare. Although she understands that her fish didn’t look fresh, Amanda still thinks her food tastes good. Kevin is criticized for the skewer, his shoestring potatoes and his flavor, and he agrees he might have tried to do too much.

Generally, Kelly’s crab was pretty solid, but she included a big slab of bacon that was just overwhelming. We know the problem with Angelo’s meal, and so does he. The bread is just too much, a particularly egregious error given that he owns a sandwich shop. He’s also surprised to learn that his dish was also too sweet.

To us, it looks like the bottom two are Angelo and Amanda, with Amanda probably being in the most trouble because she’s serving discolored tuna tartare to guys who are known for their expertise in fish. And this is the way it shakes out. Even so, from her perspective, she was proud of her Quickfire dish today. Additionally, even though the color was bad on her tuna, she did save the food by making it taste good. Still, if you’ve got someone like Eric Ripert looking like he wants to gag when he sees your food, it’s a problem.

We’re down to five, and getting close to the finale. The chefs are going to NASA next week, which promises to be lots of fun.


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