Top Chef All Stars Recap

By David Mumpower

February 10, 2011

Good night, sweet prince.

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How great a chef is Richard Blais? He takes time out from his preparations to teach Antonia how to properly prepare beef tongue using a pressure cooker. Apparently, the time frame the chefs have isn’t enough for the four-to-five hour preparation time ordinarily required for the dish. He offers tutelage about how to overcome said time constraints. This causes Antonia to rapturously pant, “Oh, I love Richard Blais.” Mike is humorously shown resenting Blais, ostensibly helping her too much; however, we know the truth. Mike is jealous that someone other than himself is stirring Antonia’s emotions. You could cut the sexual tension with one of those knives Padma makes the chefs pack up when they get eliminated.

Among the attending guests are Jimmy Fallon’s wife, her parents, his parents, the head writer for The Late Show, and a Higgins Boy. This means nothing to you, of course, but I never watch Jimmy Fallon’s show. I had no idea that one third of the Higgins Boys and Gruber comedy troupe is on the show. This pleases me. I love this guy. Here is a classic clip of theirs if you’re interested in seeing why I love them.

The first dishes presented tonight are Antonia’s beef tongue and Fabio’s burger. The latter dish is sampled first with the Higgins Boy quickly stating that it’s a good burger. Tom expresses immediate surprise at this reaction. Gayle follows suit. Given that we know whose opinions matter, this is a bad sign for Fabio. He chose to make a meatloaf-ish burger rather than what people were expecting. He also made the odd decision to put the cheese in a bowl, and something has clearly gone awry in this regard. The cheese is universally disparaged. Meanwhile, Antonia “knocked it out of the park” according to Fallon while his head writer says “she licked the challenge”. So, The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon prioritizes puns. There goes any thought I had of giving it a season pass.




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Tiffany’s Chicken and Dumplings and Richard’s Ramen are the next dishes served. Both are met with strong resistance. Richard experiences the same issue I referenced earlier as Fallon laments that the culinary dynamo played it straight here rather than doing something extreme. In the Fever Pitch vernacular Fallon uses, he wanted Blais to swing for the fences rather than try for a bunt single. In this episode, Blais was arbitrarily punished earlier for going to the extreme of dangerous liquid nitrogen dining and is now being arbitrarily punished for demonstrating his skill with basic style and cooking utensils. Had he reversed the two, he may have won both. As it is, this will be a pair of challenges he needs to put behind him quickly. Meanwhile, Tiffany’s dumplings are unsatisfactory to one and all. She delivers a tortilla soup more than anything, and her dumplings don’t have enough dump in them. I would think too much dump would be a larger issue.

Carla is up next and she is still on cloud nine over her ability to cook chicken pot pie. The results reinforce her fortune. Her dish is arguably the best received of the evening. Kim and I had wondered prior to the start of the season whether Carla’s simplicity would prevent her from achieving the prosperity she had during season five. We worried that more would be expected of the All Stars in terms of complexity. This is not proving to be the case. If anything, the simpler her food, the more judges love it. Dale’s Philly Cheese Steak suffers a much different fate. He had used a lot of salt on the roll itself then turned around and salted the meat, creating a vile dish that Fallon describes as “The Salt Monster attacking”. I’m reminded of this exchange from an episode of Futurama when Bender the robot tries to cook:

Amy Wong: Is this salt water?
Bender: It's salt with water in it, if that's what you mean.
Fry: My vision's fading! I think I'm gonna die!
Bender: There was nothing wrong with that food. The salt level was 10% less than a lethal dose.
Dr. Zoidberg: Uh oh. I shouldn't have had seconds.


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