Top Chef Boston Recap

By Jason Lee

January 26, 2015

Honestly, I didn't deserve to make it this far.

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With the eating out of the way and the chefs back in the kitchen, the judges pick apart the dinner. Richard Blais (who decided to show up, finally, to do a little judging) says that Melissa’s dish was his favorite. Gail says that it didn’t excite her, and would instead pick Mei’s dish as the best, most interesting, and creative. Wylie declares that he liked best Melissa’s duck and Mei’s curry.

“So the two worst dishes are George’s and Greg’s?” Tom asks, and gets confirmations all around. Wylie fights on behalf of George, pointing out that at least he swung for he fences. Tom cannot, however, get past the over-charred octopus. Wylie isn’t giving up, though, and notes that George made the decision that if he goes home, he’ll go down fighting. Richard agrees, saying that Greg knew that his dish would have broad, general appeal, and just kept his fingers crossed that it was enough to get him to the next round. That sounds spot on to me.

Wylie sums the conundrum up as follows: “does a well-executed dish trump one that’s innovative but disjointed?” Silence meets this question. Wylie takes this to indicate that his question is a tough one to answer. In fact, I think most people at the table have reached the opposite conclusion - at this point in the competition, errors like George’s almost always are fatal.

The bigger question for me is whether Mei beats Melissa. I predict that Mei wins this one. The judges aren’t really going to ask the chefs to do something innovative, and then simply honor the best tasting dish. That wouldn’t make any sense.




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Padma calls the four cheftestants out to Judge’s Table. Tom says that innovation sometimes breeds failure. The challenge was to make something authentic but different, though not all chefs actually pushed their own boundaries.

Because there’s so little drama as to which dishes were the best, Padma gets straight to the point: Mei and Melissa were the two standouts. Tom loved Melissa’s perfectly cooked duck, and Gail is a huge fan of the walnut-miso combination. As for Mei, Tom really liked the complexity in her dish, while Wylie was swept up in her rich, delicious broth.

The winner, Wylie says, is the chef whose dish was the best example of innovation and execution, and that’s… MELISSA. Holy cow. Her second Elimination Challenge win in a row. I’m stunned. Tom says that she gave the judges “everything you want in a dish,” and Wylie says that it was “technically very sound.”

Mei, meanwhile, is pouting, though justifiably so. Earlier in the season, it seemed like she kept getting edged by Greg. Now, in the homestretch, she’s getting edged by Melissa. This is gonna be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

As for the bottom two, Tom says that the judges struggled to figure out what to do. Gail notes that his octopus was bitter due to over-charring, but she loved the green apple harissa, which tied the whole dish together. Wylie chides Greg for playing it safe and encourages him to “think about sticking his neck out a little more.”

With all this said, the outcome seems obvious. And yes, Padma asks George to pack his knives and go. Tom says he cooked a great dish and really pushed himself out of his own comfort zone, but the octopus did him in. Padma tells him that he earned every minute of his return to the competition.

The chefs circle George and give him hugs. George jokes that Greg has now knocked him out of the competition twice. In his closing moments, George expresses his gratitude for having received a second chance. “There’s a small difference between good and great,” he says, “and when I get back to DC, I want to be great.” Before that happens, though, he’ll have a chance to be great in Last Chance Kitchen.

Anyone for thirds?


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