Thursday, July 22, 2010
Food media ‘Top Chef D.C.’, Episode 6: WE WILL BURY YOU
Posted by Joel Silverman on Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:34 PM
- BRAVOTV.com
Top Chef entered the second trimester of this season with the harshest cloak and dagger intrigue the long-running series has shown to date. Contestants whisper constantly about who is sabotaging who, and the show’s producers indulged them with a forum where they could stab each other in the back by handing the judging power to them for a night.
Last night’s show opened with Andrea Curto-Randazzo disclosing a simmering rivalry against guest judge Michelle Bernstein, who owns a competing Miami restaurant. Andrea sniped that it’s not fair to have the celebrated Bernstein judging her, because “I’m not so sure that if you sat down at both our restaurants that one would be that much better.” I haven’t eaten at either because when I visit Miami I’m too busy stuffing myself with garlic crabs at dockside shacks, but the menu at Andrea’s 500-seat Water Club is quintessential tourist trap, with burgers, pastas, seafood, PB&J for the kids, and a “Dockside-To-Go” pickup station. Michelle Bernstein’s Michy’s has only fifty seats and a focused menu blending French technique with Carribean and South American flavors, like a dish of sweetbreads cooked in sour orange juice. Andrea says she and Bernstein rose through the ranks together as rookie chefs, but her own mommy-track detour cost her momentum in Miami’s food scene. Another explanation could be that Bernstein is internationally-trained and adventurous, while Andrea has never traveled outside of the United States and crafted a menu that includes a “Hangover Burger”. You decide.
For the Quickfire, the chefs were given disgusting ingredients like duck testicles, llama, and snake, and once they started to prep, were told to play musical chairs and finish cooking their neighbor’s dish. Andrea’s brightly said her wild boar was no problem because “it’s just like steak”, which was an obvious error because it looked like to me like a shoulder cut which can’t be grilled into tenderness, cooking it whole would require a slower treatment than the 45 minute time limit would allow. I would have ground it and simmered it with lime and fish sauce to make a gamy version of a Thai nam sod (although I sadly have no “Dockside-To-Go” to send my dish out of.) Andrea grilled the cut and was penalized for the chewy result. Coked-out Amanda ran around like the Energizer Bunny trying to find a hacksaw and cheesecloth, then worked up a schvitz trying to open her green two-pound Emu eggs, only to hand them off to Kelly who scrambled them into the winning dish, a creamy omelette with goat cheese and a fennel salad.
For the Elimination Challenge, Padma declared that the Cold War was back. The chefs were to cook aboard the USS Sequoya, where President Richard Nixon negotiated the SALT treaty with Leonid Brezhnev (austere Jimmy Carter later sold the yacht). In keeping with the theme, all dishes cooked had to be served cold. Hmm, what other dish is best served cold? Oh right, REVENGE. Surveillance cameras revealed the chefs scheming, plotting, and talking trash about each other. Amanda claimed that real chefs don’t need to use thermometers to test the doneness of meat. Perpetually Aggrieved Tamisha banged her shoe on the table, admitting that she “could strangle Amanda in a heartbeat.” Classy Ed bragged that he cuckolded Angelo by stealing his college girlfriend. Stephen schemed like James Bond’s nemesis Dr. No about eliminating Angelo and Kenny (with reality TV show gamesmanship, not by disrupting a guided nuclear missile test), so that the less-talented second tier of chefs like him might have a chance.
In this cold war cartoon, the flawed spies Boris and Natasha are played by Angelo and Tamisha, and Bullwinkle is talented Kenny, who survives Angelo’s diabolical scheme to finish him off, despite producing his worst dish of the season so far, because Tamisha’s dish turns out to be even worse. At Angelo’s urging, she made a sauce for her scallop with Indonesian long pepper, which even Tom Colicchio admitted was an acquired taste. I have a jar of these weird little nuggets sitting in my cabinet that I’ve been forbidden by my family ever to cook with. They numb your taste buds like szechuan pepper and have piney undertones of Lysol and soap. Once the Spanish found a dependable source for the familiar round piper nigrum in the 14th century, nobody in the West has ever cooked with piper longum again, except Tamisha last night on Top Chef. She sobbed in bitter surprise when told to pack her knives and go, but there was no chance that the judges were going to eliminate the likely future champion Kenny so early in the season.
Kevin won the night with a surf and turf that both his opponents (who had to judge each other’s dishes) and the judges agreed was perfect, with beautiful texture and great taste. Kevin might be the Gorbachev of this cold war. He successfully invaded Afghanistan, but Perestroika looms in the form of Kenny, who is about to tear down the wall... of flavor.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
I wish you had chosen to describe the Quickfire ingredients as "unusual" rather than "disgusting." I've personally eaten many of these ingredients, and would eagerly eat them again. As for the rest: If there were a restaurant in Atlanta that served them, I'd go just for the experience, and to reward such an adventurous establishment.
like
dislike
I guess that's fair, although isn't the fact that these ingredients are considered revolting to most other people the very thing that makes them "adventurous" and an "experience" to you?
Joe, you're in luck! Head on over to Saskatoon in Buckhead and you can eat all the disgusting...er...I mean unusual meat, you want. Not a very good restaurant IMHO but it could be in your Top 5. WHo knows?
Joel, thanks for the breakdown on Amanda's restaurant in Miami. I wsa assuming her restaurant was not as good as Bernsteins, but the Hangover Burger and a kids menu confirms it.
Still a crappy season of TC.
You're talking about the WRONG restaurant. Andrea Curto-Randazzo owns Talula Restaurant on South Beach. Google it. It has won many awards and the food is phenomenal. The Water Club is just a new place she did the menu for. It's a casual dining place. Her place is fine dining and is one of my favorite places in Miami. I love both Talula and Michy's, and I do think it was unfair that she was judged by her.
WOW - at Water Club you can get a KOBE HOT DOG! What wine would you pair with that?
DO you honestly think someone who only did casual dining would be a contestant on Top Chef?? Think about it. The Water Club is just one of the many endeavors that she has. She does fine dining at Talula on South Beach. To name a few more businesses she has in Miami beyond here running kitchen ops at TWC, she has a catering company and a cafe out at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden. Do your research before doing wrong comparisons.
"She owns Talula jackass" -- really classy, Miami411!
From the PR release announcing Talula's closing: "Chefs Andrea & Frank are heading the food and kitchen operations at the newly opened The Water Club."
So, I guess tacky and casual Water Club is more than "just a new place she did the menu for." (Since writing this, I made a point to eat at both Michy's and Water Club and can report that Michy's and sister restaurant Sra. Martinez are great and H2O Club is nothing special.)
Latest in Omnivore
-
Charry but not so snappy 1
Lunch at Ringside Franks & Shakes
-
Is Paula Deen a monster in a morality play? 3
Paula Deen and fat-phobia
-
Sean Hannity digs McDonald's. Others don't.
How often should you eat at McDonald's? How angry can you get?
- More »
