jaybo wrote:Another thing I didn't care for was the elimination judging; not the actual decisions themselves, but I felt certain aspects of the judging were staged to create a more dramatic atmosphere. I didn't think the finale was that close. In Kelly Choi's blog on the finale, she thought Rick Bayless had the best dish on three of the four courses. Even though she's not a judge, that would have made for a fairly substantive victory.

I have to agree that the scoring was the most frustrating part of the show. The Quickfire has to count for *something*, but since they were mostly bizarre and arbitrary challenges, and not about the Masters' food, the math could be disproportionate to the value of the challenge. The whole 'star system' seemed weirdly unbalanced too. Perhaps if each critic presented their scores for all chefs, and we could watch the totals grow across the board?

Especially for the finale, since there was no Quickfire. Why not just rank the chefs (3 for the best, 2 for second best and 1 for third best)? Jay Rayner and Gael Greene gave Bayless and Chiarello equal marks in the finale. IMO, that's a copout. They should have been made to say whose meal they preferred.

Awful lot of half point wins, and scores that didn't entirely seem to gibe with comments. I got the definite sense that what decided everything was how the judges liked the meal, and they'd adjust the numbers to make that happen. I don't think they would have allowed a quickfire, or the diners, to send home somebody they thought did the best job on the main challenge.

Agreed. Or, for example, to decide the winner. In the penultimate episode, Hubert Keller needed 5's from the judges across the board to win the Elimination Challenge, and he got it! Didn't those scores seem out of line, especially when the diners gave him only 3.5 stars? Plus, he was given 3.5 stars in the Quickfire when he should have gotten only 3. Hmmm.

I Do It Daily wrote:

Is there any conceivable way Bayless doesn't run away with this thing?

jesteinf wrote:

Yes, if Hubert Keller or Anita Lo (or any of the other finalists) beat him. He's not exactly going up against a bunch of amateur hacks.

Well, well, well.....it looks like everyone should have taken I Do It Daily a little more seriously now. No one else stood a chance. Anita Lo please. Keller, not a chance. Bayless reigns supreme.

Trust me when I say this. Rick Bayless is not only the greatest chef of our lifetime. He just might be the greatest human.

Mike G wrote:Awful lot of half point wins, and scores that didn't entirely seem to gibe with comments. I got the definite sense that what decided everything was how the judges liked the meal, and they'd adjust the numbers to make that happen. I don't think they would have allowed a quickfire, or the diners, to send home somebody they thought did the best job on the main challenge.

I think the issue is that they edit the show so that the ultimate outcome isn't obvious. Whenever I read the Top Chef blogs by the judges, it is clear that they seemed to have stronger feelings than what you got on the show.

jaybo wrote:Especially for the finale, since there was no Quickfire. Why not just rank the chefs (3 for the best, 2 for second best and 1 for third best)? Jay Rayner and Gael Greene gave Bayless and Chiarello equal marks in the finale. IMO, that's a copout. They should have been made to say whose meal they preferred.

What if they genuinely thought two of the meals were equals of one another? Isn't just as arbitrary to give one of them twice as many points (i.e. 2 versus 1) than the other? What if the one meal was significantly worse than the other two? Simply ranking the meals as 3-2-1 doesn't account for this at all.

Any scoring system has a degree of arbitrariness. For example, why do the guest judges count collectively as much as one of the main judges? Why does the whole quickfire count the same as all the guest judges? There is no magical system to assign weights to each judge, guest judge, and quickfire. I happen to like the current set up because it gives a lot of weight to the three people who have been tasting the chef's food for the duration of the show.

Since I believe the producers had no preference as to who won (it was a legitimate competition) and all the contestants were subjected to the same scoring system, I have no issue whatsoever with how the scoring was done.

=R=

I liked the scoring system. Maybe it would be nice in some ways to have a clear winner that stood out head and shoulders above the rest, but I prefer a result that better represents reality: those were 3 immensely talented chefs that all did a tremendous job, and any one of them could have been a winner.

I am happy that the local boy made good.

That said I think there was a built in advantage that he had that the others did not - the novalty of great Mexican cooking. Those of us in Chicago have a certain advantage (mostly thanks to Rick Bayless) in having many great Mexican places over the years that served "fancy" Mexican food. Not a taco truck or a burrito stand - Frontera, Ixcapulco (when it was on Milwaukee), Fonda del Mar, Mixteco, Sol de mexico and other places that were before my time or I am forgetting.

Remember the first time you ever had a great mole? I do. Ixcapulco, a saturday night in February some years ago. I could tell you everyone at the table. It was that good.

I am not much of a traveler but I know there is no place in NY that can match the complexity of the mexican food served in Chicago. Same with Europe.

Great Mexican food may not be wholly novel to the judges but it certainly was different. The uniqueness in the competition made Bayless stand out the more.

That said I think there was a built in advantage that he had that the others did not - the novalty of great Mexican cooking.

True, but this also could have been a disadvantage if the critics and the various diners (who also had some say in the outcome) fall back into their comfort zones and react more positively to the more accessible French and Italian cuisines. The unfamiliar can sometimes spark strong negative reactions.

My husband and I had dinner at Bottega on Friday. Chef Chiarello was in the dining room chatting up patrons almost the entire time. He is just as gregarious and friendly as he seemed to be on the show.

They brought us rustic italian bread with an incredible parmesan sauce - not sure if it was grated parm in butter or olive oil (not EV), but it was like extreme parmesan. My husband had the polenta under glass with mushrooms, parmesan tuile and game sauce from the finale as an appetizer. Excellent savory sauce and aroma, but I thought the polenta was slightly overcooked. I had a wonderful pea shoot and raw corn salad in a light lemon vinaigrete topped with "strained egg" (a soft boiled egg passed through a strainer) with pistachios. Pea shoots are my latest favorite vegetable, and this was a great way to have them. I also love raw corn. Not sure what the strained egg was about - it didn't add any flavor to the dish. For main courses, my husband had the short rib with sauteed spinach and preserved lemon sauce, and I had the lamb chops with figs and ancient grains polenta. My polenta was amazing - just the right texture (with discernable, but not crunchy grains), and over-the-top creamy and rich. The short rib was well-cooked, and really beefy. We agreed that West Town Tavern's short rib/pot roast dish was better. The hubby also thought the spinach did not go well with the short rib, even though he liked it on its own. My lamb was perfectly cooked, nice smoky flavor, but really fatty. There was something funky with the figs - they were slightly cooked, but somewhat watery, which was disconcerting. Overall, it was a good meal but not a great one.

Jay Rayner responds to John Curtas's opinion of unfair win.
http://www.eatinglv.com/2009/09/eight-h ... nterviews/

I have no idea who either of them are, and based on that dialogue, there's no reason for me to change that.

Kennyz wrote:I have no idea who either of them are, and based on that dialogue, there's no reason for me to change that.

Restaurant critic of The Observer. And one of the judges on Top Chef Masters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Rayner

So a stuffy old fart can't imagine that Mexican food could ever beat old school French food, based on his extensive knowledge of the cuisine of...

wait for it...

LAS VEGAS!

Mike G wrote:So a stuffy old fart can't imagine that Mexican food could ever beat old school French food, based on his extensive knowledge of the cuisine of...

wait for it...

LAS VEGAS!

Exactly! He allowed his own subjective preference for french cuisine cloud the facts. The worse kind of restaurant critic in my opinion.

Bravo orders second helping of 'Top Chef Masters'

Bravo has ordered a second season of its "Top Chef" spinoff series, "Top Chef Masters."

Top chef masters2 Food journalist Kelly Choi returns as host, with restaurant critic Gael Greene, culinary expert James Oseland and critic Jay Rayner as judges. "Top Chef" regular Gail Simmons will also serve as a judge.

gleam wrote:Bravo orders second helping of 'Top Chef Masters'

Bravo has ordered a second season of its "Top Chef" spinoff series, "Top Chef Masters."

Top chef masters2 Food journalist Kelly Choi returns as host, with restaurant critic Gael Greene, culinary expert James Oseland and critic Jay Rayner as judges. "Top Chef" regular Gail Simmons will also serve as a judge.

TCM being renewed = good
Kelly Choi back as host = bad

Who is the person at Bravo that thinks Gail Simmons is the right choice? Does she bring sponsorship with her or something?

Who is the person at Bravo that thinks Gail Simmons is the right choice? Does she bring sponsorship with her or something?

She has a marketing job at Food & Wine. They've been pretty involved in the Bravo food shows.

DML wrote:Who is the person at Bravo that thinks Gail Simmons is the right choice? Does she bring sponsorship with her or something?

I don't have an issue with Gail. What about her do you find objectionable?

jesteinf wrote:

DML wrote:Who is the person at Bravo that thinks Gail Simmons is the right choice? Does she bring sponsorship with her or something?

I don't have an issue with Gail. What about her do you find objectionable?

I consider personally annoying. Her comments always seem to be condescending. I don't think she provides any great insight or any great wit. I always get the idea that being on the show is a burden to her, and that she'd rather be off doing something else. She reminds me of a humorless version of the comic book store guy on The Simpsons.

DML, I don't get any of that from her. But I think it is clear that every host and judge has some detractors (with the possible exception of Tom C?). I can't imagine many people that would be universally liked in any line of work, let alone on this show. But I do find it funny that we seem to repeat these same conversations every season.

aschie30 wrote:TCM being renewed = good
Kelly Choi back as host = bad

For that matter, what are Padma's food criticism qualifications? I always thought she was just a "face" for the show.
Kelly Choi just seemed like a Padma substitute, about as bland as the characters on the US version of Coupling.

JoelF wrote:

aschie30 wrote:TCM being renewed = good
Kelly Choi back as host = bad

For that matter, what are Padma's food criticism qualifications? I always thought she was just a "face" for the show.
Kelly Choi just seemed like a Padma substitute, about as bland as the characters on the US version of Coupling.

Padma's qualifications are that she has eaten several meals, can talk and looks great.

I joke, but I think she has written a few cookbooks and is pretty serious foodie.

Kelly Choi bugs the ^*%( out of me.

It is true that Padma has a few cookbooks, but I have come around to think that what she contributes to the show is much needed warmth and breeziness (especially with Major Tom sitting at her elbow at Judge's Table). On the other hand, I just find Kelly to be awkward and jerky in her movements; she does this weird-teeth clenching thing when she talks and her inflections are usually on the wrong words. I just find her to be distracting, at best, annoying, at worst.

OK, here's the straight dope:

About Padma Lakshmi, Wikipedia wrote:Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards at Versailles. She was host of the Food Network series, Padma's Passport, which is part of the larger series Melting Pot, in 2001. She also hosted two one-hour specials on India and Spain for the British culinary tourism show Planet Food, which have been broadcast on the Food Network in the US and internationally on the Discovery Channels. Her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet was released October 2, 2007.
...
Lakshmi was brought up as a vegetarian and has admitted that because of this, she sometimes becomes "squeamish" when sampling other cultural delicacies. However, in 2009, she starred in a commercial for the Carl's Jr restaurant chain eating a Western Bacon Cheeseburger and in her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet she credits the chain with bringing her away from vegetarianism during her teenage years.

and

About Kelly Choi, Wikipedia wrote:Choi also created and produced Eat Out NY, another NYC TV program in which she starred as the host/guide to the city's restaurants. She has also appeared in numerous other specials and programs at NYC TV such as hosting the James Beard Award, as well as various other food and fashion-driven programs.
...
She has also appeared as a judge on the Food Network's Iron Chef America.

OK, Choi isn't a completely out-of-the-blue choice, but it certainly seems like she's made significantly smaller contribution to the food world.

Kelly Choi is a little annoying, but she just hosts and doesn't function as one of the judges (so, honestly, her food knowledge doesn't really matter that much).

Padma judges. She's written cookbooks and does seem to know about food. Plus she gets stoned before all of the elimination challenges, so that's always fun

Bravo has announced the new season, to commence April 7. Five Chicago-connected chefs will participate.