I lived in Florida for a year, I don't think I ever stopped sweating. The suit looked nice but probably wasn't the best idea knowing that you would be running around like crazy trying to serve food to 30 guests.

From the previews it looks like next week they are doing absolutely everything over again. New restaurant design, new food, etc. I wonder if the teams will be the same? I also think that this challenge stinks, no one ever comes off looking good.

Am I the only one that likes Howie?

brandon_w wrote:From the previews it looks like next week they are doing absolutely everything over again. New restaurant design, new food, etc. I wonder if the teams will be the same? I also think that this challenge stinks, no one ever comes off looking good.

I agree! Each year, the teams come in stumbling for the finish line. And the emphasis on decor is just stupid. I think everyone in there understands that restaurants are often conceptual but no chef who is not also a designer would decorate his or her own restaurant on a shoestring budget from one store.

brandon_w wrote:Am I the only one that likes Howie?

What's to like?

aschie30 wrote:So I thought, Dale is going home for scented candles (really stupid, by the way) or Brian because he was sweating and a bit of a spazz in the front of the house (not surprising, by the way).

Criticizing the chefs for not being able to handle FOH duties was ridiculous, especially since Dale was the only one with FOH experience. It takes a certain personality and lots and lots of practice to be good at it. As I found out in college (and post-college) I am a pretty good line cook and expediter, but a lousy waiter. I am glad that neither Dale nor Brian went home because Top Chef is (supposedly) about cooking, not serving skills or interior design.

In any case, why do they keep having group challenges? It seems like the food just isn't good, because each chef says they had to make concessions. I guess I've never understood the tight time restrictions either.

Criticizing the chefs for not being able to handle FOH duties was ridiculous,

I agree, they are supposed to be chefs, not interior designers or servers. But, I can't understand how a chef can claim to have no sense of smell (as Dale did). Isn't smelling an essential part of tasting? I would say that tasting is a vital part of being a chef.

In any case, why do they keep having group challenges? It seems like the food just isn't good, because each chef says they had to make concessions.

I'm sure they do team challenges mostly for the drama. But, in reality, being a "top" chef does have a lot to do with working with others in the kitchen, making your vision apparent and executing ideas well with a group of other chefs (or at least cooks who sometimes like to think they are chefs).

I have to agree- if I were a competitor on this show and got booted off because I was bad at decorating a raw space (which I most surely would be, heh), I would be PISSED. Especially in light of the nasty-looking risotto Howie was turning out, or the reportedly inedible smoked potatoes made by Tre.

Sorry if this asked & answered somewhere earlier in the thread or on another, but does anyone know how long they are actually together for the program? I mean, there's what, 14 chefs, the show goes maybe 13 episodes, they're not losing one chef per week are they? Do they maybe get a day off between challenges?

Not sure why, I"m just really curious about this.

I think it's a 4-6 week shoot and that what a "week" is to us is really days to them. In other words...to the viewer it seems like it's been a week but I think they shoot it so that it's every day or every other day or something.

So it's a pretty intense time for them.

I think the shoot for this season was approximately 3 weeks. The final episode or two will probably be delayed and shot close to air, just like last season in Hawaii.

These people become "awful close" in three weeks.

What's the story? They act like they've become best friends -- and for some of the people who leave early, they have only known the person for a few days.

That part always seemed fake (or sort of pathetic -- what kind of relationships do they have outside the show if these people have becomes such great friends in such a short time) to me.

They put 14 people in a small (for 14 people) apartment, with no contact with their friends or family for 3 weeks, seeing each other every waking moment, spending almost all of that time working, exhausted, or drunk. It's easy to see how friendships and rivalries can form quickly.

Thanks, this week's "do over" just got me wondering how much time they really had to fix their mistakes.

Last night really does go to show that one bad night can send anyone home. That salmon dish must have been really bad, I have never heard Ted come down that hard on any dish.

I liked the quickfire challenge, watching hung take down those chickens was pretty amazing. I also wonder how long Dale had to beat those whites to get them like that, I don't know if I have the arm strength to do that, I've never had to try.

I still think that the producers of the show should really consider dropping the whole "opening a restaurant" challenge.

I like the Restaurant Wars; in a way, it's the closest they come on the show to their everyday jobs. I'm glad that, this time, they provided a decorator (even if he was a ragingly bitchy Madonna's brother ).

I was glad for Sara, she stood up to Howie even though he threw a little fit in the process, and in the end, she was right about the temperature of the lamb. Ha.

Keep in mind that, this was the second week Tre botched the food. I think it made it easier for the judges to kick him out because it was not an isolated incident. I'm glad that the judges picked up on what I thought when CJ assembled that team and didn't place himself as executive chef. I thought that was an error because it says one and/or two things (a) he doesn't think he's as good as Tre; and (b) he doesn't want the responsibility if things go wrong. I almost would have kicked CJ off just for that, if Tre had not screwed the food up so bad.

And the quickfire challenge was fun. I knew that Hung would make quick work of those chickens. "Chicken time!"

You are right, I forgot that Tre's food was bad last week, maybe I should stop posting so early.

I loved the Quickfire- nothing quite as cool as seeing people with great skills do thngs like shuck oysters and disassemble chickens (I may not always be a huge Hung fan, but DAMN that was cool). It was also really great to see Hung being such a team player.

I'm still underwhelmed by Casey and sort of frustrated that she's still around.

I have to say, I agreed w/Madonna's bitchy brother that Quatre was a bad name- for all the reasons he said.

A lot to catch up on. I was gone for a month so I went in for the marathon last night.

First of all, did anyone else think the Restaurant Wars Do-Over was planned from the get-go? I definitely got the impression that the wrinkle this year was that they would let them fix their mistakes. The judges had more than enough ammo to send someone home if they had wanted to after the first episode. But I think they realized some of the inherent unfairness of the 24-hour Restaurant War challenge so they wanted to let the chefs improve. Plus it gave them a chance to work Stephen back in the mix.

Can we just say on remaining chefs: Chicago 1, New York 0.

If Micah got sent home because she talked down about American food (in addition to bad meatloaf), how exactly is Hung still around? I know, I know - he cooks better food. But he's thrice as haughty.

As for Howie: it's Top Chef not Top Personality. Howie's won two Elimination Challenges and has been in the top 3 on a number of the Quickfires. I'm not sure if Sara Mair had a pulse until she had bad blood with Howie a couple of epi's back.

I agree that working with a team is important for being successful in any environment, certainly a kitchen. But this doesn't seem like a valid way to eliminate contestants - at least not yet. The judges keep talking up 'being a leader' and/or working within a team at judges table but they send the person packing who is responsible for the food (See Joey being sent home rather than Hung who could have been more insistent. Or Sara being sent home rather than anyone on her team who didn't tell her the burgers weren't going well. Or Tre being sent home rather than CJ who was ostensibly team captain and crawled into a lobster shell and did only one over-salted dish).

To be honest, I don't think that they are considering leadership until later, likely in the final round, where the contestants are exec chefs and have complete control over the menu and the kitchen. If the food is bad, then they try to determine what each person contributed to the effort and make their decision from there. Otherwise, they would have dinged Howie long ago for making some unappetizing dishes *and* being hard to work with. Each time, however, someone always cooked worse food than he did. And that's what makes the difference.

They do seem to be weeding out some of the middle-of-the-pack personalities, but they also happen to be people who haven't made any of the top-rated food. Assert yourself, have a vision and execute. It is unfortunate that Tre got the axe, even though others who have played it safe got left behind.

Anyone else think it was pretty curious to have Chef Tom back there in the kitchen last night? I loved every shot of him tasting the food in grim silence. If I were chef back there and saw him eating my food expressionlessly, I would be sh*tting my pants. I thought this might be trying to get at who really handled what in the kitchen.

Finally, I don't get the sense that people are of a higher caliber this season at all. In seasons past, there were a few people who cooked strongly throughout most of the competition. This group is very inconsistent and the chef who had graded out best across the board just got sent home. In fact, I often feel like watching this year's contestants, it feels like amateur hour (i.e. can't make barbecue, burgers, milkshakes, pasta). Their critical failures aren't shooting for the moon and missing, it's often more basic stuff.

You raise some good points. I agree that the do-over on the Restaurant Wars was planned. Why? In previous years, it's been anti-climactic. Both teams, pressed with the enormous task of opening a restaurant, planning a menu, and serving to "real" clientele, certainly don't have enough time to do it right. So you get the sense that both teams are stumbling to the finish line in what is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting challenges of the show. If you read Tom's interview on bravotv.com, he acknowledges that value of any restauranteur having soft openings, listening to criticism, and fixing mistakes and how that is part and parcel of any restaurant-opening process. So I gather that the decision was deliberate.

gastro gnome wrote:Can we just say on remaining chefs: Chicago 1, New York 0.

Better than that: Chicago 1 of 1 (so far); New York 0 of 4 (as of a few episodes ago).

gastro gnome wrote:If Micah got sent home because she talked down about American food (in addition to bad meatloaf), how exactly is Hung still around? I know, I know - he cooks better food. But he's thrice as haughty.

Micah was not sent home because she talked down American food. She was sent home because the judges (and, apparently, the Elks) thought her meatloaf was the worst dish. Given her comments about meatloaf, and how it was something "she would never eat," I'm not surprised she made a bad meatloaf.

gastro gnome wrote:As for Howie: it's Top Chef not Top Personality. Howie's won two Elimination Challenges and has been in the top 3 on a number of the Quickfires. I'm not sure if Sara Mair had a pulse until she had bad blood with Howie a couple of epi's back.

I agree that working with a team is important for being successful in any environment, certainly a kitchen. But this doesn't seem like a valid way to eliminate contestants - at least not yet. The judges keep talking up 'being a leader' and/or working within a team at judges table but they send the person packing who is responsible for the food (See Joey being sent home rather than Hung who could have been more insistent. Or Sara being sent home rather than anyone on her team who didn't tell her the burgers weren't going well. Or Tre being sent home rather than CJ who was ostensibly team captain and crawled into a lobster shell and did only one over-salted dish).

To be honest, I don't think that they are considering leadership until later, likely in the final round, where the contestants are exec chefs and have complete control over the menu and the kitchen. If the food is bad, then they try to determine what each person contributed to the effort and make their decision from there. Otherwise, they would have dinged Howie long ago for making some unappetizing dishes *and* being hard to work with. Each time, however, someone always cooked worse food than he did. And that's what makes the difference.

I'll agree with that point, but perhaps in the early stages, eliminating based solely upon the food, rather than leadership, is an easy and legitimate way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sometimes the line between the lack of teamwork and bad food is very thin. I can almost guarantee you that Howie's head would have been on the block had he again resisted Sara in the kitchen (even though she was EC) and their team came out last. I think Howie knew that, which is why, ultimately, he listened to her. So teamwork (or lack thereof) at least has factored in the back of the contestants' minds at this point.

gastro gnome wrote:It is unfortunate that Tre got the axe, even though others who have played it safe got left behind.

Eh, I don't feel sorry for Tre any more than anyone else who is ousted. His ouster was fair, even more fair, than some of the others. He was a victim of his own overconfidence. He sticks with a beef dish that the judges were so-so on in the previous week. (Tom also stated on bravotv.com that, for him, Tre's sticking with that beef dish was what put Tre over the edge for elimination.) He conceives of a beet-cured salmon- pesto dish that sounds like a mess on paper, and apparently tasted worse in person judging by Ted Allen's response. The bread pudding, which he could "do in his sleep" also sounded like a disaster. Even though he was executive chef, he apparently gave CJ and Casey a wide-berth in executing dishes which were not properly seasoned or overcooked.

All of which makes me wonder why Tre was deemed a front-runner anyway. Yeah, he won a couple of challenges (one of which was for executing the design plan for frozen food), but he was in the bottom of several challenges, including a barbecuing challenge where he was (again) over-confident about his abilities to execute a style of cooking native to his native Texas. In general, his quiet, confident manner gave the impression of competence, but that doesn't necessarily translate to skills in the kitchen or leadership. Based upon everything I've seen thus far, I wouldn't have placed Tre above anyone else in the pack at this stage in the competition.

I've come to the conclusion that every year, the viewership gloms onto one or two people as frontrunners either because of their credentials going into the show, or because of their demeanor on the show, and not necessarily because of their skills. Do I think Tre showed promise? Yes. But I wasn't ready to place him in the front.

And don't get me started on CJ's overratedness . . .

aschie30 wrote:All of which makes me wonder why Tre was deemed a front-runner anyway. Yeah, he won a couple of challenges (one of which was for executing the design plan for frozen food), but he was in the bottom of several challenges, including a barbecuing challenge where he was (again) over-confident about his abilities to execute a style of cooking native to his native Texas. In general, his quiet, confident manner gave the impression of competence, but that doesn't necessarily translate to skills in the kitchen or leadership. Based upon everything I've seen thus far, I wouldn't have placed Tre above anyone else in the pack at this stage in the competition.

I've come to the conclusion that every year, the viewership gloms onto one or two people as frontrunners either because of their credentials going into the show, or because of their demeanor on the show, and not necessarily because of their skills. Do I think Tre showed promise? Yes. But I wasn't ready to place him in the front.

It was interesting seeing another perspective here and I see where you're coming from on Tre. To this point in the competition, we're halfway through and no one is a shining star.

But I see legit reasons why Tre was viewed as the strongest contenders. He not only had a number of dishes praised, but he also had some more consistent success than his competitors. He seemed to be thinking more than the others (e.g. adapting what he is cooking to the audience or the guest judge) - at least until his ouster. His calm in the kitchen and confidence as well as his exec-chef experience made you think he could really pound out some great food if given the chance.

Even Tom, in his blog, indicated the judges thought he deserved to be a finalist. So he obviously impressed more than the viewers.

That said, he may well have suffered from overconfidence as you suggested. He didn't refocus the menu when given the chance. And it seemed things left the kitchen that hadn't been tasted - and that can get anyone axed.

Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

gleam wrote:I think the shoot for this season was approximately 3 weeks. The final episode or two will probably be delayed and shot close to air, just like last season in Hawaii.

Not if Tre's quote from this week's episode was correct. He said that it was "going on five weeks now" and that it was starting to wear on people. They started with 16, correct? So that'd be nearly five weeks at the midway point? Maybe we're a little past the midway point because of the do-over week. But you're still talking about a nearly two month shoot.

tem wrote:Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

Because her chef's knife wouldn't cut butter.

Dmnkly wrote:

gleam wrote:I think the shoot for this season was approximately 3 weeks. The final episode or two will probably be delayed and shot close to air, just like last season in Hawaii.

Not if Tre's quote from this week's episode was correct. He said that it was "going on five weeks now" and that it was starting to wear on people. They started with 16, correct? So that'd be nearly five weeks at the midway point? Maybe we're a little past the midway point because of the do-over week. But you're still talking about a nearly two month shoot.

Guess so, huh.

Evil Ronnie wrote:

tem wrote:Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

Because her chef's knife wouldn't cut butter.

Is this a swipe at her brand of chef knife? If so, what's she using?

brandon_w wrote:

Evil Ronnie wrote:

tem wrote:Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

Because her chef's knife wouldn't cut butter.

Is this a swipe at her brand of chef knife? If so, what's she using?

According to Tom Collicchio, her knives weren't sharp when she started her challenge.

As an aside, I was out last night, having a drink, and two women next to me were talking about the show, outraged, that Tre was gone, vowing never to watch again, because it was just "bullsh*t." Judging by the comments to the bravo blogs, they are not alone in their feelings.

As Tony Bourdain said on his blog, if you're opening a restaurant and your night of food service goes like this:

1 horrible dish (the beet-cured salmon with pesto)
1 screwed up dessert (the unpeeled, undercooked bread pudding)
1 not terribly inspired or interesting dish (the gorgo-mushroom filet)
1 good dish (the scallop),

you may as well shut your doors.

I've been on record about my cynicism about the judge's decisions in the past (although not so much this season), but cutting Tre gives me faith that the judges, and not the producers, are steering the ship. But given the internet picketing, I expect the producers to be fully involved next season in telling who to pack their knives. Thinking out loud, though, I'm not sure it's so easy for the producers or the judges to determine, during shooting, which contestant will be the "favorite." It's easy to see who will be disliked, but not so much as to who will be liked.

Yeah, it's too bad... the strongest piece of evidence that the producers keep their noses out of it could be what actually gets them to intervene. I still doubt that would happen, though. You don't mess with success.

aschie30 wrote:As an aside, I was out last night, having a drink, and two women next to me were talking about the show, outraged, that Tre was gone, vowing never to watch again, because it was just "bullsh*t."

Moral outrage at a bullsh*t decision on reality television?

Buckle up, sister. It's gonna be a long life.

aschie30 wrote:

brandon_w wrote:

Evil Ronnie wrote:

tem wrote:Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

Because her chef's knife wouldn't cut butter.

Is this a swipe at her brand of chef knife? If so, what's she using?

According to Tom Collicchio, her knives weren't sharp when she started her challenge.

Man you guys are really into this show. Making me feel like a half assed fan. I need to try and keep up on these blogs.

gastro gnome wrote:

aschie30 wrote:As an aside, I was out last night, having a drink, and two women next to me were talking about the show, outraged, that Tre was gone, vowing never to watch again, because it was just "bullsh*t."

Moral outrage at a bullsh*t decision on reality television?

Buckle up, sister. It's gonna be a long life.

Awesome.

brandon_w wrote:

aschie30 wrote:

brandon_w wrote:

Evil Ronnie wrote:

tem wrote:Why in the world was Casey using a bread/carving knife to chop onions

Because her chef's knife wouldn't cut butter.

Is this a swipe at her brand of chef knife? If so, what's she using?

According to Tom Collicchio, her knives weren't sharp when she started her challenge.

Man you guys are really into this show. Making me feel like a half assed fan. I need to try and keep up on these blogs.

Oh, the blogs are the best part.