ronnie_suburban wrote:

stevez wrote:So after an episode where both Padma and Nigella are in bed waiting to be served breakfast (a chef's wet dream*), no one has commented about this week's show? Is everyone just so relieved that Robin finally got sent home that there's simply nothing else to say? Personally, I'm happy at this week's outcome, though a bit surprised that Jennifer wasn't sent packing. That girl needs a confidence infusion if she's going to last much longer.

* Depending on proclivity

I agree on all counts. The main thing being that is was a relief to see Robin go before the endgame begins. She didn't belong there. That said, from what we saw, it wouldn't have been out of line if Eli or Jen had been sent home this week.

=R=

I wonder if the lack of commentary has anything to do with the boring season we've got? I used to log onto the blogs, here, etc. right after a show to see what everyone was saying/thinking. Now, I don't even watch with much intensity. Or attention.

sujormik wrote:I wonder if the lack of commentary has anything to do with the boring season we've got? I used to log onto the blogs, here, etc. right after a show to see what everyone was saying/thinking. Now, I don't even watch with much intensity. Or attention.

I think that the lack of commentary has to do with a few things. One, the unfortunate editing of the last month's worth of episodes have made them a lot more about Robin than I care to deal with. They are trying to inject drama, but I don't care if the chefs like each other or not.

Additionally, this episode was another catering challenge where the cooking tends to get short shrift.

Now that Robin is gone and the finals are approaching, I hope that we can focus on the food and the cooking and I think we'll all have more to say.

Here's a food comment. I find the editors have really been at it this season with a lot of misleading footage in the last month. This is the 3rd or 4th episode in a row where the contestant getting the most damning contents didn't go home. Based on what they said, Eli definitively should have gone home in my opinion (two judges wanted to spit it out).

Didn't happen, so Robin's dish must have been worse.

Every week Tom's blog says "I know it looked like X and Y's dishes were equally bad, but we all agreed X's was much worse."

On that basis, I thought Eli's "What I Puked Up After I Went To The Circus When I Was Six"* would get him sent home, because it seemed like it had "much worse" written all over it, but I guess that panna cotta really was lame. I would have liked to see Eli bite it before Robin, just because of his snotty attitude.

Most telling moment, maybe of the whole season: Robin comes into the room, says she's going home. Kevin instantly jumps up to give her a hug while the Voltaggio brothers sit in their chairs like a pair of ivory bookends.

Oh, and Tom, it's not true that they spiced up their food to cover rancidity, as Tom Standage points out, spices were far more expensive than meat, it makes no economic sense. (Salting to preserve, yes. Cloves to cover spoiledness, no.) That said, yeah, a filet in a wine reduction is about 700 years off.

* He totally missed the boat on a styrofoam peanut orange note, though.

You know, I agree that Robin didn't belong. But, I had developed a fondness for her simple because of all of the nastiness that she ahd put up with throughout all the challenges.

I certainly believed that while Eli had the worst dish of the day (a beautifully accurate description, MikeG), I wouldn't have felt the giddiness nor would I have laughed out loud at the television if he had exited this week the way that I did when Mike Isabella got the boot ahead of Robin. If ever there was a television series centering on a self trained chef who thinks far more highly of himself than anyone else around him, it will be named Isabella.

I'm waiting for this week's episode with baited breath after seeing the highlight where one of the Voltaggio personality pillars of stone announces that Kevin's food "is like what I cook on my day off".

on August 26 ronnie_suburban wrote:It seems that the 2 brothers -- Michael and Bryan -- along with Kevin and Jennifer are the ones to beat at this point.

I suppose that if you throw enough predictions out there, eventually one of them will come true.

=R=

Last night's episode was pretty great! This season is soooo much better at this stage than last season's. These 5 were doing a mini-Bocuse d'or while last season Fabio was making roast chicken, Carla was making peas, and Hosea wasn't able to execute tomatoes Provencal.

I'm really excited that the top 4 actually made it to the finals. I'm still pulling for Jen. I loved the little "welcome back, Jen" that Padma threw in during the Quickfire tasting.

gotta say Ive pretty much given up on this show(the 2 brothers and Kevin's cooking impressed me, but not enough to stay tuned), the vegetarian steakhouse episode was just dumb imho...& I havent checked it out the past 2 weeks, & erased it off the DVR instead of watching.

So here's my question:

Do we think the judges sent Robin home instead of Eli last week because they didn't want her to put out food for the Bocuse d'Or folks? Obviously, we all know she wouldn't have been up for it. Or do we think that she really did put out the worst dish that week?

gleam wrote:So here's my question:

Do we think the judges sent Robin home instead of Eli last week because they didn't want her to put out food for the Bocuse d'Or folks?

I wondered much the same thing myself, but I still think they just got tired of seeing Robin appear in the bottom three every week, while Eli seemed to be gaining some momentum. But based on what I've been able to observe on the show, if Eli had produced a body of work similar to Robin's, he might've been packing his knives before she had.
I'm starting to really grow tired of the disingenuous editing being laced into the commercial bumps. This week provided us with a clip of one of the judges asking Kevin if he thought he played it safe followed by a clip of Kevin, on the verge of tears, simply nodding his head. What actually happened was quite a bit different.

any editorial trickery notwithstanding, I really enjoyed last-night's episode. This year's series has distilled down to a kitchen meritocracy, and it was entertaining to see the most talented 4 chefs undertake a challenge like they had last night. Glad to see that Thomas Keller came across as a pretty down-to-earth and nice man too.

And, well, Kevin has great skill at cooking food and making it taste very good. This is a good thing for a chef. That's my summation of where things stand, favorite-chef-wise.

ronnie_suburban wrote:

on August 26 ronnie_suburban wrote:It seems that the 2 brothers -- Michael and Bryan -- along with Kevin and Jennifer are the ones to beat at this point.

I suppose that if you throw enough predictions out there, eventually one of them will come true.

=R=

I wish I would have put my prediction out there because this is the same line-up that I envisioned for the finals.

Do we think the judges sent Robin home instead of Eli last week because they didn't want her to put out food for the Bocuse d'Or folks? Obviously, we all know she wouldn't have been up for it. Or do we think that she really did put out the worst dish that week?

During several episodes the judges have sent home a chef that IMHO should not have gone home that week, but in weeks previous. At this point in the competition I think that they do look at the body of work and send home who has been the weakest overall, not necessarily that week. This week I was really thinking that Michael could be sent home, but there's no way that the producers or the judges would let that happen.

As far as this week's episode, I was thrilled with Jen's performance in the quickfire and too loved Padma's "welcome back" comment. After Kevin asked Bryan how to poach (don't know how to spell the other word) the lamb, I knew he would win the challenge. Whenever he cooks something for the first time, he wins. I almost cried when he won. His attitude is so refreshing in comparison to the brothers V. I would love it if either Kevin or Jennifer wins.

gastro gnome wrote:Saving a surprise ouster, the cream of this crop is so clear and so distinct from the others, I fear we're going to watch a bunch of clueless teenagers get whacked one-by-one, horror film style, until the real competition starts when it's down to 4 or 5. Maybe it's always this way. If it looks like any one of the 4 favorites is destined to go, I'm going to suspect a heavy dose of editing until I actually see them packing their knives.

Yeah, Ronnie I think we can all pull out quotes from this thread about predictable things were. But much to Dom's chagrin (a true student of Top Chef), this just gives legs to the people who tune in, size up the best 4 at any point in the season and predict them to win. As he pointed out to me in response to the quoted post above, this has not been the history of the contest, so it just gives more props to these 4 contestants. All but one of them has been consistently better than their peers and the fourth picked it up when it counted.

So, yeah, again I think the editors may have been playing up the Robin angle for the lack of drama in the last month. But as many have pointed out, they made sure to show some pretty excruciating commentary for people who *didn't* get sent home on a given week. I guess that ups the suspense, but not when you continue to play that card over and over again in a season where the big surprise was that there were no surprises.

gastro gnome wrote:

gastro gnome wrote:Saving a surprise ouster, the cream of this crop is so clear and so distinct from the others, I fear we're going to watch a bunch of clueless teenagers get whacked one-by-one, horror film style, until the real competition starts when it's down to 4 or 5. Maybe it's always this way. If it looks like any one of the 4 favorites is destined to go, I'm going to suspect a heavy dose of editing until I actually see them packing their knives.

Yeah, Ronnie I think we can all pull out quotes from this thread about predictable things were. But much to Dom's chagrin (a true student of Top Chef), this just gives legs to the people who tune in, size up the best 4 at any point in the season and predict them to win. As he pointed out to me in response to the quoted post above, this has not been the history of the contest, so it just gives more props to these 4 contestants. All but one of them has been consistently better than their peers and the fourth picked it up when it counted.

Oh, I agree. I've made predictions in each of the 6 seasons and this one time, I actually got it right.

Dom knows his stuff and his being right would have been far less surprising to me than me being right. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

=R=

gastro gnome wrote:

gastro gnome wrote:Saving a surprise ouster, the cream of this crop is so clear and so distinct from the others, I fear we're going to watch a bunch of clueless teenagers get whacked one-by-one, horror film style, until the real competition starts when it's down to 4 or 5. Maybe it's always this way. If it looks like any one of the 4 favorites is destined to go, I'm going to suspect a heavy dose of editing until I actually see them packing their knives.

Yeah, Ronnie I think we can all pull out quotes from this thread about predictable things were. But much to Dom's chagrin (a true student of Top Chef), this just gives legs to the people who tune in, size up the best 4 at any point in the season and predict them to win. As he pointed out to me in response to the quoted post above, this has not been the history of the contest, so it just gives more props to these 4 contestants. All but one of them has been consistently better than their peers and the fourth picked it up when it counted.

Eh... on one hand, I was saying all season long that the best four won't make it. Somebody'll sneak in. Who knew, right?

On the other hand, Mike, Jen, Bryan and Kevin were my top four before the season even started, so I don't feel that embarrassed about having been proven wrong on that count*

(* - Um... try not to look at number 5. Now that IS embarrassing.)

From the start, yeah, these four seemed the strongest, but there's something that hit me early: The Brothers V are master technicians, but their passion and emotion over the food is on the level of Rain Man, "Yeah, I'm an excellent driver, yeah."

On the other hand, from the first episode, there was a sparkle in Kevin's beady little lawn-gnome eyes: he luuuuuuuuvs the food.

And Jen? She always looks like she's working too hard, like it's not coming naturally.

Short answer to how I feel about their food: Never trust a skinny chef.

So, apologies if that has already been covered, but was the blindfolded relay supposed to take the place of the skills relay (most memorable when Hung reduced Tom Colicchio to astonished laughter when he broke down a pile of chickens before anyone could blink)? Because that was one of my favorite parts of every season. It says so much about each chef, and it's always fun to watch people do things they're very good at- even if they're not as good as Hung. I also missed the taste-test relay, and I reeeally wish they'd bring back the food desert challenge from season one. (I know they're intently interested in pleasing me, heh...)

sweetsalty wrote:So, apologies if that has already been covered, but was the blindfolded relay supposed to take the place of the skills relay (most memorable when Hung reduced Tom Colicchio to astonished laughter when he broke down a pile of chickens before anyone could blink)? Because that was one of my favorite parts of every season. It says so much about each chef, and it's always fun to watch people do things they're very good at- even if they're not as good as Hung. I also missed the taste-test relay, and I reeeally wish they'd bring back the food desert challenge from season one. (I know they're intently interested in pleasing me, heh...)

They didn't (or haven't done) the taste test this season. Perhaps because they did it in Masters leading right up to season six? They did the relay, though. Kicked off the season with it, in fact! It was the very first quickfire challenge.

Am I the only one who thinks it's kind of tragic if Kevin has to drive himself crazy making fussy prissy little dead birds in aspic French concoctions in this Bocuse competition when all he really wants to do is making Southern food so yummy it makes your toes curl?

Next to last show, and nobody has anything to say.

Me neither.

May Kevin prevail over all Voltaggi.

I'm excited about the finale, but I'm too cool to show my excitement about it.

BEST SEASON EVAR!

The editing of that episode didn't make it seem nearly as clear a decision as Tom's blog described it. In a way, it's weird because it makes the positive comments the judges made about the loser's dish seem somewhat forced.

Mike G wrote:
May Kevin prevail over all Voltaggi.

*fingers crossed*

That would be great if this happens! The brothers V are very talented, but Kevin's style is so refreshing for me to see.

Yeah, it's really gotten to the point where they fake us out so much you need to go read Tom's blog afterwards to find out what really happened. They were definitely trying to make it look like Kevin would go down (so, incidentally, would he be the first one to win both Top Chef and fan favorite? He seems likely to get the latter, I can't think of anyone else who was all that likable...)

* Answer: no, Stephanie Izard won both

Very much looking forward to this week's final finale. I realized while watching last week's episode that I would have been a little sad no matter who had been eliminated. I respect the talent of the final four and have come to like what I've seen from each of them. Still, given her mid-season stumble (which I know the judges do not take into account), Jen's departure seemed just to me. If she'd made it through, that would have been ok, too.

More than any other season, this season the cooking seems to have spoken for itself. Other than Robin, there hasn't been too much inter-testant drama, which has been refreshing. I don't count the sibling stuff because I believe it's a completely different dynamic.

Yeah, it's really gotten to the point where they fake us out so much you need to go read Tom's blog afterwards to find out what really happened.

While I completely agree with you, I just refuse to do this. If that results in me being an uninformed viewer, so be it. It's a weekly tv show, not a research project. I shouldn't have to check the outside sources to know what really happened in the episode of a reality tv show. If the producers cannot accurately present what happened within the given timeslot, they're failing at what they do. I give them 1 of my hours each week (minus commercials) to get the job done. If that's not enough . . . oh well.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Yeah, it's really gotten to the point where they fake us out so much you need to go read Tom's blog afterwards to find out what really happened.

While I completely agree with you, I just refuse to do this. If that results in me being an uninformed viewer, so be it. It's a weekly tv show, not a research project. I shouldn't have to check the outside sources to know what really happened in the episode of a reality tv show. If the producers cannot accurately present what happened within the given timeslot, they're failing at what they do. I give them 1 of my hours each week (minus commercials) to get the job done. If that's not enough . . . oh well.

=R=

I totally understand where you're coming from, but the blogs are good for more than just giving an accurate view of that week's competition. They also contain shockingly honest commentary like this:

Gail Simmons wrote:I believe without a doubt that Jennifer is by far the strongest female cook we have had on the show.

Agh - my girlfriend called it! I owe her dinner at Katsu.

i thought they where leaning toward the other borther . they all did great

My scoring:

Kevin won the first course.
Michael won the second course
Third course looked to be a toss-up between Bryan and Michael.
Bryan won dessert.

Basically a tie between Michael and Bryan, but Michael gets the win for his highs being a bit higher and for being more ambitious. I was sorry not to see Kevin win, but it looked like he just had a bad day (and, fortunately, I don't think the sous chefs he got stuck with had any real impact on the outcome).

I kinda guessed at commercial that it would be Bryan because his dishes seemed en total, the best of the night. In a season of culmative voting though, to me, it appeared that Michael won for his overall efforts, not necessarily what he put fourth last night.

My scoring:

Kevin won the first course.
Michael won the second course
Third course looked to be a toss-up between Bryan and Michael.
Bryan won dessert.

I thought from the comments as shown that Bryan won the third course, which was why I was surprised he didn't win. I guess I will have to go read the blog.

I was sorry not to see Kevin win, but it looked like he just had a bad day (and, fortunately, I don't think the sous chefs he got stuck with had any real impact on the outcome).

This was my initial thought too, but it seemed like he was criticized for having too simple dishes, especially the pork belly, and I wonder if having Preeti as his sous chef on day 1 made him scale back his plans.