Top Chef: Episode 4

Here we are again my friends, dishing on another episode of Top Chef...unfortunately, this will be the last week of my regular recaps as I'll be working most Wednesday nights until the fall.  I will have some off (when they are away) and perhaps I'll throw a review in here and there, but for the most part, my time as a TC reviewer is over.  :(  In any case, here is my take on episode 4. 

 

REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THESE POSTS.  IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW, DON'T READ PAST THIS LINE.

 

Thanks. :)

 

Let me start out by saying that hearing "If you don't know who this is you'd better just walk out of the kitchen now" made me chuckle.  Why?  Because I had no idea who the guest chef for this weeks Quickfire Challenge was, and I am pretty sure a few of the contestants didn't either.  Who was he?  He was Chef Danial Boulud, one of the most decorated French Chefs in the world.  When asked what he thought was the most important thing for a chef to posses he answered "technique".  Perhaps it was just me, but I knew that the challenge would for sure revolve around the things taught in a garde manger class.  Low and behold, that's what it was.  "Create a vegetable plate using 3 different techniques."

 

This was very familiar to me because in my senior mod we had an advanced class doing this exact thing (with a bit more thrown in).  Man, I miss that class...anyway...this challenge was very interesting to me.  I was interested in seeing what professional chefs would do for their plates:

 

*Manuel featured a supreme of lemon-which is just a fancy way to cut a wedge from a citrus fruit.  It's not really all the difficult at all-I was not impressed.

*Lisa wants to incorporate a technique that takes the skin off of a cucumber in a very fine sheet-but looks over and sees Dale doing the same thing, and doing it well.  She decides to go another route-probably a good idea.

*Zoi is nervous because she is not classically trained (and as I mentioned above, this is very much something you learn in culinary school.)  I believe she made a poached egg salad with shaved asparagus.  (My notes get a bit mixed up here)

 

At this point I started getting bad flashbacks of my hands getting pruney (something I HATE) and my little chef standing next to me telling me to keep tourneing a bazillion potatoes or carrots.  A tourne is a 7 sided vegetable that the chef carved.  It's often seen only in fancy places, because it is very labor intensive.  There's no point to this aside, except that I shuddered when I heard that word.  2 of the chefs used this technique.

 

Bottom 3: Nikki (get her OFF!) Lisa (no thought went into the dish) and Manuel (because he only used 1 technique).

Top 3: Zoi (very composed dish) Dale (because of his excellent knife skills) and Richard (because of his clean presentation and taste of the mushrooms).

 

Dale is the winner, and he gets to choose which team he will work with in the last challenge.

 

Elimination Challenge: Create a course (in a 6 course meal) inspired by your favorite movie.  Eating the food will be Richard Roper, a film critic.

 

My favorite team of the night was also the winners-Richard, Andrew and Dale-who had the first course.  Their dish was inspired by Willy Wonka and had white chocolate w/ wasabi and soy tapioca pearls.  They also had a little fizzy lifting kind of foam drink just to add whimsy.  Their dish was presented well and directly related to their movie.  Richard, being the head of the group, is the overall winner.

 

Stephanie's team came in second-their 6th course dish was not a dessert but a dish that featured a short rib dumpling with apples and a savory caramel sauce.  The dish seemed as though it was exceptional and was even touted as a new favorite dish by one of the judges.  Very well done.

 

My predictions so far for this season is that it's going to be Dale, Richard and Stephanie in the end, unless something crazy happens and they drop the ball.  Andrew, though annoying, might make it to the end too.  There are a few people in the background that might start to shine and who I'm not counting out just yet, but these are the stars so far.  Who do I think will go for sure?  Zoi, Nikki and Spike.  Let's see how I did...