Dont’ forget every episode is a chance to advertise the sort of thing you might get at their restaurant. Each week is an advertisement of sorts. There’s definitely a benefit beyond winning, otherwise I don’t think people would risk the work and family time and other resources this could take. I mean some risk, but not without rewards beyond Top Chef winner.
For sure! Buddha said as much on that other cooking show. He keeps doing cooking competitions because he wants to build up his brand and showcase his food. Some people may be put off by that because they have this idealized version of a chef who shuns publicity and says they’re only in it for the good food. It doesn’t rub me the wrong way as much because I find he brings the goods with his focus on technique and fancy showcases. If he was making food that was subpar, and there is more flash than substance that would get me too (I’m thinking of that dude who became famous because of the weird way he salted his food…).
This was a really annoying episode overall, I have to agree.
The quickfire criticism from the recap is spot on – I mean, how does one chef win just by plating another’s dish, and another get dinged for ingredient prep & flavors that were someone else’s fault?
Some of the elimination challenge critiques were also a bit ridiculous - Michelin plating * is * “precious” – so how do you criticize someone for that when it’s one of the things you’ve asked them to do? I don’t agree with the Vulture reviewer on the Sherry stuff – their dislike of her comes across, and while she’s not easy and crowd-pleasing (good for her), she’s also right about representation in Michelin and the rest of her peeves. It’s probably been a tough season for someone of her level of talent to have dealt with some of the past critiques and what won in some cases.
Gail used to be “nice” judge to balance Tom & Padma’s harsher critiques, and now that Kristen is both nice and an expert, Gail’s critiques in several cases sound almost idiotic – and hard to figure out what “role” she’s playing in the judging group.
Also, how does Laurence get away with a crappy dumpling as his only offering at this stage of the competition? There’s enough time to make dough for wrappers for an elimination challenge – as I recall, someone made bread from scratch in a previous episode. And for all the criticism about consistency with other people, how does he slide on that, in addition to the comparatively minimal effort offering when it’s at this late stage?
The guest judges & sponsorship at this point are going from bad to worse.
Yeah, if they were going to switch stations, they needed to do that waay earlier, and not half way through the cook time (that is already short) so that your only option is to finish what was already cooking and plate. I think that’s a fun twist, but was not appropriate for how it was executed here. Poor Sherry - I felt bad for her. They should have at least said they would split the money for the winner and the original chef who conceived of the dish.
Agree about Laurence’s dish. I think it saved the chef because it at least tasted good, but I found it lacking too. Making thin shu mai wrappers is no joke though from a time perspective, so I don’t blame on using store bought. But definitely needed to dress up and put our more on the plate to make it a composed dish. If it was meant to be an appetizer or starter course, that’s one thing, but it wasn’t. In this case though, I do think there were more egregious errors in the other dishes which is why it fell to the others.
Seriously – especially when pretty much everyone just plated whatever was prepped.
I didn’t understand why she plated the bitter pesto when she knew it tasted bad, though.
I think the shiu mai should at least have been on the chopping block for bad concept, not just bad execution and lack of consistency, never mind using store-bought wrappers that then failed at this stage of the competition. He could have converted them to meatballs, or cut the wrappers into noodles, or pivoted in some other way. It wasn’t a main course, and it wasn’t a Michelin dish. I think he’s been protected a few times by the producers, or by the judges.
Eh, during that challenge, they had a lot more time, as I recall (a couple of hours the day before, when bread dough could be made, then a slow rise overnight before finishing the challenge day. I suppose Laurence could have done it in theory, but that also need resting time. I’m unhappy to see the chef who went go, but I also felt like it was obvious, because aside from the criticism about plating (and it not being cohesive), they did the worst at the actual cooking. Jonathon predicted their biggest critique during the cooking (that it could just be seen as two separate dishes also not cohesive
Feels like every cooking show is searching for wacky new ideas to keep viewers or whatever their motivation is at this point. “Make your whole meal and then pass it to the chef on your right and start over”, “stay up for 24 hours and try to survive with no cooking utensils” etc…Chopped is now pushing some sort chopped survivor episode where I assume they all have to Gilligan island it for the weekend and figure out how to hunt and fish?
…Well, I do want to see Ashville, so maybe a bit longer.
