Top Chef LCK - Spoilers!

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So I don’t know if LCK will need a new thread every week. But . . .

So it’s Garret and Renee to start this season’s LCK. There are two boxes of ingredients: one contains the ingredients from Garret’s failed dish, the other the ingredients of Renee’s failure. The twist? They have to use the other chef’s ingredients.

Renee stuffs the lemon grass through the chicken, and places the chicken on the stove on high heat with a cover. Tom questions her leaving it on the bone as it may not have time to cook. She makes some greens with a crispy poached egg and I forget what else.

Garret seasons the tofu and puts it on the grill. He makes some other stuff, but chooses not to use the beets. Tom finds this curious as well.

Renee’s chicken is burnt, so she cuts the burnt bottom off. Her greens were good, but the chicken was overdone. Garret’s tofu was tasty, but his sauce was too salty. I don’t think Tom liked either dish very much (he makes them taste their finished dish), but the win goes to Garret. Chances are, he won’t last much longer.

Sorry, I wasn’t paying close attention. Maybe somebody else can fill in my blanks.

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That about wraps it up! Sassy Renee sure didn’t look full of sass after Tom had her taste her own dish. She knew she was out and it showed.

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I loved how she cut off the burned skin. Yep, that will fool Tom into thinking the chicken isn’t overcooked :astonished:

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The burned skin after Tom told her repeatedly to watch it cause it’s gonna burn if you cook it like that

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So it’s Frances vs Garret and boy is Frances talking some smack and guaranteeing a win (so, of course, you know how this turns out). Tom talks about food waste. So their challenge is to prepare a vegetable 3 ways. They must leave the parts of their chosen vedge that they didn’t use on the table and that will be part of the judging. Oh, and it’s sponsored by Hidden Valley, so they must use either the dressing or seasoning mix in one of their preps.

Frances chooses broccoli; Garret goes with beets (see what he did there?).

Frances pickles the broccoli stems, makes a puree with the scraps and the Hidden Valley and a stir-fry.

Garrett pickles the beet stems with Hidden Valley, grills the bulbs with HV, and uses the greens for a salad with HV. Then he decides rather than add the beet peelings to his unused pile, he’s going to deep fry them for crispy beet chips.

Tom likes both. Frances put a little too much chili spice in her puree. Garret’s were all good, but the grilled beet was a little underseasoned. In the end, Garret’s use of the skins as chips puts him over the top.

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Grayson beat Garret. Tom was very friendly with her, unlike what was shown in the edit of the show.

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Oops. I guess I should go ahead and watch that episode now.

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“Crispy poached egg?”

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aka deep-fried egg.

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Ok finally caught up. This is our Grayson! Where has she been until now?

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Wow. It’s been days and I just remembered to watch LCK Giselle vs Grayson. A decision-making challenge–20 secs to pick ingredients and 20 mins to cook it. There’s some back and forth, but Giselle gets chicken and Grayson gets lamb (personally, I couldn’t do either justice in 20 mins).

Giselle is going to do polenta with chicken. She plated with 5 minutes left. Grayson’s doing a whole rack of lamb (it’s small). Grayson’s also using a wood-fired stove with Tom kibbitzing all the way.

Both chefs think their plates are perfect. Giselle’s sits for 5 mins before served. Tom likes them both, but Grayson wins.

I dunno’. LCK won’t really ratchet up until the good chefs start getting cut.

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Doesn’t look like there was a Top Chef Ep #6 thread started to discuss that, but we can continue LCK on this thread. So I’ll do a mini recap. :slight_smile:

LCK Ep 5 has the previous winner, Grayson, vs. Wesley AND Angelina, making a perfect burger in just FIFTEEN MINUTES. Grayson bitches in the confessional that when she was eliminated, she was on a team with Angelina. Hopefully, “Tom won’t mess this up for me AGAIN.” Oh, c’mon Grayson. Let it GO.

Grayson chooses beef and pork belly - but didn’t realize the belly was whole, so has to quickly grind it herself, losing some time to be able to blend it with the ground beef, even though it’s not on the die she wants it to be on. Wesley goes with lamb, and Angelina chooses half pork, half beef.

Time is everyone’s biggest problem, especially when Chef Tom comes around to see what they’re all doing. Angelina freaks out - he makes her nervous. Wesley went out on overcooked lamb, so he decides to try it again with a lamb burger. Grayson’s from Wisconsin - and she’s got cheddar going into hers, but when Tom comes around, she STILL doesn’t have her burger in the pan. But Tom’s very impressed with her wicked-quick slicing of mushrooms.

Wesley - Lamb Burger with Ras el Hanout, Goat Cheese, and Fennel-Jalapeno Onion Slaw. Tom likes it - seasoned properly, you taste lamb,

Grayson - Beef and Pork Belly Burger with Mushrooms, Pickled Red Onion & Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese - Tom says the flavor’s good, but the cheese could have melted a bit more (the quick close-up shows the cheese not even melted). Grayson agrees it could have melted more.

Angelina - Beef and Pork Burger with Avocado (dressed with a bit of Chimichurri), Heirloom Tomatoes, Pickled Habanero, and Arugula - Tom says the habanero really comes through, nice kick in the end.

Tom said they’re all good, and that everyone should try each others’ burgers. Tom asked which as their favorite, besides their own - Wesley pointed at Angelina, but Grayson said it was too spicy for her…“But I don’t like spicy!” Angelina thought Wesley’s had good flavor.

Tom ends up picking Angelina’s burger as the best, sending Grayson and Wesley to the sidelines. Grayson’s confessional has her “uber-pissed, because I’m sick of walking out of the kitchen, and Angelina staying. She’s a friend of mine, but what the…I’m pissed!”

(GET. OVAH. IT. GRAYSON.)

There’s 8 more to go - Angelina thinks it’ll be cake. I’m pretty sure not cake, Angelina. But I guess we’ll see.

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LindaWhit - you’re making me miss your recaps even more! I don’t know why I’ve never bothered with LCK - probably just forget more than anything. I’m surprised with the results. I thought they would have kept Grayson, if anything for her bad attitude, just to create more drama. But I’m not personally sad to hear she’s out; I’m tired of her “it’s a conspiracy!” 'tude.

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Caught the recap bug yet?

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Nope. LOL!

I did watch the LCK immediately following last night (because the new show on at 10:00 p.m., “Recipe for Deception”, was an abomination and I turned if off at 10:05 p.m.) I can recap LCK later tonight.

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Oh please do - as usual, I haven’t gone online to check it out. I was also bummed that I didn’t know the time had changed to tuned in with half the episode gone (and I fell asleep before the show repeated). I did catch the 10pm (EST) show and I was so confused when they laid out the rules in the first 5 minutes. Not sure I will be tuning in to that again regularly.

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Dang.

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It was just awful, wasn’t it? I only made it for the first 5 minutes as well.

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I don’t know. I didn’t really like it but I think I’m going to watch next week’s Top Chef Masters edition. A much better idea would be Max Silvestri doing a kind of The Soup type show about food/cooking television. His Top Chef recaps on Eater were so funny. Speaking of which, thanks LindaWhit for giving us that recap action we all miss so much!

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That’s why his name sort of rung a bell. I couldn’t quite place it, and of course the show descriptor wasn’t helpful at all. I used to enjoy reading his recaps too – but I really didn’t like his presence on screen. Thought he was pretty flat, but maybe because the show’s premise itself is super contrived and overly futzy.