Top Chef on Bravo: Into the Fire

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of reality TV. However, my one guilty pleasure is Top Chef on Bravo. Season one proved to be pretty entertaining, and hearing some of the recipes these chefs came up with had me salivating. Of course, some of the recipes were downright vile sounding (how many different weird flavors can you put in one dish Stephen?)

The contestants were a varied group, some with very little culinary experience: a health nut who loves to talk about how food can help the bowels; a crazy Irishman offed in the first show for being a little bit too nuts I think; a likeable but grumpy winner; a bitchy and unlikeable final contestant; a crying man who got screwed out of the finale; a strange stuck up sommelier - way too stuffy for such a young man; and several other contestants.

The judges: Tom Colicchio owner of several Craft restaurants, author, celebrated chef. He's not entirely fair; pretty biased in his opinion of some (he was clear in his dislike for dave, the crying chef. And man did he want Tiffani to win or what?) and used his kitchen walk throughs against some contestants. Gail Simmons, in charge of Special Projects with Food and Wine Magazine.

These two will continue this season. Padma Lakshmi, supermodel, actress, cookbook author and wife of Salman Rushdie, will replace the stiff and robotic Katie Lee Joel, wife of Billy Joel. At least Padma has more culinary knowledge, and so far more personality than Joel.

So on to the season opener. Contestants in no particular order:
Josie, whose bio says she's loud and outspoken, a member of the NY Sharks Women's professional football team, sous chef. Severe hair and big teeth is what I noticed first.

Ilan, a Ted Allen of Queer Eye look-alike, is a line chef in NY and says he will debate with someone when he knows he's right. Sounds like he could get irritating.

Mia, owner of a restaurant, makes home style and BBQ foods. Trained at a junior college. Seems to like cowboy hats.

Sam, apparently voted as one of the top 10 sexiest NY chefs (oh brother), describes himself as arrogant (oh goodie). He's also an executive chef in NY and is a diabetic. His bio is full of stuff about how he'll make the ladies swoon type of descriptions...but can he cook?

Betty, one of the older contestants, seems to be a friendly blonde, owns a catering business and a restaurant called Grub in Hollywood. She's a self taught chef and pretty likeable already.

Suyai, English, owner of a food delivery service. She's sweet and easily flustered it seems. Boring signature dish as described in her bio at bravotv.com.

Elia, from Mexico City, she has 34 different culinary degrees and works in Las Vegas. Trained in Paris, she seems a little stuffy to me... but I'll leave that to more shows because she has a cute accent and she also seems like she could be likeable.

Otto, strange looking little man with spiked hair and well, just different. He's the oldest contestants and is an instructor at a culinary school in Vegas.

Michael, line cook in California, described as hysterically funny. I dunno, first night on the show he gets himself blasted drunk. Not really a good start. Kind of slovenly too.

Frank, executive chef in California, he seems a little mafia-like. Oh man, I'm stereotyping.

Marcel, oh man...it's the Heat Miser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Heatmiser.png, hee. What's with the hair, Wolverine's skinny cousin? He's a Master cook in Las Vegas, and studied "gastronomy and butchery" and says he's into "molecular gastronamy"...is he this year's Stephen? Remains to be seen.

Carlos, executive chef and owner of a restaurant in Florida. He's self-taught and seems pretty likeable.

Cliff, self-taught executive chef in NY. We don't really see much of Cliff in this first show.

Emily, who I've seen in two shows now and somewhere else someone mentioned Emily and I thought "hey, they got her name wrong because there's no Emily on the show". Not a good sign. She's master chef at Nob Hill.

and then there's Marissa, who brought bustiers, swimsuits and will "use her sexuality" to get ahead. Ugh. First off, if you say you are sexy, that knocks you down in the sexy category right there. She's an executive pastry chef, not exactly suited for a top chef competition.

The contestants meet each other as they check in to their loft accomodations. Marcel asks Ilan if he can show him his knives. Jeez...kinda like Jr. High huh? Is that the equivalent of I'll show you mine if you show me yours?

So they get to the kitchen and meet the guest judge for the show: last years winner, Harold Dieterle. Who can hardly crack a smile to help himself. Poor Harold is just so uncomfortable on camera.

First quick-fire challenge: Flambe something. That's the instructions, make a flambe dish with any ingredients in the Top Chef kitchen. Suyai is worried because she's never flambed before. Elia makes a flambe dessert with low alcohol content red wine...which doesn't exactly flambe.

The top three chefs: Sam, with espresso shrimp; Emily (see she was in the top three and I still don't remember her) with a pork chop dish, and Betty who flambed mussels. Sam is the overall winner and gets immunity from elimination this week.

We get to see the chefs relaxing at the loft, Michael get totally stumbling drunk with stains down his shirt (things don't look so good for Michael if they are already showing him like this), his pj's falling down enough to show a butt crack. Ick...not exactly how I want to see someone who prepares my food.

On to the elimination round: the chefs choose knives from the chopping block and divide into two groups. The first group will individually prepare a tasting menu from ingredients found in a "mystery box". Each person gets the same ingredients, then can use stuff from the pantry. The second group will taste and judge. Then they'll switch...the second group gets their own mystery box.

Mystery box ingredients: snails, artichokes, processed cheese slices, peanuts, potatoes. Poor Suyai is totally thrown by the tast, which is sad because she's so nice. Marissa, the expert pastry chef, slices her finger. Awww, Carlos comes over and helps bandage her finger. Ok, Carlos earned a point.

Chef Colicchio arrives to look over the kitchen proceedings. I'm not sure I like it that the judge goes through the kitchen, sees all the chefs either shining or having problems, and then takes that info to the table with him. Judge them on the finished product. Suyai makes the mistake of being totally honest and saying she's lost and doesn't think she'll win. Yikes. Elia complains about the American cheese slices...which, yeah, hard to put into good dishes.

I won't try to describe all the dishes. Nice presentation by Elia, and her dish sounded good...love her dig at the American cheese. "...the Delicious American cheese" kind of sneering. I take it back about not liking her..she's kinda funny. Frank's and Carlos' dishes looked like a mess, although Frank's sounded pretty good (although i'm not sure i'm a fan of escargot). Ilan did a baked dish, sauteed and with a potato puree that incorporated some cheese that the other chefs seem to like.

On to the next group's mystery box: frog legs, chicken liver, eggplant, cornflakes and peanut butter. Oh...yuck. It sounds more difficult to me, not sure why. (probably because I hate liver and eggplant). Mia is all excited about this one saying it's like "grandma's house on Sunday". Marcel, Wolverine's cousin, makes frog leg "lollipops"...silly name for it really. Most of the dishes are forgettable really.

Betty's stood out for a different presentation, making a frogleg and liver cake (sort of like a crabcake I guess) and most of them fried the legs, and Carlos winks encouragingly at her when they are complementing her...Carlos gets another point for being nice. All the chefs seem to LOVE Mia's fried froglegs, Ilan saying he loved how it was so juicy it ran down his chin (frogs running down your chin, um, uck.)

So the group of chefs really liked Betty's and Mia's dishes, with Colicchio acting all kinds of surprised they liked Betty's dish. Discussion by the judges...in which host Padma, unlike former host Katie, actually has well informed opinions... leads to four chefs being on the bottom and four being top choices. (two from each group for the top and bottom) Ilan, Betty, Mia, and Elia make the top group. Colicchio is still all "eh, Betty's cake was ok" snotty. Harold declare's Ilan's dish the overall winner, and Mia standing next to him look ten kinds of pissed off.

Next the LOSERS. Carlos, Suyai, Otto, and Marcel are in this group. Marcel seems to have been voted in the bottom four by the other chefs mostly for his attitude than his dish, as Harold doesn't think there was anything wrong with his dish. Marcel even says he thinks he was dinged because maybe people are afraid of him or something silly like that. Take a lesson buddy, Tiffani mostly lost last year because she was a jerk to her fellow contestants. Carlos says he doesn't think his own food was great but it wasn't crap on a plate, heh.

Suyai loses for her uninspired, under flavored dish and her defeatist attitude to Colicchio. Aww, she was sweet and had a great accent. Stay tuned for next week.