Top Chef a Top Reality Cook-off Show Contender
Top Chef a Top Reality Cook-off Show Contender by Roxanne McDonald
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Top Chef is another reality TV show with the cook-off premise—maybe ala Iron Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, but a tamer version of the two. |
Unlike Iron Chef, the contestants have no direct audience (save the thousands at home watching, of course), and unlike Hell’s Kitchen, there is no head chef who also runs the show and barks invectives (though the judges and host seem to take up the snooty and cruel slack quite well).
I came into the show, which is a program offered by the producers of Project Runway, in episode eight, by chance happening upon a Bravo Top Chef marathon–but having to leave to do errands (and not having TiVo hooked up yet) only got snippets.
Here is what makes the show at this
juncture, then:
There are five competing chefs left—Dave Martin, with the signature dish of Lotta Enchiladas and formerly an English degree candidate and subsequent techno-exec who hails from Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena; Harold Dieterle, with the signature dish of Steamed Thai Snapper and formerly the Sous Chef at NYC’s The Harrison; Lee Anne Wong with the signature dish of Smoked Sturgeon Roll, Cauliflower Puree and a self-proclaimed iron chef who hails from her post as executive chef of event operations for The French Culinary Institute in New York City; Stephen Asprinio, dubbed a borderline OCD personality, is former Culinary Institute of America grad and Sommelier for Nob Hill at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas (the job that will influence his fall from grace in this episode); and Tiffani Faison, with her signature Pumpkin Lasagna, hails from Bwoston and brings experience as chef de partie to Daniel Boulud and his Wynn Hotel restaurant.
So, episode eight, “Wedding Bell Blues,” begins with the Quickfire Challenge to design a wedding reception menu and then pitch it to win the bid (so to speak) and therefore be leading chef for that particular competition round, the elimination challenge.
As is often typical of pre-reception prep, things are chaotic, last minute mini-debacles arise, and the biggest issue for four of them is that Stephen is nowhere to be found. At least he aint in the kitchen, working as a “team”, and the team is pissed that they have to wash the price stickers off the dim sum serving dishes (which are Chinese soup spoons).
Stephen is instead in the dining room, wearing a “sommelier” jacket and coaching the wait staff on perfection.
Once the wedding reception is over, the judges and host sit with the wedding planner (Marcy Blum) and find out there were eggshells in the cake, etc. At the elimination, the one redeeming aspect was the professionalism of the wait staff (thanks to Stephen, ahem) but the bitching about Stephen’s absence and [assumed] lack of teamwork gets him booted.
Now correct me, sure, if I am off here, but the premise of the episode, according to the Top Chef blurb, is this: “The chef displaying the least ability to make a wedding dream come true will be sent home.” I would think that eggshells crunchy and albumin-disgusting
trump good service every time…. And I have worked and attended all ends of the country club party—from serving to being served, from preparing the foods to eating them.
But, hey, it is TV and as a new Top Chef viewer, I may have missed how Stephen maybe rode the nerves of the others for weeks previous?
Regardless, Steph, I was with you and your logical foresight and dead-on instruction to the wait staff.
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