Top Chef Burns to the Finish

Top Chef Burns to the Finish by Roxanne McDonald

Reality TV shows that do a crossover to include other show characters are a nice change, even for avid fans of a particular long-standing program.

I love how, for example, Everybody Loves Raymond features Kevin James and Leah Remini (Doug and Carrie Heffernan of King of Queens), and likewise, King of Queens will have Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, and Doris Roberts (Ray, Debra, and Ray’s mother of Everybody Loves Raymond) worked into the King of Queens script. It’s nice to have it mixed up.

So Top Chefs mixes it up, so to speak, in part two of the season finale: the remaining contestants meet the challenge to prepare poker foods for such celebrities as poker champion and expert Phil Gordon and celebrity players such as Ron Livingston. Phil Gordon is the expert co-host on Celebrity Poker Showdown and Livingston has played in the series, as well. Maybe it’s just synchronicity, but the crossover of stars is delightful, if you ask me.

Well, whether the overlapping is intentional or not (maybe Gordon and Livingston

just happened to be in Vegas playing poker way before the show CPS even began?), the strategy on the part of production is impressive. The remaining chefs, Harold, Tiffany, and Dave, are to create poker food. The fry daddy, chicken wings, strawberries dipped in chocolate and other goodies impress the players, and Dave, the fry daddy and strawberries chef, wins the challenge.

Interesting twists, part of many fine reality TV shows are built on, come in the way of return chefs. Three of the six poker players the chefs are cooking for are only first identified as “high rollers”. What the three remaining find out is that these high rollers are Miguel, Stephen, and Lee Ann, who chide the chefs, mock them, and make nasty comments about how the food is definitely NOT what rich people would eat, blah, blah, blah (Stephan). Tiffany, who is insulted that she got low reviews because her foods mostly required forks, is highly flustered and even pulls a sour grapes / ad hominem, saying that clearly the players are poor poker players [who don’t know anything about food, that is].

Also in the first part of the finale is of course the Quick-fire Challenge. The judges are the members of the Cirque du Soleil troupe, who will test three dishes created by each of the three remaining chefs. Tiffany prepares blue crab salad, pork, and another dish; Harold does chicken, lobster and pasta, and veal or beef; and Dave does a seared beef tenderloin and pasta with a “kicked-up” marinara. The performers are most impressed by the low-fat options and variety of beef, chicken, and fish made by Harold. The Top Chef judges are unimpressed with Dave forgetting or running out of time for the third dish. Had he made that third dish, they say, he would have been a stronger contender. And Tiffany, says Tom Colicchio, was strong in

all competitions but just missed the mark.

So Dave has to pack up his knives and go. I liked Dave the best, appreciated his sensitivity and was even entertained by his attitudes. (And in the finale, part 2, he helps Tiffany score higher with his impressive bread pudding and panini desserts.) Dave says to the viewers, “Don’t forget about Dave Martin …. I have a lot to offer and want to see it through on a broad scale.”

We will not forget you, Dave, and hopefully, we will get to experience the Martin cuisine someday.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.