No Running in the Kitchen!
No Running in the Kitchen! by Roxanne McDonald
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And preferably, Hung, could you not fling your knives about? |
Cocky Hung gets knocked down not once (during the Quickfire Challenge), not twice (during the Elimination Challenge), but three times (when Chef Colicchio admonishes him for whipping his knives around haphazardly, almost
cutting fellow cheftestants Casey).
Humble Howie makes his mark, winning the Elimination Challenge and taking home the prize of some really fine wine.
And Joey gets justified with a Quickfire win.
Seems like that was all there was to the fifth installment of “Top Chef”. No real rallying, no rambunctious head-shaving, no tragic falls (though Lia would beg to differ, as she jokes—was it joking?—that they have let the greatest chef of all time go).
The Quickfire Challenge hosted guest chef Maria Frumkin, who could make ANYthing sound “cuhwee-a-teef” with that beautiful accent: the goal of this challenge to take on one of the most time-saving innovations of the 21st century—frozen pie crust.
In 30 minutes, come up with the most creative and ambitious dish.
You know that is going to be a deadly prompt for Hung, who is already boasting that with his choice, banana and chocolate mousse pie, how can you go wrong?
Well, for starters, you can not give the ingredients time to set and not then make odd explanations that blame the lesser quality chocolate….
Running pie. Runny pie. The runs. Okay OKAY. You get it. It gets trumped for a change.
Dale does a strawberry and saffron free-form tart, as well as a salmon something—probably encrusted; that’s a popular adjective.
Sara M. so goes for the rabbit.
And Joey has some or no (couldn’t catch that, or caught that he has some experience and is therefore feeling good—even though later in this episode he says something about NO pastry experience and I am way more confused than I should be , being sober and all) pastry experience so he is going for a trio of tarts; while Howie gives us a lesson on how some desserts are made by dessert cooks and some made by pastry chefs and there is a difference.
Tre is trying to find his cutting edge, and adds little triangles and stars, to be different.
Okay. So.
Hung has the banana, chocolate, rum plop.
Howie does a peach tatin with black pepper and balsamic sabayon. [I’m still getting over saffron in sweets, so the pepper really throws me and the balsamic vinegar? Well, that’s just wrong in salds to me cause it’s too sweet and in desserts its vinegar, so I am sensually a mess, but what do I know? My staple is Fluffernutters.]
Tre has the highly decorated fennel and apple tart tatin with walnuts.
Joey’s trio of tarts includes one of berry cream with balsamic [Oh! I get it! The sour cream effect!]; one of pureed roasted mango with rum; and one of warm apple compote with whipped cream and cardamom syrup.
CJ has made both a duck lollipop encrusted with pistachio and frozen pie dough and a duck, cabbage, tomato, arugula tart.
Brian has done four tasty choices, given the increasing ambition of the chefs as they lose someone for who knows what possible reason each week: a veggie tart with arugula pesto; a seafood tart with celeriac puree; a chorizo and pepper jack tart; and a fruit tart with Grand Marnier.
Sara M. brings the rabbit wrapped in prosciutto, with braised Swiss chard, goat cheese, feta cheese, and fig tart dish…or dishes, as I am looking down to take notes and miss whether this effort was split or whether Sara M. also does the pepper in sweets or fruit in meat thing…. [Hey, I do eat pineapple pizza and orange chicken, but I AINT no expert, so ease up.
Lia has done an artichoke and chorizo tart with pork tenderloin enhancer.
Dale has made a summer snack of spinach and salmon en croute; and a strawberry, pear, saffron tart.
And again we get an odd editing experience, not getting to see or hear about all of the dishes, which to me is just wrong unless the plan is to foreshadow—which it is or isn’t here, evidently, as Casey and Sara N. are not made fuss over either pro or con:
Judge Frumke’s LEAST FAVS are Lia’s, which contains poorly matched pears/artichokes; Dale’s, which has overwhelming saffron [ha! See?]; and Hung’s, for offering such a mess when he had ample time….
Chef Frumke’s FAVS are Tre’s, as it is simple and elegant; Sara M.’s, which is both very nice and exceptional; and Joey’s, for he has, she tells him, a future in tarts.
The winner is Joey, and he is exempt from being eliminated in the next challenge:
Elimination Challenge
You kinda guess the time-saving characteristic is going to factor in, here, though time is that bugabear for all the challenges and for all chefs and cooks, really. [Yeah, I said it with some confidence: I may eat out of cans now, but I have been known to cook some mean meals and desserts in my day. Timing is the number one concern during the process, for without that, forget taste and appearance.]
So the challenge is to cook for twenty people for whom time is money: the cast of Telemundo’s telenovella, “Dame Chocolate.” And that’s NOT daim chocklit. That’s Dahmay Chockolattay, for all us gringos and gringas.
Yep, the underbelly theme is Latin-inspired dishes, which are to be cooked for twenty in three hours. HowEVer…, Tom Colicchio comes in and clicks the already stressed chefs’ fast-forward button when he announces the luncheon has been pushed up and they now have only an hour and a half.
Jezus, you should have seen the movement: Casey looked like she was doing that mock power-walk thing, and Hung was whooping his body so fast and so often he looked more like a capuchin taking over the tree tops in ubiquity and haste. [This must be what prompted Sir Colicchio to scold him later about the running with knives or brandishing knives in a dangerous manner.]
What is was like was actually what all we coffee shop and fast food diner workers know too well. Hyper-drive. But while the set-up suggests a catering kind of service, this aint no roach coach fare, so the quality still has to be there. In an hour and a half? Tih. Riiight.
Sara N. offers a shrimp and scallop with avocado ceviche, with charred corn and pickled radish accompaniment.
Hung offers arroz con pollo, and serves it in his Spanish from Puerto Rico experience, intentionally showing off by asking each cast member if they want this side, that condiment, etc., for speaking the same language will surely make that dried up rice taste most.
Howie offers a braised pork shoulder with yucca, and sour orange mojo, whatever that is. Many judges were foused on that pork and the time Howie had to prepare it, for as even fast food cooks know that death is within spitting distance if you take a pork cook’s time away from him.
Casey offers a bacon-wrapped chicken breast with saffron rice [okay, getting closer, though I’m thinking that stuff worth it’s weight in gold, literally, is not so much a Latin delicacy as a Middle Eastern one?], coffee something, and molasses…oh, coffee and molasses mock mole. Judges comments include those pointed at how off and bitter the coffee flavor is but how the red onions/salsa is fantastic and very nice.
CJ offers skirt steak with black beans and jicama.
Tre offers seared jumbo prawns, lobster and mango ceviche, and jalepeno and cilantro dumplings.
Joey offers a bean stew with lobster, shrimp, chorizo, and pollo [making me giggle that one word in Spanish stays untranslated—cause I have nothing better to pick on or giggle over].
Lia offers smoked rainbow trout with polenta cake, and there are so many things not right about that. One, a cast member says the dish is so not a Latin dish (the polenta, surrogate tortilla); two, Padma calls it the WORST; and three, someone else [I think it was Gail] points out that on every finished plate there sat the untouched trout.
Now if Julia from “Hell’s Kitchen” were helping Lia, we would maybe have still gotten the trout, but we would have had some yummy responses to how it was fried right up right like.
Dale offers grilled poblano with braised chicken, a tortilla with fire-roasted corn, and jalpeno topper.
Sara M. offers chile rellenos with black bean sauce and quesadillas, a fare which elicits some happy comments from the cast.
Packing those Flying Knives
No, it isn’t Hung. But it could have been.
TOP TWO
Joey and Howie are called in, asked some questions, and told JOEY wins. Then they have to do the dirty job of summoning the bottom chefs.
BOTTOM FOUR (didn’t it used to be only two?)
Lia, Sara N., Casey, and Hung are in the firing line, but rather than the usual comments (aside from Colicchio telling Hung his rice was dry and underseasoned and that he has to stop with the fancy knifework), the judges issue questions. Now you can tell that this approach is one that will either 1) teach them to judge themselves; 2) is just because they are too tired or lazy to do the usual detailed constructive criticism thing; or 3) is a series of questions framed just so, so that audience and bottom chefs alike can infer, from the wording, exactly what was wrong with their food.
Lia is asked if she thinks her foods were shoe-ins for elimination, for example, and she is excused.
And who is the sexiest not chef but judge? At commercial interim, the viewers poll says Tom Colicchio, with 48% of the votes so far (choices being Padma, who had I didn’t catch how many votes, and Gail, who had 14%).
And that says little about who and how many actually voted—for instance, how many of each gender WATCH “Top Chef”, the demographic, and all, as well as the actual number of votes….
Enough picking. Time to go chow down on some runny pie.
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