Anyway, onto the quickfire. Cooking 100 dishes consistently. The guys decide they wanna impress with a bolognese and homemade pasta. Not a bad idea - but nearly impossible to make consistently unless you sit there counting the noodles. The girls had more things on the plate (4 components), but the basic dish was all cooked together = consistency! From the beginning it was clear the QF would go to the girls. They were smarter about it, and far less cocky. They played the game well. As usual, Mike was his cocky self, dissing the girls and everyone else, but he lost, so that gave me some enjoyment.
Next they are told of their elimination challenge: cooking with conch. Now that's just fine - they're in the Bahamas. BUT. They had to put on snorkel gear and go dive for the conch before they could cook it. Sure.
The cooking on the beach seemed really hard. Wind keeping the fires from getting hot, salt water dripping in their eyes, and just all forms of the elements in their way. I thought all the dishes looked pretty good - I loved Blais's innovation of the sweet potato thinly sliced as pasta. Tiffany's seemed the worst to me, she always seems to me to just not be at the same level as anyone else. I feel like to relate it to another field it would be to say that TIffany is like an allstar student, who just doesn't have the quite correct mindset to play in the big leagues. (Of course shes not a student and is far beyond that, but I find that she consistently just doesn't think through everything at the same level).
It became pretty clear to me that the win would be between Blais and Mike (most likely Blais), and the bottom two would be Antonia and Tiffany. But, as the judge's table began, they were much tougher on the chefs than they had been in the past. BUT then, out of nowhere...MIKE WINS. How did this happen? Mike is in the finals?! I am starting to hate this show at times. Although I think the big head he has gotten from this past week may come back to bite him in the final. (as you can tell, I really don't like Mike).
In the end, it is Tiffany going home. She couldn't hold her weight against the other chefs and this looks like the right choice. I really liked Tiffany on her original season, but she was not up to the same level this time, I felt. Maybe the competition was harder - maybe she has changed since season 7. Either way, this was probably the right choice.
Next week: finals. I'm excited. And I'll say it now...if Blais (and his oft funky hairdo) doesn't win, I think the world of Top Chef watchers will be disappointed. He lost it once in the final his year, and this season seems more or less like an excuse to get him a title. Time to step up and take what is yours, Richard.
Until the next episode...
Chris
Totally! I thought it was hysterical that Richard said, "I don't want to see Mike without his shirt on, and trust me, you don't either!" But I totally agree, why did they have to catch the conch? Silly.
ReplyDeleteI was really worried for Richard when they kept saying that some of the food was undercooked--the have consistently thrown people out this season for that, every single time. But I'm sure the producers realized that if Richard isn't in the finals, no one will watch. Wish they could have kept Dale in, that would have been unbelievable.
Ellen, I couldn't agree more...Dale in the final would have been great. And I think it's a shame that they didn't keep him around as he had been consistently strong prior to the episode he went home on.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Blais is hilarious. I seriously hope he wins now, and only partially because of his cooking. The rest of me wants him to win so that his amazing ever-changing hair and sense of humor can be even further brought to the masses.
Then again, I've been a Richard Blais fan since before he was on Top Chef. He did an episode of Iron Chef America vs Mario Batali and lost, but he caught my eye even then as someone to watch. I hope he doesn't blow it again in the finale.