Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 11: Let's Table That
This week's challenges: 24 questions to cook like Tom Colicchio, and dumping all your food on the table, but make it fancy.
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When I think “serving food directly on a table,” mostly I think of weird TikToks in which some overly chipper plus-sized mom creates a massive trough of nachos incorporating prepackaged liquid cheese and multiple bricks of cream cheese. “This is my hubs’ favorite meal!” the moms will claim. “My large family, they thirst for the trough!”
This week Top Chef’s producers basically said, “that, but make it fancy.”
It was… interesting, though so far as I can tell, not really based on any Wisconsin traditions, like so many other challenges have been this season. So far they’ve celebrated all the normal Wisconsin stuff — cheese, beer, boiled fish, saying “yah” using only air from your nose. Either they ran out of Wisconsin food traditions or they just figured table food would be good TV. Whatever the case, I’m still watching.
When it comes to Wisconsin and food, the first thing that comes to my mind is a story about Wisconsin’s favorite son, Chris Farley. I think this originally came from Live From New York, but this is the version I could find online, apparently from David Spade’s book:
During this season, Chris dated one of Lorne’s assistants. She was this sweet, preppy blond girl we all thought was super-cute and fun. Chris and Erin dated on and off for a while but eventually called it quits—for a myriad of reasons that she never really told me. But she did once tell me that she went back to Wisconsin with Chris and stayed at his childhood home with him. She was totally traumatized by dinner, which consisted of his dad bringing in a big platter of steaks and everyone just going at them like a bunch of crazed wolverines. Then Chris’s mom carried around the “yuck bag” and each man would spit his bones into it. I busted Chris’s balls about the yuck bag forever, and how horrifying it must have been for this sheltered, waspy East Coast girl to see the Farley family eat dinner, with all the booze and bones flying.
The “yuck bag” is one of those stories that just sticks with you. Is it too much to ask for a challenge that incorporates a “yuck bag?” Get on it, producers! It’s a Wisconsin tradition!
Anyway, this episode began with Tom Colicchio cooking a stir fry for Gail and Kristen. He wore his thickest glasses with creamsicle frames and lil coat, looking like a kindly art history professor. This was all in order to introduce a challenge in which the contestants were tasked with recreating Tom’s dish. Only Gail, Tom, and Kristen had already eaten the dish before the contestants were invited in, meaning they would have to recreate the dish sight unseen, and mostly scent unsmelled.
They were to do this by asking Tom questions, with the stipulation being that he would only be able to answer in the form of “yes” or “no.” Which was as much a challenge for Tom as it was for the chefs, given that Tom normally answers questions in the form of “what do you think, stupid?” (I kid, but seriously, he’s intimidating).
Part of me wishes that the judges had presented the contestants with Tom’s dish without telling them he had cooked it, and asked them to critique it as harshly as possible. Give ol’ Colicchio a taste of his own medicine, ya know??
Anyway, it was a solid enough segment, as it did manage to produce a minimum of inter-contestant drama. Like when one of the chefs would ask a stupid question, and all the other ones would groan. As when Manny asked, “is it a porridge?”
Porridge?? What is this, a cooking show for bears?!
My main issue with the challenge was that it forced the judges to judge based on two, possibly competing criteria: how well did they recreate the dish, and was the dish the contestant made actually good? The judges never really stated at the outset which one was more important. But hey, this is a cooking competition show, not the heart surgery olympics, it’s probably not that important.
After that, Kristen Kish introduced the Elimination Challenge:
“We want you to throw the norm out the window, and think beyond the plate. Create a dish that is plated directly on a tabletop.”
Frankly it like a grandiose introduction for an eat-directly-off-the-table challenge. DEFENESTRATE THE NORM! EAT STRAIGHT FROM TROUGH! BECOME FREE!
To guest judge the challenge, they introduced Curtis Duffy, owner of Ever restaurant. I’d never heard of him before, but Danny the hypebot assured us “My man is a mad scientist. Dope.”
With his black fingernails, multiple bracelets, and abundance of turquoise rings, I thought Duffy was giving big time swinger vibes.
Wait, too nice a suit. Too slick a haircut. Maybe not quite swinger, maybe more like “CEO of a Silicon Valley fingerbanging cult.” (Can you believe that’s a real job?)
Be the end of the episode, the Top Chef risotto curse would be invoked, and a beloved contestant would be gone from competition (shockingly not for the risotto). We even got a Risotto Curse flashback montage. Magical Elves out here just vibin’.
Once again, the chefs that seemed like they were trying to consciously “elevate” their food did worse than the ones who seemed like they were just having fun with it. Lesson: good art is the stuff you make to please yourself'; bad art is the stuff you make to impress some amorphous “other.” Unless you count Chef Danny, who makes art for a ruthless German taskmaster living only in his head.
It was also notable that of all the dishes you normally imagine being plated straight on the table — BBQ, charcuterie, crawfish boils — none of the chefs attempted them. Why not? It’s okay to be obvious, guys, take a lesson from my jokes!
This season feels like it’s desperately in need of a weirdo (Amanda was halfway there, and David Murphy seemed to have potential, but was gone inexplicably before realizing much of it). Like, I kind of wish someone had done a play on the “eating sushi off a naked lady” theme. Maybe a blow-up doll covered in cured meats and you have to do a welcome shooter out of the butt. I don’t know, get weird with it! Anything but risotto or seafood crudo served in a geometrical shape.
All that being said, it feels like Kristen Kish is coming into her own as a host. Between explaining to Gail what “it fucks” meant and making a “puffin sandwich” out of Dan’s dish, it felt like she was having fun with it. I do miss all the sex puns (maybe she could add “that’s what she said” to her repertoire?), but it’s nice to watch her blossom all the same. Oh man, you really cannot put “watch her blossom” in the same sentence as “sex pun” without it sounding weird, can you.
RESULTS
QUICKFIRE TOP: Savannah.
QUICKFIRE BOTTOM: Laura. Manny. Danny.
ELIMINATION TOP: Laura*, Danny, Dan.
ELIMINATION BOTTOM: Manny, Michelle**.
(*Winner. **Eliminated)
6. (-3) ((Eliminated)) Michelle Wallace
AKA: Pitmaster. Soundbite. Levee. Maillard Angelou.
Last week Soo, this week Michelle. All my faves… gone. I wish I could say the judges were wrong for this one, but I kind of knew Michelle was cooked the moment she talked herself out of a crawfish boil or barbecue, and into… something involving salmon, beets, egg salad, and brunch? (Sidenote: why was everyone so into beets this week? Was there a secret beet discount at Whole Foods?)
To make matters worse, her idea for an artistic plate was a mosaic. Which doesn’t sound that terrible in theory, but in practice meant all her food was just sort of squished in the middle of a giant table like some abandoned legos. It was basically the Spinal Tap Stonehenge prop of food.
If you want your food to evoke “abundance” probably the worst thing you could do is to squish it as close together as possible.
Under normal circumstances, Michelle’s flavors probably would’ve saved her bad concept, but this week her time management even managed to ruin her biscuit (which she says are normally a specialty, and I believe her). It ended up being such a whiff that not even Manny invoking the risotto curse could keep her from going home. The worst part was that Michelle clearly just assumed a crawfish boil wasn’t “upscale” enough. At which point the show smash cut to Laura talking about how they used to do a crawfish boil at Eleven Madison Park, which kind of said at all (great editing work by the Elves). Just arrange the crawfish in the shape of the Mona Lisa or something, all white table cloth snobs secretly enjoy messy food, all the setting does is give them permission to pay a lot for it.
Adding salt to the wound, Michelle became the first contestant eliminated after Last Chance Kitchen was over, meaning she didn’t get a second chance. Does that technically make her a “Top Chef finalist?” If you’re reading this, Michelle, just put “Top Chef finalist” on your resume, no one expects you to tell the truth on those things anyway.
DISH: Cured salmon, Salmon mousse, beet biscuits, pickled beets with capers.
REVIEWS: "Oh, this is it?" “she bunched it all up. Just give it some room to breathe.” "“Just doesn't taste right, collectively. A lot of things clashing." “This doesn't feel like her at all."
5. (even) Manny Barella
AKA: Manny. El Cid Vicious. Brawny. Gerard Guey.
This week Manny finally revealed what I suspected all along: that he used to be in a punk/emo band. Let the record show that I called this in episode one. I have rechristened him “Gerard Guey” in honor of Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance to reflect this.
Inasmuch as Manny has been a sentimental favorite of mine this whole time, even I’m starting to wonder how the hell he’s still here. First he asked “is it a porridge?” in the Quickfire, getting rightfully roasted by Chef Dan (when’s the last time you had a seafood porridge?). And then in the elimination challenge, he came up with the brilliant idea to make squid ink risotto.
How high are you, man? As if any kind of risotto on Top Chef wasn’t already a terrible enough idea, how does it fit into the concept of eating off of a table? Mmm, love some gooey arborio rice, slathered on a table.
Manny was well aware of the risotto curse (as all Top Chef competitors are by now), but claimed that he’d be able to defy it, on account of having made “probably more risottos than tortillas” in his life. Then the thing happened that always happens to people who try to cook risotto on this show: his focus was split between trying to manage the texture of the risotto and getting everything else on the dish cooked right, ultimately achieving neither. (Tom likes his risotto like he likes your mother, nice and loose).
Manny ended up with tight risotto, overcooked seafood, and a couple missing components. Any one of which is usually more than enough to get you sent home on this show, and yet Manny is still here. Maybe Tom sees Manny’s pythons and is afraid of getting choked out? I don’t know how much longer that can sustain. But hey, it worked for Jeremy Ford.
For the love of God, man, lean into the Mexican food! It’s like he keeps forgetting his own POV.
DISH: Calabrian chili oil squid ink risotto with pesto trapanese.
REVIEWS: "It looks like something's missing." "This poor crumble has nothing." "That looks like a mistake." "I mean, it's interesting." "The scallop I had was pretty over." "And the shrimp is over too." "My mouth is on fire from the spice."
4. (N/A) Laura Ozyilmaz
AKA: Yogurt Soup. Zed. Z-Squared. Ozyilmandias. Oz-matazz. The Wizard of Ozyilmaz. Wild Pistachio. Ruthless. Gamebred. The Sphynx.
She’s baa-aack.
Yes, fresh off her Last Chance Kitchen triumph, Oz-matazz reentered the competition, boasting “I think the other chefs are scared to see me back.”
I didn’t believe her for a second, even if Chef Dan co-signed it. (Of course Dan would say that, he still thinks Laura tried to Nancy Kerrigan his ass by buttering up the floor).
At first she seemed to earn my skepticism, landing on the bottom of the Quickfire for a salty stir-fry. But then she proved that she actually learned something in Last Chance Kitchen by choosing to make a dessert. I don’t know how many times I have to say it this year, but a dessert is clearly the path of least resistance. Judging by the last two episodes, at least some of the contestants have caught on.
Also, if Instagram has taught me anything, it’s that if anyone can make giant food and serve it on a table, it’s someone who specializes in Turkish food, like Laura. Laura made Turkish ice cream with giant baklava rings. The rings looked delicious, and were nicely maximalist, but hey, no Turkish ice cream trickery? Is it even really Turkish ice cream if it doesn’t involve a prank?
I like imagining Laura putting the upside down cone on Tom’s bald head. Lack of gags aside, the judges seemed to love Laura’s dish and she took home the win (a big redemption for someone who had previously been eliminated).
Laura cries whenever she mentions her husband and calls him “my superpower,” which is one of those things I watch and think “wow, my wife would never say that.”
REVIEWS: "I'm in love with the baklava." "Every bite is different, every bite is interesting." "The chewy ice cream, I like it a lot."
3. (+1) Savannah Miller
AKA: Funko. Peepers. Sporty Spice. Fryer Tuck. Big Pun. Bell Curve.
Savannah spent the last minutes of last week’s episode nearly passing out from blood loss after she hacked open her hand, and the first minutes of this week’s episode sharpening her knives. Hmm, tempt fate much?
And Savannah managed to not only avoid Seppuku but actually had a pretty good episode. I’ve been ragging on her for doing poorly whenever she goes back to the traditional Japanese food well, but this week her Asian food background actually seemed to be an asset. She was the only chef in the quickfire to conclude that Tom’s dish was probably a stir fry, on account of there inexplicably being woks in the kitchen for the first time. Smart! And probably not in the way the judges expected. It reminded me of the “it’s got all the dinks” scene from The Wire.
(Have I mentioned I host a podcast about The Wire?)
Savannah won that quickire, a credit to her brain, and nose. She said she knows exactly what wok-cooking smells like, which I believe, as a guy who once worked in the kitchen at a Chinese place.
She didn’t do nearly as well in the elimination challenge, where her idea was a “zensai,” which is apparently the amuse course at a traditional kaiseki. And then she did maybe the dumbest thing a Top Chef contestant can do short of cooking risotto or insulting Tom Colicchio’s hats: she did a bunch of little stuff. And not even the dreaded duo or trio, a full quintet! Nigiri, shrimp tempura with yuzu salt and yuzu ponzu daikon gane, boiled and grilled octopus, seared tuna, and oyster with aji amarillo. That’s so many components!
She fretted about her octopus the whole time then immediately got dinged for it in exactly the way she expected. Why serve it in the first place? The dish had four other things on it! There’s no rule says you have to serve octopus just because you bought it (probably there should be, but there isn’t).
Also, going back to my original Savannah thesis a bit, her most successful component was also her least Japanese: the oyster with aji amarillo (which did look amazing). Perhaps the thesis needs revising, as we say, but I think I’m onto something here.
DISH: Nigiri. Shrimp tempura with yuzu salt and yuzu ponzu daikon gane. Boiled and grilled octopus. Seared tuna. Oyster with aji amarillo.
REVIEWS: "I found savannah's presentation incredibly thoughtful." "It's very well portioned." "what I don't are for is the octopus." "I thought the oysters were a beautiful touch."
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