Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 2: The Champagne of Bar Snacks
What do they have in Wisconsin? Miller High Life, that's what.
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If I had to isolate my single favorite thing about Top Chef and what has kept me watching this show for 21 seasons, I'd say it's the marriage of classic reality show soundbites with super fussy obscure chef jargon. The talking-to-the-camera-about-the-present action format is so ingrained in our culture that half of scripted comedies now use it, but combining it with someone who is furious about dauphinoise or devastated about gochujang? That’s Top Chef, baby. TV perfection.
Would that every awful soundbite cliché on every mindless reality show be applied some French term that translates literally to “Eskimo boat’ but actually refers to a very specific cut of potato. CHEF! YOUR LAMB TONSILS ARE BRUISING!
One of my favorite lines this week in that vein: “If I go home this week for soupy grenita, I will NEVER forgive myself.”
No doubt, man. Bouncing back from a soupy grenity is one of the toughest things a person can do.
This week's Top Chef challenges celebrated the only--er, main thing Wisconsin is known for: BEER! The episode was basically an infomercial for Miller High Life. And while I love to clown on this show for its dopey spon-con segments, few products in the world command such brand loyalty in me as the Champagne of Beers. Love that High Life.
The quickfire challenge asked the chefs to create a dish incorporating the precise element that makes me opt for High Life ahead of like 50% of microbrews: hops. I'm going to digress here, but people, the hops are out of control. I've been banging this drum for at least a decade now and sadly the problem hasn't gotten much better: there are waaaaaaay too many IPAs out there. I don't care if you love a hoppy IPA and think that because an IPA was the first non-light beer you ever drank that it's the flagship style of "good beer," but we really don't need six out of every 10 brewery taps to be IPAs. Breweries should be required to purchase a medallion from the city before they brew a new IPA like we used to do with taxis. Regulate the numbers. The world has enough. Make room for some reds, some bocks, some god damned Vienna lagers! My kingdom for a Dortmunder! (Yes, I want to kick my own ass right now too).
Anyway, the challenge was to use hops in a dish. And since we just covered how bad too much hops can make beer taste, you have to imagine that goes double or triple for food, which doesn’t even come with the benefit of loosening you up to yell stuff at your favorite sports team. Past winner Joe Flamm showed up to judge that challenge, sounding a little stuffy, like a bear who just woke up from hibernation. Kristen Kish I think arrived via parachute.
(quietly) I own those boots.
After that, the elimination challenge split the contestants into two teams, and asked them to '“feature bar snacks in an elegant fine dining dish, served as a seven-course progressive meal.”
Fuck yeah, dude, give me your finest pickled egg sabayon; a Goldfish-cracker crusted seabass poached in hog jowl butter.
Meanwhile, Tom Colicchio, God bless him, seems to get bitchier and more opinionated with every season (wonder what that's like). He was really one on this episode.
"I think there's been some confusion here. They're supposed to take snacks and turn them into a dish, not take snacks and turn them into snacks," he said at one point.
Yep. This is exactly why I watch this show. The only thing that would've made it better was if he had just nailed the offending chef in the face with his silk pocket square right after he said it.
Another exchange:
GAIL: This team has two desserts. The first is supposed to be like a palate-cleanser dessert.
TOM: I hate that.
This show rules.
POWER RANKINGS
14: (-2) ((Eliminated))Valentine Howell
AKA: Shovelbeard. Sauce.
Shovelbeard started out this episode with a nice little segment of him flexing on how hard he whips ass at Uno. That’s the kind of dad shit I can get behind. Sadly for him, he finished the last episode near the bottom and continued the trend in the quickfire. He made a hops-smoked duck breast and the chefs didn’t even elaborate much on why it was bad. I think he was doomed the minute he covered that chicken in a pile of shishitos last time around. For the elimination challenge, he made a beer and corn soup, with pickled Fresno peppers (represent) and toasted corn kernels.
I guess it was supposed to highlight corn nuts, even though they didn’t call them that, probably some kind of copyright thing. “Is this supposed to be a soup or a sauce?’
It looked pretty all right, but the judges seemed to find it much too viscous. I’m gonna need a soup-to-sauce viscosity chart, could have Valvoline sponsor. It’s always a bad sign when Tom makes this face;
Oh, mama. That’s no good. That’s no good at all. Tom made that face at me when I asked him too-stupid of an interview question and I immediately broke out in full-body flop sweat, so I feel Shovelbeard’s pain.
Anyway, Shovelbeard went home and it felt kind of inevitable.
13: (-2) Kaleena Bliss
AKA: Nickname. Khaleesi. B-Train.
Kaleena Bliss. Boy. What can we say about Kaleena Bliss? Not a whole lot. She made a buttered popcorn budino with salted caramel sauce with chocolate and caramel popcorn (popcorn being the bar snack she highlighted).
Judges reviews: “Kaleena’s was elegant and simple, I just think it was safe.” “It was a decent dessert, but it’s not a budino.”
Oh God, let’s not get into a whole thing about budino. (Budino: “Budino is a sweet Italian dish, usually rich and creamy like a custard or pudding. Like the English word "pudding", "budino" originally referred to a type of medieval sausage.[1] Budino is the Italian word for custard or pudding.[2] It can be thickened with cornstarch or cookies to make it more like a soufflé or ganache, and it can be sauced with various flavors, including chocolate, caramel, apple, and butterscotch.”)
She managed to stay out of the bottom in both challenges, but I always think it’s a bad sign when the judges are just sort of lukewarm on your food without articulating exactly why. It’s like the badness was self-evident.
12: (-2) Kenny Nguyen
AKA: Pho Butter. Lil Ngayne. Leatherhead.
I’m keeping Pho Butter’s original nickname and adding Lil Ngayne, in honor of the famous “real Gs move in silence like lasagna” line. Real Gs move in silence like Nguyen. Is that even a silent G? I guess it’s more of a compound consonant sound. Whatever. Fuck you!
This episode, Pho Butter revealed “I dropped out of culinary school because I forgot to sign up again.”
I mean whomst among us wasn’t a total dipshit in our early twenties, but still, the anecdote felt a little telling with respect to his lackluster performances thus far. He made a “hops and kombu broth with farro, maitake mushrooms, and burrata” in the quickfire round, which sounds kind of weird as hell on every level. Kombu and burrata? Uhhh, sure.
Then when they were choosing bar snacks to highlight in the elimination challenge Pho Butter kind of just sat there not saying anything until he got stuck with potato chips and seemed uninspired about it. I thought for sure he was going home.
Instead he rallied back with a “potato chip pavé with togorashi yogurt and beer-braised shortrib,” which, again, sounds incredibly weird, but actually looked pretty delicious, a many-layered potato fried crisp with a creamy sauce and some braised meats for good measure. The judges loved it. My gut says he’s still an underdog but that did look bomb.
Reviews: “I thought Kenny’s plate was spot on, I loved it.” “It tasted just like a sour cream and onion potato chip.”
11: (-4) Alisha Elenz
AKA: Avril. Mrs. Skin.
So far Avril mainly has the distinction of having the thickest Chicaaaago aaaaccent. It reminds me of Mr. Skin (did anyone else listen to Stern in the nineties?).
When Avil whipped up smoked salmon rillettes with lavash and olive chimichurri I was mentally preparing myself for how “lavash” was going to sound in that accent (“LAAAAVVAAAAASH”). Instead she pulled a misdirection and pronounced it “luh-VOSH.” Tricky!
The judges seemed to hate it for petty-ish reasons.
Reviews: “It’s not refined.” “It’s hard for me to think of that chimichurri as a chimichurri.”
10: (+4) Amanda Turner
AKA: Daria. LAN Party. Milton. Grimace.
We got to see pictures of Amanda with her Dungeons and Dragons crew, which was pretty sweet. When Kristen asked if anyone had ever cooked with hops before, Amanda’s was the only hand raised. Yes, that checks out.
Then in the elimination challenge, she made “beer and pretzels: pretzel beer foam and miso with beer and lime grenita,” which sounds really weird, insofar as I even understand what any of those words mean. It honestly looked like snot soup:
Hers was also the “palate-cleansing pre-dessert course” discussed earlier. Love to cleanse my palate with a bracing snot soup before second dessert, I always say.
This turned out to be another misdirect as the judges mostly loved it. Go figure.
9: (-1) Kevin D’Andrea
AKA: Le Kevin. VousTube. Un Trevail.
VousTube, our favorite French influencer, was looking hot to trot early in the episode. When he presented his quickfire dish, Kristen turned to Joe Flamm and said “he has a pastry background, I can guarantee you that” even though the dish didn’t really have any pastry in it, and she was right.
Meanwhile, I was enjoying Kevin’s bizarre and delightful Fronsh pronunciation of all things, from Austin (OAST-in) Texas, where he has his pastry business, to “wiping cream” and “oap oil” (hops oil).
He made a trio of olive tapenades in the challenge, and the judges found it unbearably salty (to say nothing of the fact that he made a trio. NEVER MAKE A TRIO! HAVE YOU NEVER WATCHED THIS SHOW BEFORE? NEVER MAKE ANYTHING MULTIPLE WAYS!).
A salt bomb-ass trio of shit is the kind of thing that gets you sent home instantly on this show under normal circumstances, and I have to think the judges were giving him credit for previous dishes. That’s also why I have him ranked this high despite finishing on the bottom. (Heh, “finishing on the bottom” heh heh heh-heh hehehehe).
8: (-4) Charly Pierre
AKA: Carmen.
Dammit, I still got no good nicknames for Charly. What can you guys do with a nose stud and a penchant for head scarves? Is there a Haitian play on Rosie the Riveter here?
Charly keeps cooking up really good looking food, from his Haitian fried chicken with pickliz in the quickfire to his potato-chip crusted Spanish mackerel with black bean puree and beurre blanc, but the judges said it was underseasoned and one of the mackerels was raw.
7: (+2) Savannah Miller
AKA: Funko. Peepers. Sporty Spice.
Peepers tried to make “Win-consin” happen as a team cheer this episode. Ehhh, maybe workshop that one. Then she busted out the melon baller for the elimination challenge, and no one even commented on it. Really? Nothing for melon-balling? (Sounds like a very specific genre on PornHub). The dish: Cucumber and melon salad, shredded pickles, and cream cheese.
Reviews: “Laura’s had a nice balance between cream cheese and vinaigrette." “I wanted more pickled flavor.” “I don't like to start a big progressive meal with dairy.”
That last one was Kristen Kish, btw. She keeps dissing dairy, which might make this Wisconsin-based season a challenge for her. Time to bust out the diarrhea cam!
6: (+7) Laura Ozyilmaz
AKA: Yogurt Soup. Zed. Z-Squared. Ozyilmandias. Oz-matazz. The Wizard of Ozyilmaz.