Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 6: CHAOS REIGNS
That's the bear from 'The Bear!'
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After a straightforward Supper Club challenge last week, the pendulum swung back to impossible challenges this week. Yet whereas the Frank Lloyd Wright challenge (make a dish that evokes a dead mid-century architect!) was impossible to execute, this week’s challenge was impossible to interpret.
More on that in a second. First there was some important business to take care of at the top of the show. Like the return of Kaleena Bliss (aka Khaleesi, aka B-Train) and the introduction of Chef Soo Ahn!
Who the hell is Soo Ahn, you ask? Why, he’s the co-winner of the Last Chance Kitchen mid-season finale, of course! Have you not been tuning in for the 15 additional minutes of Top Chef web content following the supersized 75-minute regular episodes?? What is wrong with you? Do you have a life or something?
For reasons still unclear, Chef David Murphy, this season’s first eliminee, did not participate in Last Chance Kitchen, while a guy who didn’t make the original show did. That guy was Soo Ahn, a chef of Korean descent and former pro golfer who works in Chicago. Chef Soo seems to cook the elevated diner food of Las Vegas fever dreams and wears loud pants. We’re calling him “John Dae Lee” (in honor of the golfer, who also favors unhealthy food and loud pants). And now he’s on the show, alongside now-chastened returning competitor Kaleena Bliss, who says “It’s time to cook my food” into the mirror ten times every morning as a personal mantra.
As the two new(ish) chefs were (re)introduced into the fold, Kristen Kish delivered a stark warning: two chefs rejoining means that Tom reserves the right to eliminate two chefs in a single episode without prior warning. Circle of life, motherfuckers! Never forget that Tom is the capricious dictator of this fiefdom and you do the risotto dance at his pleasure.
Oh yeah, there was a Quickfire too. A “dairy dessert” challenge, guest judged by Christina Tosi, CEO of Milk Bar. I’ve noticed Top Chef has mostly stopped doing that thing where they have a big introduction for a guest judge, and then immediately cutaway to a supporting interview with a contestant. “Oh my God, Branson Chamomile? He’s like the original gangster of new Estonian fast-casual!”
Which is nice. Later in the show, a guest judge just sorta showed up at the judges table. Perfect! I don’t need to know the guy’s resume. Anyway, Christina Tosi had a sort of mommed-up April O’Neil from Ninja Turtles vibe.
I dug it.
After that challenge, it was time for the big (double?) elimination challenge: CHAOS! To introduce that one, they brought out guest judge Matty Matheson from The Bear. (*nudging wife*) “That’s the bear from The Bear.”
Matty Matheson actually did get the usual guest judge editing package from Top Chef, with all the trimmings — open-mouthed reaction shots, cutaways to contestants calling him their idols, heavy hints of fangirling, etc.
Is Matty Matheson the focus-grouped Stavros Halkias? Discuss.
Anyway, Matheson was there to introduce the elimination challenge, which, as mentioned earlier, was basically un-parseable. I had to transcribe Matheson’s monologue of an explanation, just to be sure I got it right:
“The world is turning around us right now, and it's getting faster. Life is wild. How crazy can it get? Chaos is an amalgamation of where did you come from, what have you learned, where are you going, what’s your culinary voice? Chaos is every single day. My mind is just absolutely chaos. I want you to do whatever you feel. Dream the biggest dream. Take something, create it, destroy it, throw it on the floor, throw it up into the ceiling. Use techniques you've never used before.”
Jesus, man, that was about as coherent as Terrence Howard bursting through a beaded curtain to explain his ideas about non-traditional math. If the Top Chef producers were trying to recreate the feeling of tech company employees trying to create action items out of their CEO’s wildest ayahuasca revelations fresh from a yurt retreat, they did a wonderful job.
Hindsight being 20/20, acknowledging that I’m Monday Morning Quarterbacking here, I’m going to repeat what I’m pretty sure was the only important part of that statement. Ready? “I want you to do whatever you feel.”
KRISTEN KISH’S INTERPRETATION OF THE CHALLENGE: “I want to see dishes that break the mold of culinary convention.”
WHAT THE CHEFS HEARD: “This is a fusion challenge.”
Was it a fusion challenge? What is chaos, anyway? In the end the judges seemed to do what they basically always do: reward what they like and justify it later. It’s food! Make something that tastes good first and come up with a story later. If it tastes good enough, the judges will even figure out the story for you.
I would’ve been fine with all of it, except that two of my favorite chefs ended up on the chopping block. Rip my heart out, why don’t you! I’m never watching The Bear again, you son of a bitch!
RESULTS (Spoiler alert, etc)
QUICKFIRE TOP: Kaleena. Michelle*. Amanda.
QUICKFIRE BOTTOM: Manny (Soggy churro). Dan (Mouthy peanut butter texture). Danny (underbaked cream puff).
ELIMINATION TOP: Soo, Danny*, Dan, Savannah
ELIMINATION BOTTOM: Rasika**, Michelle,
(*winner, **eliminated)
POWER RANKINGS
Ranking: (change from last week).
11: (-9) Rasika Venkatesa
AKA: Party Nerd. The Imp. Evil Elf. Shenanigans. Venkwoman.
Wow. I can’t believe they really eliminated Rasika. Chef Rasika introduced herself to this competition making an Indian dish with beef, so one could argue that “chaos” was kind of already her brand. Rather than this challenge being up her alley, she tried to impose chaos on her already-sorta-chaotic nature. She ended up with a version of “chaos” that was something like “doing a bad idea because it’s such a bad idea.”
Rasika made a crab-stuffed eggplant dish, which is kind of weird sounding, but I’d try it. Only it looked like she steamed the eggplant, which seems like the worst possible way to cook eggplant, a food that mostly only tastes like whatever you use to cook it. And she didn’t finish it on the grill like she planned to because she was worried it would fall apart. Which leaves us with… a deliberately-bad idea, executed imperfectly.I hate to see one of my favorite competitors leave the show, but I can’t say the judges were wrong on this one, based on what we saw. Not too many dishes less awe-inspiring than steamed eggplant.
Luckily, as Tom noted, Rasika will have a chance to earn her way back into the competition through Last Chance Kitchen. Wait, more Last Chance Kitchen? Sheesh, they’re gonna have to start calling this thing “Another Chance If Tom Feels Like It Kitchen.”
Just ask Chef David about that one.
DISH: Crab and eggplant with mustard conserva, dukkah, and garlic tahini.
CHAOS RATING: 8/10.
FOOD RATING: 1/10.
Reviews: “We’re gonna take a couple steps back on this one.” “There's no flavor.” “Slimy.” "It's like, slug-like?" “That eggplant was bland as bland could be.”
10: (-1) Laura Ozyilmaz
AKA: Yogurt Soup. Zed. Z-Squared. Ozyilmandias. Oz-matazz. The Wizard of Ozyilmaz. Wild Pistachio. Ruthless. Gamebred.
Last week, Chef Laura’s barely-legal recipe rifling (she’s a rifler, Jerry!) rankled Chef Dan. But as a one-off incident, it didn’t seem like huge cause for concern. Then this week, we had Dan (again!) walking around the kitchen loudly asking “DOES ANYONE HAVE DARK CHOCOLATE?” Meanwhile Laura stood there silent, the dark chocolate sitting right on top of her station in front her. It’s starting to seem like Laura is indeed doing this on purpose, though she has an excellent poker face.
I love it. Ruthlessness is exactly what this show needs. Are you here to make friends? Because Chef Laura isn’t! While everyone else is out here holding hands and singing kumbaya, Oz-Matazz is out here gaslighting a guy with a degenerative disease.
The Laura/Dan drama is starting to get a real Arnold Schwarzenegger/Lou Ferrigno in Pumping Iron vibe to it. Well, except for the fact that Dan has gotten nearly universal positive feedback on his dishes and Laura mostly middling or negative. She managed to sneak through again this week, which feels wrong on a food level, but right on an entertainment level. I’m fine with her sticking around as long as she can keep torturing Dan for no apparent gain.
Sidenote: have you noticed no one can pronounce Chef Laura’s name the same way twice? Sometimes it’s “low-rah,” sometimes it’s “lah-dah” and sometimes it’s whatever the judge makes up on the spot. Are we going to have to have a meeting about this? Pick one and stick to it.
DISH: Tahdig, yuzu kosho sauce, quail eggs, salmon, seaweed salad.
(Food Fact: Yuzu kosho is a pasty Japanese condiment made from fresh chiles (most often green or red Thai or bird's eye chiles) then fermented with salt along with zest and juice from yuzu, a tart and fragrant citrus fruit that grows in East Asia.)
CHAOS RATING: 1/10
FOOD RATING: 5/10
Reviews: "I wish it was a little more flavorful." "It's very contemporary plating."
9: (-1) Kevin D’Andrea
AKA: Le Kevin. VousTube. Un Trevail. Monsieur Brie-st.
Aw, man. Things are not looking great for VousTube. He had two challenges seemingly tailor-made for him this week and couldn’t manage a top three (or even four, as in the elimination challenge) in either one of them. He seemed legit pissed not to make the top three in a dairy dessert challenge. A FRONCH-man not winning for dairy dessert?? Mon dieu!
Then during shopping, Le Kevin made the classic mistake of thinking cocoa butter was food. Don’t eat that, man! Not unless your pancreas is ashy!
As for his elimination challenge dish, as Kevin described it, “My definition of chaos is the big bang, so I wanted my dessert to look like an atom.”
Uhh…. sure? Language barrier notwithstanding, subatomic particles are pretty chaotic. Just bouncing around down there and splitting and taking Florence Pugh’s top off and what not. That the judges seemed to like everything Kevin made but not enough to put in the top tranche of competitors seems bad.
DISH: Potato with raspberry, tarragon, and white chocolate.
CHAOS RATING: 10/10
FOOD RATING: 5/10
Reviews: “Kevin's dish got me to understand what chaos means, because there's this battling of, do I like it or do I not like it?” “This is chaos, because I'm confused actually.”
8: (N/A) Kaleena Bliss
AKA: Khaleesi. K-Bliss. B-Train. Hall Monitor.
She’s back, baby! And right back in the squishy center of the competition. Okay so she did land in the top three in the quickfire, for her caramel lemon whip whatever thingy (it looked good! I just didn’t write it down).
K-Bliss, I think I’m starting to realize, is a bit of a hall monitor. She seems to get tripped up trying to please the teachers instead of letting her nuts swing (so to speak). K-Bleezy’s interpretaish of the elimination challenge went something like, “the flavors of a burrito I grew up with, but make it a pasta dish.”
Sure? Yeah, so basically fusion. But as an Italian-American burrito enthusiast, it’s a fusion that speaks to me. She ended up landing outside of the top four, but considering her dish was a stuffed pasta, which almost never works on this show, and she still managed mostly positive reviews for it, her finish may have been stronger than the numbers reflect.
DISH: “Trash burrito”-inspired agnelotti with ancho chile and morita crema.
CHAOS RATING: 5/10
FOOD RATING: 6/10
Reviews: "I feel like she did a great job replicating the flavors." "I think she delivered on her idea, I just don't think technically it was perfect."
7: (even) Savannah Miller
AKA: Funko. Peepers. Sporty Spice. Fryer Tuck. Big Pun. Bell Curve.
Ayyy, check out the big almost-win on Bell Curve! Bell Curve finally hacked her way out of the mushy middle tranche of contestants by cooking up a mustard green dessert that had the judges’ jaws on the floor. They were agog at how she was able to pull off such a thing. Their mouths were literally agape with wonder!
And yet, still not a win. Top three is pretty good though, and the dish looked pretty great, but I’m going to need to see another high finish for Peepers before I give her the keys to the executive bathroom. The C-Suite bidet is for closers, Savannah.
DISH: Potato souffle with golden milk, tropical fruit, and mustard greens.
Hold up, what is “golden milk?” That sounds like something your mom gets tricked into drinking. (According to Google, it’s turmeric based).
CHAOS RATING: 10/10
FOOD RATING: 8/10
Reviews: "She did it." "I want that every fuckin day." "It just works."
6: (even) Amanda Turner
AKA: Daria. LAN Party. Milton. Grimace.
“You know she reminds me of?” my wife asked, during an Amanda segment. “Daria,” she said proudly, not realizing that I had already nicknamed Amanda “Daria” after episode 1 and that Amanda had mentioned people calling her Daria in episode 3. Amazingly, she seems to get more Daria-like every week. This week she even quoted the Pokémon theme song. Who are you, Herman Cain?
I also thought Amanda had turned a corner this week, winning the quickfire with a cheddar biscuit shortcake dish that looked incredibly good (cheddar in desserts? I’m for it). Despite being the only person who thought she understood what Matty Matheson was laying down in his explanation of the chaos challenge, Amanda too seemed to interpret “chaos” as “fusion pasta dish.”
That being said, that fusion pasta dish sounded really good. Pappadelle with cumin lamb ragu and XO sauce? Damn, that’s a fusion I can get behind. The Chinese invented pasta, after all. Cumin lamb pappardelle would’ve had Marco Polo creaming his pantaloons.
Yet when Daria was making her pasta, I was thinking to myself “those noodles look thiccc.” Sure enough, she got dinged for dry pasta. (Which I assume is another term for too thick, because how the hell can boiled pasta be dry unless it’s too thick?) The Top Chef Pasta Monster claims another! Always go the extra rung on that pasta machine, man, Tom and Gail are finicky beasts.
DISH: Black Garlic Pappardelle, cumin lamb ragu, xo sauce, celery leaf, and shrimp chips.
CHAOS RATING: 6/10
FOOD RATING: 9/10
Reviews: "Is anyone else getting the wrong pasta texture?" "The lamb ragu is flavorful." "I don't know if something new there."
5: (even) Manny Barella
AKA: Manny. El Cid Vicious. Brawny.
Just as it has been for the last two or three weeks, it’s almost impossible for me to rank Manny against Amanda. They’re both so up and down. Manny continued his skid in the quickfire challenge this, landing in the bottom three thanks to a soggy churro (“soggy churro,” — also the name of a game your mom liked to play).
But then he roared back during the elimination challenge, thanks to being basically the only chef to correctly interpret the chaos challenge. Sure, Manny said “I always think that cooking is a metaphor for chaos,” which is a statement precisely as meaningless as everything Matty Matheson said in his introduction. But what did was exactly what Matty Matheson said in the only relevant part of the challenge explanation: “do whatever you feel.”
Manny felt like doing corn risotto and so he did. Matty Matheson’s reaction to it revealed exactly what he meant all along.
TOM: It’s a little safe.
MATTY MATHESON: I think the chaos maybe is that simplicity.
“Chaos” clearly means whatever Matty Matheson wants it to mean in the moment. (*huge bong load*) “Damn, dog. These carnitas nachos are chaotic.”
DISH: Esquites "risotto" with burnt tortilla aioli.
CHAOS RATING: 2/10
FOOD RATING: 9/10
Reviews: "Manny's course really surprised me." "The rounded flavors, it's very balanced."
4: (-1) Michelle Wallace
AKA: Pitmaster. Soundbite. Levee. Maillard Angelou.
Michelle on the chopping block! But how?! And in the same episode during which she won a quickfire!
Michelle managed to stay in the competition by the skin of her teeth this week, which is good, because I might have rage-quit this entire season if Rasika and Michelle had gotten eliminated in the same episode. And over a gobbledygook challenge than no one ever bothered explaining very well to boot.
The crazy thing is, I’ve actually tried to make basically the same dish Michelle tried to make and had the same problem. She attempted an araye, which is basically a Middle Eastern pita stuffed with kofta meat (Michelle used Vietnamese filling for hers, but same difference). I loved the idea of a meat-stuffed pita cooked all at once, but when I attempted it, I basically had the same issue as Michelle: either the filling doesn’t cook all the way or you have to burn the pita to get it cooked through.
I’m guessing the araye experts know how to troubleshoot this one (probably the solution is just a much thinner layer of meat), but I “solved” it by just cutting the pita bread down the middle, spreading the seasoned meat mixture on top of each half, and cooking it meat-side down on the grill (or better yet, over an open flame). Not really an araye at that point, but it is really good, and you get the Maillard reaction going as an added bennie.
(*flying by in biplane, scarf trailing behind*) Aaaaaaaannnnnnyyyywaaaaaayyyyyyy…
The judges ended up having to weigh Michelle’s araye tartare vs. Rasika’s flavorless eggplant explosion. Ignoring the two chefs’ track records, I tend to agree that the latter was the worse sin, though raw protein has traditionally been treated worse on this show (by Tom, in particular). In any case, Michelle gets to stick around, which seems like a positive outcome. I don’t think I could live without at least one more installment of Maillard Angelou’s food poetry. “Toasted corn kernel and crab biscuit with spicy High Life honey butter” still lives in my mind, rent free.
DISH: Vietnamese shrimp and pork Arayes, puffed rice, and herb salad.
CHAOS RATING: 2/10.
FOOD RATING: 6/10.
Reviews: "Meh." "I felt Michelle's dish was very Vietnamese-focused. I didn't really got much else out it." “I think the chaos was tartare.”
(paywall below)