Brian is eliminated from Top Chef; Casey, Dale and Hung in the finals
The season finale of Top Chef started with the finalists arriving at the airport in Aspen. They all meet up and hop in the car to find out they’re going on a hot air balloon ride. Dale, ever the cynic, realizes that this is merely the calm before the storm and he is correct. The balloon transported the contestants to the location of their Quickfire Challenge, the Fryingpan River. The contestants were given some fresh trout, a camping stove, a frying pan, limited ingredients and 20 minutes to come up with a dish to impress guest judge Chef Eric Ripert.
The chefs seemed a bit nervous at first, and I guess I can’t blame them. I’ve cooked on a camping stove and it is challenging when compared to a fully equipped kitchen. Plus they know a lot is on the line. Brian and Dale were the least favorites of Chef Ripert and Casey and Hung the favorites. Casey wins, and I personally think it is because of Hung’s arrogance. Here’s why. Hung was finished with his dish with 7 minutes left. After time is called he realized that he forgot the lemon juice. I think he was maybe subconsciously saying to the other contestants that he is so good he doesn’t need the full amount of time. That hurt him today. He says that he tasted Casey’s dish and that his was more refined. It doesn’t matter because it was incomplete and not to Chef Ripert’s liking. Casey will get an advantage in the elimination challenge which she finds out the next day.
The chefs arrive at the Moon Run Ranch to learn about their elimination challenge. They will be catering an event for the Snowmass Rodeo Riders that night but will have to use the supplies already purchased. Each chef will be responsible for creating an entree for 45 people. Casey’s advantage is that she can use any of her personal supplies she brought from home while everyone else is going to be limited to the supplies on hand. (Later Casey says that she isn’t going to use anything, since she really brought these ingredients for the final challenge should she make it that far.) They go to the Aspen Meadows Resort to prepare the food and learn about what they have to work with – elk meat. Hung and Brian are not happy about it, while Casey and Dale are not too upset about it. When Chef Colicchio comes into the kitchen to find out what everyone is cooking he drops a bombshell on them – because of the level of the chefs in the competition the judges decided to let three people through to compete in the finals. The chefs are partially relieved, because they were pretty sure two people would be eliminated after the challenge.
The chefs pack up the dishes to serve at the dinner that night. Yet again Hung finishes early and one of his fellow competitors (Brian) is struggling. Hung said that if it was a real restaurant situation he would have jumped in to help, but since it was a competition…..every person for themselves.
The food of the chefs seemed to be pretty well received. The comments the judges made when eating the food seemed to be nit picky and minute. At this point in time you didn’t hear anything that indicated one or more of the chefs really screwed up, which you usually did in prior episodes.
At judges’ table you could see where they were splitting hairs when it came to everyone’s dishes. We liked this, not that. These two judges liked one dish, the others did not. It was pretty obvious the chefs are closely matched.
The judges asked the obvious question as to why they deserved to stay. Hung, Casey and Dale give these emotional responses while Brian simply says “because I haven’t cooked my food yet.” Colicchio later calls this a cop out. Maybe he should have called up the tears to move the judges a bit more.
In the end Dale was named the winner and Brian was sent to pack his knives and go. I’m still thinking that if he played the emotional card it might have made a difference, but who knows. The judges said that Brian cooks to please the people. Maybe he should have cooked tonight to please the judges (like Hung) and then he would still be there. Or it could have been the cheese that threw them over. Ripert said that he should have chosen what cheese to serve and not give the patrons the choice. I’m not a chef nor am I one of the judges so who am I to speculate.
I can’t wait for the finale next week!
[tags]top chef, television, bravo, tv, reality, food, topchef, reality tv, top-chef, cooking, chef[/tags]
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September 27th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I guess Hung is a good chef and his speech about his mom was nice and all, but I really wish he had gone home and Brian had gone on. I mean Brian tried to cook for the target audience when Hung admitted he was cooking for the judges!