Candice is kicked off Top Chef tonight
Tonight’s show was all about cooking on the fly. In the Quickfire challenge, the contestants were given $20 and 30 minutes to shop for their ingredients – in the food mart at a gas station. The contestants could use any dried herbs and spices from the kitchen to prepare their dishes. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to make the dishes the contestants did using only ingredients from a mini mart. I’d run for the hot dogs myself, not fire grilled Spam and coconut water beverages. Lee Anne wins the Quickfire challenge and has immunity in this show’s Elimination challenge. The guest judge this week was Jefferson Hill, a chef at the Rotunda Restaurant in San Francisco’s Neiman Marcus. Blunt would be a nice way to describe his style. Jefferson certainly had no problems in telling the contestants exactly what he though. I did love it when he tore into Stephen for using the wilted basil (a blatant violation of the rules for this challenge).
The Elimination challenge this week was also a test of convenience food. The contestants were given $50 and 90 minutes to prepare a gourmet entrée that could be reheated in the microwave. This week’s judges would be members of the Junior League of Oakland East Bay. The contestants would have to reheat the dishes in front of the women and give a short presentation about their dish. For the most part the contestants did a good job in presenting their dishes – all except Stephen that is. Yet again Stephen took on his all-knowing, condescending, I’m so much smarter than you, I’ll try to explain my food to your little pea brain attitude. It was a total flop with the ladies – and he flopped right along with his meal.
The ladies determined that Andrea, Harold and Tiffani had the best meals, and Tiffani was voted as their favorite and the winner. The bottom three contestants were Stephen, Lisa and Candice. The judges told them that if they could they would vote off two, or even all three of them. Stephen just didn’t seem to think that there was anything wrong with his dish. He looked at the judges as if they were from another planet, or just not smart enough to understand him and his cooking. One of the judges commented tonight that Stephen might be more style than substance. I think you could clearly see this in both of tonight’s challenges.
In the end it was Candice who was sent packing (along with her knives). The judges agreed that her inexperience was showing and was a hindrance. She left with a little speech to the other contestants – thanking the ones who were nice and helped her through the process and underhandedly criticizing Stephen for his treating her poorly due to her lack of experience. I think she made her feelings for Stephen quite clear last week when she called him a douche bag. I can’t remember the last time I heard that insult. It brought me back to my high school days many, many, many years ago. But I digress. I must say that I really do enjoy Top Chef and look forward to seeing it each week.
[tags]top chef, television, bravo, tv, reality, food, topchef, reality tv, top-chef, cooking, chef[/tags]
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