Micah is eliminated tonight on Top Chef in week 3
I always get the creeps when I go into a restaurant with live seafood in the waiting area. It just weirds me out to know that someone is going to pick out that cute little fish and be eating him for dinner in less than an hour. Obviously the contestants on Top Chef and the producers don’t have the same squeamishness as I do. Tonight’s quickfire challenge had the contestants going on a fishing expedition. Each chef had 30 seconds to pull out seafood from the tank to use in a shellfish dish. The tank was loaded with different kinds of shellfish, but the chefs could pick and choose what fish to use in their dish from what they fished out of the tank. It would have been pretty interesting if the chefs were required to use every piece of shellfish they took out of the tank.
Chef Alfred Portale was the guest judge for this evening, and from the comments the contestants made he is a legend in how he plates and presents his food. Personally I like my plate to look nice, but I’d rather it to taste good. Some of the dishes you see on Top Chef look great on the plate but I wonder how good I would find them. The top three chefs tonight were Howie, CJ and Brian, with Brian winning the challenge and getting immunity from elimination. The bottom three chefs were Micah, Tre and Camille. I think it’s interesting that Tre has ended up in the bottom a few times, as he seemed to be a really strong competitor.
Tonight’s elimination challenge seemed to be a fun one – remake a family favorite in a manner that was lower in cholesterol. The chefs had a selection of dishes to choose from and they were able to choose in reverse order of their fishing expedition. There were all kinds of dishes, from Sloppy Joe’s to fried chicken and fish sticks. They would serve their dishes to two generations at the Miami Elks Lodge.
Overall the chefs had a tough time with this challenge. One of the judges made a comment about a dish that “it wasn’t the worst we tasted tonight” but it was obvious from their tone that they weren’t too happy with it either.
The judges only found two dishes worthy of being in the top – Howie’s remake of pork chops and applesauce and Dale’s remake of chicken and dumplings. I’m sure Howie’s dish was good (since he was named the winner) but I would have just loved to try Dale’s dish. He made the decision to use instant mashed potatoes and rotisserie chicken and stood by it in front of the judges. I think he was able to get away with that because he made the dumpling dough from scratch, and from personal experience of making pierogies it can take quite a while to make a good dough.
The judges had five in the bottom – Micah, CJ, Lia, Sara, and Brian. Even though Brian had immunity the judges called him in to take him to task for using a high cholesterol food (lobster) when the instructions of the challenge were to make the dishes lower in cholesterol than the originals. Plus I’ve eaten Halupki (stuffed cabbage) and what he made was no where near familiar to the “pigs in the blanket” we make in Northeastern Pennsylvania. After taking him to task the judges excused him from judges’ table.
Micah’s meatloaf was the least favorite of all the guests, and the comment Chef Portale made about the dish was “yuck”. CJ made a tuna casserole that just failed. Lia made a chicken and lentils version of franks and beans, but she didn’t make the sausage and undercooked the lentils. Sara made this chicken kebob dish that no where near resembled chicken a la king. The judges described this dish as a “train wreck”. (I’m not so sure, I like kabobs and don’t care for chicken a la king so maybe they were wrong about it. But the judges are the ones getting the big bucks here, not me.)
In the end it was Micah who was sent packing. She seemed almost relieved to be going home to her daughter, and she commented that she thought the competition was going to start to get ugly.
Speaking of getting ugly, is Hung starting to become the problem child of the group? Did he turn off Sara’s oven or was it a mistake? Was he just a bit too full of himself not to pick up the seafood he dropped on the floor? In the 4 star all star challenge show Marcel mentions that he knew Hung. Like Marcel or not, he was portrayed on the show as being difficult to get along with. I think that’s the way we are going to start seeing Hung portrayed.
[tags]top chef, television, bravo, tv, reality, food, topchef, reality tv, top-chef, cooking, chef[/tags]
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