Ryan is eliminated from Top Chef Chicago
Top Chef last night was all about “simple pleasures” in the words of Padma. Personally I think they are running out of creative challenges and are trying to make things sound more interesting than they really are. However, I love to tailgate so I was kind of interested in the elimination challenge this week. My tailgating usually consists of hotdogs and hamburgers so I wanted to see what these talented chefs would create.
The elimination challenge this week had the chefs pairing up a beer with a dish that compliments the beer and vice versa. There were 16 different kinds of beer. Each chef could taste three different kinds before picking what one they would use. I guess they had to limit the number of tastings to make sure that the chefs would be sober in the kitchen. The guest judge for the quickfire was Koren Grieveson, head chef at the Chicago restaurant Avec.
The three dishes that were in the bottom for the challenge were created by Nikki, Spike and Dale. The three in the top were created by Richard, Stephanie and Jen. Jen said she was all po’d and fired up about Zoi leaving so she was channeling her energy into the kitchen that day. It worked because her dish was named the winning dish, and as such she got immunity from elimination for the next challenge.
The elimination challenge this week was to create a dish to serve at a tailgate party before the Chicago Bears game at Solider Field. The football fans/guests at the party would choose the top three dishes and the bottom three dishes. The judges would pick a winner and a loser from the ones singled out by the fans.
Before we saw the elimination challenge we saw some home time with the chefs in the brownstone. Spike and Mark were in a bubble bath together – all dressed of course – and I think they asked Lisa or someone to join them in the tub. Antonia said it looked like a cheap porno movie. Spike said he was confident in his sexuality and had no problems being in a tub with Mark. Whatever.
The chefs prepped the food the night before and had an hour to cook on a grill at the football stadium the next day. They had their choice of grills – either a gas grill or a charcoal grill. Guest judge for the elimination was Paul Kahan, chef/owner of the restaurants Blackbird and Avec in Chicago.
It was fun to watch the chefs interacting with the people. Ryan did a great job working the crowd. Dale was almost speechless and was so honored to meet three Chicago Bears legends who were at the tailgate party – Gayle Sayers, William “the refrigerator” Perry and Richard Dent.
The top three chefs as determined by the fans were Antonia (who made a chicken sandwich), Dale (ribs) and Stephanie (pork). The judges picked Dale as the winner. Besides winning the challenge he got to take home a Bears jersey with Top Chef on the back and the Weber gas grill that he used to prepare his food on that day.
The bottom three were Mark, Nikki and Ryan. Nikki was voted as the least favorite with the fans. She made a sausage and pepper dish and when the judges came to taste it she was out of onions and peppers. Chef Kahan had issues that she did not make the sausage herself. She said that she was afraid of time constraints in making it, but the judges said that Richard essentially made homemade sausage with his burger that he created and that wasn’t a good enough excuse. Coliccho told her that sausage was like a religion in Chicago and that she needed to make it herself in order to please the crowd.
Ryan was criticized for not making food that was appropriate for tailgating. Not only was the food not appropriate, Colicchio said that it wasn’t very good at all. I was surprised that he was in the bottom with the fans, especially the way he was working the crowd.
Mark’s main dish was not liked, and his soup was called decent but a really bad and coarse texture. He got really low points from the judges because of the way he worked. One of the judges caught him using one spoon to taste the soup and then using the same one to serve it to guests. His table was a mess, according to Colicchio, and he had more food on his apron than on the plates. The judges said you can’t make great food if you are sloppy when you do it.
In the end it was Ryan who was sent packing his knives. I guess running out of food or having at least one decent dish was better than having food that wasn’t good all around. I was surprised. I thought that Mark would have gotten booted for the unsanitary things. I think Ken did something similar in the first show of season 1 in the quickfire challenge, and he got called to task for it. But that wasn’t the reason he was eliminated – it was because his dish wasn’t that good.
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