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Is it me or does this season of Top Chef seem to be different from the other two seasons?  I can’t put my finger on it yet, but there is something different.  I’m thinking that there is a bit more behind the scenes being shown than last season but that might not be it.  Season 3 has a different vibe, a different dynamic and I can’t yet put my finger on it.

The quickfire challenge this week had the contestants creating a dish featuring citrus fruit grown in Florida.  The guest judge for the week was Norman Van Aken, a famous Florida chef.  Usually the judges aren’t quite so critical in the first few weeks, but Van Aken was brutal in his criticisms of the contestants in the quickfire.  His bottom three were Sara N., Sandee and Micah.  The top three were CJ, Hung and Tre, with Hung winning the quickfire and immunity for the elimination challenge.

The elimination challenge was a barbecue challenge.  The contestants had to prepare an upscale barbecue dish for a party to be hosted by Lee Shrager.  The way he was mentioned on the show made me think that he must be famous, but I had never heard of him before this evening.  The contestants were given $200 to shop, two hours to prep and then two hours to prepare the food at the party site.

The judges seemed to think there were a lot of good dishes, and the comment was made that the bar was set very high early in the season.  The top three in the elimination challenge were Sara N., Micah and Brian.  That was a nice comeback from the bottom of the quickfire for Sara and Micah.  Brian was named the winner for his seafood sausage dish.  Didn’t Lee Anne make a seafood sausage in season 1?

There were four chefs in the bottom four this week:  Tre, Howie, Joey and Sandee.  Since the judges thought there was really no terrible dish it came down to how well the chefs met the challenge of creating upscale barbecue food.  Tre had the upscale and the barbecue down but his dish was “unsuccessful” according to Tom Colicchio.  Howie and Joey created dishes that weren’t upscale enough.  Sandee didn’t really create a dish that was barbecued – she just warmed up the lobster she poached the night before.  In the end it was Sandee who was eliminated.

I thought there were some interesting personal dynamics going on this evening, specifically between Joey and Howie.  I think you have two strong, stubborn individuals there who won’t back down from a challenge.  But I do agree that Joey is becoming a blamer and a cry baby.  He blamed Hung for stealing his watermelon drink and he complained that Howie deserved elimination based on what he heard about the dish.  He never tasted Howie’s dish himself.  I think it’s going to get interesting watching this play out in the next week or two.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Top Chef.