Top Chef Masters: Anita Lo Advances
I saw the lowest scored I’ve seen on “Top Chef Masters” this week. For the quick fire challenge, poor John Besh got ½ a star. But then again, he did serve the judges only one plate and half of it was raw. The challenge was to cook an egg only using one hand. John prepared four dishes, but only one was cooked, so the judges had to share. Even then, they found raw sections in that dish. Half a star? That is tough. Douglas Rodriguez got 3 stars, Mark Peel was awarded 2 ½ stars (his egg dish was deemed bland by the judges), and Anita Lo got a perfect score of 5 stars.
The elimination challenge was to cook a dish for Neil Patrick Harris and friends using an element of magic, since Harris is a magic fan. Magician/illusionist Max Maven had the contestants draw cards to choose their element. Mark drew mystery, John drew surprise, Douglas drew spectacle, and Anita drew illusion. They had a $250 budget and two hours to prepare.
They went to the Magic Castle, which was kind of cool. Mark went first and his dish was kind of neat because it was wrapped up and looked rather plain, but the judges loved it. John had Neil assist him in making a horseradish sorbet with liquid nitrogen but the consensus was rather so-so on his dish. Anita served up what Neil called his favorite dish while Douglas tried to cause a spectacle by setting his coconut bowl on fire, but I think it mostly just scared the judges.
John, who was only going in with a ½ a star, ended up with 12 stars total. Douglas really flopped with his dish and ended up with 13 stars total. It came down to Mark, who had 18 ½ total stars and Anita. Anita just really wowed the judges with her diakon stuffed with steak tartar and ended up winning with 22 ½ stars. Her charity is Share, which is for breast and ovarian cancer survivors.
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