Tre is eliminated from Top Chef after the restaurant wars
I finally got the opportunity to watch last week’s episode of Top Chef on my TiVo (Restaurant Wars: Second Helping). It was certainly a lot better than the previous week’s episode but I was overall disappointed with the producers and the choice they made to give the contestants a do-over. Here’s why. In the first two seasons the first opening was not a “soft opening” – it was the real thing. During Season 1 the team of Harold, Tiffani and Dave won the challenge. If I remember it wasn’t an overwhelming runaway win, but a win nonetheless. In Season 2 both teams failed miserably and were not given the chance to try it again. Doesn’t that seem like real life to you? Are the producers trying to find the person best suited to be Top Chef, an owner of his or her own restaurant or are they trying to get ratings for their television show? I’m sure the answer is somewhere in between those two extremes, but I don’t think giving a second chance is right. I’m sure I’ll say more about this as the post goes on.
The quickfire challenge was really fun. The two restaurant teams competed in a challenge of speed and skills for food prep. There were four challenges – shucking 15 oysters; finely dicing 5 onions; breaking apart 4 whole chickens; and whipping 3 egg whites until they would stand up for 5 seconds in a bowl held upside down. Team Garage won hands down. Howie was a bit slow shucking oysters compared to Brian but Sara kicked butt when she started to chop the onions. Casey looked like a student compared to her. As a bonus for winning the challenge they got an extra $200 to use for a wine budget and the use of a sommelier for the evening – Stephen from Season 1.
The two teams also had the chance to work with a well known interior designer / restaurant designer Christopher Ciccone (Madonna’s brother I guess, not that I care too much about that). He was cocky and arrogant but also very good at what he did. He really helped the teams transform the décor of the restaurant to become some really beautiful places to eat. Instead of a do-over, why didn’t the judges make this expert available to the contestants during the “soft opening” of the restaurants? Hmmm…………
Team Garage really took the criticisms of the previous evening to heart and overhauled pretty much everything in their restaurant – including the name. They changed it to Quatre (four in French). They changed some of their menu items and really realized that in order to win this challenge (or at least stay alive in the competition) they had to pull together and work as a team. Team April was kind of arrogant, not changing very much about their restaurant except the décor and adding the additional dishes as required in the challenge. Tre took on way too much responsibility as Executive Chef of the restaurant, not passing along some tasks that might have better been completed by CJ or Casey. Brian had no part whatsoever of the back of the house, where Dale of Quatre created a dish for the menu along with his front of the house responsibilities.
In the end Sara of team Quatre was named the winner, and Tre was sent home. What the judges mentioned is that some of the food was pretty bad coming out of Restaurant April and that it was Tre’s responsibility to make sure everything went out right. Although I think pretty much everyone on that team played a major role in the failure, if the competition is about food then the buck stops with the Executive Chef and the judges were right in sending him home.
[tags]top chef, television, bravo, tv, reality, food, topchef, reality tv, top-chef, cooking, chef[/tags]
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