Review: Top Chef - An Offer They Can't Refuse (8.8)

The long wait since Restaurant Wars is finally over. I just had a feeling that someone who originally went home for making a simple and obvious culinary mistake was going to go home for a similar reason again. For fun I checked out the web site Prediculous.com, where you can do free and fun prop bets on just about anything. I put some points down on some Oscar nominations but I was mostly interested in betting on Top Chef week to week. I evenly distributed my points on three chefs that I thought might be going home: Fabio, Antonia, and Tre. At the time I had no idea what the challenge was and because of that I was way off on two of them but still succeeded with who ended up leaving. If you're bored, check it out.

The Quickfire Challenge was definitely interesting. Although, I don't really want to see any other challenges where the judges don't taste any food (which clearly pissed off at least half of the chefs). The challenge was to design a plate that visually made you want to eat it. I did not want to eat most of those plates. The majority went with a more artistic design rather than highlighting the food. Angelo, being the cocky person that he is, had already decided he would win the Quickfire. He was "inspired" by crocodile skin in fashion so he vacuum sealed some unrecognizable ingredients and wrote on his table (if only that table had spell check). He clearly didn't get it, along with Tre who through some colors on a plate like a mini painter's palette. The only ones I really would have attempted eating were Carla's and Richard's. Richard ended up winning immunity (which we all knew didn't mean anything to him quite yet). Dale put it best when he said he didn't care about the opinion a fashion designer has of his food.

The Elimination Challenge was one of the better ones of the season, in my opinion. Its about time we saw a straight up individual challenge. These chefs already have very different ideas and techniques, its why they're on the show again, and they need to be given their freedom by now. Keeping a classic family-style Italian challenge simple was very refreshing. Its great seeing the chefs pushed to the edge and forced under a lot of pressure this season, but sometimes you just want to see them all cook. There wasn't too much drama this week, that probably goes hand in hand with it being an individual challenge. That doesn't make it any less interesting though. Seeing Mike Isabella talk himself up as the "favorite" and then fail to make his pasta right was plenty of drama. By the way, why didn't he have a backup of dry pasta? Is there a rule or something that no one has ever mentioned EVER? If not, you would think that with everyone's previous experience they would have a simple backup plan. Having an extra pot of boiling water and ten minutes to make some pasta makes sense to me when you're cooking for your life.

The season seems to be getting going now and the judges clearly are only going to be expecting more each week. I just hope some of my favorites (Carla, Richard) make it far enough that I don't feel like I'm missing something in the late episodes.

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Review: Top Chef - Restaurant Wars: One Night Only (8.7)

Justo Thomas is frightening. If they ever make Finding Nemo 2 (which I hope they don't, its one of my favorite movies ever), Justo Thomas could be a great villain to all sea creatures in the Pacific Ocean. While the chefs were cutting up their fish in the Quickfire I knew the top few were going to have to make a dish out of it. I'm sure most of them had that in the back of their minds as well. What a great twist to force them to cook with the leftover parts, making sure no one had decent pieces to work with because they were the best at cutting their fish. It really shows how much Top Chef has stepped up its game for their All-Star Season.

It was so great knowing that Restaurants Wars was coming this episode. Seeing the reaction of all the chefs got me extra excited for what was beginning. Dale won this challenge right away by putting Marcel in charge of his opposing team. Marcel didn't help himself by picking who he thought were the best technical chefs with the best techniques, just like how he views himself. Dale looked at this challenge and picked people who viewed would help run a restaurant together as a team. It was clear right away who would end up winning, but by how much?

Knowing that this challenge isn't just about the food, but about atmosphere and service as well, picking Fabio was definitely the best pick after Richard. Ending up with both of those guys on one team shows how wrong Marcel was when it came to making the right decisions this week. In case anyone was unsure how valuable Fabio is in a challenge like this you just need to look at the judge's faces when they enter the losing restaurant and Tiffany isn't there to seat them. They were in the weeds right from the start and something like that often leaves more of a bad taste than any food will.

In the end Marcel went home because he spent most of his time boosting up his own ego rather than direct a team of professionals. Never listening to the judges about what he does wrong didn't help him one bit either. It was only last week they all groaned when they saw yet another foam sitting atop Marcel's dish. No one understood why it was there other than its easier for Marcel to make it than it his from him to write his name in puree on the plate so you know he made it. If Marcel somehow stuck around after this week it would have been terrible for the show. Sure he creates a lot of drama but after a certain amount of time it becomes so one-sided it is no longer fun to watch. He lasted just long enough for everyone to remember why they never wanted to see him again to begin with.

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Review: 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards

© Jeff Vespa/Getty Image

There has been a lot of mixed reviews and opinions out there for Ricky Gervais. I understand why, but part of me doesn't get it. I always thought the point of having him being a host of the Golden Globes was so he could say things that no one else would. I do agree that most of his jokes were mean spirited and he certainly broadened his targets to a lot more people who were actually at the awards in comparison to last year. He also went on every talk show last week warning everyone that this was exactly what he was going to do! I absolutely get why some people are upset but I don't think that most people are use to his kind of comedy. I was lucky enough to see Ricky at the Chicago Theater in the Fall for his stand-up special and there were just as many moans, groans, and silent patches throughout that night as there was at the Golden Globes on Sunday. His type of humor just isn't for everyone, and even most people probably don't admit. I was one of the people in Chicago who laughed uncontrollably throughout his set and did it again as he made fun of The Tourist (Which everyone had continuously thought was a joke to be nominated anyway, let alone the two stars).

Overall I was very pleased with the results of who went home with the tiny statues. Here are some quick thoughts on the winners:

• The Social Network winning for Best Picture Drama, Director, and Screenplay made me very happy. It ended up being my favorite movie of the year. It seems over-hyped, but that's probably because it was so good. The only director I really think that I would have been pleased to win otherwise is Christopher Nolan just because he translated his crazy vision so well onto the screen.

• I was rooting for Jesse Eisenberg to win Best Actor in a Drama, but I had a gut feeling the whole time that Colin Firth would take it. I still really want to see The King's Speech because of the clips I've seen of his performance. And as my Mom said, "It looks boring" - The Golden Globes love those type of brilliant, but not for everyone portrayals.

• Even if you haven't seen it you know that if any movie other than The Kids Are All Right won Best Comedy it wouldn't have been just silly. So thank goodness for that...

• It was nice to see that Paul Giamatti thought the same thing I did when his name was called. How fun it is that he won in a category filled with "real" movie stars. He solidified how normal of a guy he is when he mentioned all the Godiva Chocolate he ate.

• I was most happy with Katey Segal and Chris Colfer winning. They are the biggest reasons to watch their respective shows and it wouldn't have seemed right if anyone else won their categories.

Now excuse me, I have to go pretend I don't know who Rober De Niro is.




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Review: Top Chef - We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat (8.6)

© Barbara Nitke/Bravo

I have to give the producers a lot of credit. When I saw there wasn't going to be a quickfire challenge I was kind of disappointed. I understand why they had to do it. Instead of spending their time planning and shopping, the chefs instead had to sit on a boat and try to catch fish. I had forgotten that I missed out on a quickfire as soon as Carla made that face to Tre when she said she had gone fishing all the time, but never has held a rod.

Either that water in Montauk was chummed (a lot) before the chefs got there, or we all need to head to New York to do some fishing. I'm glad the obvious disaster of a team not catching enough fish never happened. That would have been the extreme end of bad luck in Top Chef history. Its rules and challenges like this that keep you interested in the show week to week. Sometimes, though, I think these rules need to be more precise during these challenges.

Tom Colicchio, as he tends to do, instantly called Marcel, Richard, and Fabio's team for only making one dish together. Even though they knew they probably were playing it too safe and would be called out, if you listen to the rules at the start of the challenge it simply says that each team of three is responsible for catching and cooking fish for 200 people. I don't understand the point of making this a team challenge if you aren't supposed to work as a team. One team made a single dish, another team made two dishes, while the other two teams made three individual dishes. This is really the first time this season we get to see some of these contestants use their knowledge of the show itself to give them the best chance to move on each week. By three people only doing one dish they know how tough it would be for the judges to pick which two should go home.

After last weeks episode I said to a friend that Tiffani and Jamie better be the next to go. They both had overstayed their welcome and twice each I thought they were going to be the ones sent home. So you can be sure that I'm pretty happy with the results. I was extremely worried about Richard going home though. I was almost certain that he would be safe and if anyone from their team was going home it would be Marcel. But with how their dish was being talked about at judge's table there was a little seed of doubt that really got me nervous as I fast-forwarded through the final commercials to get to the verdict. In the end it made sense that the two girls were going home. They made obvious, simple mistakes and those tend to end cheftestant's seasons more often than anything else.

Next Week's Preview: Let me just say that I am so glad to see Anthony Bourdain back on the next episode just in time for restaurant wars. A lot of people (including myself) were very excited when it was announced he was going to be a regular, full-time judge this season. Why he's only be in four of the six episodes so far I'm not sure, but here's hoping he'll stick around from this point forward.

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