'Top Chef' Season 5, Episode 4: Accents Are Good for TV
I am not a Top Chef addict. Barely even a fan. Before tonight, I hadn't seen any episodes from this season. But over the last three weeks, I've watched Ed move from a similar position (blasé) to borderline obsession. Though he'd say the show and follow-up report would compromise his early bedtime, the man is clearly getting into it. "I'll be on AIM later so we can discuss the episode, Erin." And sure enough, there was nyeats popping up on my buddy list.
nyeats: letter from Richard was bogus
During the first minute of the show, we hear contestants reading a sappy letter sent from last week's dismissed Richard. That leaves just Jamie in "Team Rainbow," the trio of gay contestants established on the first episode. Moving on from the personal life tidbits, Padma welcomed Rocco DiSpirito as tonight's guest judge.
My roommate's reaction: "Wait, why is he famous again?" I couldn't really remember either. And Rocco really didn't prove why he should be. The guest judge should be someone who the contestants respect, hopefully to the point of speechlessness and awe. As Fabio pointed out, "He's not really even Italian."
Quickfire Challenge: Breakfast Amuse Bouche
nyeats: talk about a mixed metaphor
Yes, Ed. One-bite breakfasts don't make sense to me either. The oatmeal-loving, eggs-craving woman in me especially cringed when Jamie reacted to the theme: "I'm not a breakfast person. I don't eat it. Never have. Even when I was a kid, I'd get up and have cans of Chef Boyardee and chicken noodle soup." (I judge anyone who doesn't like breakfast.)
[Warning, spoilers ahead.]
Leah, on the other hand, I could get behind her "perfect bite" philosophy. She made a sandwich with bacon, quail eggs, cheese, and fried sage—the stuff McMuffin dreams are made of. Ed and I agreed, she rightfully took the win here (even if it was her second Quickfire win in a row). We also agreed that Jeff's sneaky multi-tasking was not fair. Twice baked potato and yogurt sorbet?! Two dishes? Suck up!
nyeats: yo, Jeff, that was two dishes
Challenge: You Good Enough for the Today Show?
The reality show got even more real when contestants had to perform a 2 1/2 minute live cooking segment—and the top three would excel to the Today show. As Ed explained in a ping, live cooking demos are usually set up in "swaps." You bring a raw version of the dish, a semi-cooked one, and a final product to serve the hosts. Swappage happens in between. Weirdly, the show didn't go over this, and only Stefan seemed to swap his dishes.
From the beginning, we had faith in Stefan, Fabio, Leah, and Jamie. Since Ed is such a softie, he also gave sentimental points to Eugene ("he's got soul and a great story"). Daniel, on the other hand, we agreed, needed to get over himself. "I'd love to act and make a freaking movie. I'm very charismatic. I light up in front of the stage." (Ehh..)
Stage presence aside, the biggest mistake was Alex thinking he could make crème brûlée fast and well. What he later justified as a noble "challenge," was really just plain dumb—a tactical error in both judgment and execution.
Another dish oops? Not cooking your eggs all the way through. Jamie blew it with her wet, runny eggs. They were basically still quacking on the farm.
Back to the stage skills. Let's just say Leah is better at making breakfast sandwiches with quail eggs than performing on screen. She wasn't the biggest charmer, so her immunity was a very good thing. Daniel, as predicted, also failed, but for different reasons. He was over the top. A bit of a mess. While Fabio, by far, was the megawatt charmer.
"I am fresh out of the boat." Oops, a little preposition confusion, but the judges were all over it! As was I! And Ed!
nyeats: fabio is so impossibly cute, you're right, accents rule
As the judges agreed later, "he's a dream guest on a talk show." Making fun of your accent puts everyone at ease. It didn't hurt that his tuna with roasted carrots and asparagus salad also looked tasty. Note to future contestants: Misuse prepositions! Feign an accent and Gail Simmons will swoon!
Another example of a pronunciation glitch worked to Jeff's advantage. He made a malfouf roll with shrimp with muhummara sauce. A whodoso whatsit? Mal-what? Foo? The Foo Fighters guest appearance last week? He giggled, played it confident, kept cooking, and all was well with the world.
Ariane was the the third stand-out performance. Now, she's a bit of a phoenix in her ability to sometimes suck but sometimes resurrect and surprise us, but again, the accent could have played a role. She has that Jersey twang, and coupled with her pride for Jersey beefsteak tomatoes in her salad, the judges were very pleased.
nyeats: I may have to stop predicting ariane's demise. she may have some staying power. she does have an accent, a jersey accent. there you go, another accent. accents do rule
While everyone was snoozing that night after the competition, Tom woke up Ariane, Fabio, and Jeff (the top three). They were about to perform on two television shows at once! Top Chef and the Today show. "You gotta be shittin' me." Sleepy head Jeff wasn't so happy. He must have been in the middle of a really good dream. You'd think he'd be excited to have that kind of national press, but when he heard it was for the Today show, he was pissed to be cooking for "a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:37 a.m."
They all watched from the green room, where Fabio seemed disillusioned: "I have no idea what's going on. I can't understand what's going on." But they didn't spit his dish out, so apparently things were cool. Jeff's dish on the other hand inspired gag reflexes from Kathie Lee Gifford (not a pretty sound).
Moving on to Ariane's dish. Meredith Vieira didn't eat the watermelon slices (apparently she hates watermelons), but somehow Ariane was not screwed. She won! Girl power! Could it be that someone was a former host on the View? And that earlier in the episode, Ariane said: "Move over, here comes the old lady"? Hmm.
The Elimination
The loser's circle included: Jamie, Melissa, and Alex. Though Jamie's dish was raw, and she recoiled in anger during her performance (eeek), Tom stood up for her.
Instead, it was knife-packing time for Alex.
He blamed it on his risk-taking. But I think risks are only bad when they involve crème brûlée in two-and-a-half minutes.
Next week: cooking for Gail Simmons's bridal shower.
Previously
'Top Chef' Season 5, Episode 3
'Top Chef' Season 5, Episode 2
'Top Chef' Season 5, Episode 1
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18 Comments:
Rocco has an sad and interesting history. He first made a name for himself in NYC as the chef at Union Pacific. Than disaster struck...
He starred in 'The Restaurant', a reality series where partnered with famed restauranter Jeffrey Chodorow. He managed to gain fame and notoriety by mismanaging the and looking like a tool on national TV (sulking, flirting with his fame rather than working, not cooperating).
He's since been relegated to food radio and trying to rehab his image through Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, his manager or publicist needs to be fired...
Side note: if photograzing is foodporn, does that food radio a dial in show for $3.95 a minute?
BirdDoggie at 6:54AM on 12/04/08
I think Rocco is an AH. During the end game of "the Restaurant", when he was playing prima donna he left his mother working her hind end off in that shlocky restaurant with people who were mad at him. I called bullshit on that manuever. He has forever gone down to the tubes to me. Any cred he had is gone. What is worse is where he keeps popping up. Car commercials, radio, Dancing with the stars, wtf?
I picture him 20 years from now in a commercial, (Phil Rizzuto for the Money Store...) That is punishment enough. Welcome to mediocrity.
JerzeeTomato at 7:52AM on 12/04/08
The thing with DiSpirito was that he was actually a pretty good chef, he was just such an asshat and treated his staff/restaurant with so little respect and with such sullen childness that all cooking respect one had for him was gone.
The Restaurant was almost hypnotic to watch, to see a person crash and burn inch by inch. There were episodes that were almost physically painful to watch. That said, if you haven't seen it, you totally need to.
I just did a quick check on Netflix and Amazon. Neither of which have it, which really surprises me. Then I checked ebay. Nada. Well, I know that Fox Reality sort of owns the rights to it so maybe they'll play it again some time.
Re the actual challenge: I love Fabio so much I can hardly stand it. I 've called him as the winner since ep 2. I'm keeping my fingers that my unbroken track record of picking the winners on Top Chef remains that way.
chisai at 8:27AM on 12/04/08
I cannot stand Fabio. His comment about Rocco not being really Italian irked me. I wasn't born in Italy, am I not really one then? Does my blood, not count? I feel for Rocco. I loved The Restaurant. You could not look away and while he did crash and burn and got a lot of flak for doing TV, shouldn't a lot of the chefs on TV now get a lot of flak? He's crawled his way back and I can't hate him for it.
Also, Jamie is turning into this season's Lisa.
ArchieLeach at 8:54AM on 12/04/08
amuse-bouche (\'ä-müz-'büsh, -muez-\), also called an amuse-gueule, is a single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre.
May I ask what's so hard about that concept? Jeff had literally two different things on the plate. Danny had a cat turd rolled in Frosted Flakes. There were maybe two people total (that I recall) who literally met the challenge. This seems to be a persistent problem. In shows past we've seen "Amuse Meals".
Kudos to Ariane, two and a half minutes goes fast and she recognized that. I don't know how many people will be going out to make her dish in the middle of December, but she had a good strategy.
Does anyone even like Kathie Lee? Someone needs to tell her that just because Gordon Ramsay spits out food for dramatic affect, doesn't mean she has to.
dineomite at 9:31AM on 12/04/08
Regarding the Quickfire challenge - there had already been an amuse-bouche challenge to start season three where Tom pretty much hammered any chef for not getting the concept of single-bite hors d'oeuvre. I'm a little annoyed that Rocco wasn't as fastidious in his criticism of some of the cheftestants that clearly made something closer to an appetizer.
My prediction that Ariane is this season's Lisa (TC4) in terms of her ability to survive and thrive is looking good. Though I'll agree with ArchieLeach in that Jamie is starting to have the same body language problems that Lisa displayed.
Why is Rocco "famous again?" Did you not see his wonderful "What's Your Med Style" ad campaign for Bertolli?
gwong at 10:43AM on 12/04/08
Ed has a man crush on Fabio.
Adam Kuban at 11:13AM on 12/04/08
Ah, but unlike Lisa, who was pissed at the judges for her food sucking, Jamie actually seems to be pissed at herself when she doesn't put out a good dish. And that makes all the difference, IMHO.
grape juice at 11:16AM on 12/04/08
last night was a goodnight for me...
http://puppychao.com/tp5_challenge/default.html
puppychao at 11:27AM on 12/04/08
I didn't care for Kathie Lee spitting the food out. Several other people ate and didn't have any complaints. I also liked that Jamie said she made a mistake and I didn't like that Lisa kept saying it was personal preference.
saraann at 11:30AM on 12/04/08
Jamie does seemed to be pissed at herself when she does bad but then she hates when other people win. It's as if she cannot understand why she didn't and they did. Um, theirs was better perhaps? I hope she doesn't turn into Lisa because that was enough for my lifetime. Also, Lisa tended to claim sabotage whenever her food didn't come out as intended.
ArchieLeach at 11:44AM on 12/04/08
Who else loved Rocco's comment about Carla's (crazy looking muppet lady) "nervous energy" that made him uncomfortable. To me, that comment alone made up for leaving his mom to cook meatballs on The Restaurant. I can only hope that Bourdain picks up on the crazy vibes coming from Carla on a later episode (assuming she makes it that long).
ChiefHDB at 12:08PM on 12/04/08
Seriously....someone please explain to me why Rocco will not go away. He doesn't have a restaurant, or a tv show, or talent, and apparently (according to Dancing with the Stars) he can't dance. WHY does Rocco DiSpirito continue to torture us with his flaccid non-talented self?
Soigne at 1:17PM on 12/04/08
I was a bit annoyed at the "Kathie Lee spits out the food" bit, since they had shown that in a gazillion promos. It's not like she spit it out since it was uncooked or something... she spit it out since she didn't like it. Indeed, there was pretty much no followup mention to it.
Rocco is a wash-up of the highest caliber. He doesn't go away, he just gets more pathetic with each showing. I'm waiting for a pissed off Top Chef contestant to try and get under his skin by mentioning Union Pacific or Jeffrey Chodorow (who we can all be thankful hasn't returned to television, since he's at least as much a blowhard as Rocco)
kaszeta at 1:24PM on 12/04/08
I completely understood Jeff's sentiment about cooking for people with undeveloped palates. When you are making something as unique (and tasty!) and muhammara, you need to test it on people who are used to the flavors of pomegranate working as a savory dish and not just in your bottle of POM. I'm sure that Ariane's salad was amazing (I've made it before at home) but it's also not surprising that this specific group of ladies chose a salad as their choice.
tabsaxgu at 1:44PM on 12/04/08
i finally watched the episode last night (it airs way past my bedtime on wednesday), and all i have to say is that Kathie Lee Gifford is one classless woman. seriously, who does that? it's not cute. not that i was ever a big fan of hers anyway. all that "cody this" and "cody that" when she did her show with Regis was enough to make me hurl. in private, with no camera showing, because i am not that crass.
french tart at 8:11AM on 12/05/08
wait, Ariane has an accent?
VerasTastyFreeze at 10:24AM on 12/05/08
It really bothered me that Ariane won. That dish was not original at all. Ive made it and I have seen it over and over again in magazines and cookbooks. I understand why they choose her look at the group of judges but come on.
pupymnster at 1:35PM on 12/05/08