Watch It with Us: 'Top Chef Las Vegas,' Ep. 10
Kevin Gillespie and Yukon Cornelius, separated at birth? [Photograph: totallylookslike.com]
Tonight at 10 p.m. ET, come join us as we watch the tenth episode of Top Chef Las Vegas where cheftestants (including Kevin, or should we say Yukon?) make TV dinners inspired by shows like Gilligan's Island and The Sopranos. Also, Padma will have to step aside as the token hot chick because Natalie Portman is swinging by. "I love food, I love eating, I'm pretty adventurous with different foods and cuisines, the one thing is..." (Ominous music plays.) Um, she's vegan. (Louder ominous music plays.) Watch a clip, after the jump.
Natalie Portman Guest Judges on 'Top Chef'
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37 Comments:
already disappointed with this concept, after zooey deschanel on top chef masters. is bravo trying to make us hate all cute young actresses?
Carey Jones at 9:58PM on 10/28/09
No he didn't. Kevin said vegetarian food isn't as satisfying as meat? I'm disappointing at his comments.
gargupie at 10:20PM on 10/28/09
I agree Carey and fyi, Natalie P. is a vegan now
gargupie at 10:20PM on 10/28/09
Yeah, but, expected isn't it, with Portman declaring her stance regarding a veg head kind of life; it's not new wave thing from the 80"s. It's a challenge and they will meet it, these chefs are so talented..
dhorst at 10:30PM on 10/28/09
Ah, the protein-packed leek.
Carey Jones at 10:33PM on 10/28/09
Bryan's dish is naked. Kevin's dish is brown...
Carey Jones at 10:36PM on 10/28/09
Wow, no Mike-haters have chimed in..surprising since there were so many before!
brookes at 11:42PM on 10/28/09
i do feel like this episode is just a repeat of zoey deschanel....
cheesebreadbutter at 11:48PM on 10/28/09
My vote definitely goes to Kevin. I have many vegetarian friends and I was commenting to my daughter that most of the chefs were just serving tiny servings of veg and that someone needed to give that girl an entree. Kevin delivered with "vegetarian man food" and he continues to be one of the best on the show. Not sure I agreed with who left, but maybe there are production reasons for who stays and who goes.
KarinCooks at 12:05AM on 10/29/09
this episode was odd for me, because as much as i HATE mike isabella.. robin has deserved to go home for a couple episodes now.
now thats a true foodie... food before personality. just don't ask me to do the same for art.
cheesebreadbutter at 12:12AM on 10/29/09
I liked the episode, but I have one frustration: The commercial for this episode included a moment where Natalie Portman declared something "disgusting" (and thanks to excellent editing tied it to her "confused" comment). It never materialized. I kept waiting for it, and it kind of took away from the watching experience.
I suppose the comment would have probably given the ending away too clearly, which is why it wasn't included in the final cut of the show.
jimmyjojo at 12:35AM on 10/29/09
I'm confused. They said "vegetarian", but clearly there were more limits.
I would have thought vegan, but there was butter used.
I saw:
No EGGS
No CHEESE
No MILK or CREAM
No RICE
No PASTA
No WHEAT
No CORN
No GRAINS (except perhaps rice flour in tempura not served)
Huh?
I think there were a LOT more unspoken limits.
This looked like vegan + butter - grains
peekpoke at 2:20AM on 10/29/09
In his blog, Tom C mentioned there was corn used in Michael V's dish. I'm pretty sure Natalie Portman has been a vegan for a long time now - not sure why they didn't expose that on television.
parrallax3 at 2:51AM on 10/29/09
Yes, there was corn in the banana polenta (forgot that).
But why use butter, but no cheese, or cream, or milk, or rice, or pasta?
My guess is she is a sorta vegan (except butter), and sorta low carb (except potatoes and corn). The tempura coating might be cornstarch, which would go along with the no grains, only corn or potatoes.
peekpoke at 3:26AM on 10/29/09
Eli had lentils in his dish.
Kmelion at 3:58AM on 10/29/09
Natalie said she likes being adventurous while eating....maybe that means putting butter on some of her foods.
The other possibility is that it was simply a butter substitute, but Jenn is just used to saying butter instead.
saminas at 7:58AM on 10/29/09
This could totally be wrong, but someone told me that Natalie was a vegetarian and has only recently switched to veganism? So maybe the show was filmed before she stopped eating dairy?
KarynMC at 8:16AM on 10/29/09
I'll take my steak medium rare, closer to rare than medium. Thanks.
funkopolis at 8:31AM on 10/29/09
Pasta can contain eggs, so some vegans won't eat pasta out. But, rice, grains, beans.... all are found in a vegan diet. There wouldn't be butter added to anything. No eggs or dairy products. I have a vegan grandson who will not eat honey because he considers it an animal product, and he won't eat sugar that has been processed using animal bones (which is most commercial non-organic brands. They are processed using filters that contain ground animal bones to strain "impurities" so as to make the sugar white.)
All that having been said, and having a distinct dislike for Mike Isabella, I still cannot understand Robin's still being there. Sure, he's arrogant, but poor Robin is so out of her element among those chefs that can cook. It's painful to watch her, week after week, just sqeeze by to remain in. I know they would deny this, but I think they are leaving her in just to mess with the remaining chefs' minds.
Robin needs to go home. (imo) It is a travesty, and an insult, that she has made it now to the final 5.
Brownie at 9:11AM on 10/29/09
@ KarynMC : Yea. She just recently became a vegan.
gargupie at 9:30AM on 10/29/09
The real travesty of this epidose-
TOP CHEF FROZEN DINNERS?!?!?!?
Hawk Krall at 9:36AM on 10/29/09
felt like deja vu last night. guess i was remembering the zooey episode now that i see your comments, but for a second i was like, 'isn't this supposed to be new?' i was so confused. kevin for the win, altho i did feel really bad that brian's tv dinner didn't win. he was crestfallen.
gastronomeg at 9:43AM on 10/29/09
Natalie's recent review of Eating Animals in the Huffington Post stated that she has been vegeterian and i think she is now vegan. It sounds like a recent transition for her.
_greenbean at 9:43AM on 10/29/09
@Hawk Krall--I agree with your opinion on Top Chef Frozen Dinners. But here it is for you, courtesy of Schwan's.
dhorst at 9:50AM on 10/29/09
Seriously, Top Chef frozen dinners are ridiculous! As if the in-show advertising wasn't already annoying enough (the Glad ware, the kitchen appliances, whatever car they all ride around in, Whole Foods, etc.), now there will be Top Chef branded food items, yikes. Also, what the heck is with Padma wearing jumpsuits all the time now? They look ridiculous, as do many of her outfits. All of this stuff distracts from the cooking, which is really the only reason I watch the show. That being said, I can't believe Mike got sent home and Robin is still there. I can't help but think that this is a classic case of producers calling the shots. I mean, I can't say how their dishes actually compared since I can't taste them (if only I could have Gail Simmons' job) but Robin is consistently in the bottom, and that should be an important consideration. I think Mike really got screwed here.
LizLemon at 9:56AM on 10/29/09
I was kind of shocked at the lack of protein on most of the dishes the chefs produced...just Eli's little dab of lentils, and a few garbanzo beans on Robin's plates (and not even all of them!) Over on Bravo's web site, Gail's blog says that the chefs were *encouraged* to use things like eggs, beans, grains, etc. and she was puzzled why most of them did not. It was as though the chefs were all so thrown by the challenge that they just had vegetable tunnel vision.
eggsonsunday1 at 10:35AM on 10/29/09
Mike Isabella kind of grows on you. I mean he may be arrogant, pompous, and as good as a chef as he thinks he is but he has a sense of camaraderie with the other chefs. He seems like the type of guy, through all his faults, will still have your back at the end of the day, more so than Robyn...
Bravo and their mercy eliminations...
BuffyBuffet at 10:57AM on 10/29/09
It's interesting that we're talking about this. Portman just wrote an essay for the Huffington Post in which she says this batshit crazy thing:
"I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just 'This is tasty, and that's why I do it.' He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it)."
Until now I was getting very sick of hearing Anthony Bourdain's seemingly constant tirade against vegetarians, but basically equating meat eaters to rapists is ridiculous and I'll take Bourdain's shit talking any day.
You can read the rest here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-portman/jonathan-safran-foers-iea_b_334407.html
PumpkinBear at 11:03AM on 10/29/09
I can't tell if she's expressing a personal opinion or paraphrasing Foer. In any case, she should not have brought up rape.
But can we please not turn a book review by an actress into an excuse to bash vegetarians?
KarynMC at 11:53AM on 10/29/09
Not a big Mike Isabella fan but that he went home before Robin is insane. I am sure that Robin is a lovely person in real life but she is so far out of her element here that it's frustrating to watch.
I think one of Mike's biggest mistakes was to keep referring to his leeks as "protein". I totally understand what he was trying to do but he should have changed direction the minute he realized that his leeks were not working.
I cannot believe that only one chef used grains. .. polenta, farro, couscous, etc. would have been wonderful to see. I think they just had one sharp focus and when that changed, they all just lost it.
Really disappointed with what every one made. . .seemed like amateur hour. Except for Kevin. . except that his plate was brown on brown with dark green.
pastryqueen at 12:11PM on 10/29/09
If Portman is that vehement in her beliefs, then why on Earth did she agree to go on Top Chef? It's often one big celebration of meat (the recent Pig and Pinot episode comes to mind), so I don't see how endorsing the show equates to her backing her principles. Regardless, I too was tremendously annoyed that Mike I. went home. I'm pretty sure that Robin is this season's Lisa, kept on just to create drama.
FierceGeekChick at 12:19PM on 10/29/09
What drove me nuts was that they criticized a couple of people for not having any protein or heft to their dishes, when even Kevin's (which, by the way, looked absolutely delicious) didn't contain anything other than vegetables. No protein, no starch. I love vegetarian food, but these were all side dishes.
Were there additional constraints that got edited out or something? I feel confused and unsatisfied, like when I haven't eaten enough at lunch.
tangledgray at 1:08PM on 10/29/09
Kevin Gillespie and Yukon Cornelius
so creepy!
hungrychristel at 2:53PM on 10/29/09
Ummmmm, when that chick made that comment about pebbles boyfriend being bam bam and being "big and strong" and "carrying her around by the hair" I melted like putty I am in love with her.
Timothyrows at 3:22PM on 10/29/09
What I thought was ludicrous was the fact that the quickfire was judged based on the fact that Kevin happened to have the Sopranos (Italian food) and the fact that Paul Bartolotta himself cooks and enjoys Italian food. Just because that's his preference should not have swayed the way he judged this competition; that is not being a fair and impartial judge!
tabsaxgu at 3:46PM on 10/29/09
Eli's comment about Star Wars shows what an imbecile he is. The only important thing she's ever done? Uh, jackass...ever hear of The Professional? Tool...
Cupajo at 4:08PM on 10/29/09
i thought i couldn't like mike isabella any less, and then he claimed to have never seen seinfeld. unacceptable.
grace24 at 4:32AM on 10/30/09