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As someone who went with Robyn to Pepe's, Sally's, and Modern Pizza in one day, only to go to Pizzeria Bianco for my first meal when I arrived home in Phoenix after graduating college 8 days later, I have to say that Pizzeria Bianco still trumps anything I had during my four years in New Haven.

I sort of agree, but by choosing to be EC, you are putting yourself in a position where the food you make is not the only factor that you are judged on. Dale, failed in both the food departments and the leadership roles.

Yeah, but Dale did actively push to be the EC this challenge, even though any idiot could see that his team was going to lose. Obviously anyone with half a brain would have fired Lisa on the spot, but by pushing so hard to be EC, Dale in effect "hired" her. If he didn't want to hire her he should have let her take control and taken her place as the sous. It's much better to be a sous chef with an idiot EC because you just have to do your job well, no matter what you are asked to do. The outcome of this battle was a foregone conclusion as soon as the teams were picked. Dale should have realized that he was never going to be able to keep control of Lisa and should have put his ego aside and let her throw herself under the bus. It was pretty clear that the reason he demanded to be EC was because his ego couldn't deal with Lisa bossing him around.

The thing is that Dale didn't comport himself as an EC should. Choosing to focus mainly on his own dishes instead of supervising, freaking out when his stuff went bad, abusing waitstaff, offering no solution to Lisa's, admittedly self-made crises, and letting Spike disappear for most of the prep time into the front room (how did Stephanie manage to conceive of a linguine and clams dish/bake a gorgonzola cheesecake AND set up the front of the house while Spike could barely even braise short ribs??? which is difficult, but does not require a ton of active prep time).

Yes Lisa screwed up hardcore, but if Dale wanted the EC job so bad he should have expected to have to clean up her mess. As EC, you get the power but you also have to take the responsibility for everything that comes out of your kitchen. He shouldn't be expected to hold Lisa's hand the whole way through prep, but if that is what needs to get done to make the service go well, then he needs to deal with it. Dale just wanted the power so that Lisa couldn't boss him around, but none of the responsibility. When it became clear that Lisa's dishes were awful (although its not as though his butterscotch scallops were any great shakes) he didn't care and just let her fail choosing to deal with his own messes instead. When you are EC, its your responsibility to take care of situations like that, even if you think the other person is an inept idiot. When you send out a nasty dish, its not some line chef whose reputation is going to be on the line, its yours.

While I think that Dale should have outlasted Spike and Lisa based on cooking skills and qualities to be a chef, I have to say that based on his human interaction and leadership skills, he was not yet cut out to be Top Chef and was less qualified than Richard, Stephanie, or Antonia for that position. He would make a great sous chef (he is possibly the best cook of the bunch), but he has constantly sucked when put in a leadership position, always choosing to take care of his own stuff before reaching out to the rest of his kitchen. Look at the difference between him and Hung. Hung was a conceited jerk that was socially awkward, but whenever he was put in an EC position, he didn't just see his "dishes" as the ones he prepared, but was constantly in everyone's face all the time making sure that his dishes were up to his standards. He was slightly immature and annoying about it, but at least he took charge.

RE: Dee711

If the ducks' livers actually burst we couldn't eat them! I love how anti-foie gras people simply MAKE UP things about it that are absolutely FALSE. The livers bursting is only second to the fallacious claims that the livers of foie gras ducks are diseased. Once again, it wouldn't taste good if they were diseased and we wouldn't eat them.

People fail to understand that ducks have a drastically different anatomical make-up than humans/mammals do. Duck livers have evolved to store lots of fat (something human livers, regrettably, cannot do) in preparation for migration. They aren't sick or diseased, they are just engorged (admittedly artificially) as they would be if the duck were migrating and had plentiful access to food.

Furthermore, the force-feeding process is far less painful/cruel to ducks than it would be to humans. Ducks' throats are coated to the point that many ducks can swallow entire fish whole (and alive) so that the actual act of stuffing a feeding tube down a duck's throat is relatively painless (not to mention only 2 or 3 seconds long). Also, ducks breathe through a hole in their tongue/beak, which is exposed to the air during the force-feeding process allowing them to breathe the entire time.

The thing is that anti-foie gras activists attack it because it is an easy target that allows people to falsely anthropomorphize ducks/make up facts about them because no one knows anything about foie gras/ unite people against an ostensibly elitist product that most Americans have never tried/nor care about. Their real target is getting rid of meat consumption in general (particularly the FAR MORE CRUEL factory farms where most of this nation's meat comes from) and they choose foie gras because its an easy visceral thing to get people to warm up to them.

@Blue Iris: I know I was sort of kidding, even though I hate it. Although I am not so sure how your theory about climate/geography will pan out. I have lived in Arizona for the last 14 years and it has done nothing to make me like cilantro anymore.

Why would you want to keep cilantro anyways? Isn't there enough of this vile weed on our planet? Maybe the reason it goes bad so quickly is that God is trying to get rid of it.

Ate there a couple of years ago. The pizza wasn't anything special. Maybe it's great pizza in Phoenix, but only ordinary for NY.

let's forget about simon for the time being, he's no more than a substandard rabble rouser and has nothing of importance to contribute to our PIE-alogue. i do want to thank all my g's out there who stepped up, though. for my next trick, i'm takin my game to intergalactic levels and introducing the first of many episodes of....SLICEWARS!!!

stay tuned, brodies!

rofl, Simon tries to insult people from NJ, and posts a bunch of pictures of people from Staten Island, NY.

Sometimes people ask me which is the best restaurant I ever visited. Depending on the day or my mood I may answer the French Laundry or Manresa or even Komi in DC.
Rarely but sometimes someone will ask which was the most memorable.
Without hesitation that would be Pizzeria Bianco. Pizza?? You got to be kidding... I've gotten some strange looks when I respond yes pizza.
Maybe it is the electric atmosphere that sets it over the top as DJ Bubbles states in his review. But regardless of whatever it is Chris Bianco has created a extremely unique and rare restaurant that stands at the top of my list.

And I thought chocolate cheese only showed up at Midwestern dairy farms....

Ah...cheese... =)