Last week on Top Chef: Carlos got screwed, allowing Nicholas to continue on.
This week on Top Chef: “Maui Wowie?” If the producers throw a Super Bowl party it will be nothing but each of them making weed jokes about Washington and Colorado. What follows are the random thoughts that came to mind last night as I watched the show.
-Did Shirley just say this was the quarterfinal? I was promised a double elimination. Make this show end after a reasonable number of episodes, you monsters.
-Shirley clearly came to Hawaii with a lot of confidence. She found herself and is ready to kick ass cooking her food. Nicholas is also there. He’s talking about how much harder the show was than he expected. I wonder how long it will take to second guess the first decision he makes.
-The chefs arrive at some sort of day-time luau. They are the guests of honor, but chef Sam Choy is there also. Then another guest of honor shows up. It’s Louis, who took down Carlos for his 68th straight win on Last Chance Kitchen. You may not remember much about Louis because he was eliminated so long ago. Me too!
-And of course they’re starting off with a Spam themed quickfire. The chefs look mystified as if they never expected to be cooking Spam on their trip to Hawaii. Viewers rate this challenge a 7 on the 1-10 toughness scale. 1 being easy, and 10 being who the f*ck knows, it’s all subjective nonsense.
-Everyone rushes to put on their chefs coats, because you can’t cook without one of those on. You’ll offend the culinary gods.
-“For some reason I didn’t think to do any research on Spam before I came to Hawaii.” -Nicholas, who probably won’t win anyway.
-The chefs won’t stop asking the chefs about what they’re making and how they’re making it. Louis should throw a knife at the person who asked him to explain what a torchon is.
-Nicholas figures he can’t be accused of under-seasoning Spam. Hopefully he overcompensated and went way too heavy on the salt.
-Shirley is up first with a deconstructed Spam musubi with spam-infused rice, nori, basil and cucumber slaw.
-Louis took things a bit further. His spam mouse with garlic, chives, scallions, snap peas, beech mushrooms and togarashi looks pretty special. Padma says it’s very silky in her mouth which is one of those things every guy wants to hear Padma say at least once.
-Nicholas is serving spam broth with pancetta, seaweed, dried shrimp, clam juice and quail egg. It sounds so beautiful I want to cry. It’s also kind of terrifying.
-Nina made a breadfruit and teriyaki spam croquette with sour orange and mango slaw. That’s what you do with a bad ingredient. Chop it up, mix it with complementary flavors and fry it ’til it tastes good.
-Nicholas won a quickfire. Hooray for him. He kind of wishes it came with immunity, which would free him up to tank again.
-The elimination challenge is to highlight the so-called “canoe crops.” These are ingredients brought in by men in loincloths on boats that look incredibly difficult to maneuver, even if they did have pants.
-And here’s the twist, it IS double elimination challenge. Maybe now the finale will be a multi-hour affair stretched out over two weeks? Hopefully not.
-They get to work in the kitchen, and oops, Nina spent the last ten minutes portioning out Nick’s fish instead of her own. If Nina were Carlos Nick would be berating her with a spatula held high.
-Nicholas says he doesn’t want to go to the finale cooking what’s now her fish. Nina is sticking with it, and now three people are cooking opah. Shirley is cooking pork, so she’ll probably win. Because pork.
-The chefs finish their prep, the rest of the work will be done at an outdoor kitchen. I’m sure everything will go smoothly from there.
-Tom comes through to freak everybody out. Nicholas tries to trade his 10k for immunity. No dice, says Tom. Is Nicholas slow-playing, or does he really have zero confidence?
-Oh look, it’s raining. Holding the most important event of the season in an area exposed to the elements is so NFL of you, Top Chef. Only snow makes football better while rain makes food worse.
-Oh god, Padma’s boobs. And Gail’s belly! Gail looks way more pregnant in Hawaii.
-Hmm, three chefs cooked fish. Opah just happens to be loaded with mercury, and one of the judges is very pregnant. Oh well, maybe the mercury will give her fetus superhuman strength.
-Louis grilled his opah and served it with purple sweet potatoes and coconut sauce. Sam gives him a fist-bump because he’s some kind of Hawaiian terrorist thug. Anyway, Louis is exceedingly confident in his dish.
-It turns out that opah was something of a throwaway fish before Sam showed people that it could be cooked and eaten. That fish had probably been swimming around for millions of years before somebody decided to eat it. That was probably a sh*tty day for opah.
-Sam praises the dish, but Tom points out the inconsistencies present in the cooking. Some are perfect, some are a bit under some are over.
-Nina is next with another grilled opah dish. this one is served over a taro root and coconut puree. Like the previous dish, it’s topped with seaweed. Maybe give them a more diverse list of ingredients next time.
-Everyone is in agreement that her dish was pretty great. Some may have thought it was a bit on the spicy end. Eh, I’m sure they’re wrong.
-Nicholas didn’t make opah, he made opakapaka, which is a totally different fish, mainlander. Is that what Hawaiians call us? I would. His dish is served over crispy chicken skin that’s sitting on a broth and probably isn’t all that crispy anymore, Nicholas.
-Oh, they all like it. Apparently the chicken skin stayed crispy despite its proximity to the pork broth. The dish was seasoned properly and wasn’t complex to a fault. Bummer.
-Shirley’s dish looks perfect and she should win. It’s a nice chunk of honey-glazed pork butt with sweet potato and tumeric puree. I also see a quarter of a deep fried egg.
-The pork was sweet, and so was the sweet potato. Too sweet! A different kind of bummer. Everyone put out quality dishes, so being “too sweet” means she’s probably not getting through a double elimination.
-I think it’s going to be Nicholas and Nina moving on. We’ll find out right after two more commercial breaks.
-Emeril points out that some felt the raw jalapeno on Nicholas’s dish were a bit assertive. Nicholas could sense it coming, yet he still took it exactly as you’d expect.
-What? HUH? Pussies.
-Nina’s dish was a bit heavy on the spice, while Shirley’s was a bit too sweet. They downplayed both mistakes, but they’re present. The rest of the talk is mostly praise. Very little criticism at all.
-Tom notices that Nicholas is a lot more confident than he was during the “regular” season. This is a great opportunity to smack him back down, Tom.
-Now that everyone is out of the room the judges are being far more critical. The consensus is that Nina’s spice overpowered the delicately poached fish. It’s not like they can send her home. She’s Nina. She’s a finalist.
-Nicholas is the big winner. How dare he come back from the break with more confidence and focus?
-Louis is going home No more LCK for you, stranger.
-It’s down to Shirley and Nina, who should obviously be going head-to-head in the finals. Bravo can’t handle another all-female finale, apparently.
-It’s Nina.
Next time on Top Chef: Padma in a sarong, and that thing where eliminated chefs come back to play sous chef for another chance to be on television and/or get yelled at. A winner is picked, unless it isn’t. Tom eats the best dish he’s had all year, and Nicholas gets all pissed about something, probably a sous chef screwing up his service. Padma says it’s the closest finale ever, which I’m sure no judge has ever said before in the show’s history.
<b>Top Chef Top Two</b>
Eliminated: Louis (last week: not ranked)- He goes home knowing he broke a record on Last Chance Kitchen, a competition that’s been around for like three years, maybe.
Eliminated: Shirley (1)- The cool thing is that Shirley got so much out of this show. She’s famous, but more importantly, she discovered herself as a chef. I will actively seek out her inevitable new restaurant wherever it is. Unless it’s someplace terrible. Like Florida.
2. Nicholas (3)- Good for him for reclaiming the form he showed early in the competition that led me to believe he was a favorite, I guess.
1. Nina (1)- Beat Nicholas.
Image via Bravo.
