A Top Chef Thanksgiving

I've been looking forward to Anthony Bourdain for weeks now and I have to say that he didn't disappoint. He has this hilariously funny but biting way of describing bad food and the chefs this week gave him a reason to be out in full force.

This episode was pretty enjoyable, but it didn't really have much to do with the food. One of my complaints about Project Runway this season had been that they didn't show the designers having enough fun. But Top Chef has quite a lot of fun, maybe because cooking tends to be fast and furious, leaving a lot of time for other stuff. I wasn't too big a fan of letting the top contenders have a day off in an effort to whittle down the people that have no chance of winning, but I liked that they had to cook in their own apartments, because that's kind of the spirit of Thanksgiving. Elia's "chocolate meltdown" cracked me up, Mike brought the funny as usual, and of course, poor Tom Colicchio reacting to Anthony Bourdain's criticism of "what kind of crackhouse are you running here?" Gotta love it.

As for the challenges, the canned food quickfire was better than some of the other recent ones, but the fact that they only had 15 minutes just meant that people had to make salads, and I'm not a big fan of salads. The elimination challenge could have been great, but the chefs didn't exercise their creativity enough. Mike didn't bother with the cutting edge part but produced way more than everyone else and managed to save himself. Carlos took the easy way out and paid for it. Marcel was just being Marcel but I gotta give him props for doing something interesting at least. The roulade didn't look too appetizing to me but that cranberry gelee looked tasty. Then again I like cranberry sauce from a can, so yeah. Betty has started to annoy the heck out of me and her dessert was just silly. Why does she keep doing dessert? And Elia won merely because her soup actually tasted good. I think that's kind of saying something.

I don't know, the food this season hasn't been too mouth-watering in general. Are the challenges too restrictive? Are the chefs just not on the same level as last year's? Or is it still too early in the competition? I think even Gail Simmons said that she felt like there was better food earlier last season. Also, it's hard for me to say what everyone's strengths and styles really are. Come on, Top Chef, show us something yummy!