Thursday, December 09, 2010

Top Chef All Stars: Dinosaur time?

It's definitely been awhile since I've blogged weekly about a show...we'll see how long this lasts!

Wow, Jen. I was really a fan of hers during the Las Vegas season. Her performance wasn't that consistent and she had this tendency to psych herself out, but I liked that she was a strong, confident woman in the kitchen and held her own against some of the best chefs of any season (Kevin and the Voltaggio brothers).

But man did she come back with a chip on her shoulder! I was totally cringing watching her be so vocal at Judges' Table and in her confessionals. I'm sure there'll be a reunion this season and I wonder if she'll change her tune after seeing this episode. Also, her dad kind of sounds like a dick.

Honestly none of the dishes in this challenge seemed very inspired. The Brontosaurus team had food that didn't seem very breakfast-like but did seem to have an advantage in terms of plenty of ingredients. I was kind of glad to see that someone finally made good gnocchi though. The T-Rex team did seem to have it a bit rough only being able to use meat/eggs/dairy but it seems like execution was as much a problem as conception of the dishes. All Stars or no, Top Chef is always still Top Chef. These are professionals who would love to do plated fine dining every week but that's not how this competition goes...

Last season I started getting kind of annoyed at the judges (mostly Tom) for being so disapproving all the time. I mean, I guess if the food's bad, the food's bad, but they can be kind of all over the place with their criticism. Usually they appreciate when a chef knows what their mistakes were but Tom blasted Tre for not fixing his sauce. And Katie saying that they shouldn't serve something if it's not good was ridiculous...a missing component can ruin a dish as much as a flawed one. I guess it's unrealistic to expect them to be consistent all the time though.

As for Jamie leaving to get two stitches in her thumb? That did seem a little lame...if it was later in the season I think that could have factored into the judging.

Random tidbits:
- Dale T. thinking that Joe Jonas was a pastry chef
- That one kid examining Spike's chips and dip with a hilarious expression of confusion/disgust
- The return of the robotic Katie Lee (sans Joel)
- Stephen trying to describe his "uncomfortability" about sleeping on cots in the Museum of Natural History (which sounded super cool to me, by the way...I LOVE that museum)

1 comment:

K said...

Dale's pastry chef comment was hilarious. Jamie's deadpan disgust of kids also cracked me up. I think they are zooming in more into people's faces for the talking head segments.