Top Chef 8/15

[Ron Burgundy]

I think Brian's fish is getting old. Not only did he do fish again, he just said "gee, I did this fish sausage a few days ago, I'll do it again! Cooking is easy!"

Then Brian [censored] up the service. Not enough silverware? C'mon dude.

Brian seems like a really cool guy who makes good fish. But I think he deserved to go home.

[rjoefish]

I saw the end decision coming a mile away, its like a gimmick to do this each season now. Pretty lame.

[Dids]

The silverware thing isn't on Brian, it's on the ingrates they had working busing tables and what not. I got the impression that perhaps through the blogs we'll discover they [censored] up more than we realize. Brian was a mess, but I think he was likely not getting a lot of help from the other folks.

Howie openly admitting to cooking [censored], over-rich rissoto in a Bistro setting is a bigger crime to me. One poor execution, but two just incorrect preparation and not really fitting the theme.

Team April bit off way more than they could chew, and it hurt them. Bad choice imo.

I think not sending anybody home was the correct choice. Unless you got Howie, no one person [censored] up enough to go home.

Other thoughts.

It's violently gayballs of Howie to ape the dude's truffle burger when making his own.

I have a hard time seeing why Tre's burger isn't a burger and CJ's is. I hated that reasoning.

The blogger twist was horrible. Basically nothing she said was funny and what was with the stupid catty foody ripping on on Dale. Seems like the audience on these types of challenges always ends up auditioning for their own show.

[cbloom]

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I saw the end decision coming a mile away, its like a gimmick to do this each season now. Pretty lame.

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As soon as Tom said "I know what we should do" I knew what was coming and I was pissed. So lame.

That risotto looked horrible, and to stand there and defend it just makes it worse.

[cbloom]

BTW the real question is whether Tre is gay (?)

[Rushmore]

Do you guys seriously believe that any "chef" dumb enough to put scented candles anywhere NEAR a place where food is being served doesn't deserve to be sent home? That is one of most moronic things I've ever seen on this show. If I walked into a fine dining restaurant and there was a bunch of scented candles assaulting my olfactory apparatus, my ass wouldn't hit the seat.

And then: "I don't have much of a sense of smell."

YOU'RE A CHEF!! Jesus.

You don't have much sense, period.

[slamdunkpro]

First: It's interesting that over on the Top Chef site it's announced that Tony Bourdain has gone from "guest blogger" "filling in for Colicchio" to permanent blogger. Guess Colicchio got tired of being hammered for his inconsistencies and obvious favoritisms in the comments.

Second: They took a pretty good concept of "Restaurant Wars" from season 1 and, and I thought after season 2 they couldn't possibly do this - screwed it up even worse. Just as "less is more" in the food - the original restaurant wars - real simple was the best: a real space - small furnishing budget and no outside help no "designers" (season 2 - what a disaster) and no lackluster waitron units who have no stake in the outcome but can influence it

This season's RW's the food took such a back seat to everything else it was the judges who should have been sent packing.

Dale should have been instantly stoned for the scented candles. I mean WTH?

Poor Tre was doomed with those potatoes. They're over smoked, he knows it, he shouldn't serve them, he knows it, but which path to take? Get beat up for the dish or get slapped for no side (you know they would have)

Brian got beat up for service problems (silverware) yet he has waitrons who are supposed to be taking care of that.

Nice call by CJ taking charge and sending Casey out to calm Brian. Hey he learned from the club food fiasco and spoke up when there was a problem but did the judges mention it? nooooo.

I'm pretty sure that the asshat guy that they showed busting on Dale was one of those snarky "dining society" clowns from a couple of episodes ago. At least he left his vest of shiny things home.

Oh well, next week, we'll see.

[ohgeetee]

What are folks' thoughts on hell's kitchen? To me it comes across like Gordon has his top 3 picked from the start, but some of his challenges are entertaining.

A hybrid of the two shows would be great. Challenges in a real kitchen service scenario minus the stupid [censored] like cleaning out the trash and whatnot.

The more I watch top chef, the more I see its open format and vagueness are its biggest problem. When you have a burger quickfire, it seems like they could very easily say "hey, make sure its a legit burger," because half the time people get rewarded for the outside the box creativity like a lettuce wrapped healthburger, and the other half of the time its like "wtf were you thinking?" It may have tasted like crap and the not a burger thing was just an aside, but it seemed like it was completely disregarded because it wasn't a burger.

more competitions where they have basic spices and each have a tray of the same main ingredients and are told to create something fresh would be good for the show.

tasting competitions similar to the hell's kitchen format would be great too.

[private joker]

Top Chef is a decent show, but it's really just Project Runway with food. Exact same format, same production, same attitude. But PR is better suited to this format than TC, which really comes off as a retread. HK is a far better show, not just because it's fresher and more interesting from show-to-show (it always feels like newer things are being done, and the drama is escalating), but also because Ramsay is a fantastic headliner of a host, and the character work on the other cast members is much stronger -- you really get a sense of who everyone is, as opposed to on TC where the character development is really thin.

I also like that HK isn't just about being a good cook, it's about working on the line, being in the weeds, getting timing down, and basically becoming a team to get food out -- you get to see what it's like in the part of a restaurant you never see. TC is about fancy ingredients that I never get to taste when I'm watching it, so who cares.

[RunDownHouse]

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Nice call by CJ taking charge and sending Casey out to calm Brian. Hey he learned from the club food fiasco and spoke up when there was a problem but did the judges mention it? nooooo.

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To be fair, there's no telling whether they mentioned it or not. A more valid complaint would be, "They didn't show the judges noting that CJ learned from a previous challenge," if they did mention it, but that's a pretty lame complaint.