'Top Chef' episode 9 recap

January 21, 11:19 PMTop Chef ExaminerMatt Wolf

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Top Chef Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Radhika says goodbye

Through five seasons of Top Chef the high-octane "Restaurant Wars" episodes have given us some great moments:

Season 1: Amiable but overly sensitive Dave, finally fed up with the abrasive interruptions of Tiffani, informs her that, "I'm not your bitch, bitch."

Season 3: Shopping at Pier One for decorations, Dale and Hung take a whiff of some vanilla candles... they nod, silently conveying to each other, "this'll be appetizing!" Cut to: Dale running around his team's restaurant ten minutes after opening the doors, desperately removing the vanilla candles from the guest tables after several horrified complaints.

Season 4: Anthony Bourdain, stepping in for Colicchio as head judge, observes of one team's purple tablecloths and napkins, "I feel like I'm in the back of Prince's van."

Season 5: And then last night, we had Colicchio, annoyed at a lack of attention from hostess Radhika, observing, "If we were to leave right now, we wouldn't even get a goodbye," followed by Padma's demand, "Let's go," as the judges left in a huff. Seriously, if you're unhappy with your service in a restaurant and you want to march off in style, then this is how it's done:

To be fair, Radhika's absence from the front of the house (Where was she?) did seem to be a problem, though not necessarily an unforgivable one. It did not seem like the same could be said of Carla's disastrous desserts. Still, Radhika went out with one more great quickfire performance, astonishing guest judge Stephen Starr with her Butterfish with Sauteed Spinach, Corn and Chorizo. The dish not only appeared to be the most interesting and well thought out quickfire of the season, but it displayed Radhika's enormous potential. Tragically though, the lesson, as always, is do not take the lead in the restaurant wars episode.

What else did we learn tonight? Well, it's becoming more and more clear that Jamie and Stefan are the two best chefs on the show. Jamie singlehandedly kept her team in the game, doing the heavy lifting with a Red Curry Carrot Soup and a Braised Lamb Shank with Israeli Couscous. On the other team, we had Stefan, already somewhat humiliated after being the last kid picked for kickball, rising above the petty nonsense with three sensational desserts: a Ginger and Lemongrass Panna Cotta, some Mango Lollipops and an Orange Chocolate Parfait.

Aside from the fact that his desserts blew the judges away, Stefan also showed an impressive amount of poise when the freezer in his kitchen wouldn't work, a potential disaster for a chef charged with making dessert. Stefan didn't become rattled at all, he just found another way to freeze his parfait and moved on with life. He's like Kurt Warner with a spatula. And a quick word on nobody wanting Stefan on their team: WHAT?! When Radhika picked the obviously in-over-her-head Carla over Stefan, I actually said out loud, "She deserves to lose." And she did. Another lesson? "Man up," as Carla would say, and deal with the more abrasive personalities that will actually help you win. 

The Leah-Hosea romance has officially become depressing, which likely means that we won't see much more of it. Good. Leah, who is obviously a very good chef, was thrown so completely off her game after hooking up with Hosea that she undercooked the judges' black cod dish. So enough already, let's concentrate on the food. Is this cameramen-spying-on-Leah-and-Hosea-from-a-stairwell schtick about the ratings? If so, then who in their right mind watches a cooking competition because of an illicit affair? Isn't that why Lifetime and Cinemax exist?