Top Chef Recap: Restaurant Wars Suck A Fat One
And we’re back. When we last left our motley crew of fricasseetestants, Milhouse got eliminated. That was much to the chagrin of everyone else in the house, as they can’t stand Cancer Girl. I have a friend who’s like that, good guy to hang out with but you can’t live with him because he won’t shut up. My advice for them is get Cancer Girl a girlfriend, so she can focus on annoying one person in particular
Oh, and it’s restaurant wars. Hooray? The restaurant wars hubub is contrived; these guys cook in restaurants all the time, big whoop. It’s like making getting drunk and hooking up with skanks a competition on The Ruins. Top Chef’s special twists are what make the show interesting for mild foodies like myself. And last season one of the better chefs got booted prematurely in restaurant wars.
Redheaded Santa doesn’t like losing Milhouse because his departed castmate kept things cool around the house and now the brothers Voltaggio will be at each others’ throats. I’m dubious of his assessment because Bryan’s a human quaalude.
Walk of Shame and Frere Mike are the captains to pick restaurant teams, and WoS goes first. In order they pick Redheaded Santa, Human Quaalude, Jersey Mike, Hopalong Kirshtein Laurine, and Cancer Girl. Cancer Girl thinks she’s unpopular because she’s the mom of the house. Newsflash: you’re not the mom. I’m fine living with my mom, she drinks lots of white wine and makes fun of stupid people. She’s a delight; you’re just annoying.
For the Quickfire the contestants have 10 minutes apiece to prepare part of a meal, and then they have to hand off the meal to a blindfolded teammate, who they’re also not allowed to talk to. Now THAT is interesting. More fun for me to watch than restaurant wars. And they use hydroponic watercress. I hear you only need like one of those to get the effect of like a dozen normal watercress. That’s why it’s so expensive, you dig?
Frere Mike says his team needs to “create synergy.” He must be angling for Jack Donaghy to put in a good word for him at Plunder. His non-synergistic squad loses to Walk of Shame’s legion, even though she misidentifies black cod as trout. Keep dissing trout like that and I’ll fall out of love with you, babe.
One redeeming feature of this year’s restaurant wars is that they’re not responsible for decor. It’s Top Chef, not Top Interior Designer. And I’ve never seen a team dinged because the carpet didn’t match the drapes (and sometimes that’s a good thing…baZING!!).
Sustainable seafood is the name of the game during this set of restaurant wars. Maybe they could hire Sack from Wedding Crashers to get their scallops. At least they didn’t try to latch onto the locavore craze in Vegas; there are only so much things you can do with dirt and bleached bones.
The Voltaggios plan their restaurant and snipe at each other. Human Quaalude normally doesn’t show much emotion, but Frere Mike does a decent job getting a rise out of him. They also name their restaurant ReVolt. I get the cute pun but, like Cancer Girl, I’m not sure I’d want to eat fish from ReVolt. If I wanted revolting seafood, I’d go to Red Lobster. The other team goes with Mission, which is too bad; I was really hoping one of the teams would name itself The Frying Dutchman.
Unlike last season, whoever’s doing the front of the house is still responsible for one dish, so Laurine and Eli are forced to contribute. If I really hated having Robin around, I’d just stick her up front; she’d annoy away all the customers and get eliminated
Walk of Shame as usual thinks she’s sunk, but she’s a former Le Bernardin chef who’s doing a seafood challenge. Yeah, I think she’ll be fine.
Cancer Girl throws a fit in the kitchen, telling Frere Mike to fuck off. The Voltaggios quit sniping at each other and close ranks, trying to freeze out the annoying house “mother.” I get that they’re pissed at her for dropping an f-bomb, but I work as a lawyer and I’ve heard worse. And I don’t work in an environment where employees have more tattoos than the average Sturgis attendee. Probably because so many attorneys are Jewish.
Mission is a disaster from the start. The judges look at the menu and are pissed at not getting dessert, bad news after ReVolt knocked their sweet stuff out of the park. Colicchio says the arctic char needs salt, and Toby feels like it needs more sodium. Because Toby’s an ass, you see. I miss Gail and her ample bosom so much. Regardless, it looks grim for Team Mission after the service is late and the lamb is undercooked.
Frere Mike wins the challenge in a walk. It sounded like his chicken and his trout were both transcendent. He got the $10,000 the other team wagered, and he magnanimously gives it to his teammates. Human Quaalude lets out some paternal passive aggression in telling his brother, as politely as possible, to take his fucking charity back.
Walk of Shame looks a mess at judges table. Normally when she’s saying she might go home she gives a little smile at the end, now she just looks despondent. When Tom says her sauce was broken she replies that she feels broken. Ugh. I’m praying Laurine gets sent home; she’s the only other person who could get the boot and I still don’t have a nickname for her.
Thank God, Laurine gets sent packing. Still, we almost lost Walk of Shame. I’ll say it again: fuck Restaurant Wars.
Next week: cook for Natalie Portman. She’s really hot now that she has hair again. It’ll probably have to be kosher, which could spell doom for the porcine-inclined Redheaded Santa.
2 months ago • 5 notes
