TOP CHEF: NEW ORLEANS

i have no idea why i'm watching this either

this guy put ice in his soup

great idea

i'm glad they booted that guy. i'd rather eat another dish from the person who just completely broke down than the person who was like "hmmm yes i'll put ice in the soup"

i probably don't really want to know the answer to this question but why did he think putting ice in his soup was a good idea?

i know nothing about dashi so maybe there's some component to it that gets messed up (curdling or something similar?) if it gets too hot?

that's the only logical answer because if he was just like "my soup is too hot to serve" ..... well, that would be just about the dumbest decision in top chef history

just doing a quick scan of dashi info it looks like a v. simple stock so i can't imagine a technical reason for icing it.

i am sure i will end up watching some episodes of this but i won't be happy about it.

rewatching this (don't ask) and he just said that if it was too hot going into the chiller that it would form bacteria (???) idk

yes he was under some false assumption regarding food handling safety that you have to let the food totally cool before putting in the chiller. from what i know it's the total opposite though. Like its best to let the food cool rapidly to reduce bacteria growth.

Like its best to let the food cool rapidly to reduce bacteria growth.

This is correct. I think he was concerned about placing a hot pot of dashi in the refrigerator overnight. The refrigerator would not cool it fast enough to discourage bacteria growth. However, placing ice in the dashi is just dumb. He just needed to place the pot in an ice bath in the sink and stir until it cooled enough.

What kind of baffled me was everyone's unfamiliarity with alligator, turtle and frog legs. Look you're going to New Orleans to cook, don't you think you should work with the cuisine a little bit? I'm just waiting for the inevitable dessert challenge when everyone complains they're not pastry chefs and don't know how to make desserts. And don't get me started on grousing about how you don't know your way around a Whole Foods.

If you put hot food in the fridge it isn't just an issue for your food, but for all the other food in the fridge as well.

i am sure i will end up watching some episodes of this but i won't be happy about it.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 11:26 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahah

RIP that one dude

this challenge is interesting to me though

this restaurant looks legit as hell

man, people do some stupid shit on this show

how can you have even a working knowledge of how top chef works and then decide to have one person essentially season four dishes despite it not even being a team challenge

???????????????????????????????????

yeah that was really dumb.

do any of these ppl have a personality btw

restaurant wars was v. enjoyable. i kind of liked how one group was completely fine and the other had a general meltdown.

I can't imagine being in front of Padma and not breaking down in laughter when she was like, "your other customers will be Chase Sapphire cardholders, Chase Sapphire cardholders enjoy blah blah blah."

haha i did a double-take at that (i actually have a chase sapphire card tbh). i think my first thought was "if i'm going to blow my chase sapphire rewards on a meal, i'm at least going to make sure it's a good meal, not a top chef popup restaurant that's 75% likely to be a disaster."

there are a lot of restaurant wars episodes where front of the house is a mess but it's usually because they're trying to cover for the kitchen being really backed up, this is the first one I can remember where the service problems likely caused the food to be worse than it shoulda been!

I was kinda rooting for Justin until last night - now, I dunno, he was kind of an ass last night but maybe it was due to the editing and/or it was deserved? Who knows.

sara seemed horrible but i was kind of mesmerized at how well her hair stood up to heat from a flattop blasting her in the face

So I'm thinking the final three will be Nicholas, Nina, and Shirley.

last week's episode was super intense, jesus

I liked everyone's dagger eyes at Nick as soon as he said he wouldn't concede his immunity.

Nina is going to destroy Nicholas tonight, right?

Also, how the hell did Nicholas get into the finale over Shirley?

Oh, give me a fucking break.

Agreed.

He probably won because the producers didn't want him to throw a temper tantrum and destroy the whole set.

New series is ok so far, really playing up this one dick's dickishness