The second episode of Top Chef All-Stars, Season 8, started out with one of those silly Quickfire Challenges involving children, but this time without the wisdom of health-consciousness to guide it. Use as much sugar as you like, as often as you like! The results are pumped up kids on the verge of hysteria. The look on Jamie’s face said it all.
(I thought one of the coolest parts of the show was showing some of the Cheftestants as kids!)
It started out in the TC kitchen with Joe Jonas and Padma asking for a midnight snack for the 150 kids doing an overnight at the American Museum of Natural History. The two top dishes were then to go head-to-head with the tweeners as judges. Tiffani came out in the top with a sweet MG cookie and tied with Spike’s chips and dip. In choosing up chefs for their teams, Tiffani chose mostly women and Spike mostly men. That Spike chose Richard and Dale T. (from his own S4) was no surprise and I bet he would have taken Antonia, too, if Tiffani hadn’t taken her first. Tre was the notable guy on Tiffani’s team and Carla was the notable woman on Spike’s.
It was almost a foregone conclusion that the kids would prefer the cookies, so naturally Tiffani won the challenge and immunity for the Elimination Challenge. Then came the interesting part.
Given the choice between all meat and dairy (T-Rex) or vegetables, fruits and grains (Brontosaurus or more correctly Apatosaurus), Tiffani chose T-Rex. While watching the episode live, I thought that was the better choice, but Tiffani and most of her team somehow thought that T-Rex was omnivorous, even though Tom made it perfectly clear that they were limited to meat, dairy and meat bi-products. I hadn’t thought it through (as I guess Tiffani hadn’t either) because it seemed obvious after a short while that Team Bronto had a much wider variety of products to work with, including a wide variety of spices unavailable to Team T-Rex.
Team Bronto came up with some interesting dishes, including a tasty gnocchi, a surprising gazpacho (for breakfast!?) and a banana pudding with fruit which was good enough to secure a win for Richard, Angelo and Marcel. This makes Angelo’s second EC win, Richard’s first (after being disqualified in the first episode) and Marcel’s first win (in spite of his carping at Angelo).
Even though the kids and parents formed long lines for Team T-Rex, the food did not offer enough variety. While the salmon with shrimp sauce produced successful salmon, the sauce was over-reduced and salty. The frittatas were not cooked uniformly, meaning that some of the egg was runny on the inside – a major problem for the team. But the big losers were Jennifer and Jamie. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) Jamie cut her hand and was told by a TC medic that she needed stitches, so she was off to the hospital, leaving Jen to tough out the dish herself. Even with Jamie, though, the dish would not have carried. It consisted of braised bacon in a sauce with hard-boiled eggs crumbled on top. It was a wet, brown mess, with tasteless eggs on top. No one liked it and Jennifer took an early exit. It was tough to see her go and – like Elia before her – it was emotional and ugly. I feel for her. But the judges make their decisions based solely on the plate put before them and, in spite of her fight to defend the dish it certainly looked like the worst dish of the bunch.
So, this really stirs up my current rankings, but here goes:
1. Richard Blais. Last week: No. 1.
Although he wasn’t in the running for the Quickfire win, he did finish on top in the Elimination Challenge. He seems to work very well in small groups and I still think he is the most creative of the group.
2. Angelo Sosa. Last week: No. 2.
Angelo and Richard followed the same track this week, not competing in the QF, but sharing the EC win. He is still Richard’s strongest competitor. I thought that he was perhaps right in the little spat with Marcel over cutting up the plums and it certainly didn’t hurt the dish.
3. Tiffani Faison. Last week: No. 3.
Tiffani solidified herself at No. 3 with the QF win, though she did make a huge mistake in selecting T-Rex for the EC. She’s still a very strong chef and appears to have learned the most from her villain-edit in S2. She still could easily win it all.
4. Marcel Vigneron. Last week: No. 6.
Marcel moves up two spots, due to the loss of Jennifer Carroll from the top five and due to Jamie’s inglorious cut. He did participate in the winning dish in the EC and therefore gets at least one star behind his name. I thought that Marcel was a little wigged out in confronting Angelo over cutting up the plums for their dish, but it wasn’t too much over the top or enough so that I think it hurts Marcel’s maturity factor.
5. Jamie Lauren. Last week: No. 4.
Where oh where did Jamie go this week? If we can blame Jen for not being fully there in the bacon and egg dish, Jamie was literally not there – at the hospital getting two, count ‘em, two stitches in her cut hand. Frankly, it looked like much of Team T-Rex was absent under fire, but Jamie looked spaced out and like she didn’t really want to be there at all. We’ll see if this was an aberration or if she will go into a permanent funk.
6. Dale Talde. Last week: No. 7.
He also gets bumped up with Jennifer’s collapse.
7. Dale Levitski. Last week: No. 11.
I’m really beginning to like Dale L. and I think that bumping him up is appropriate at this time – another mid-course correction. He seems to be very thoughtful about his food and if you combine that with solid technique, I just think he deserves better than tenth.
8. Spike Mendelsohn. Last week: No. 13.
Spike has made a huge leap from the No. 17 spot that I started him out in my preseason rankings. As Bourdain put it, he is the “craftiest M-fer ever on the show.” He has definitely shown so far that he deserves to be here as much for his food as for his craftiness. This time, he nearly won the QF and he showed very well in the EC. As I said last week, he seems to have matured, without losing his playfulness.
9. Tiffany Derry. Last week: No. 8.
So Tiffany falls one spot, but two chefs move in front of her. Mostly her reason for moving down is that she really isn’t showing me much, while others are. Last year, she also started out slow, but then got things really going, so we’ll see what happens as the show moves forward.
10. Carla Hall. Last week: No. 9.
See Tiffany, but in a different season.
11. Casey Thompson. Last week: No. 10.
Only goes down with Spike and Dale L. moving up. Her salmon was supposedly very good and only brought down by Tre's reduction.
12. Michael Isabella. Last week: No. 14.
Mike gets bumped two spots, as I think I’m getting him closer to where he deserves to be. In fact, he may go higher next week, depending on the next episode. Of course, after Jennifer’s elimination, he could just as easily be going home.
13. Antonia Lafaso. Last week: No. 12.
Antonia moves down one spot, based almost exclusively on the EC performance.
14. Tre Wilcox. Last week: No. 15.
Tre made the disastrous shrimp reduction that made Casey's salmon into a losing dish, so I have dropped him one spot. Really, Tre, is just a step above Fabio and Stephen.
15. Fabio Viviandi. Last week: No. 16.
Fabio moves up solely because of Jennifer’s elimination.
16. Stephen Asprinio. Last week: No. 17.
Had a notable dish in the EC, but not enough to move him up.
17. Jennifer Carroll. Last week: No. 5
Eliminated. Burned out before her time, we will surely miss Jen, but you have to take responsibility for your cooking. ‘Nuff said.
A double elimination this week – it should be exciting!
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