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This blog is inspired by Dominic Armato and his terrific site Skillet Doux. I have been reading Dom's Top Chef Power Rankings since he started posting them and his analysis of the show is first rate.

I have created this little blog as a way of reviewing and posting of my own rankings - and not by way of competition with Dom, who is in his own league. Read him first and always and think of my own rankings as a bit of counterpoint.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Top Chef All Stars, Season Finale, Part 3: Review and Rankings

Mikey Goes After Antonia

I don’t know if I’m just getting used to the fact that Quickfire Challenges have completely gone down the tubes or if I was genuinely entertained by this QF farce.

When the remaining three chefs (Richard Blais, Mike Isabella and Antonia Lofaso) arrived at the kitchen, Wolfgang Puck was waiting with Padma.  They were prepared to lead the chefs on a nasty trip down memory lane.  The focus of the QF was to bring back seven “classic” QF challenges and have the chefs choose among them for the other chefs.  Since Mikey won the EC last episode, he got to pick first.  Rather than going after Richard, however, Mike decided to bring down Antonia, his “cousin”.

He made his reasoning abundantly clear: he thinks that she is the weakest link and if he brings her down, then he will go to the final to face Richard.  Antonia saw this immediately and reacted accordingly.

This brings up once again the reprehensible streak of misogyny that Mike has shown ever since Season 6 when he mercilessly attacked Robin.  We have seen it again this season over and over.  Mike obviously doesn’t see it.  He acts as if he speaks for everyone.  It is sad, especially in relation to Antonia, who has been one of the most likeable competitors in the history of the show (Carla Hall notwithstanding).

The seven “classic” QF challenges were represented in: hot dogs, tacos, potatoes, one-pot wonder, canned and dry goods, desserts and pasta.

Mike immediately assigned Antonia canned and dry goods, a difficult challenge, but not as bad as it might seem.  Antonia then gave Richard hot dogs and Richard gave Mike the one-pot wonder.  Antonia was quite surprised by this, saying that it left the entire spectrum of food open to him.  While this is true, Mike also flourishes on composed dishes and this is slightly out of his wheel-house.

After the cooking started, Padma returned and announced that they were now going to add in a classic QF “twist”.  Uh-oh.  Dumb and Dumber.  The three twists, assigned in reverse order were:  Richard assigned Mike the twist of cooking with no utensils, Antonia gave Richard cooking with one hand, and that left Antonia to cook tied together with someone else, who turned out to be Carla.  If the twist had happened earlier, Mike would have been the one with the biggest disadvantage, but since he’d already finished all of his chopping, he was able to just stand around and gloat at the others.  Very annoying.  Richard probably had the most difficult time of the three and it seems rather obvious to me that he had the worst dish of the three.

What I found amazing is that Mike completely ignored doing a one-pot wonder.  Okay, he did braise his pork in a pressure cooker, but he clearly had a second pot cooking and the salad was composed completely separately.  In other words, he did not produce a one-pot dish and should have been automatically disqualified from the win.  I guess it just shows how much contempt the producers have for the QF challenge that they don’t even care if someone breaks the rules.  This is odd, since they actually enforced the rules earlier in the season.  You’d think that rules would be even more important at this point.  But, oh well.

The EC was another challenge brought back from the past:  cook a great chef what they would wish as their last supper (the final meal of their lives). 

Once again, with the QF win, Mikey gets to pick and plunges the dagger into Antonia up to the hilt.  He assigned her Morimoto, a highly regarded Japanese chef.  Japanese food is not in Antonia’s comfort zone.  While many American chefs who have trained can cook good Japanese food, someone who has not studied it is at an extreme disadvantage.  And then later, he had the guts to tell her that he thought she had the easiest assignment. Kudos to Antonia for laughing in MIkey's face.

He assigned Richard Wolfgang Puck and he himself took Michelle Bernstein (“one of the greatest women chefs in America”).

Surprisingly, Michelle Bernstein chose fried chicken, with biscuits and gravy.  That really threw me off and I’m sure it also caught Mike off guard.  Wolfgang Puck, of course, went with goulash with spätzle and apple strudel.

Although Richard worried about his strudel, it wasn’t that far off from his comfort zone and he nailed everything but the spätzle, which was a little dry.  Having been married to a German woman, I know that the spätzle is a very important part of the recipe, but even so, the other successes outweighed the one flaw and got Richard the win.

So, even though Antonia had the most difficult time with her Janapese plate, it was pre-ordained that the bottom two would have a cook-off to determine who was moving on with Richard.  Both Mike and Antonia were asked to create a “bite” of food to determine the winner.

I was really happy that this twist put an unbalanced challenge back on pace and gave Antonia a chance to knock out Mike.  At that point, I was openly rooting for her to kick his butt – and the results were very close indeed.  However, Antonia was eliminated.

I’ve got to say that I really feel badly for her.  She made a great run and really performed above her level in Season 4, when she also made the finals.  I really wish her nothing but the best and I hope that she wins fan favorite.

So now, Mike and Richard move on and my rankings shouldn’t be a surprise, especially with only two to rank.

1.    Richard Blais.

I think that Blais is clearly the best, on any level that you might put out there.

2.   Mike Isabella.

He has brought a lot to the finals and has been much more impressive than ever before.  Unfortunately, that isn’t really saying a lot.  While it’s possible that he may cook one meal better than Blais and win, I really doubt that he will ever be half the chef.

_____________________

Next week, I will give my season-ending rankings of the chefs.  This will not be in the order in which they were eliminated, but in the order that I think they probably should be ranked, independently of any reality television show.  It will be somewhat subjective, but I will also present solid reasons that I believe in the rankings.  There will certainly be some changes from the pre-seasons rankings – and those changes are a direct result of the performance in the show, but overall, it will simply be my subjective rankings.

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